Ex Lion Tamer

I don't live in Hampshire and have been missing being able to listen to Solent football coverage. But Jesus, merrington talks a lot of ****e. Apparently the club let Fonte by not forcing him to stay!

Who else would we have got? On paper Puel had/has a good history of getting middling teams to overachieve. Pellegrino - not so much

Looking forward to seeing Gallagher leading the line in the Championship. Also is there any chance that Carrillo will stay and be a class apart at that level?

Mark Hughes is a premier league quality manager with a track record of good mid table finishes, if we can keep him then we will have one of the best in the Championship. Our "European approach" worked while it worked. We just need to start doing it well again. We are not Sunderland. They have a serious culture problem in their squad and are unattractive to players geographically. We are potentially similar to Blackburn, but Gao hasn't been in any way as eccentric as the Venkys since he took over. He seems to be leaving it to the football people at least, its just they've let him down. The big questions is will there be investment in the squad? I don't think anything will come from the owner but if we sell a lot of players then we may have something to spend. Is there still VVD money in the bank? Plus we will have parachute payments. Wasn't it said after our last relegation that we had learnt our lesson and would be inserting relegation clauses which halve each player's wages? That would help us.

This is basically what i came out with too, although i'm worried i was too harsh on Huddersfield

I really don't understand why people want Bilic. West Ham were a shambles under him

Hughes on a short term contract would be ok

I think as someone posted on the other thread, they wanted to limp through until summer when they could get their ideal manager. And they've only just realised that this was going to lead to relegation

It probably would have been easier in the old days - profit margins will be much thinner now. Hard enough to sell papers as it is without losing a key source of info

I agree with some of your points but not sure about this one. Poch had several seasons of overachievement with Espanyol. Koeman had some good successes alongside some failures. Pellegrino has had one season of overachievement and several sackings. It was a poor appointment that needs to be rectified

Mick Mccarthy it is then

He did ok with Jermaine Defoe up front. Not that I want him here

13 goals and 7 assists in 2015/16

It could be that this is a temporary thing as the market is still adjusting to the influx of new TV money. At the moment transfer fees are inflated but player wages are still similar to what they were. Once contracts start getting renewed at inflated levels, clubs will have less in the bank to feel they can keep hold of unhappy players

I haven't been following that closely but he looked shaky in this game http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/20/joe-harts-biggest-flaw-exposed-as-roma-score-all-four-goals-to-england-goalkeepers-left-hand-side-6460795/

Plus £2m loan fee

They are paying his full £80,000 a week wages apparently

Shame no De Boer Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

He was playing four central midfielders last season so I can see why they might be unimpressed

Brett Ormerod is our most overrated player Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

You only have to watch them play to see that Tadic gives the ball away far less than Ramirez

Great post

It's because they want a big target man to hold the ball up. When teams sit deep, Long can't do this job. The mistake is not having an understudy to Pelle in a similar mould that is good enough to step in

Isn't it inevitable that Pelle would have a dip in form when he is expected to play every single game? An injury break may even be good for him

Long was perfect for this game with Arsenal's high line playing into his hands, but against deeper teams we need Pelle's hold up play