S-Clarke

£35m might have seemed a lot to spend on him, but if you put it into context compared to us - we spent a combined £30-35m on Onuachu, Orsic and Aribo I 'think' they got better value.

It's weird isn't it? They say relegation scraps are stressful, intense etc, but I've felt more relaxed in the last few months than I have for many years at this stage of the season. Only we could have made relegation comfortable.

This isn't clickbait, it will happen. Not sure why you seem to be in denial about what will be the worst kept secret ever.

That original tweet seems to have been posted by a family member of TWar. Lauding stats, but looking for excuses as to why those stats don't actually equal success. It does feel more and more like a metric and statistic driven appointment. With this approach we'll just keep rotating managers like Watford imo. Hopefully we're all proven wrong.

No one is frothing at the mouth, there have actually been lots of reasoned posts and some really good debates. The concerns and doubts people have are totally founded, but I wouldn't say those doubts equate to people frothing at the mouth like you proclaim. It feels like you are sensationalising peoples views to try and make them look worse than they are.

We were there though, as cloggy said. We experienced what Brighton and Brentford are going through, it was great fun but it's simply not sustainable when it's built on a sell-to-buy model, and those clubs will have to follow the same model without Saudi backing. In a few years time they will be slogging around at the bottom end of the league again, and I reckon they'll be back in the Championship at some point in the next 10 years. It's just par the course for clubs like us, we'll hit a formula that works for a bit, the big clubs rip the hell out of us for trying, and that's the end of that. It's the food chain of top level football, that will never change.

He'll be off, fairly sure there is some concrete interest from Germany.

Yeah, this is the element that concerns me the most really. I actually think his teams play ok and he seems to come across really well as a young manager, but he wouldn't have experienced in his career what he is about to experience here. It's a totally different kettle of fish managing MK Dons or Swansea with 0 money, to managing a recently relegated football club with lots of players who want out and massive expectation to hit the ground running. This is where I've always felt someone like Viera or Cooper (if they ditch) would have been a much better shout, as they'd have been in similar situations and would have managed similar personalities as well (and in the case of Viera, played at the very top with all sorts of personalities). We have been losing games every single week for almost 2 years, there is no scenario where this fan base is going to accept a year of inconsistent bollocks/losing games at a lower level. He needs to be a hit from day 1, as harsh as that sounds, as otherwise he'll be onto a loser.

The key with possession football is having the substance to go with it, anyone can chalk up stats that show x amount of passes, x amount of touches, x amount of possession etc, but without looking into the detail of those stats it's pretty irrelevant. If most of those high 'metrics' came from passing the ball between full back and CB then it means zilch, there needs to be substance to it. Under Adkins we played possession football, but it had a purpose. We moved it quickly and we had a target to build off of up front, allowing Chaplow, Lallana and co to play in and around and make late runs into the box etc. This is why stats and stats alone can't be used to make footballing decisions in my opinion, there's more to it - much more.

The negativity around him was mainly due to the fee I think, we'd just got relegated, sold Crouch and co and our big summer signing up front was Fuller for 90k. Just more bullets to fire Lowes way really, but once he had a chance with us he was decent, I remember his run at the back end of the season under Burley (he had a great link up with Rasiak at that point)

I think that's a daft statement, it could also, more than likely, be an example of a maturing player who is now more experienced than he was in 2019. Let's not kid ourselves that the Eredivise is some super league, I'm sure he'd be scoring bucket loads over there now. He'd be a solid addition for us, good age too. (YTGTI)

Lis - been on loan in France with Troyes. Only made a handful of appearances for them.

It's interesting reading everyone's views, and also the Swansea's views (when do we get his family members on here?) Personally my overwhelming feeling is of scepticism, I'm conflicted though - would I have felt this way had we not signed Jones before Christmas? Not sure, but I think it's fair that the failed experiment from then is somewhat clouding my judgement and maybe some others. One of my biggest worries is that this appointment appears metric driven, rather than purely down to what we need in the door right now. ''He's made x amount of passes'' ''He has x amount of possession compared to Barca or whoever'' - that's all well and good, but completely and utterly irrelevant if he struggles to deal with personalities, culture changes and an enormous turnover of players. He may not, of course, but it just feels like an almighty risk once again at a time when we didn't need to take one given the resources and the attractive project on offer here. We took a risk in the summer with Bazunu in a position we couldn't afford to do so, that went as expected. We took a risk replacing Ralph with Nathan Jones, based purely on metrics, that also went as expected. I think it's fair to see why people are incredibly nervous about this, I want it to work out and I want to see us winning again, but I just don't trust the people making these decisions as they always seem to be needlessly risky. The only plus is that we seem to be moving quickly, which will provide the biggest opportunity to asses the level of change required.

For an idea of what they will look like, I imagine they'll be very similar to this (so we can look even more like Leicester City's stadium!)

It's clearly not agent talk, more or less a done deal by what I can tell. Should get it on the OS next week I imagine. Not really sure what to make of it, have a nagging feeling we'll be talking about a next new manager in December and by this time next year we'll be Watford mk2.

Got to give it to Wednesday for that, totally dominated that game in every way possible. Perfect pens too. To get 96 points and not go up is harsh, so one more game for them and I make the favourites now.

They've levelled it again! Great game.

How are Wednesday behind again FFS? this is a crazy game, what you don't expect. I thought they'd make light work of the extra time.

Great drama, but given how utter toss P'Boro have been all night , they should have got 4 before then! Only one winner now, just a case of how many Weds score in the 30 mins I think. P'Boro are absolutely gone now.

Blind faith, maybe! totally losing all faith now though to be honest. If this happens I'm convinced they have no idea what they're doing.

We seem obsessed with finding managers and players with specific metrics, but surely the most important metric is winning games? I don't think Martin has won enough games at this level to be linked to promotion challenging sides, if I'm totally honest. In addition to that he's new to the managerial game and this is going to be a situation like no other - big egos, big internationals, players wanting out etc. Is he big enough to handle all of this? We really needed to get a 'no brainer' appointment this summer, someone everyone could get behind and make sense of, I don't think this is that appointment.

I must have been taking the same drugs as when I proclaimed Elyounoussi would add pace to our attack. It's ok, I'm not taking them anymore.

He knows he's onto a winner here, not going to get this anywhere else - he'd be stupid not to commit himself really, easy ride for him as he's shown over the last few years. But I just hope we don't commit our future to him, as that will be a bad day.

And character, I'd say that's even more important. Luton aren't full of quality or players that will end up at the top level for ever, they are an incredibly hard working bunch with the right character and mixed in with the right physical attributes. I'd argue Sunderland had more players in their team with much better technical ability and youth, but it goes to show how you always need a bit of substance to any quality you have.

Not sure it matters, they could put a team of exhausted OAP's out and they'd still turn us over without breaking sweat.