S-Clarke

I get the have patience line, but as a fan base we're sat here with what - 4 wins in 18 months? or something like that. I'm literally all out of patience at this stage. I don't sit here and put this all on the manager, as like you say this is a repeating cycle and if we get locked into it, we become Watford/Norwich/Stoke/Swansea etc etc - in fact, I think we're already there to be honest. My feeling is that we went too big in the summer with additions, too many new faces all over the place, left the squad too bloated in the areas we added to - but we negated the two most critical areas of the team, and that will just totally undo anything we're trying to do. It kind of makes the Azaz/Fellows signings entirely null and void from the outset. Everyone is accountable for this situation - coaches, manager, players etc etc - but my pure anger sits solely with SR, the recruitment and the utter shambles they are taking us thorough time and time again. That's where my energy is, not on 'getting another manager out' - because we'll be here again in March.

Oh yeah I wouldn't just pin tonight on him, not at all. Least of our problems tonight. Fraser horrendous, THB an absolute mess, Manning was pathetic when he came on, and Charles does not control the game.

To be fair, it's an absolute complete abomination of a squad. It's a bloated, disjointed complete and utter mess. Good players mean nothing when the structure of the squad is as horrific as ours.

We're not focusing on 10 mins though. I've yet to see this guy control or pass a football. We're almost in November. I honestly cannot tell you if he can play football at this stage, I have no idea. My instinct says no.

You missed another bit - Our annual 'court an unrealistic target all summer, but miss out at the end' shenanigans. You could see the end of that Eduard story playing out from a mile off. They're so predictable.

Mentally this team is shot to pieces, completely shot. We go a goal up, don't control the game, concede almost immediately - and from that moment, we didn't really get another sniff. We lost all control and the game was gone. We have a load of new players out there, but they're catching this same meek and weak as piss mentality which has eroded any team we've had for many years now. The club is rotten to the core. Only new ownership changes it, anything else is just re-arranging the deck chairs.

It'll be that Eric Ramsay bloke if we switch it up, and thus what's the point.

We can sack him if we want, but the same argument applies when we sacked Juric - what's the point? We've totally destroyed Stills upward trajectory too, he was quite a positive up and coming manager, but he's damaged goods for his career now. What a mess.

It should have been yesterday, the week before that, the month before that. They need to GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY CLUB. Have some dignity Dragan and rip it up, sell and walk away - go back and play golf. Rasmus can play with his toys in Turkey, and we can try to recover and stabilise at this level before they do even more damage, because believe me they will put us in L1/L2. I know it's not as easy as that to get owners out, but as a fan base we cannot continue to be as passive as we are about them. Something big needs to be shown, they need to know that their time is up and we're out of patience.

Up front is the conundrum, the more I look at the squad the more horrendous it looks. Not in terms of 'quality', but the balance of it is all over the shop. You can't pick a balanced side. But I'll give it a go. McCarthy Mads - Wood - Quarshie - Jelert Charles Jander Fellows Azaz Leo Armstrong The obvious issue is there's no focal point to play off and Armstrong can't play through the middle really, but neither can Archer and our only other focal point is Downs and let's not go there. What a total mess we've made of that central position, it's almost made every other signing null and void.

Don't be a tool, you're totally missing the point to flap your arms around and shout down at others. I'd say the overall feeling in the summer was frustration because we didn't sign an experienced goal scorer, it wasn't because we'd signed Downs personally per-say, it was because he wasn't backed up with a more seasoned option. That was the stance. We should have never bought Downs to be our single option. Just like we shouldn't have bought George Long to be our backup keeper, as look at the mess we are in now. So it's not about hindsight, people called this as it was at the time. Stop trying to play the 'I'm better than you' card, as it is the most ugly card you can play.

I forgot about Matsuki, seems as if the coaches have too. He didn't just impress me in pre-season, he had some stand outs in actual season games for us as well. I look at the squad and I think it's too big though, there's too much choice in certain areas and not enough in other areas. For all the spending of £40m or whatever it was, the squad for me looks an absolute unbalanced and bloated mess.

He wasn't afraid to have some punt shots either, just take a chance every now and then - you never know. Dribbles around the pitch well, same as Fellows. Surely it has to be Fellows right, Leo left, Azaz in the middle? That should be potent creatively at this level, but it all boils down to who the heck puts the ball into the net in the 6 yard box. We have zilch.

I kind of feel a bit sorry for Downs really, in the same way as I felt sorry for Bazunu/Larios/Edozie etc when we threw them in and expected them to compete from day 1 at the highest level. We destroyed Bazunu/Larios and Edozies careers at the highest level, and we've probably done the same to Downs. We are really making a mockery of our 'development' tag in recent years. Genuinely decent young players in the Lavia/Tino mould will run a mile from us in the future. Our entire model is broken.

And this is exactly why we wait. He's now out for another prolonged period, without doubt. If I was the club I wouldn't ever contemplate offering him a new deal, I'd let him walk on a free and spend free wages on a striker we can actually rely on. (although the chances of SR scouting an adequate player are slim you'd have to say)

To a degree, yes, but also squad wise we are severely lacking in certain areas. Up front specifically, our blind spot in that area will allow many clubs at this level to overtake us. Derby have a better centre forward than us, so do Wrexham and Birmingham. We will draw lots of games because we cannot put them to bed, we are inadequate in such a key area. I'm not calling for us to sign Moore or Morris as the fix all by the way, but why are we not picking up Stansfield when Birmingham did, and why did we get the American striker we did over the one Derby got? They're operating in different leagues ability wise. The club seemingly put all their eggs into the Ross Stewart basket, and took a gamble on an unproven young player, and that is once again a decision that kills us stone dead. We are now in a position where we tread water until January, keep somewhat in touch to 6th, sign a striker for the 2nd half of the season and we may sneak it. But the fact we're wishing the January window to come already, after we spent £40m at this level, is mismanagement of the highest.

We look like exactly where we are in the league, a mid-table also-ran Championship club. We have settled into our true level under Sports Republic. This is now where we stay.

But he's still contracted to us, Newcastle are just paying a % of his contract with us. He's not getting paid any more.

He genuinely said, in real life, that this isn't a tactical or coaching problem, it's mentality. This bloke is surely not for real, he must be a real life meme or something.

If we did that after 2 goals then we're even more daft than I thought we were. He needs at least half a season, 6 months+ of consistent football and output before we should even consider a new deal. I think it's great for him personally that he's got back to back games with so many mins under his belt, and some output, but it needs to be shown over a prolonged period before anyone gets too excited.

The league is very open this year, there will be no Leicester/Leeds style runaways from what I can tell so far. Every team has been competitive this year from top to bottom, a really competitive league. Even Wednesday, for all their turmoil, aren't even bottom.

I reckon we signed his doppelganger.

Yeah he's the real deal, good technique, good pace/movement with the ball. Good spot Spors.

It might be a controversial view, but I never feel as if we have midfield control when Charles plays. Charles is a bit ''all action'' and doesn't 'sit' as such, he drives all over the place. I really liked Downes and Jander together at Anfield, we had control in the middle then.

I thought we probably shaded parts of it, but neither side had real control. It was a typical game against two sides really struggling to find their way. We just needed to get out of there with 3 points, no matter how we played.