S-Clarke

Delighted to see them up in the big league. They pushed us so hard back in the L1 days, every week we won, you'd check the results to see they'd won as well. As other's have said, our old L1 promotion pals - brighton and Huddersfield, both in the big league. Much better than seeing the empty Reading club return, they're a fine example of such a non-club. Plastics.

Jack Rodwell. Now the comedy player at Sunderland.

Yeah, looks like Steve Wright our head physio.

Rule 1?

Why everton want him is odd. Glass ceeling and all that.

Yeah, he's quality. Now all he needs is some capable help alongside him...!

It might just be his walking style, but he always looks like he's limping around his goal when we're attacking/have a corner etc. Looks like he's stretching something out. I've heard numerous people say he has had a hip problem, which is why he can't get down as low. But you'd have thought if that was the case then he wouldn't be playing.

To be fair, I don't think any manager could have made Forster look decent this year....he has had a flaming disaster.

Wouldn't have thought so. He's retired anyway if his statement is to be believed.

So...that's Mazzarri gone at Watford, Allardyce gone at Palace - if we want to make a change, we better get on with it quick otherwise the talented options out there will be sniffed up.

Let's not re-write history here. When Lovren/Toby left, they were only decent because Fonte carried them etc etc. Now Fonte's left, he was only decent because VVD/Toby carried him etc etc. He is better than Stephens, he's a Euro winner and was a huge, huge part of our success over the last 3 seasons. It's folly to write him off. The club still failed in the January window to address that. It's good that Stephens got his chance and I'm more than happy with him, but I don't think it should have happened like that.

Nah, he lacks the yard or two of pace to be that sort of threat in my opinion. His delivery is also pretty garbage. Don't get me wrong, he's a reasonable player and more than good enough to come in and offer competition and cover, but there is no way he should be our first choice if our aspirations are to do anything other than tread water. (and struggle)

This was my horrible fear.

If anything, it kind of adds more weight to the belief that the decision on Claude has already been made....

To be fair, Wilson has been a mouth piece for the club in previous years. Would take more note of him over others. The 'want to avoid major player sales' and 'the club is now financially stronger'' sounds like club planted lines, to be honest.

We don't have a target. There have been times this season where we've hit it long and you just say to yourself...wtf is the point? It's aimed at Redmond, Tadic and co - they're not going to win it. The team needs to remember that Pelle has gone, we don't have a focal point up there anymore. I think the club have tried to change the profile of the side into a smaller, tricky, technical kind of team - but in my eyes, that's what you get in Spain, that won't work here. I'd love to see us get a towering powerful midfielder to partner romeu and a tall, powerful centre forward. We'd instantly become more of a threat with crossing then, and we probably wouldn't miss as many balls in the middle of the park as we do now - Romeu is kind of doing the work of two DM's.

Typical lazy analysis on us from the 'media' to be honest. They'll just look at the position in the table, there's more to it than that.

Would be a decent master plan if they didn't flog off the best ones....!

The worry for me is that if Ryan leaves, the club will try to stick with Mcqueen and Targett. Both aren't good enough to be regular first 11 players for where we 'aspire' to be - in my opinion. If we pocket £20-25m for Ryan and then promote those two, it's a recipe for regression. I could be totally wrong of course!!

I wish people would stop sighting 8th as an achievement and a reason why we should all be dancing around in our underwear. People need to look beyond that. 6 points from 17th, 15 points from 7th. I think that says it all. It's a very, very, poor 8th position. Nothing to celebrate.

It was very much a case of same old, same old for the large majority. I thought we started the game well, it was actually a pretty open start, a little end to end for the first 10mins. After that it kind of reverted to norm, Bertrand going on the overlap, Redmond hanging back and going inside, lack of movement and too much of a gap between the midfield and the attack. 2nd half it didn't really change, we had a few decent opportunities which Butland kept out - but you'd argue that they were straight at him, rather than to either side. For me, still not enough clear cut opportunities in the game. Too slow to build from the midfield to the attack, and a lack of options to open the game and spread the wide players. I think we play narrow as per a instructions, I don't see why else Redmond holds back as he does - makes no sense to me. There was a moment in the 2nd half where someone picked the ball up and ran, and ran and ran...got into the box, was tackled though. But that's what you need from the midfielders, notably the likes of Davis. Who was it that did that run though? Jack flaming Stephens. That said it all for me. So we've gone 19 home games and I'm still none the wiser as to what Claude is trying to implement. It's not a press, it's not a fast counter attacking style, it's not complete backs against the wall defending - I don't know what he's trying to do, I don't think the players do either. Maybe he's had the right idea's, but he's certainly not executed them correctly.

Fan of his as well. Posted this yesterday about him - http://theinsidechannel.com/guide-roger-schmidts-tactics-bayer-leverkusen/

Don't be silly.

If he thinks the answer is more strikers, then hopefully the board will tell him to do one.

Fair enough, knew it was one or the other! Think he's a good player personally.