MrBlack

I honestly think another 6 points may even be enough given how terrible everyone around us looks. 6 more probably enough, 7 should be, with 8 more i think we're laughing. I dont, however, think we'll get 8 more, and whatever happens we are almost certainly going to need to beat west ham on the last day

Didn't realise his court date was so far away. Is the potential punishment limited to licence points and fines? If so, he's probably fine given footballers live in a world where these things seemingly don't matter to them (loads of money for the fine, ability to afford a chauffeur/taxis everywhere they want to go, and a world of employers that couldn't give 2 sh*ts about whether you broke the law ). We should have used the incident as an opportunity to instil Mings as captain. Behind the scenes we could sell him the story that its to ease the pressure on him and leave him free to do what he does best. I don't think being captain in our situation is doing him any favours.

"protect the sporting integrity of competition" - the most significant thing that FFP achieves is the exact opposite of this. Total joke of a regulation.

The aging team we had last time we were relegated needed replacing in its entirety. The team we have this time will need whoever we lose to be replaced, and maybe a decent winger or striker added to it assuming we lose our most creative player in grealish. Financially we are sound and will have more to spend than last time, with less required and fewer FFP restrictions. They're completed different situations. Mings, McGinn and the others that have only been with us a relatively short time will either sell for decent amounts or have to stay. They're not irreplaceable.

How have we gone from having a game in hand on everyone to having played a game more? Why is it fair that we've played 4 games in quick succession after a 3 month break, whilst other teams have played 2 allowing them to get up to speed more gradually. Are the Premier league deliberately trying to screw us over?

These are my thoughts also, albeit put far more eloquently. We probably over achieved last year, we may be under achieving this year. Dean can take major credit for the former as it wasn't his squad and he was the only difference between us being crap and not. He takes partial credit for the latter given the management structure we have in place with regards to signing players. Had we been a success this season Dean would again have only been partially responsible. The only evidence we have is to say that he got a poor team playing well last season. We can't be sure if the players we have this season are capable or not, but evidence suggests not, and I'm not inclined to solely blame Smith for that. Just wish he wouldn't wait until 70 minutes to make changes when we're losing.

That's fair enough. It reassures me that he's a fan as he will be as desperate for us to win for himself, for his dad, as well as for his job and career. The free ride was as much for the fact we were a complete sh*t show before he became our manager and he turned it around, as for the fact he's a fan. It just gives him a bit more leeway for me. Not enough on its own, but all counts

1 - Others have stated that many successful endings have started with poor runs. History is littered with examples, most notably Alex Ferguson at United. Yes, the modern game has examples too but that isn't really the main point. I'm not expecting the players that we assembled at haste following an unexpected promotion, with a core team that for the most part of last seasom struggled to compete in the championship, would be competing above the relegation spots. Our current form largely reflects the quality of the team we have, so the stability i'm after is giving someone more than a season to build a team. You can't fix what was wrong with our club in one season. 2 - Jacks performances improved under Smith's management, surely he takes some credit for that? 3 - I dont see what happens in training, we didn't have much in the way of other options, and not starting your very expensive striker when your only alternatives are youth strikers isn't exactly a stick to beat him with. I'm pointing out that he has the opportunity to demonstrate what he's learned from going through that, and having made that mistake, and maybe in future years he wont sit idly by when the owners feel it is OK to go into a season with only one (unproven) striker 4 - or we run the risk that we repeat the exact same mistake we've made for the past 15+ years 5 - I said its a pretty weak reason, but effectively I don't see any benefit in swapping managers now. I think the same outcome is happening this season irrespectice of who is in charge. No short term bounce is happening that will help us in those games we're almost certainly going to lose, and I reckon Dean is as likely as anyone else to get us a win against crystal Palace and west ham. Its an opinion, I expect others will disagree 6 - I prefer not to sh!t on one of our own, especially when I only hold him partially responsible for the mess we're in. I am not saying there aren't counter arguments, but I'd just like us to have a manager for more than 1.5 seasons and Dean is worthy of having that opportunity.

The defence part could be down to the opposition being rusty as anything else. I'd guess that match fitness is less of an issue for a defender than a midfielder/winger who generally covers much more ground at a much faster rate. Either way, agree that we haven't looked particularly threatened defensively but don't think anyone stands out as having played well there. Offensively we are definitelu letting ourselves down. And yes, good point about Luiz, hopefully not just trying to put himself in the shop window. Don't think it undermines my point about McGinn though, he is still capable of performing in the PL.

Yes he's been poor since the restart, but who hasn't in our team. I don't fully understand why his injury seems to be taking longer to recover from than expected (players all react and recover differently) but I can see that he was our second best player before he started playing through injury. Who's have thought that doing that, followed by a covid-impacted rehab routine might hamper his recovery, although I do think he should still be at the races by now and for some reason he isn't Saying he won't cut it in the PL is premature, he already had done to a degree before he got injured. Need to keep him if we get relegated, and I'd back him to be good enough next season whether we do or not.

Quite a damning indicment on our strike force, although as its a per minute stat and he hasnt been that present this season probably not as much as you'd expect. I suspect as grealish is one of the most fouled players in the league Conor gets more than the average number of opportunities to create a goal scoring opportunity when he's on the pitch. Doesn't make up for his seemingly nonchalant attitude to everything else on the pitch, and for me demonstrates why he should be used as an impact sub at opportune moments

That meme doesn't work post lockdown, althoguh given its from a Man City fan that isn't a surprise. He's been one of the most disappointing players in these last few games. Guess you can partially blame Smith for playing him out wide, but even so, the meme doesn't work yet. I don't buy that he doesn't want to keep us up. Maybe subconsciously he's struggling with the fact he will have to leave if he wants to fulfil the current view of what a successful football career looks like. Maybe his desire to stay and see Villa become a force again is fighting that or any other demon that is encouraging him to leave and his mindset is taking a hit. Confidence may be hit based on our results and his respectice performances. The court appearance may be playing on his mind. His fitness will no doubt be weak, given he was getting drunk at McCormacks during lockdown, I doubt he was fully committed to the season restarting. If he accepts that he's moving, or decides he's staying, it should free his mind. the court decision will probably treat him kindly being the high profile person he is. His fitness will get better. There's every chance he becomes our saviour, or fulfils that meme in the remaining games.

I'm very much undecided. In the immediate aftermath of our most recent terrible performances i want him gone. When I calm down and think about it I can see the merits in keeping him. 1) we've not had stability for decades. There isn't a single manager we've had that had ended up getting the boot in that timeframe that even the slightest part of me wanted to stay. Smith would offer stability. 2) the fact he did get us promoted, with us playing some of the best football we've seen in those last 2 decades, is nothing to ignore. He got our longest winning streak in modern history. Admittedly a large part of that was thanks to Grealish, but the whole team was performing exceptional in the second half of last season. 3) despite his insistence on making late substitutions, if we go down with him doing that, he may just learn he needs to add more to his managerial skillset. He has never managed in the Premier league before, he will have if he brings us back up next season. 4) the team we will have should see us capable of promotion with any of the managers in the top half of the championship, so he's got a relatively easy ride to get us back up, and if by December it's looking poor then is the time to change. 5) weak reasoning; there's no benefit sacking him now for this season. I see us staying up or going down irrespective of who is the manager. It really depends on whether any of the other teams pull off a shock result, which would mean our results in games that we should win (Palace and wet spam) are the only two that really matter 6) he's a Villan that deserves more respect than any of our recent managers, and even the chance to have this season as a free run in reality, we were likely to be shafted given how mission impossible this season was in retrospect

That could be a godsend. Even if they don't rest them, their star players aren't going to be throwing their all in and risking injury pre final with nothing else to play for. The way i have predicted things to go though would see a draw against them being as useful/useless as a loss, so we'd still probably need to beat them to avoid a last day nail biter

I have done a predictor being fairly negative with our scores, fairly optimistic with our oppositions and have it looking like this on the last day: 16 Watford FC 37 7 12 18 33:54 -21 33 17 West Ham United 37 8 8 21 38:60 -22 32 18 AFC Bournemouth 37 7 10 20 33:57 -24 31 19 Aston Villa 37 8 7 22 38:64 -26 31 20 Norwich City 37 5 6 26 25:63 -38 21 Brighton a few points out of danger zone. Would mean us needing to beat West ham and then Arsenal or Everton to do us a favour against Watford or Bournemouth respectively. Don't think my heart could take it, but if that were offered to me now I'd probably take it.

Its coming down to us v west ham on the last day isnt it

Watford look ready to self implode with three of their players having a party last week and consequently getting dropped this week. Fingers crossed this means our survival challenge isn't insurmountable

Would be great if they took advantage of the impending relaxation of FFP rules and went with a morale boosting, worthy sponsor instead of any of the morally corrupt gambling companies. That assumes our owners haven't been made bankrupt by the impending global financial crisis and dont need the income to spend it.

My bad, sorry for use of that word. Consider comment retracted, but I have to ask why would you tar them all with the same brush then? There are (albeit not many) decent British managers out there. Rodgers, by your own judgement would do a job, so don't assume they're all useless dinosaurs. Admittedly I don't see how we 'd persuade him to leave Leicester or be able to pay them enough compo but I'd give it a go still. What about Howe? Bournemouth would likely want rid of him if they go down, if they stay up he'd probably still be attainable due to the respective club profiles and the fact he hasnt pushed on following to some limited investment? Maybe not ideal for us but he's got some lessons learned there that would be valuable for us and has a progressive playing style, getting players performing above their ability. Beyond that you're looking at lower league managers currently, and I'd agree the step up would be too much for them. Whilst no more risky than hiring a foreign manager that hasn't managed in england before, it would likely just be a case of repeating what has happened with Smith. Monk had experience in the PL with Swansea, over achieved at blues, but admittedly hasn't demonstrated much in his current role at Sheff Wed but may be another option. I'd back Smith to get us promoted next season, but not sure if he has learnt his lessons this year to be able to do better in the PL next time round. Post the covid break there are too many variables to play the blame entirely at Smith's door. Ultimately, I'm still not sure swapping for another totally unknown quantity that hasn't managed in England is the way to go after the rotation of managers we've had lately. Stabilise then build for me.

What would you call implying that all people from the same country are "all shit"? Maybe it was inferred by TheTrees and me, but if you're trying to make it clear that you are referring to a type of manager, talk about their style, not the country they're from

If we go down and lose all of those we're f**ked. There is no way we'll have the ability to attract decent alternatives for all them, no matter how much money we have to spend. Maybe enough to encourage the better players in the championship to join us, but that just means a further rebuilding job down the line. We have to keep McGinn, ideally Luiz as well and El Ghazi has shown he has more than enough quality for the Championship. We'd get a lot of money for Mings and Grealish, but investing it without holding on to those other players that we won't get much for (that are worth more to us than the value they'd bring in) would cripple us.

Equally, it could be him just liking the fact it was a goal he scored. He's not a genius in the world of public relations (demonstrated most recently by his lockdown antics). As for the maguire thing, maybe he just hates Norwich, or likes maguire. Who knows. Reading things into tweet likes is just going to drive you insane. Not saying he isn't off, or that it won't be United by the way.

Its racist labeling all British managers the same anyway. Irrespective of whether you think he could no longer help us

If he's made the bench the last few games presumably he's as match fit as any of our other attacking players. Given he's a lot younger and naturally won't take as long to get up to fitness surely he's likely to be more ready for a match. Feel like we missed a trick using a few players that are clearly miles off the pace in our opening games, that has seen those players miss or waste our best chances. A young Indiana, with far less pressure due to an absence of fans, who would play his heart out just being in the starting lineup could have been an answer. Similar argument could be made for Louie Barry. Samatta looks like he's spent lockdown smoking 20 a day, and needs time to get his fitness back. Give this lad a go (although not against Liverpool as we will get hammered and that won't do anyone any favours). Anyone know if hes played in the youth teams in the same team as Keinan and how they worked together? Would you feel more confident with him in the starting lineup than a guaranteed no show from Ally?

I suggested that keeping one or two of the old guard from last season would have been sensible for stability, experience and emergency backup but the argument against it was that we've tried it in the past and they just end up being a waste of money. Most were against it as I recall. This is one of those things that is probably clearer in hindsight, but at the time it wasn't so clear and largely considered the right thing to do. Who's to say that we would be any better anyway. I'm beginning to think it was always mission impossible, thanks in a large part to FFP rules. At least with FFP rules we haven't gone bust doing what we did if we go down. Imagine going down and having spent another 100 mill.