Godders

The fact that Gestede limped off may be a blessing in disguise. It may scare the powers that be into paying January prices for another striker. Hopefully a one that will hit the ground running.

Turns out I nodded off part way through the first half. Looks like I didn't miss anything. I'm going back to sleep.

The more I think about this, the more worried I get... Its clear RL has well and truely washed his hands of us now. He has zero need to do anything anymore. He's just delegated his sole remaining fiduciary duties on the board. We're even more of an albatross around his neck now. A tax that he has to pay until he can offload us. If he's Executive Chairman, then it will be interesting to see how his role overlaps with Tom Fox's, since both (in theory) would be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running of the business side of the club (assuming the football side is separate). I understand this guy has no football knowledge, whereas at least TF has worked in the industry before. This basically means Randy would have given at least some executive decision making power to someone with as much industry knowledge as me. I wouldn't back myself as exec chair in my current industry, let alone one I've had no experience in before. My guess is he's a non-executive chairman, so I'm really not bothered what he says since he has no decision making powers at all- that still sits with Tom Fox. He's simply going to be RL's voice I think, since RL can't be arsed to say anything himself.

We're not hated. We're just s**t.

I'm not sure I buy into the whole Fox doesn't know what he's doing argument. I think he's more savvy than he gets credit for, and there's an awful lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about. I know I'm in a distinct minority here. Its being reported that Garde has already missed out on targets this window. I wonder if there was a budget agreed a while ago, but it's not enough. Lerner holds the purse strings, so we spend as much or as little as he wants. Fox et al may well have spent the last few months trying to convince Lerner that he NEEDS to open his wallet even to be competitive in the Championship (I wouldn't put it past Lerner to assume he wouldn't have to spend anything and we'd come straight back again), and this New York meeting is a "we told you so" type thing in an attempt to get a few more dollars out of Randy. I understand Fox will know Garde from Arsenal, and I also understand he was courting him for a while before he joined us. I think it's reasonable to assume then that they're quite close. Perhaps Fox and Garde are manipulating the media. In my opinion this would match the reported rhetoric from Garde that the whole squad needs replacing, that certain players' contracts need to be bought out etc, and could also explain why Houllier and McLeish are in the media suggesting we need to spend big. Given the bad publicity, I can imagine this would be like the artillery barrage hitting Lerner where it hurts in the media before Fox walks in and secures the cash we need to buy some half decent players. All very 'house of cards'-esque I'll freely admit, but maybe Fox is playing Lerner at the moment. Or, maybe no one has a clue what they're doing, and this meeting is to agree the transfer budget for this window.

What the actual f***, you can get us odds against?!! I will be lumping on! Easy money!!

Its paddy power theiving a margin. Odds on staying up for a break even book would be 10/1

Their salary has nothing to do with it. Earning fortunes isn't some miracle drug that can turn confidence around. This. Also, have you tried performing at the peak of your ability in front of tens of thousands of people ready to jump on your back the minute you make a mistake? I can understand the fans frustrations, but I don't think the atmosphere at VP is helping things at the moment. There was a 15 minute period on Sunday when we broke forward, the fans started getting behind the team, and all of a sudden we had arsenal on the back foot as the players' confidence grew from us, and their confidence meant we got more behind them. It's easy to expect the players to do their bit to get us out of this mess, but we need to do our bit as well and give them a helping hand.

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I would be extremely surprised if the players weren't expecting this message. I expect Remi has been banging this drum in training all week, and so there's no hiding place for the players, has asked Micah to give this message in his interview. I don't think the club is feckless enough that it has no control over media messages given by its own players. I don't see this as Richards going rogue

I thought we kept our shape quite well for the first 15 mins of the Everton game. More so than we ever did under Sherwood. The heads dropped once the first goal went in. That to me suggests the biggest problem at the moment is confidence. Get that sorted and I think this team will look a million times better.

Until he sorts his attitude out, he doesn't have a choice. Which other premier league team will take him at the moment based on his performances? I certainly doubt his ego would let him drop leagues either. If he wants a move, he should realise he has to earn it. Just like if he wants to play for England, he has to earn it, and if he wants to play for AVFC, he has to earn it. The ball is very much in his court at the moment.

I can see what Garde was trying to do. Everton fans are very quick to jump on their team's back when things aren't going the way they expect, which does effect the players. Nil nil at half time would've meant a loss of shape in Everton's ranks which Gil and Grealish could have exploited. Unfortunately for us, we had no players able to defend our left side, which was evidently the key to Everton's game plan since Hutton rarely had to do any defending. I think Everton played superbly yesterday, and would have given any team in the league a tough time with a performance like that. At least City and Real Madrid both conceded 4 as well, and they were both at home!! Watford will be interesting. There should be a little less need to defend down the left than against Everton, but they can be a very difficult team to break down, which is the weakest area of our game at the moment.

Nah. Messi's too lightweight to be trusted in a relegation scrap.

I'm not sure about Newcastle not going down. For me, they were awful today against a team they would probably be expecting to beat comfortably. They won today, but that's down to Bournemouth not being able to score rather than playing like they deserved to win the game. I really don't rate McLaren as a manager either. For that reason, I believe we will finish higher than Newcastle this season.

Personally I'm not holding out much hope, if we don't beat city we are 6 points adrift with Everton away next week which is very difficult indeed. Our start to the season was fairly easy and we may have shot ourselves in the foot by returning only 4 points. Remi without doubt has the hardest job in Europe right now I really don't think it's that bad. Watching Sunderland and Newcastle, I think they are far worse than us at the moment. Bournemouth have to start scoring if they want to have any chance of staying up, though they are playing good football. Watford have had a solid defence but haven't offered much going forward - will their defence keep them up? We will lose to City tomorrow I reckon. However, from what I've read and heard today, Everton weren't that great. Writing off the City game gives Remi 3 weeks to work with the team from when he came in before the Everton game. I don't think a point against Everton is an unrealistic expectation. Even worst case scenario, we'd be 9 points off safety after the Everton game with 25 still to play. I'm still optimistic we could make that back by the end of the season.

I'm almost certain they do want to come. Garde would have sounded them out when we first spoke to him. No way would we be this far down the line with Garde if his backroom staff didn't want to come here. Also, I don't believe in loyalty when it comes to football. The cynical side of me thinks we're just negotiating compo now. Or maybe it's already a done deal and will be announced after their champions league game midweek.

So if this is true, why would we wait around? Why not just say to Garde "look Remi, the job's yours if you want it. We'll get your choice of backroom staff in at the earliest opportunity, but we need a decision in the next day or two". I was pleasantly surprised when I heard we were so far along with Garde so soon after sacking Sherwood, so I'd be surprised if we didn't have backup choices we could go to if things went South. Could use it to force his hand? ?

We're joint 16th in the league for goals conceded and joint 19th for goals scored. While admittedly that's rubbish on both counts, our inability to score goals is the bigger weakness at the moment. Your point is still valid though if you think Moyes would be better placed than Garde to get us scoring.

Reckon the headline if he's appointed would be... (drum roll) ... Changing of the Garde

Let's not forget. Fox hired Sherwood. Who admittedly gives amazing facials. No doubt if you asked Sherwood about this he'd reply, 'If I had to back one person to perform in an intense bukkake situation, I'd back Tim Sherwood.' Well you can't be right 100% of the time I guess. Unless you're my missus. She thinks she's right 100% of the time. She's not either.

So let me get this straight... We've sacked our underperforming manager when it was expected we would (two games after we were led to believe he had two games left), we're apparently in advanced talks with another manager on the same day we sacked the previous one, and the guy we're linked to is actually a manager of some reputation that a number of people on here think would be good appointment? Blimey. It's almost as if the club we're doing some serious planning while we were all losing our s**t on here the last few weeks. This Tom Fox fella may actually know what he's doing!

I disagree. I think we're perfect for Moyes to come back to England for. The bookies, the press, a lot of the fans and probably a lot of the general public would pretty much write us off as relegated already. As long as Moyes believes there's enough quality in the squad to stay up, we may well be a club that appeals to his ego since he would be the saviour of Aston Villa this season when he keeps us up - what better way to rebuild your reputation?! I'm certain that if he does come in, he'll frame it as massive ask in the press to keep us up, which will further add weight the job he's done when he does keep us up, or if we do go down, then it's pretty much what most across the industry expected anyway. He can effectively manage us with no fear of failure. I can't think of a better job he could walk into to reaffirm his management credentials.

It could be they're just reading this forum!

Just checked the latest odds. Moyes is 2.5 (or 3/2) to be our next manager. He was 3 (2/1) before the Sociedad game, and his "I'm not going anywhere" comments. So bookies now reckon he's around 40% to join us, in from 33% before their game