Beren

And loaning out another body.

Weirdly, today it's not even close! I can never remember wanting Sunderland to win - not even against Stoke - but today, I hope they humiliate Liverpool. They're capable of it too. Liverpool are balls away from home quite often.

Think I dislike Liverpool more than Sunderland right now.

The only significant "problem" with Hughton as far as I could see was the expectations built up in the minds of fans who saw our performances against Arsenal/Sunderland/Everton/Villa and set those as the bar. Anything less was unacceptable - forgetting it was our first season back with a poor (and small) squad.

These threads have now become a warm comfort to me after a shite performance (or even one that famously papers over the cracks) Only took me seven years to develop a tolerance to them!

Neither are/were particularly amazing in this league but there's only one that I felt was capable of learning and improving. Importantly I think the players believed it too.

My point was that something you quite sensibly regard as a "given" clearly aren't to all managers - as Lovenkrands has enjoyed continued runs in the team ahead of a fit Nile Ranger/Pardew continues to play people out of position. Hughton also evinced a capability to adapt in playing Barton at RM too.

It's racial bruv!11 No creditbility.

What a joke.

The stuff I cut had no bearing on the mistakes I was talking about. Tactics, starting XI's and subs. You might not feel it has a bearing on what you originally referred to, and that's fair enough - it was afterall your point - but if you're looking at whether he displayed capabilities of learning/progression as a manager overall, it still counts. (Binning Perch and Smith from the starting line-up's isn't good management it's simply having the power of sight) Like starting Ranger over Loven? Or keeping our established RB Simpson in his correct position when our LB gets injured? Oh...

Fair enough. I think he was pretty unfortunate with some of those results incidentally - like the Blackpool game which is paraded about so often - but in which we had 13 shots and they had 4. His substitutions were a bit off though, that's true enough. Having said that, wouldn't say that he didn't learn from his mistakes/wasn't progressing, based on the part of my post you cut (for formatting purposes, I assume) and the balance of things he did address compared to what you feel he didn't.

But do bigger teams have more structure or more greatly defined roles? Surely greater ability leads to more movement hence more liberation? I think he'd continue to display good ability at a bigger club. Although I tend to agree he does overdo it at times. I don't know.. the Blackpool pitch can resemble a beehive at some points I see where you're coming from, and I'm fairly confident he would continue to impress - but right now he is often rampaging down both flanks, through the middle and playing a killer-final ball from his own corner flag... I just can't imagine this jack-of-all-positions business continuing if you have established/accomplished players ready to take the burden of responsibility on if they receive the ball... so he may not be the team superstar, popping up everywhere. He would, you hope, continue to wreak havoc from whatever his role would be - and I'm sure he'd still float a fair bit - just less.

I've found myself watch a lot of Blackpool games in their entirety this season, and while there is no doubting Adam's quality - for every wonderball you see on MOTD he wastes about three or four really promising opportunities to build up play by spraying an adventurous ball diagonally across the pitch where only a metre margin of error would suffice. I think at Blackpool that's okay because they work so well as a team supporting his roaming role, and let's face it, he (and Vaughan to a lesser extent) are the heartbeat of that team so if he loses possession it's fine - there wasn't much that was going to happen. In a bigger team, with more structure/defined roles.. I wonder how well he would integrate unless he adapted his style and lost some of his spontaneity/wildness.

Very similar to Hughton in that respect. He's now got 2 weeks to come up with something for Wolves who are on a bit a roll. Saturday 3pm kick off means I'm not too hopeful. Our 3 (winnable) remaining home fixtures are scarily close to the Boro, Pompey and Fulham fixtures we had at the end of the season we went down. Sincere question - to which mistakes do you refer? One of the reasons I think Hughton was so well liked (and evidently continues to be so) was because of his lack of hubris. He saw Perch wasn't working out, and when Simpson was fit again he replaced him (without publicly destroying Perch's confidence either). He saw Smith was shite, and brought in Tiote (and displaced Smith from the team to accommodate him I might add) He saw we needed some more quality and creativity to link midfield and attack and he pursued Ben Arfa. He didn't strike me as intransigent or especially prideful about any of his decisions.

Didn't catch the derby tonight, but I see the Benzema machine keeps rolling on. Great time to hit form.

Dempsey.

And his great press conferences. 'That's still very much speculation' 'That's something, I'm not aware of' 'This very difficult BARCLAYS Premier League' You forgot "spirited group of lads" 'there's going to be ups and downs" Top manager (although I don't recall Hughton having a down that saw 1 win in 9, mind you)

I changed my captain from Coleman to N'Zogbia at 11:15

It's not even a statistics thing tbh. Hughton made you proud to support the team. You liked the players, you liked the manager. Pardew gives you the creeps and you don't trust the philandering fucker.

A special mention for Harper. He's never been a fantastic shotstopper and his distribution is iffy at the best of times - in fact all he has going for him was the sense of calmness and experience he brought to the back four and that he was dependable (or at least more so than Krul). Well, that's gone to pot today. Ridiculously bad performance. Horrible management by Pardew, absolutely dreadful. Poor team selection. I would criticise his tactics but we didn't seem to have any. He didn't instil them with any sense of passion or desire - we looked awkward and aimless on the ball, slow to close down or stifle them. It was as bad as the Stevenage performance. We've played poorly a lot without getting a deserved tonking a few times this season - this time it caught up with us. Anyway fuck this, getting on with the rest of my day. Lovenkrands to start in two weeks time no doubt.

Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands Lovenkrands

Negative goal difference - we'll fit right in with the other relegation candidates now. Fantastic upgrade on Hughton.

What is Alan Pardew's pre-match team talk? [/Jeopardy]

Great play by Ranger. Way to impose yourself on a game.

How was Campbell at fault for the goal btw? He followed his marker back, staying goal side, narrowing the angle - not a great deal more he could have done tbh. It was a good angled header from a fantastic cross. The crosser had too much time/space though.