stevegrant

46 games from last season, 3 games this season, 24 wins = 49% Including cup competitions, Pardew's win ratio was also 53%

Let's put this into perspective. A year ago, when the takeover had just been completed, we'd have been delighted if we'd appointed Nigel Adkins, having just led Scunny to their second promotion out of this division in three years. The season we were alongside them in the Championship (07/08 ), they were unlucky to only take one point from the two games against us, and they played decent passing football. It's only because we made such a high-profile appointment in Alan Pardew, and that Pardew proved to be popular with the fans before his sacking for reasons that will probably remain unknown, that many are feeling underwhelmed at this appointment. Attracting a manager in a secure job at a club in the division above us can only be seen as a positive, IMO. Personally, I'd have preferred to have kept Pardew, but that's not been possible for whatever reason. Adkins is as good a replacement as any, he's just not attracted anywhere near as much media attention because of the low profile of the club he joins us from.

Not really. I posted in this thread when it started, haven't posted in the appreciation thread, but was very much in favour of Pardew. Just because one thread has more posts than another, that doesn't mean a particular viewpoint within that thread is any sort of general consensus. You only have to have been at either the Swindon or Rochdale games to see that Pardew had, and continues to have, a lot of support among the fanbase.

To be fair, I don't think anyone would expect the players to say "yeah, we're all annoyed that the manager's been sacked" if that were the case

Surely John Higgins?

What a shambles

It's not a reserves side in the traditional sense anymore, it's a bona-fide "under-21s" team. IIRC, the idea was to arrange friendlies with other similar sides, but wouldn't expect them to be announced too far in advance.

One thing to note is that, apparently, Tapatalk for Blackberry has been disabled until they fix some sort of issue they were having with it.

This will end well

That's the thing, we genuinely have no idea, and as such it would represent a fairly significant risk. Can't say I'm a massive fan of Mowbray, stubbornly sticking to West Brom's tippy-tappy football when they got promoted knowing damn well that they'd get battered by all and sundry. Also has a habit of just freezing players out. West Brom fans weren't too bothered when Celtic came calling, and then he made a complete pig's ear of things in Glasgow. O'Neill would be great, and definitely a major appointment and clear improvement on Pardew, but I can't see that one happening for a multitude of reasons. Likewise, but I'll still be questioning whether we've taken a step forward with the appointment or not I think the "wow factor" comments were made at the weekend? While Adkins is proven at this level, he's unproven in the sort of circumstances he'd be walking into, i.e. massive expectation and pressure, big budget, big-name players, etc. That said, I'd quite like Phil Brown of the realistic names put forward, but he's proven to have made a mess of things with big-name players I'd have certainly agreed with that approach two years ago, when consolidation/survival was the aim. However, it's clear that the target is automatic promotion this season, which means we don't really have the time for someone to learn on-the-job and try new things. Somebody proven at this level and arguably in the Championship as well, preferably with experience of handling high expectations and/or big-name players. The England job won't be available until after the Euros now, if the FA were going to sack Capello, they'd have done so after the world cup. Forest's a different matter, although that's the risk you take appointing anyone. As a completely random and unrealistic example, we could appoint Ryan Giggs as manager, he could do a great job for a year or two, and then he gets offered the Man United job. Those are the breaks. If a manager is poached by a club of a higher stature, it usually means the club has been successful under his guidance. With the wall of silence coming from the club and the conclusions people have drawn from the sacking of Pardew, I don't think we're screaming stability right now anyway

Agreed (in fact, I reckon only Lallana and Fonte would still get in a Saints team in the top flight, but that's another discussion ), but that'll be natural squad improvement, which would ordinarily take place during the summer, with a tweak here and there in January. If Adkins took us up, but then struggled and was sacked in, say, November, a new manager would want to stamp his own mark on the squad, bring his own players in, get rid of others he didn't like the look of, etc, which would probably be much more extensive than the "organic" approach.

In comparison with his current club, that is the reality of the situation. Yes, we're in the division below, but everything else is much bigger here. I suspect our annual wage bill in this division is at least double that of Scunny's, and our attendances are nearly 5 times greater.

I don't think many people will have a problem with the appointment of Adkins, per se (I certainly won't). Certainly a year ago, I'd have been delighted with that appointment. However, given the suggestions of an appointment with a "wow factor" - and the BBC have often been tipped off by the club since the Liebherr takeover - it would fall some way short of that. He's got a track record in this division, but questions remain over whether he would be able to manage the bigger personalities here, not to mention the bigger expectations and budget. It would also suggest a potentially short-term appointment. He's got a team promoted from this division twice, so you would assume that would be within his reach, but has finished no higher than 20th in the Championship. Assuming we went up this season, but struggled or languished around mid-table, would he then be ditched, leading to another transitional period?

Likewise, other than the obvious pipe-dream suggestion of O'Neill, or possibly Brown, but maybe NC has something up his sleeve that none of us have thought of.

The only question for me would be: is better than our last manager? That will show whether the last week has signalled short-term pain for long-term gain, or whether we've completely shot ourselves in the foot.

But Zola has very little experience. One season with West Ham, and that's about it. Think he was involved with Italy's U21s when Casiraghi was running that side, but only one year of managerial experience, at a completely different level to the one we're at right now. The one reservation I have about both Howe and Adkins is that, while they've done fantastic jobs at their respective clubs, they've done so under extremely low expectations, with no budget to speak of, and with no big-name, big-money players to manage. Adam Lallana's contract is up at the end of the season - as much as I'd love to, I just can't see him being particularly excited and wanting to sign a new contract if we appoint either Adkins or Howe. However, we are a third division club. Given the lofty and long-term ambitions of NC, I would be quite surprised if Howe or Adkins did get the job.

Montenegro are crap as well.

Paul Lambert didn't need to spend £3m on players, he had a squad that should never have been relegated in the first place, and had been strengthened by his predecessor with the acquisition of Grant Holt (for £500k), among others. Don't be fooled into thinking Norwich spent nothing last season. Suggest you have another look at last season's league table -10 for Norwich would see them finish 2nd, only promoted on goal difference. If we'd not been deducted 10 points, we'd have been 5th, playing Charlton in the play-offs, although there's another caveat to add there, as I think it's highly unlikely we'd have made wholesale changes to the starting lineup for the Gillingham game. The 10 points back and 3 from the Gillingham game would have seen us promoted on goal difference ahead of Leeds.

Not perfect by any means, but we're a third division club, so expecting a Mourinho-esque manager is somewhat far-fetched. Definitely agree that the pattern and timing of substitutions was often very odd (last season, taking Barnard off on 63 minutes in EVERY game when Lambert was knackered was very annoying), and the tactics away from home against lesser sides weren't anything special. However, he'll have had very little input into the pre-season programme. Should definitely have signed another winger and probably another striker, but it's possible he might have either been trying to do just that before he was sacked, or was happy to wait until this week when the loan market would re-open, allowing us to bring in someone from higher up the football pyramid. The sun definitely didn't shine out of Pardew's arse, but nor do I think we'll get anyone better in this division in terms of managerial ability, experience and success.

I've got a couple of hours spare this evening so will do my best to get this sorted. It's happened to me on my Swindon prediction, so I've actually got some data I can look at now. Much harder to debug when I can't reproduce the problem myself

Cricket administrator in "being out of touch with modern society" shocker

Oh, and Buon Gusto at the top of Commercial Road is excellent

I like La Lupa. Also, Slug and Lettuce?! Really?!

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