villa89

He's got a free pass this season because they can only improve from where they were. At the end of the season all the pundits/his friends will be saying he's a genius for turning it around. The real test will be when they give him money in the summer expecting a top six finish and he signs a load of dross.

Can't see any new manager bounce from West Ham in this game. They look a rabble. I really hope they go down.

It's in the contract. All clubs (and countries) have to wear the away kit a certain amount of times. Its the same in Rugby and other sports too.

An important test of our promotion credentials. It will be interesting to see how it goes. If we take the 3 points even skeptics like me may start to believe.

Their struggles are not a surprise and it's for the reasons you have outlined above. They have a decent first XI and that's about it. They don't have any real squad so playing the CL and trying to compete for the top four was always going to be tough for them. It was always going to be a battle between Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal for fourth. Spurs were never contenders to finish in the top 3 IMO.

It depends on the price and he'd be 31 at the start of next season. We don't want any more players signed to high wage long term contracts that we can't get rid of. Now I don't think he's the type of player to turn out like Gabby or Richards but just because he's done well for us this season doesn't mean we should automatically keep him. Plenty more (younger) fish in the sea.

Can you forward it on to me? Off there on a stag next March, it'll be about 30 Irish lads so plenty of boozin' done.

He did, there was no coming back from where he left us. Especially with the players that he signed.

Could he get 20 goals this season? He's well on his way and he wasn't even in the team at the start of the season.

If they spent £45m on glyfi before MON imagine what kind of tripe he'll buy. £50m for ruben lofus cheek

Please God let that happen. It would mean him leaving the Ireland job.

I know a lad who broke his ankle skiing. He had low bone density too. Four operations later he lost his foot. True story. Hopefully codger heals well and comes back as good as ever.

Yeah I'm not sure why anybody (including the people of Zimbabwe) are celebrating. The new guy is just Mugabe 2.0

I'm not sure I have any sympathy for them to be honest. Why would you pay to go see your reserve team play in a competition that you are already knocked out of? Maybe they had bought their Europa league tickets in a package before the group started...

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Racist scum most of them.

I'm on the fence but the fact that he's done nothing for them so far and can't get into the team doesn't bode well.

Oh how joyous that would be. Players earning 60K a week and a 20 point deduction down in League one.

He wouldn't be. I doubt they are ready to cut their losses just yet after having wasted £25m on him.

Not going to be any money for signings in January by the looks of it. They are definitely going to be there or thereabouts for relegation.

It depends on how you look at it. In my opinion we should have been in the top 2/3 all season but due to a poor start we are now slowly moving back up the table. You can take the view that Bruce is getting the team to where were should be and we are on course for automatic promotion or you can take my view that we will continue to be inconsistent and end up in the playoffs at the end of the season. As an example have there been any games in a row so far this season where we have put in 2 or 3 really good performances back to back? I don't think so. It's only occasionally we play well an it's never sustained. We should have dominated a terrible Sunderland team at home after beating QPR and instead we fell over the line to scrape a win. We'll probably do well against Ipswich and then come unstuck against Leeds.

I think the anti-Bruce folk (of which I am one) don't agree that we can get better with him as our manager and that's the important point as he's not going to be sacked unless we plummet down the league.

I don't understand this logic, if we hadn't been beaten by the top two teams in the league (both of whom comprehensively outplayed us and embarrassed us) then we would be better? I supposed you're correct in that if we had been good enough to beat both of those sides then we would be top and should be considered the best team in the league. However unfortunately it's not what actually happened so I don't get what point you are trying to make at all.

It's just telling us what we already know. Against the weaker teams we can overpower them with the talent in our squad but against the better teams we get outplayed. It's not a mystery but our manager isn't able to fix it.

2-0 up at half time, could be 3 or 4 by the end.