Pez1974

And both letters are written without any sort of dig at Hollis. It doesn't appear that he is the problem - just a guy trying to find a solution. Bernstein and King have fallen on their swords; and with the letters coming out so quickly, it wouldn't surprise me if Hollis knew this would happen.

King has, in the most polite fashion, murdered Lerner with that letter And from a Peer of the Realm

Interesting to see what Sir Brian does. He won't want to hurt the club, but if he see's the direction and doesn't like it - he must know that him going would cause a **** meltdown the like of which we've never seen. Lescott might just get out of the next game scot-free!

Apparently, King's resignation letter specifically mentions the owner and communications with the Football Board!

Wow. There is something very wrong at our club. People are clearly pulling in different directions, and the executive either cannot or will not force through the changes needed. Given how short a time this has all been in place, and how ruthless Hollis has acted once he started, I must conclude that the problem is Randy - the process required all at the club "to adhere to the authority delegated to the new football board".

Great to see so many people favouring 1 person - and in my opinion, the right person. For me, the reality is that we are a total shambles of a club, and will be in the Championship next season with a mess of a playing squad and Lord Lucan as owner. If we were lucky enough to get someone of the calibre of Bruce or Pearson, we should be very happy about it. I know some will disagree but these 2 have records of improving the lot of their clubs overall, albeit with blips. If we can get Moyes, that would be dreamland. We must not forget that what is attractive to managers at the moment is bringing our great club back to life. Get it wrong now, and in a couple of seasons, we'll be alongside the likes of Leeds and Forest as 'sleeping giants' and dealing with someone worse than Lerner trying to buy us, and Steve Evans or Gary Cotterill being lined up as our 3rd coach of the season.

Yep. He's fattening him up before the end of season curry.

From the BBC website.... David Moyes is interested in the Aston Villa manager's job but has not yet been contacted by the club. Nearly six months after being sacked by Real Sociedad, Moyes is keen to get back into football and is attracted by the challenge of reviving Aston Villa. He has seen them live recently and would be receptive to talks. But he's aware doubts over next season's budget at the club could delay the process. Nigel Pearson remains the bookies' favourite and there is also backing for Mick McCarthy,Sean Dyche and Steve Bruce - but Moyes was approached by Villa last autumn after Tim Sherwood was sacked. Moyes was still at Real Sociedad when Villa's Head of Recruitment Paddy Riley flew over for talks. Moyes asked pointed questions about the quality of the 12 players Riley had helped bring in at a cost of £55m and the talks did not progress very far. Villa's football board will concentrate this week on their short list of candidates after relegation was confirmed on Saturday. Moyes is certain to be on that list. Given the sentence that I've highlighted, albeit without quotes, he seems to have hit the nail on the head before he's walked in the door.

I have no issue with what happened. The moral high ground can get crowded with idiots; Rudy was clear what he was trying to do - Joe Hart was trying to do something different, and ballsed it up. His problem. The Man City players getting indignant was inevitable. Wherever there is 'sportsmanship' involved, it can be a grey area - and for me the ref's should play a bigger role, and communicate intent to both sides. So, once he knew we were planning to send it back for a goal kick - tell the GK to get out of the way.

I think he needs to play every week; he is certainly good enough, as he showed last season, when he played regularly - he seems to struggle when he's not played for a while. I doubt he'll ever be 'very good', but Man Utd won a lot of trophies with the likes of Wes Brown and John O'Shea in defence! He's good enough in my opinion. We have bigger problems.

I'm 41 and I am much better off than my folks were. This is down to 4 main factors... My job - I'm an accountant. I have worked abroad (on secondment); I put my career first throughout my 20's and climb the greasy pol (so to speak) quickly. In my 30's I have slowed down in a well paid job. Education - I passed the 11+ and went to grammar school. My brother didn't. We are not much different with regards base intelligence but the education I got there, compared to his at the local comprehensive, gave me a massive boost in my early career. Neither of my parents went to grammar school, or anything like it. My parents - they always encouraged me and pushed me. When I made the difficult choices in education and career, I always had their support which gave me the courage to do what I knew to be right - like move abroad with work when I was 24. Luck - I bought my first house in the late 90's so benefitted from the property boom, unlike those who followed. I gambled with a couple of redundancies, which have helped me pay off my mortgage, and always got back in work quickly. I and my family have always been healthy. Without the last one, we're all screwed!

Awful position for the guy - made a mistake but a sensible outcome

That's a terrible list - no surprise they are out of work.

I find it really strange that so many ref's continue to be conned by Busquets. He has disgraced himself so often, and I know that ref's shouldn't have pre-conceived ideas about players, but I reckon 99.9% of football fans would forgive them on this one.

Delph not going to the Euro's would be simply brilliant

I'm guessing that we couldn't afford to go with both Senderos and Okore in the 25 man squad given injury situation, so Big Phil missed out. Could you imagine going into a season with Senderos, Okore and Vlaar in the squad, with only Clark and Baker for cover. Oh wait a minute.....

One point on the 'net spend' comments.... Given the level of change and the level of income from sales, I think it would be sensible for Tim to keep some money back in case something goes wrong with one or more of the signings, whether this be for an emergency buy in January or to boost the funds available next year. Obviously I don't know if he has kept some back, but lets not hasten to criticise anyone; it might just be the major surgery is done and it's just one or two genuine starters a year going forward.

If I start by saying that the club's long term future must come first - and therefore we cannot just throw a load of money at a problem in hope..... I think Tim (and others) have done a great job this window. Some of the incoming are players who get into the starting 11 regularly and will both improve it and will improve themselves (Amavi, Richards, Traore, Gueye, Sinclair). We've picked up some very promising youngsters in Sarkic, Illori, Ayew, Veretout. We've got some experience to replace what we've lost in Lescott and Bunn - and Lescott probably won't go missing for 3 months around Christmas We've shipped out some 'deadwood' - defined by ability, wages, and/or injuries - Weiman, Given, Bent, Tonev, Luna, Vlaar, etc Some of our youngsters have been moved out on loan (including Bennett getting a chance in the PL) The team look like they have a defined attractive style of play and the squad has more depth to it in the key areas required by that style (example - our wide attacking players are now Gil, Grealish, Sinclair, Traore - plus Gabby, Cole, N'Zog and Bacuna - before it was Weiman, Cole, Gabby, N'Zog and Bacuna). Obviously the big issue is the main striker. We need to give Gestede and Ayew a little time, but I really think that Sinclair as a number 9 can work in our system - and his finishing looks good. Buying a striker is always a lottery, and Benteke's goals need to be replaced - but perhaps replaced by the team scoring more rather than risk breaking the club by spending shed-loads on one guy, who might just fail (like Torres; Falcao; Di Maria; etc) I think next summer will see a high number of exits - Cole, Senderos, N'Zog certainly - perhaps Hutton and Richardson too if the new guys do well. Given that this was Tim's first transfer window, I think he's done as much work in this one as Lambert did in total!

It's possible that Traore and Keita are not necessarily first team players for this season (perhaps only squad players). I have banged on for years that Spurs have been pretty smart at picking up players very young and bringing them through after a couple of years in the reserves/youth teams, so I suspect Timmy has been part of that. These guys will need to adapt to English football, but are young and I trust management to get this right. For far too long we have only focused on bringing in first team starters with the result that unless our youth team produce another Cahill or Gary Shaw, we'll be doing it again next year - all of which comes at a premium.

It's unlikely now that he is team captain. I do wonder whether playing him at CB will prove to be a Sherwood masterstroke, or whether we are staring at a shit-storm waiting to happen.

Which I think even VT can rejoice as one at!

If we want this guy and he ends up at Stoke, Randy needs to take a long hard look in the mirror as this is a tangible measure of how far we have fallen. This....and our league position in recent seasons, falling attendances, the squad of players, and every news article about us since MON left!

Yep, official site confirmed it. Timmy talks about a 'winning mentality' in Richards, which is pretty damning on others in the squad in my opinion.

Rumours abound that Tim wants the guy, but others are less convinced. I was be amazed if we signed him other than for a season long loan. Then at 32 we could get away with a one year deal for next season if he does OK?

That'll do for me