Gary Thomas

Almost hope he comes just so we can sing this tune - great shout !!!!!!!

I thought he was fairly gracious as well - thanking fans etc. nothing there that would put a prospective manager off.

He also got Birmingham relegated after which he lost his first five matches in the championship with calls for him to be sacked (link) Bruce is experienced and did a good job at Hull with Mike Phelan as assistant. But I keep reading Bruce is the safe bet to get us promoted. He may do, but it will not happen this year unless he achieves a 'much higher' win rate than he did at Hull, and from the get go. I think it is now unlikely we will get the wins we need to get promoted this year - it is not impossible, but highly unlikely. IF we accept that hard truth we are looking at a two-year project for someone to come in, improve our play, impose their ideas, buy new players. If we want that man to be Bruce OK, but we would be his 9th club and for all you say he is a journeyman manager with previous for playing drab football and throwing his dolly's out the pram. I don't see Bruce as the right choice for us. Say he does come in and he gets promoted in 207/18 - no guarantees, but say he did. Then what? We have to employ another manager, we have rebuild and we are back to struggling in the PL - as Hull will do this year. This has to stop. Why don't we see this as a longer-term project, not a quick fix. Bring in Wagner or someone of that ilk to try and do what Eddie Howe did at Bournemouth. Ask him to build us a team that can play good football, get us promoted in 2018 and then hold our own in the PL, with a few quality additions and with you at the helm. Wagner could be our Wenger.

Isn't every manager a gamble? Not been flippant, but Bruce could easily fail here and given his history it would not take fans long to turn.

Right I have just seen this post and I am desperately hoping this means we have appointed Wagner......let me go check/ Edit. Shit no.

Good analysis, but a tad optimistic? I cannot see 68pts being enough looking at recent points totals (last 3 years). I would say 74 points is a more realistic target. To get that we need to win 19 games from now (54% win rate), draw say 7 and lose only 9 - that would put us on 74pts which would give us a competitive total, but one that would not have gotten us over the line in 14/15. There are all sorts of permutations, but I fear it may be more difficult than you suggest, certainly a 40% win rate won't do it imo.

Is this done or something?

Afraid it will need to be higher than that - nearer 60%. That win ratio all depends on what you think is enough. Last year Sheffield Wednesday scraped into the playoffs with 19 wins (74pts). The year before Ipswich Town got 6th with 22 wins (78pts). So if we assume we want 22 wins to give us a good shot we need to win 21 more from this point. That was a win ratio of 58.33% before Preston - it's a bit higher now! One of the reasons I am leaning to a younger manager. Think it is unlikely this year we are so far behind now.

First thing we've won in a while - do we get points for that

Think I agree - we are coming from such a low base. F**k me, one away win and we're be building statues of him.

That is a footballing philosophy right there.

I watch plenty of games and I know we struggle to get the basics right, but to suggest managers 'other than' Bruce or whoever represent "head in the clouds stuff " is nonsense imo. I believe Wagner would do the basics right - that's the point. Sean Dyche, Eddie Howe, there are plenty of young managers who can implement the very basic ingredients of attempting to win a football match as you put it.

Would quite like Wagner if we could convince him to come - something about his Dortmund background, football phiilosphy and work with Huddersfield is making me think he could be a special manager and someone who could take this club forward with the backing of Xia. I know people want safe-hands Bruce but the idea of him just depresses me tbh. I would back him if appointed, but he would just be a temporary sticking plaster and we would hit problems again in a year or two as would have to replace him and rebuild. Lets face it. The chances of getting promoted this year are slim now as we'd have to win about 60% of our games by my reckoning. I don't see that happening tbh - not with Bruce or any other manager. So we have a bit of time to build now and to me someone like Wagner, or a good up-and-coming manager, would be ideal - for me anyway.

Jesus, it's getting melodramatic on here isn't it.....cheer up, could be the start of another new (possibly false but you never know) dawn. We live in hope!!!

Made me howl.

not if they do their job

I would like us to go after Wagner, Howe, Dyche or Hughton - Richard's POT 2, but I have sneaked Wagner in there. The idea of Bruce depresses me tbh, but would back him if appointed.

Ryan Giggs maybe but not Keane - that's going too far.

There you go......it's catching

Seriously mate I posted that 5 months ago! By-the-way, there are 35 games to go so your point scoring may be a bit premature. And no, I still don't think the negativity was justified then and I still think we will comfortably avoid relegation, but I promise not to quote you in May and say I told you so. That would be childish and petty wouldn't it.

Pen. Yippppeeee. Edit....Oh.

Just put a silly £20 on us to win..... f**k all

Unacceptable. One year 56 days without an away win and now getting beat 2-0 by **** Preston North End. Shocking.