S-Clarke

Surely the only stat that matters are the points on the board? That's the only comparison you can make to determine if x is better than y. Jones - 7 games - 3 points. (6 defeats out of 7) Selles - 7 games - 8 points. (3 defeats out of 7) Not ground breaking levels of improvement, but it's a bit misleading to say our stats are worse as the only ones that matter in my eyes are the points.

That's what worries me, from the outside when the worst happens you assume we should have enough about us to mount a decent effort as long as we get the calls right - certainly attractive to decent managers, but the decision making over the last 12 months has been inept and I haven't seen any suggestion that has changed yet.

I think that only kicks in from 2024 - might be wrong, but I'm sure I've read that (or is that when it expires??) But if it only kicks in from 2024 then they'd have to pay the going rate, which will be £50m plus imo.

The prob is we have no confidence in our attack either, we're just not very good period.

My fear is that they'll freeze it as well, but in my eyes we've been ripped off for years with these prices as it is. Life as a home supporter has been the equivalent of tossing money out of your window and getting nothing back. Given that we'd make millions from play sales and parachute payments, I hope they can knock the prices down - it wouldn't seem fair to have them kept the same in my eyes.

It is a strange one if they get rid of him, when teams make the call in April you have to ask why - they've stuck and showed support to the manager all season, he's worked with the group all season, you might as well let him see out the next 6 weeks. They're likely going to have a caretaker in place for 2/3 weeks anyway, so they're basically looking for a manager to 'bounce' them in a handful of games. It's the roll of a dice really, it's not like he's been a Jones for them - I think he's built a decent culture there, but people forget they're a bit of a rabble of individuals and that's where inconsistency comes into it. (so similar to Fulham a few years back)

This is the killer really, these are irrelevant if we keep dropping in the results we do against Leeds/Wolves/West Ham etc. It's the hope that kills so for my sanity I'm just accepting the fate now, it's definitely tight down there and from 12th - 18th there are 3 or so points in it, but we're absolutely rooted to the bottom and actually getting cut adrift in a season where it's so tight above us. Typical really.

Can't take Bernard tbh, as limited as Perraud is, he doesn't wander into the Chapel stand midway through the game on numerous occasions.

Don't temp them, I can see the merch being developed as we speak

It's certainly a bit of an odd season, the usuals have been pretty poor which has allowed the likes of Newcastle, Fulham, Brentford and Brighton to have a bit of fun. Not entirely sure it's just down to quality, as there is a lot of quality in this league, maybe it's just got a bit more competitive and other teams can punch harder now. (Newcastle for one, Villa don't hold back either). There are some decent squads down in the bottom half too and some decent money has been spent, we're the only team you can look at and say yeah we don't have enough. Every other side has something.

Remember, we do it on our terms and we will not be dictated to. Our way is the envy of all, that's why we're propping up the rest.

I'd take him next year in the Champ, it was always going to be hard for Forest with their scattergun approach. I think he's done well to make them somewhat competitive to be honest.

Elia, bar that Newcastle game he was pretty naff, but he'd still be better than Elyounoussi today. Shane Long - ok, fair to say he wasn't shockingly bad for us, but it shows up our recruitment that I'd rather have him than Adam Armstrong right now. Redmond - wasn't ever his biggest fan, but I'd give anything to have him starting in front of Ely or Armstrong right now. Again, shows up our shocking recruitment that we've managed to move on deadwood but actually made ourselves weaker in the process.

Peterborough have a knack of finding and then developing decent strikers, so I wouldn't be too against having a sniff around him. Mackail-Smith/McLean/Tony are 3 which stick out from recentish years.

In goalkeeper terms he is pretty small, and I've always thought he looks like a scared kid in between the posts. To be fair that's what he is really, inexperience is killing him on top of some key technical/physical limitations. Not a great recipe for a top flight keeper it has to be said.

I genuinely believe that Ralph would have got more out of our run after Christmas and into the new year, 6 or 7 points out of that lot and we'd be sat on 30 points. I think even Selles would have done better in that period than Jones did, so that's the period that killed us really. I think it had gone stale with Ralph, 100%, but in my eyes the decision to appoint Jones and give him an entire f**ing pre season is what killed our season dead, we'd have still been in the mix otherwise imo.

I'm kinda resigned to it now, so any results from tonight make little difference in my outlook really. Already prepared for the Championship in my head, should make it easier to take when the inventible happens in a few weeks.

I think Pope had a crazy relegation clause in his contract which had that low fee, if that wasn't in his contract you'd have been looking at £25m at least imo. Cornet's was a release clause as well. I can see us generating at least £90m from just two sales, JWP and Lavia. We'll lose Salisu, ABK, KWP, Adams and the like as well - so we'll certainly be well into the £100m's of funds generated in my opinion. Add the £60m parachute payments and financially we have no excuse and we will be able to compete for the first two years, but using that finance correctly is what concerns me. Get it wrong in year 1 and let those mistakes spill over to year 2 and that's pretty much game over for us in terms of a top flight club in many of our life times imo. The gap will just become to big to bridge eventually.

Absolutley, if we go down to the Championship with the same approach then we'll hit the same issues. We struggled against Lincoln, Grimsby, Wednesday and they're in the league below. As it stands today I could see Sheffield United, Burnley turning us over without much hassle whilst we piss around with the ball in the back 4. We've spent the last two years frightened of our own shadows in the PL, seemingly believing we were 'lucky to be here'. Let's hope we don't follow the same mantle next season as if we do then we'll be doing a Stoke, Norwich etc - and underachieving in that league is the most depressing existence ever.

This is where meaningless passing of the ball in 'safe' areas of the pitch dilutes the 'true' performance, and can make it feel and look like we played better than we did. West Ham were happy to drop back and let us have the ball in front of them, and we're fantastic at passing the ball to team mates when we have no pressure on us. In terms of trying to win a game of football we were a disgrace.

Why do people think we have a cats hells chance of getting Potter? He'll wait it out until the summer and end up at somewhere like Palace, WHU, maybe even Leicester if they stay up with a temp guy. We're not even on his radar, time we woke up to that.

You can see us beating Man City just for pointless banter, not that it will change our trajectory as we'll drop one in against Palace the following week.

We have zero footballing intelligence in terms of how to break deep-lying teams down, we just cannot do it. 10 men Wolves stuck their players behind the ball and we couldn't even figure that out. You can put our 'proper' decline on the sale of Ings and then forgetting to replace him and thinking we can get along with Adams and Armstrong. Brain dead decisions. Ings was more than just goals, his movement and off the ball runs were intelligent and helped open space. The January additions came too late to muster anything meaningful because of all that went before.

You really do have to question people who continuously select Elyounoussi as our attacking threat and then wonder why we can't score. At least he's finally done away with Lyanco, but I'm still totally and uttery baffled by what managers see in Elyounoussi. Quite bizarrely I imagine he will have a lot of interest as a free agent in the summer, can't quite put my finger on why anyone rates him.

That was such a terrible game of football, West Ham were inept but just slightly less inept than us in an attacking sense. Nothing really happened did it? Not sure what this club expects with Elyounoussi in the attack, he cannot do it at this level as has been obvious for 4 miserable years. Stu is sadly done at top level football by the looks of it, his biggest strength was the carrying of the ball and his energy. There's nothing about him anymore. Mara just too raw to play a role like that. We basically played with 3 passengers in the attack in that first half and you cannot carry that in the PL and expect to score goals, let a lone win games. The only positive slant I can put on todays result is that it finally sticks a pin in it and makes the rest of the season pretty much academic, so we won't have the stress or worry about what other teams do or don't do in the next few weeks. We were done weeks ago if we're honest, but today was the day that I imagine even the players become pretty resigned. There is now no way out of this at all. The Sports Republic gamble(s) have failed worse than anyone could have imagined. I imagine the board will be getting excited about the money they'll bring in over the summer though, that should keep them with something to do.