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Ah yes, replaced with a good one, who showed just how good he was when there was less money at Sunderland, right?

We were hovering dangerously above relegation before, and then Lerner came in, spent a fair amount of money and we shot up the table.

And who is the mystery manager that can do that? We want to change manager on the whim we may finish 10th instead of 14th? It's always 'sack the terrible manager', and never 'replace the decent manager with this slightly better, realistically available, proven and willing manager' Name names, and not Tony **** Pulis

Where did I say the job was irrelevant? Money dictates roughly where you finish in the league, there still has to be a manager there to facilitate that. A truly great manager will get a team to consistently over achieve - Alex Ferguson in 12-13. A poor manager can get a team relegated (Dowie? Kinner/Shearer?) You obviously believe that Paul Lambert is in the latter camp but his transfers and the fact we have actually stayed in the league tend to suggest his is actually capable of doing the job. Vasty overachieving, no. But at the moment in time he is good enough, and sacking him and replacing him with some else equally qualified won't make a blind bit of difference.

Allardyce discussing the very same topic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30633601

As has been mentioned by someone else I'm not that bothered if he's replaced or not, it will be the same over and over again as it is with every other club that's floating between the top few clubs and relegation. I enjoy every game but I'm not deluded enough to think that changing a manager who can evidently spot an ok player with another manager who may or may not be able to will make the slightest bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. I suspect you enjoy moaning about managers as much as I like watching the matches.

Especially considering they were they only ones he'd paid any reasonable money for - the rest were pure gambles. Assembling a squad, and the best players you bring in are all out at the same time. I'm not suggesting Lambert is this fantastic manager, far from it, but it is so irritating to see people constantly saying sack the manager, he's shit, useless word removed etc when there is so little evidence in premier league history of a manager making a significant turn in fortunes without spending big money on players. This idea that there's some manager out there like Pochettino (7th with Tottenhams squad) or Martinez (level on points with us!) just waiting to be picked up that will get us back in to the top ten or top six is frankly ridiculous.

His main signing was injured for a year and 3 months. He had another two injured for a whole year.

It's obviously not all that matters with regards to results. The thing is that people see Lambert as badly underachieving (yourself included) , which is fine as an opinion of course. However, he's basically delivering league positions of between 16th and 13th whilst spending comparatively less than other clubs and certainly less than clubs above us who we are expected to catch. If you spend less than those you're trying to catch, you don't catch them (unless you unearth gems most of the time). It's that simple. Absolute tosh. If all that was needed was money then everyone would finish in a position exactly according to how much money they had spent. You need a good manager that buys good players at the right price and gets the most out of them. That's exactly what happens! so how do we keep losing to lower league opposition just about every time we turn out....I think it has a big effect, but there is more to it than just money alone. This is football, there are anomalies and good tactics can sometimes win a game, bad tactics can lose a game, but over the course of the season it's the money that tells the full story.

So should we have stuck with mcleish? McLeish's transfers were awful. Lambert's have on the whole, not been. So then a manager can make a difference. As I said, there are better managers than others. In particular, Lambert is better at controlling the money and where it is spent than Mcleish. Name a manager that we could hire that has proven ability to do that better than Paul Lambert.

So should we have stuck with mcleish? McLeish's transfers were awful. Lambert's have on the whole, not been.

It has, yes. I think that shows we're, essentially, 15th in the league? You have got to be kidding me - so we are 15th in the league in terms of points in 2014, around 15th for all goal related statistics, around the same position with the wage bill of our first team squad, one of the lowest net spends of any team in the league and we're 15th?! What happens when we replace the current manager with a Pulis, Pardew, Allardyce, Redknapp, Souness, Dowie, Bruce, Jewell, Hughes, Curbishley - or a foreign manager like Ramos, Jol, Santini, Gullit, Di Matteo, Mel, even no-longer-flavour-of-the-month Martinez - how often does changing the manager make that much of a difference for any significant length of time. Obviously some are better than others (I'd rather Martinez than the rest of that list) but the point is that unless club finances change then it doesn't really make a huge difference who the manager is.

As has been said before spending is not the ultimate way to judge this. Gabby, grealish, guzan, delph, Cole, Richardson all available to Lambert for the grand total of 0 pounds spent on transfer fees. Are they all shit and useless because of that? No, but we're also not the only team that can benefit from youth development and free transfers.

Those tables have 15 teams in them, and we have finished 16th, 15th and 15th. Why are any of you surprised? Absolutely nothing to talk about there. If it was cut off at 6 teams it makes grim reading for Liverpool. Stick a total player wages and net transfer spend next to the team names in the chart and see what you find.

A lot of it seems to be down to the run and shot on target he had and a few times he moved the ball forward to the edge of the box and passed it back into the midfield. The problem is defenders know that if you don't dive into a challenge and stay on your toes he has nothing. Keep a yard ahead, wait for the ball to ricochet between his shins and clear it.

Same again would leave us on 42 points the exact same as host first season. Is that really acceptable? Zero progress in 3 seasons. wasn't it Mr O'Neill who said you have to spend a fortune just to stay where you are in this league? I think that is much truer today than 6 years ago, and considering we have hardly spent anything, yes I think that is acceptable despite not being an admirable acheivement.

Really strange ending there, is a goalkeeper really allowed to throw themselves 2 footed towards the ball at head height?! Either way, Bacuna and Grealish making a big case there to start a match, especially considering it was with a man down.

Grealish displaying his weak defending ability there.

And we're supposed to believe that Grealish offers less than N'Zogbia? haha.

Richardsons was debatable, Mason should have gone when he clashed with Benteke, Agbonlahor's was the worst decision I've ever seen, but Delph stamped on his ankle there, it's not hard to see why the ref gave that decision.

That was a terrible challenge, pains me to say he derserved that.

His confidence is absolutely 0.

I wouldn't say comfortable, they've been horrendous also.

I'm sorry, in what way has N'Zogbia been excellent?

I think the reason Delph and Cleverly are playing on opposite sides to normal is because their 2 wide players Johnson and Wickham both play as inverted wingers so are more likely to cut inside I say it because Benteke appears to be on the left of a front two with Weimann and N'Zogbia at right midfield.