egg

He could be right, but nobody knows, that's the point. What is this evidence that he's not much of a coach? He could be brilliant

That's a long winded way of saying that you're just guessing that Davis is a poor coach, and that you'd like Gao to leave cos he can't / won't spend money.

That's an odd question. I have no idea if we're being used as a money moving / laundering vehicle, and speculation about it isn't necessary. Hypothetically speaking though, if that's happening, of course its not right. I have no idea what his motivation is and I don't speculate - what's the point, we cabt influence him. However, you and I both want our club to succeed and compete. The fundamental difference between us is simply that you feel that we should expect an owner to throw money at the club, whereas I'd like them to but can't see that we should expect it and/or that there's anything in it for him if he did.

Liebherr bought us when we were on our knees in league 1. His cash input was an investment for sure. That's very different to throwing vast sums at us now.

What other owners do is irrelevant to what Gao chooses to do / would be sensible for him to do, but it is course different to what as a fan we'd all like him to do or we need to be competitive. I think we'll leave it there cos we're going around in circles, and at the end of the day it won't change a thing.

What other club owners choose to do is irrelevant to what Gao should do - they don't set a precedent that Gao is obliged to follow. Gao is a business man and in his shoes if I was told that £100m would get me a fresh batch of players I'd look at what £100m spent on the likes of Hoedt, Mo, Carillo, Vest etc would yield by way of return I'd deem that a risk / waste of money and keep my cash in my pocket. Any sensible person would imo. You think differently, I get that. On your last point, I want my club to compete. It's going the wrong way and I fear for our future. However, there is no entitlement to an owner who'll chuck millions at the club, especially when that owner has seen a small fortune wasted on dross. Re your patronising comment, take a look at your own posting style. I have an opinion that differs from yours, don't whine when I push back against your opinion.

Jeez, you went off on a bit of a tangent there mate, but I'll stick to the point which is none of us have an idea what he's like as a coach. If there's any report to his coaching ability, post a link please because I've not seen anything at all. All I'm saying is I don't know if he's good, bad or indifferent whereas others are assuming he's bad based on nothing. As for Gao, I'm not defending him. Have a crack at reading all the words and understanding them. As you seem hard of thinking though, all I've said is he's under no obligation to throw money at the club (if he has it) and from a business / investment perspective I can understand why he'd be reluctant. I hope that's clear enough for you.

Do I understand sport, what a daft question. I want my team to compete and it saddens me to see the direction we're heading. Of course I'd prefer us to have an owner with money than sense, but the fact is that we have an owner with more sense than money. The point though is that whilst we'd like a cash throwing owner, there's no entitlement to one, and anyone with investment / business acumen can see that investment in our club will never lead to a return.

Ah, the old "entitlement" cos other owners seem to do it line. The bottom line is that throwing money at a club like ours in the hope that it leads to a return for the "investor" is not attractive. There is little or no chance of a positive return so no prudent business man would do it. I want our club to be successful but this sense of entitlement is ridiculous. In any event, the truth is that spending on players over the last few years has been there, the issue has been ****e recruitment but the owner is the easy scapegoat.

What "asset stripping" is Gao guilty of?

Why do you/others feel that an owner must inject capital? Why would he? What's in it for him? What return does her get on his "investment" and when / how?

Qualified how?You don't need any qualification as such to see that out u23 are playing badly and that his successor did well with Watford, and has played a lot of games at the highest level. If we were employing a school pe teacher or whatever then there's cause to worry, but this guy has a good record and it doesn't matter who has influenced and managed this necessary change.

What does it matter? If you've watched our u23 team you'll see that the lads are poorly coached and that change is needed. As long as somebody has identified the issue and takes action to change that's all that matters imo - getting worked up about the personality behind it is bizarre.

Sandwich

How do you know that? People say he's a poor coach, but based on what? Cos he was a keeper? He may be great for all we know.

I suspect its more than that. The results are to be expected, he's working with kids - that team is packed with several 18 year olds and younger. The way they play is the issue for me, slow to use the ball and poor movement - they don't look well coached.

Aid

City 89% possession in first 12 mins. Jeez.

He hasn't featured for the u23's so must be injured.

Armstrong I reckon.

Unless he travelled with 1st team but didn't make the 18 I'd imagine he'll play for u23's. Hopefully Obafemi too.

Cheers. Didn't realise they were playing tonight. Be interesting to see what teams are put out in both games.

Agree with that, but definitely this is not all on Ralph. The left back/Bertrand situation, for example, perhaps highlights where we're at. Everything I've read and heard tells me RH has had issues with Bertrand and wanted to leave him out did so. Problem is Targett has now gone and he doesn't fancy Vokins. He's therefore had to play square pegs in round holes and been slaughtered for it. Poor fella has had hobsons choice and ultimately has had to recall Bertrand for the good of team balance, but doing so will not have been easy from a management / respect perspective.

Spot on. He's flattered to deceive. More to the point, after a quarter of the season we are in the bottom two, we play an awful brand of football, he appears to have lost at least parts of the dressing room (or there's some other issues attributal to him or his management) and he's just overseen the worse performance and result in living memory. Any of the above warrant the sack, all of them make his position untenable. I'd normally be one for saying sort a replacement first but after last night's humiliation he needs to go now. We're going down anyway, but let's get a manager in who'll at least get the players trying. Last night was pathetic - 3 fouls against a team who had the ball for more than an hour of the game, and one of them was for the 92nd min penalty. They made 12 - that's cos they were more motivated and wanted it more.

If Ralf can't get these players to play, Nigel has no chance.