hypochondriac

I'm supportive of Ralph leaving, but I'm hating all these bullshit stories in the papers. Once it gets to this point a club never keeps a manager. They need to get rid now rather than letting this drag.

And yet so many people on here said it didn't matter at the end of the window. It was obviously a huge problem.

Not bad. I'd maybe buy Obafemi back, we'd have to get a couple of cbs in (maybe we'd keep colleta carr) and Mara would probably stay, no idea if he'd be any good in the championship. We'd have the makings of a fairly successful team there tbh. Maybe bring in Scott Parker in the summer if Ralph's replacement fails.

The Tory party have been rubbbish for ages. The only reason they've been in power for so long is because Labour was worse. It looks like that is no longer the case and remarkably Keir Starmer looks like he will be the next prime minister which is mad really and highlights what a deficit of talent we have in politics in this country. Truss was Early Years minister eight years ago and if you asked anyone from Early Years, in a sea of mediocrity she was comfortably the worst in the last twenty years so I have always had low expectations from her. Boris got a massive majority and did precisely nothing with it. The Tories have wasted their time in office, doing nothing of note with the power they have and they deserve to lose the next election. Their time in office has been a massive disappointment both to their supporters and detractors. Lets just hope that the likes of Lammy, Jess Philips and Naz Shah don't ruin whatever they have responsibility over too much.

Also worth putting in context that he's playing in probably the best team the PL has ever seen. Would have been interest to see how he compared if he was in Shearer's Newcastle team for instance.

We will do better than some people think this weekend but that's partly because we will be so defensive. 3-1 City.

A combination of new owners wanting to look at things before acting, the fact that we always seem to get a win when we need it most and possibly waiting for the right candidate but that's speculation on my part. What I would say is that his position has been subject to review for quite a while

If you don't understand that his man management skills are a major problem and have been for months then you're beyond help.

I reckon we'd keep livramento due to his injury. Bazunu would probably stay and possibly Perraud. We'd probably need a couple of centre backs, I'd hope to keep both Armstrongs and maybe Aribo but the rest of the midfield would need an overhaul. We'd probably have to spend big on a quality championship striker. I could see us making a fair amount of money on the likes of kwp, Salisu, Bella Kotchap, lavia, Adams, JWP. I reckon we'd have a good team to go for promotion.

Most years things were quite close. If city end up winning it by miles every single season then it loses even the limited appeal it had at the top. The Premier league has always had the teams at the top but its always had a bit more competition than the likes of the SPL.

Really bad for the league though. They'll win the league this year by 15-20 points. In a few years it's going to be Newcastle versus City for the title and then everyone else.

I have no problem with how we spent our money personally. I think it's a terrible error not to get in an attacking option but overall we have improved the team. It's why our continued poor performance is even more unacceptable than it was last year during our horrendous run.

My point was that in my opinion another manager could come in and get much better performance sout of these groups of players in a similar manner to the impact that Howe had at Newcastle even allowing for the fact that he was able to buy some players a few months later.

And weirdly they showed very similar unsuccessful styles of play. Odd that you'd get the same deficiencies over a long period of time from entirely different groups of players. It's almost like they're being coached in a similar manner and doing what they are asked...

So Newcastle's improvement was solely down to new players? Have you spoken to a Newcastle fan?

Indeed. last year Newcastle looked abysmal but then they got a decent manager in and looked transformed as a team. Absolutely no reason at all that we couldn't do something similar.

there was a comprehensive list from someone on here about two weeks ago with about 7 realistic names on. whoever is suggested though, it's really not the job of the average fan to know all the relative strengths of foreign managers abroad. the Brighton manager seems like a great choice for them but most would have had no idea who he was for example.

and yet we went on a run last year and played well whilst beating Chelsea this year. We are clearly capable of playing better than we have done in a large number of games. Too many games we have underperformed.

Ridiculous question that's been answered on a number of occasions.

we change half the team and play exactly the same. That means it's absolutely not the players but the system because they are all playing the same way. it's the managers fault.

Feels like a tipping point today. If he isn't sacked this week or next then Sports Republic deserve to be relegated.

If he plays Diallo and Ely and ignores some of our other players again then I will scream. Why are we setting up at home against a poor team to try to stop them? We should be trying to win the game by being positive and taking it to them.

That's a fair comment. For me I feel a frustration because I believe that we could be performing better with a different manager. It's frustrating how inconsistent we are and as someone else mentioned some of that could be due to our lack of confidence and the manager being unable to get the players to really believe for long periods of time. I genuinely think he will be gone soon be that over the next few months or at the end of the season.

Here's another bit. Interesting to revisit even if most of the people involved are no longer here: The players Many of the players have had and in some cases continue to have incredibly poor attitudes. There's been a marked decrease in commitment from a few seasons ago. Players were told to come to a sponsors event in November and were told that any players who did not attend would be fined £7k. Out of twenty odd players, only 7 showed up including jwp and ings. Certain departments have been told not to do anything too in depth with Bertrand which suggests he is off. He apparently has a poor attitude and was why he wasn't being played much at the start of the season. Charlie Austin is a gigantic b*llend. Made sexually suggestive and lewd comments to female staff members and was generally a ball bag. Most in the club very pleased to see the back of him Danso was really signed for potential and was worth a punt. Apparently has a 3.5 million fee if we decide to keep him. View of the club is that he has a lot of potential and may be worth it for such a small outlay.

In fact here's an extract from a post of mine from a few years ago: Leicester. After the 9-0 and before the Everton game there was a big crisis meeting with about 600 staff addressed by Martin selmayr. Apparently he is miles better than krueger and Ross and has taken more of a responsibility in football matters. He was very honest and said that apparently we were incredibly close to signing about 5 of the Leicester team - Maddison in particular changed his mind at the last minute- and he emphasised the fine line between success and failure. Ralph was ready to walk after Leicester and offered his resignation but the club decided that they didn't want him to leave. Martin said that a manager should only leave if they had lost the players and they didn't believe that this was the case so they were determined to back him. He said that whilst he was in charge, never again would players be signed on the say so of one person (meaning carillo.) The academy bloke who left for England and due to start in February has been all over the club recently and apparently is an incredibly positive appointment as he knows the club and will return things to higher standards and remove some of the department heads if not performing. Jaidi apparently is still working for the club and there may be an expectation that he has gone to learn in America and will return in the future. Ralph. Decided to come to the club and use us largely as a stepping stone. Came in and promised to stay and get us up the table but then wants to move on. Unlikely to stay for too long if we have some success. Lost rohl once he knew bayern wanted him. Big loss because he was the link between Ralph and the players. Even now Ralph is slightly isolated. Ralph really doesn't trust many of the hangers on like coles and kelvin. If you notice he rarely interacts with them and doesn't do much conferring on match days other than with the bald guy (can't remember his name.)