DuncanRG

I'm not intimately familiar with his physios at Poole or Swindom but he's been injury prone in the Premier League years. You may recall he failed a medical at Hull, hardly a lucky break. I've never thought he'd be much more than a bench option for us but it really is insulting to claim a guy who's climbed the entire league pyramid has done it through luck. (Which I know was the other guy, not you)

What?! Injury's followed him everywhere and his best season was with a relegated team. Where's the luck there? (I'm not sure the Southampton bench really counts as 'the top', either. He's clearly motivated to do better)

There's no sign that he would adapt to our strengths, though. He's quite evangelical about his style of football, and good for him, but bringing it to our squad would be a reverse De Boer. 'Can't be worse', in managers as in players, is never a good reason to do anything. I don't want Pellegrino sacked, but I think we should keep an eye on the situation at Newcastle. If Pellegrino doesn't improve and Benitez ends up reaching for the door we should be in the scrum for him. That wouldn't guarantee thrilling, expansive football all the time but it would certainly make us strong.

Surprised Dyche keeps coming up. We're not Burnley and I don't want us to play like Burnley.

He'd be a great fit if the fans would take it. Not sure they would.

I'll never forget all those plastics who weren't at all arsed by the cup final. (????)

We shouldn't be talking about midseason managerial changes, but if we are then Howe wouldn't dream of ditching Bournemouth in the middle of a relegation battle. If at all. Call that a statement of intent? Let's get Brian Clough.

Indeed

I love the language in that. We'd only sell if a "ludicrous" bid came in. What's ludicrous in today's money?

Well, I'd have a bigger problem with him starting if we had loads of players scoring for fun.

Someone ought to tell Pep.

What about experiments like Pelle, Mane, Tadic and Rodriguez?

There's no need to be so aggressive. I don't pay enough attention to know who these people are but hey, if they've come around to Pelle then great. I think most fans appreciated him at the time.

It wasn't a non-commital answer, though, not in the sense you're using. If you don't want to look like you're agitating, you just say 'I'm focused on Southampton' or similar. Players get more than enough media training to know this.

What type of reporting is that? To me it looks like that nefarious old trade of 'writing down what people say'.

News at Ten is still on, if you've got time to work it out!

Oh for sure, but above all fans bond with players who score and win. The promotion years were spectacular but can't be replicated in the Premier League, and it's unrealistic to expect we do it. As always, fans just want effort, entertainment and above all victory.

Shock: it's more fun to win every week

The whole sport went to pot when they let assistant coaches decide results directly.

None of the excitable pieces I've read about this have explained why the Catalan clubs wouldn't just stay in La Liga, or why we're just talking about Barca and not Espanyol et al. I'd hate to have Barcelona in the Premier League, but like most I think the Old Firm would be great.

Eh? He was never gonna start every week.

Indeed, but they come under the same large umbrella. My point is that Pellegrino and Puel aren't playing the exact same way, just getting the same outcome at the moment.

They'd also be happy with possession football if it resulted in goals and wins, like it did under Pochettino and Koeman.

Fans I can sort of understand, but if he doesn't command the confidence of the dressing room you've got no option. If the discontent was widespread then it's fair to factor that into your decision. I don't think we can totally disregard the home form either. The atmosphere at St Marys took a big hit and that does affect the team, however good we were away or how ill-informed you may feel the fans are. I normally go to an even split of home and away games and don't remember being particularly jubilant on away days. I was ambivalent on whether he kept his job but there were valid reasons to let him go. Also: Pellegrino doesn't play in the same way as Puel unless you're using the really broad brushstroke of possession football. We have many of the same problems now, but that's not an argument for keeping Puel.

Well said.