Legod Third Coming

And I guess one of those you have to forgive, assuming you want cereal for breakfast...

...does it feel to see England wallop the boks? Could this be the start of a great new era of English cricket in all codes?

100%. Let the players bugger off for two weeks holiday. But Pardew and NC can have a glass of wine together, a day or two off and then spend two months building the team that will win the league next season and take us to the Champion's League by 2015.

Whomever...

I wish he was called Indigo, at least then you could guarantee a purple patch....

My wife asked me if I ever had an affair/was unfaithful. I laughed and said no.

So you would swap a bloke who has scored 30 goals for a bloke with a passion for the treatment table...

No, please regale us with his record on promotion from this division... or indeed any division... What competitions did Wales qualify for? What exactly has he ever done to indicate he can manage anything other than his own bank account?

Look, why the feck would two players who can improve their skills playing decent football for a good team in a cracking league want to go and play against a bunch of teams who would struggle to beat the Walton and Hersham Girl Guides under 11s? Scottish football is a joke.

Season started with most fans hoping to stablise the ship. Then she started sailing (after some choppy waters) Then the crew started to wonder whether we couldn't find the new world - forgetting that they started by bailing water. The new world appeared on the horizon but just disappeared out of a view for while. The crew dug up some silver on a nearby island. But despite riches beyond their wildest belief, some still bemoan the lack of a new world. The sensible ones know the new world is well within sight. The others should be made to walk the plank.... A-

There a lot of Leeds fans who wonder whether Bates wants promotion anyway. He makes a profit from a League One club and knows full well he will have to pay higher wages in the Championship... The point is, none of us knows what objectives Pardew was set other than that he claims to have been told he will be judged after 18 months. It is, therefore, somewhat premature for people to judge him on promotion this season... He is, after all, only 8 and a bit months into his job!

Over the last ten games of the season before our fate was sealed our results were: WWWDWWWWDW Now, find me a better record in any league? That really shows us throwing key games doesn't it? Feeling the pressure? Not having a winning mentality - like scoring 90th minute winners, 88th minute equalisers... We were bloody unlucky that the team behind us in the current form league during April (where we played 7, won 5, drew 2 scored 14 and conceded 6 goals) were Huddersfield... Ferking hell, finally we have a team to be proud of, a manager who knows what he's a doing and the lunatics want a change... I give up, I fecking well give up.

Ok, I didn't express that very well! You are right, money will guarantee success eventually and I don't retract my view that if money is limited is it spent in this order: Find and pay best manager available Find best players available (at manager's choosing) - but yes the best players available and to be spent on key players who can make a difference not spread around like fecking butter! There's no rocket science to football management. The teams who pay most to their players win the Premiership every year. They also have the best managers... My point was that good managers can compensate for a lack of money - whereas money cannot compensate for a poor manager. In my view we have both a good manager and the money he needs which I would give him and let him get on with the job. Let's for a minute compare who Pardew has bought with say Benitez - no question who is the better buyer of players there. I'm failing to see one bad purchase who hasn't strengthened our side or had something to offer. You yourself said that Pardew HAS been successful. By any salient measure we have had a very good season given where started. That we missed out on promotion because of a points deduction (without it we could well have finished second by Saturday afternoon) marks the season out as being rare (as the stats above tell you). Should we have been promoted with our resources? Possibly. Does that mean we should change manager? And back to the original question, why did we miss out on promotion, in my view because we didn't get our good manager soon enough!!!!

John, I don't think many people react well to being under pressure from people whom they expect to support them. It is one thing to set someone targets and measure their performance against them, it is another to set them targets and speak publicly or otherwise about their performance if they are doing exactly what was agreed. Of course, we have no idea what is really going on, but I don't think Pardew has reacted badly to pressure, otherwise we wouldn't have a trophy cabinet...

Hahahah. An easy league is one where lots of teams do well? Look, how can a league be easy if anyone can win it? That is a total oxymoron. It is easy for Manchester United or Chelsea to win the Premiership because no-one else can get close to them. This league cannot be easy to win or the teams you perceive as being the big teams - Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, QPR, Man City would have been able to win it at a canter. Surely this is just simple logic?

You are right, but two things: 1, Hughes results were poor. 2, City probably won't be in the Champion's League, Spurs will which tells you that money is no guarantee of success. A good manager is the safest route to sucess and although it is heresy on here, Redknapp is a good manager, very good. No one denies changing manager can work. But you have to ask on what basis you would change a manager who is successful?

That proves the point. Well done.

Utter garbage. How can we have promotion form since October 1st but have choked? We lost and drew games that other teams also lost and drew... God this site beggars belief. Should I have seen some sort of health form before signing up asking me whether I'd had a labotomy that I missed?

Our record against the bottom teams is no different to Norwich's, Leeds or Millwalls. Where do people get this nonsense... We do not fail to get promoted because we lost to Tranmere - since they beat Norwich by a goal more than us and then beat Millwall 2-0. Why don't people get this. We were on our knees. We nearly lost our club. We had no preseason. We started the season with players not fit to lace the boots of Paul Wotton. We went ten games winning one. We bought in new players. We then built a squad - which is STILL lacking. We went on a promotion form run. It wasn't enough. In the interim we won the club's first silverware for 34 years. We have won more games in a season than for about 25 years. This is what you call in football a FOUNDATION. But no let's dig the whole ferking lot up and rebuild somewhere else with someone who may or may not achieve at least as good results.... In a research paper by a Coventry Professor, John Beech, he identified that in 14 cases of a club with a points deduction of 10 points or more only 1 missed out on promotion as a result (Leeds), 4 finished mid-table and would have finished mid-table and 8 were relegated, abeit 1 would have been relegated without the deduction (although how he qualified this given that it does not take account of the emotional impact is not stated). Bloody Hell. That shows the mountain we have climbed this season. We did not quite hit the summit. Without a deduction we could still finish second. This talk of change now is crazy, stone cold ferking crazy and anyone who entertains this is a pillock.

Yes, you do need to take the ten points off... should have made that clear!!

Ah, but when I pointed out United and Fergie were 'unlucky' against Bayern, I was told in no uncertain terms Lyon would rip Bayern to shreds... which kinda tells you all you need to know about some people's knowledge of football...

This suggests that you can win every game, which clearly you cannot. For the record, I was stood in the cold at Wycombe for two hours watching the drivel we served up, but we could still have won it when Lallana missed a sitter on about 86 minutes... How could we have legislated for that and the absence of our only decent central midfielder (Morgan) that night?

It certainly isn't losing at Tranmere or Gillingham - Leeds managed to do that, as did Norwich. It isn't drawing at Wycombe, as Millwall went there and lost. It isn't drawing at Exeter, as Swindon managed that... Surely it is this table after ten games: http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/D2/tosep.html Why? You tell me, but do you think no pre-season and the mill-stone of minus ten could have been a contributory factor? EDIT: Take ten points off the total and we were on -1 - 27 points behind Leeds!

It is complicated further because we had eight of nine game away from home in January/February. If you go back to when our pre-season ended (the end of September) our form is good promotion form. But the point you make is a very good one. We need to be on it from day one with a good squad (the current one strengthened at CB and CM) and with a manager who knows what he's doing...

Mark Hughes? What's his record of getting clubs promoted? We missed out on promotion by a gnat's whisker because of two clowns: Lowe and Falco Let's not start another f u c k i n g circus eh?