briny_ear

Strictly speaking, wouldn't "worst case" be us gaining no more points at all this season and ending up with 28 points?

There is so much utter rubbish written about Stiliyan on this site. It really is beyond belief at times. (That was told me by a player, so believe it or not. Mind you, he does play for Pelsall Villa so maybe not a great expert.)

Agree fully with this. It was clear from the start of the summer that the relationship between MON and Lerner/Faulkner was breaking down and they should have handled it better, preferably by forcing the issue in May and if necessary bringing in a new manager at that stage who they could work with.

Whatever, I hope Warnock doesn't come back into the side. Lichaj/Baker/Stevens deserve a chance first.

The secret of winning against Wigan and Blackburn is just to attack them consistently. Both sides are capable of getting goals but their defenses are both disaster areas and as long as we get the forward play rolling throughout the matches we should win them. Can't say I'm confident that McLeish is capable of understanding or executing this.

He's played for us against Chelsea, Arsenal, and Newcastle so far this season, so it's not as if this was the first time he came up against good midfield players. I urge people to set higher standards and expectations for our younger players - at present they are our main hope and it does them no good to be defended to the hilt when their performances are disappointing. I'm sure everyone knows in their heart of hearts he should have done better against Man C and I expect he feels that the most keenly.

After much thought, I've actually voted "stay", much to my surprise. This is not because I think McLeish is a great or even good manager, nor because I think his comments about the tactics against Man C were at all acceptable, nor that he's any sort of long term prospect as a manager for us. Far from it. But I think to sack him now would make the club a laughing stock. McLeish has a tough job to do. He needs to manage out of the club all of the older players on wages that Lerner has decided he cannot afford any more. There will be no money to spend for a manager until this is done so we will not attract a decent replacement until this phase is over (at which stage, I hope Lerner will then sell the club to someone capable of sustaining a longer term run of the investment we need). McLeish will keep us in the premier league while he is purging the club of the Collins's, Warnocks, etc., and he should be sacked only once there is some decent money to spend and we can get in a proper manager to restore the damage done by the shambles we've had since MON left. So I would keep him for next season then sack him. Not sure McLeish would find much to comfort him in this support!

Isn't he supposed to be on too high a wage for us to afford him?

To be honest, I really don't think we are in the relegation mix so there is no need to panic. Obviously things could change. We could go on a disastrous run and one of Wolves, Blackburn or QPR could suddenly start beating the top ten clubs they largely have to face in the run in. If those things did happen, then would be the time to panic and start creating threads like this. There are no grounds for it now. We've had a poor run and have taken only 9 points from the last 10 games but even if we got no better we would still get 11 or 12 points from our remaining 13 games. That would give us 39/40 points, meaning one of QPR Blackburn or Wolves would need 19 or 20 from their remaining 13 games. The way things are now, that is not on the cards.

Yeah, but he's only really 60-70% black. He isn't proper "Salifou black" (the greatest of all the shades). Excellent.

Clicky click

so we cant blame him for leaving us with some average players? Interesting The rules of English grammar force me to point out you have misunderstood the statement. To make it easier: (a) Martin O'Neill bought some very good players and some not so good players (1) ( All the good ones he bought have been sold off (2) © so the impression might arise that he left us with only poor players - but that is only because all the good ones were sold off (d) You can't blame him for the fact that all the good players he bought were sold off. [(1) This makes him like virtually every other mnanager in the football league (2)And what happened to the money?] Hope that makes it a bit clearer.

Both Suarez's and Dalglish's statements are too cursory and dismissive if you ask me but I guess it will now all be swept uinder the carpet and everyone will move on without the situation really being resolved. Nice to see them having to come off their high horses a little bit though.

I can see how that impression arises but it is of course relevant that we sold off all his very good signings (errr... and what happened to the money?). I'm not sure you can blame O'Neill for that (although the evidence of this thread suggests people will blame him for anything however ludicrous.)

He made some bad decisions as manager today and doesn't seem to recognise that. One thing he did get right was dropping Warnock and not bringing him on as sub when Dunne was injured. Give him a bit of cfor that, I suppose.

Yes, from one game. It was tough for him but I actually found myself thinking a couple of times, "Your brother would be doing better here."

Robin Peck sums up my views entirely.

I'm afraid he was quite ineffective today. Bit less confident about his glittering future now.

I thought the streaker running on was the "protest"! :confused:

If he's out, we are faced with a defence of Hutton-Collins-Cuellar-Baker (maybe Lichaj in there somewhere? - no idea how much of a contender he is. Notice he wasn't on the bench today.) Whatever, that is fairly scary.

Ach well, I suppose that's one thing he's achieved...

What a shame Cuellar missed that open goal. :evil:

Have to say well done Hutton there. Good play by Keane too.

LookIng on the bright side we have been useless but it's still 0-0. A modest improvemnt target for the 2nd half would be to get a couple of shots in.

:shock: