S-Clarke

For sure, less quality, but to end any season on 12 points, 30 defeats out of 38 and with a -60 GD has to be the worst effort of a team ever - irrespective of the level you're at. It's hard to really live that down. I know we're not officially worse than Derby, but I don't think there's anything in it really. The way the club celebrated 12 points showed how out of touch they were. We've got the 'most defeats ever' award in our bag though, so that's something.

Has there ever been such a dull end of the season before? Title done in April, relegation done in December, runner up decided weeks ago. Just the little scrap for Champions League football which ended up exactly how people predicted it would anyway. Forest just inevitably fell away after making the most of the misfiring City/Chelsea for the majority of this season. Non-event of a season from a neutral point of view, dull as dishwater. Championship will be more entertaining at the very least.

He's a tidy enough player, but he needs help around him as he is weak as piss. He gets gobbled up in a midfield 2, and when Martin tried to play him in the Downes role last year it was inevitable what would happen. That 2nd goal today summed up every bit of weakness in his game and it's why he cannot be trusted in that role. He's a tidy enough footballer, but you need to keep him away from the engine room and further up the top end. Make sure he's got power/strength around him, and he'd probably be a decent squad option next season. I would be very, very disappointed and underwhelmed if he's starting for us in CM next season though.

Absolutley this. Now we can forget this shit show ever happened.

Personally I wouldn't lose sleep if 90% of the squad went, but I appreciate that's not achievable and we'll start the season with some of the same group. I can't see Ramsdale sticking around though, there will be a market for him at his rumoured release clause. I'd ditch Sulemena into the first taxi going, today summed him up perfectly really. Loads of pace, trickery, but zero end product. Let's not forget his last stint in the Championship, entirely uneventful and injury-ridden. I'd take what we can and close the chapter on the Sulemana story as soon as we can. In terms of starting players, we need a new GK, new RB, new 10, new wide player(s), new centre forwards, new CB. We're looking at 7-8 new additions in my eyes, I don't think that's too insurmountable. Expecting to lose Ramsdale, Dibling, Fernandes, THB, KWP (obvs), Aribo, Bednarek

Thank goodness that is over, the most miserable and demoralising season in my supporting life. But this season is now in the past, we now need to use what went before to create something brand new. There's nothing here to salvage or to work with, we just have to start all over again - in a way, that's kind of exciting and I'm intrigued for what the summer and next season brings. I think we all appreciate how grossly unprepared we were for the PL, we started the season weaker than we finished the Championship season and that should be a sackable offence for everyone involved - and it seems as if it was deemed as a sackable offence, as we've had a churn in coaching, management, scouts etc since that ill-fated summer. I'm glad we're not pissing around in the first few weeks of pre-season with a who will it be manager debate, we know who that is, we know who the scouts are, we know who the DoF is - there's nothing to wait for, we've got everything in place to now start reshaping this team from the ground up. In terms of today's game, I find it really, really hard to read much into it - much like the City game, it's an irrelevant result really. Both teams were on the beach (we've been on the beach all season) and it was just a glorified friendly. The couple of special mentions go to Taylor, out in the cold but brought back in and I thought he was alright - I don't think Arsenal tested him a great deal, but he didn't let himself down and it begs the question why the hell Juric and Martin didn't even consider him as an option. Pleased for Stewart to get a goal, from a pure personal point of view that must mean so much to him. I'd really like to stress caution to the club though, we cannot use these end of season cameos as evidence that we don't need a striker. We do. He will potentially be a decent squad option for us next season, but we simply HAVE to plan for a new striker(s), and if we don't then we're stupid and we're still making the wrong decisions. Anyway, season over, summer upon us and let's see what it brings. This is the end game for Sports Republic, they have one last chance to get this right. I'm sure their intentions are entirely right and they want to get this right, but we just need their decision making to improve. Let's see where we are in a few months.

He's probably labbing us up on Football Manager as we speak.

I forgot about Fraser actually, good question on wtf we do with him. I think we extracted the last useful few months from his career, I'm not sure he's capable anymore - I hope we only gave him a 2 year deal? I can't remember. That was a silly signing really, the club should have known we needed better than him in July. Manning and Wellington as LB's next season is more than good enough. RB with Bree and maybe Kesler-Hayden from Villa, who is a pretty close clone to KWP.

Hope he gets a chance to play today, just as the farewell. As others have said, one of the few - maybe the only one - who can hold his head up from the last 2 PL stints and say he's tried. He's just been surrounded by incompetence. We've definitely got the most out of KWP and I think he's given us a lot. I was shocked that he stuck with us in the Champ last time out, he was ridiculous at that level - so I hope he gets a good move to a Fulham or a Brentford style club, as he deserves to be around better players.

I don't think we'd be looking to shift on Downes, if we're taking him as an example. He will have takers though, I don't think he'd be too hard to shift if we put him on the market. I guess with him it depends on where Martin ends up, because he's obviously going to come and try to sign him if he ends up at Rangers or Leicester. And Martin's desperation for his mate may lead to us getting what we want $$$. I don't see Downes, Manning, THB and co as the problem though, as we will find suitors if we wanted. The struggle will be with the big buys we've made from Foreign leagues.

I'd suggest the likes of ABK, Onuachu, BBD, Sulemana could be hard to shift, as we'd have to find some crazed lunatic owners willing to put down $$ for them. I know a couple only have 1 year left, but even more reason that potential suitors will wait IMO. I don't think any of those guys have shown they're worth any transfer fee based on their showings over the last few years.

I think we'll see that happening with a few players this summer, we've made some poor choices so we won't get what we want $$ wise, so the club will probably see it sensible to loan them out, hope their value increases and take it from there. Likelihood is that won't, as we saw with the likes of Boufal, Carillo and Hoedt...but we hold out hope.

I can only really go on what I've seen across YouTube, some of his interviews, videos, tactical analysis by broadcasters etc and he seems to know what he's doing. I'd say I'm really intrigued by this appointment. It could be genius, it could also be way, way too much for someone as young as him. What I will say though is that he does come across much older than he actually is, so I think he's got a bit of a wise head on him. One of the key bits I took away from one of his interviews was him admitting he has to adapt, he always has to adapt as things change. That line alone was fricking refreshing it has to be said. We can't be wedded to a specific philosophy and never turn away from that, we need to be adaptable and the best way to be adaptable is to fill your squad with pace and power and have a manager who isn't frightened to adapt with that as he goes. As others have said, recruitment is key in terms of what we sell and who we replace those with. We will sell a big chunk I think, so we've just to use that opportunity to create a strong group. There are good PL level players who are happy to drop down if we scout correctly, and looking at the likes of Manor Solomon this season at Leeds and even Sunderland snapping up Enzo Le Fae, then we should be able to do it.

I can only really comment on what I've seen in front of me to be honest. The games he tried to play for us this year have just depressed me, he was so demoralising to watch try to play football for us. Sheff U fans have said very similar, so we've either broken him or Spain broke him. I'm not taking his Blackburn stint into account as I'm just basing it on what my own eyes have seen, and all I've seen is a terrible, terrible excuse for a professional football player. ABK is up there for sure, mainly attitude wise I'd say with him. That stinks big time. Technically he has shown he can trap and pass a football though, which is one up on BBD.

I hope we don't focus on players for set styles, let's just buy 'good players' with some physicality about them. Put them together on the pitch in their natural positions and things will happen. I'm bored with signing project players tbh.

Sunderland won that in 15 mins, the rest of the game they were second best. Based on that, without significant investment and squad churn, they will be absolute fodder. They should enjoy the day though, like we did! But it will probably be short lived. It's terrible news for us though as it means the carthorse that is BBD is back on the scene. I've never disliked a player as much as him.

I have watched that High Performance podcast too, if anyone has 1hr 30 to kill (maybe watch this, instead of the 90mins tomorrow).

This is why I always hate the common get out clubs make in transfer windows. ''If they're not better than what we've got, then we will not panic'' If the scouts aren't finding better than the likes of Adam Armstrong, Smallbone, Fraser, Edozie etc then the problem is with them, not that there's no one better out there. It's a common get out clubs use, such as us, and it basically equates to them saying ''we are absolutley shit at scouting, we've picked a couple of good players, if we can't get them we have no where else to turn''.

Very true, the window is so important. We cannot get it wrong. Last time we came down our best moves were the PL loans we made, Brooks, THB, Downes, Fraser etc. The perm signings of Charles and Stewart didn't really contribute much. (Charles didn't get much of a chance though tbf). So our perm signings need to be real hits next year, as we'll lose so many from our 11. There will be no KWP's, Bednareks, Stu Armstrongs, Adams and co to fall back on this year. My confidence levels are at an all time low though. Will we find more BBD's, Archers, Woods, or end up with some more Fernadnes and Charly types?

Basically saying, sack me and give me my $$$$$$$$ or I'll continue. I'm not sure they'll really achieve anything by dumping him, as they need a total revamp of that team. They were arrogant enough to ignore Ralf Rangniks comments a few years ago ''This club doesn't need fixes, it needs open heart surgery'' - so more fool them.

I will stand by my opinion that we were promoted because of the quality we had, which enabled us to dig ourselves out of holes at that level, rather than anything he enabled coaching or team wise. His approach tied us up in more knots than anything tbh. ''All the times he adapted'' - I find that a real stretch to be honest, my overriding memory is still plodding along the same way - even without Downes - and ignoring the option of Charles, just so he could play Smallbonio in there. And then expecting Smallbone to do the Downes role with Charles on the bench. And Stephens playing that roaming 6 role is not something I really want to see again. The last min wins were good fun, but we shouldn't have made the games against Huddersfield, Rotherham, Birmingham etc as hard as they actually were. We were coasting against Plymouth, 2-0 I think, but decided to fart arse at the back and ended up hanging on for the final few mins. There were some good moments for sure, but I will always be underwhelmed by what he achieved for us. I know it sounds odd as he got us promoted, but I just couldn't really buy into him.

It's true though, how on earth do you even try to predict how this will go? We've lumbered from manager to manager under SR, I couldn't call this one. I'm sat truly on the fence. I don't know enough about Still to be sure either way to be honest, and added to SR's choices in the past it's really, really hard to know what to expect. And that's putting a positive slant on it.

I think that's a bit pessimistic. I don't expect an easy ride for sure and it will be a struggle at times, but I do hold out hope that we will be competitive enough for at least a playoff push. I think an automatic chase will be too much for us, especially coming off of a season like this, but all being well we could push for that the following year. If we're talking 2-3 seasons to get into the Top 6 then we'll never get there, and that will probably be curtains for PL football in most of our lifetimes. We need to get back within the first 2 years, otherwise we never will.

Given that the club sent out a narky/cocky tweet to Derby when we got to 12 points, I suspect they believe the fans will be excited to celebrate 12 points.

Out of all of those, I think the guy with the most evidence for keeping him around is Arma. He has at least provided for us. Che was so important for us last season in a focal role though, he didn't score bags of goals, but he provided us an attacking structure when we needed it. Why we thought we could come into this season and not replace that is beyond me. Hopefully the scouts have profiles in mind. Stewart can hang around as a squad player if he wants, but we need to sign starters.