The Kraken

Quit simply, NC wouldn't give permission. NA would have to try to walk out of SFC to get the job, I'm sure. Dave Whelan accepts Wigan's situation, and has consistently said he would willingly let his manager talk to top clubs if they came calling. NC, not so much.

To be fair, we have a massive dearth of striking talent available right now. especially so when you take Rooney out of the equation. Carroll wasn't worth £35M, not even close, but its difficult to nominate many other available strikers who should justifiably be going in his place.

Totally agree. Some Liverpool fans claim "we signed Carroll for minus £15M". Idiocy in the extreme. We've definitely yet to see the best of Carroll, but he simply isn't worth £35M or anywhere near it. The price tag was like a lead weight around his neck and probably will be for some time yet, and it was an enormously porr decision to make by Dalglish. One which was probably at the top of the list for justifcation at removing him from his job.

The worst thing Liverpool did was to pander to the demand of the fans and go for King Kenny. They have a huge amount of fans who need a reality check of the total reform of their management team that they need, so a completely new, up and coming face wouldn't be the worst thing by any stretch. And their owners have the benefit of "distance" on their side, so can have a bit more of a free hand without bowing to fans pressure this time round. I think they'll go with a safer option of someone like Martinez or Rogers; whether its the right choice or not, time will tell.

Its very difficult to label it, as we don't know what resouces the new manager (if Martinez) will be given. What we do know is that spending that amount of money and finishing 8th place, 17 points off of Champions League qualification, was unacceptably poor. And spending huge sums on failures such as Downing and Henderson, plus the very questionable £35M on Carroll did him no favours at all. Liverpool get mocked a lot, but they are a huge club and will always be able to compete in terms of finance with the top 4, despite missing out on Champions League revenues. Their kit sales alone are worth £25M a year to them, and their kit is the 4th best selling kit in terms of world sales (behind only Man U, Barca and Real). That, and their worldwide brand, gives them the resource to challenge year on year, if not to compete with Man City then certainly to have a go at Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea and even in time Man United. I think a new manager will get given some decent money to spend, and he will be under instant pressure to perform. 4th place may not be the be all and end all in season 1, but there will certainly have to be a massive improvement from the shambles they've been this year, and I'd say a Newcastle-eque season will be the minimum requirement from any incoming manager.

If you're 'Appy and you know it....

Dalglish was allowed to spend £120M on players, I'd suggest that raises expectation levels to the point where 4th place is a very realistic and achievable aim.

You're probably right, his 3 years PL experience will place him towards the top of the wanted list. However, even as small as Wigan are, I wouldn't say finishing 16th, 16th and 15th in the Premier League is an enormous thing for anyone to rely on. He's done a good job, of course he has, whilst always losing top players. But I wouldn't say that record places him in an entirely different bracket, just further up the list.

The RAWK (Red & White Kop) Meltdown twitter is better; choice cuts from their main fans forum. So deluded and nuts that I'm still not convinced its not made up.

It wasn't much of a challenge, was it? Yet you said "I doubt you can". I think the general consensus is that there's no doubt Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle are all a much bigger attraction than Saints and he'd leave in a heatbeat to go there. So there's 7 straight off the bat. An argument could be made that Sunderland could be added to that list; as for your references to Everton and Aston Villa, that is just based on speculation (especially claiming that we might be as big as them one day). We might be one day, who knows, but at the moment we simply aren't, despite the fact that their attendances have dropped significantly in the past year. To answer your claims above: firstly that Everton have gone as far as they can. They currently are in financial bother, yet they still finished 7th. They spend relatively little on transfer fees but have a very high wage bill, which allows them to regularly compete for the European spots. And they have been and are continuing to look at ways of moving from their antiquated ground into something bigger and better. They are a global brand, having won a European trophy some time ago, and are commercially well ahead of us in terms of actual and potential attraction. As for Villa, they are comparitively in the doldrums for where they should be. A poor managerial choice has seen them slump to their worst position in the Premier League since it began. They still have a relatively decent squad that could quite easily be turned around to a mid-table outfit, and they have the revenues from a bigger ground and the worldwide brand recognition they have. They do have a lot of debt right now, but who knows what their rich owner will choose to do about that. You can try and denigrate my views if you wish, and put them down by saying they "lack sense", but if you're going to put out "challenges" such as I bet you can't name 5 clubs who are bigger than us, then don't be surprised if a lot of people are going to counter that for being arrogant and ill-judged.

That's rarely been a problem for you before.

Edit: I really can't be arsed.

Pah. Ours would have been 37,355 if only we'd had a bigger stadium.

What was their attendance 7 years ago? That's the only like for like that means anything. anything else is just your own speculation, and therefore meaningless.

No, because that would involve actual thought rather than completely tedious and meaningless speculation.

Boring. Irrelevant. Contradictory. You can't even provide a like for like comparison. Just their attendance last year, against our attendance 7 years ago. Brilliant. You should work for NASA, or soemthing.

Nothing at all. We got 26K last season, which is far more relevant. As usual, Stat-Boy is full of boring, contradictory and irrelevant sh*te.

Any why are there comparisons being made with stats from nearly ten years ago? Mental.

.....

How many minutes of La Liga management experience did Pep Guardiola have before Barca appointed him?

There's not many that wouldn't, actually. Jenas is cack but he's twice the player Dean Hammond is.

Did you struggle to put those together too? I know I did.

Man City, Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea. I reckon he'd leave us in a shot to go to any of those. Wow, I struggled there. Maybe you want to re-define your criteria a bit to make it a bit tougher?

How about you just f*ck off instead?

Go and bother someone else with your predictable statistical drivel, you tiresome turd. You have no idea, no idea whatsoever, what our club or any other club can offer him to make any form if informed opinion on that.