Mowen

I think too much blame that the players deserve is being deflected to Hughton personally.

Catching up with people and having a few pints is the only enjoyable part for me. I go to more aways for obvious reasons and always enjoy the part in the stadium, even if more for the atmosphere these days.

As you wish, our strikeforce (without Ameobi) is a perfect example. Carroll, Ranger, Lovenkrands, Harewood = championship. Solid, normal, run of the mill championship. Nowt else. Given that the midfield was also the worst in the premiership last season I'd say that it's also championship standard. The defence is what gives us hope really.

Erm....obviously a joke as I'm complaining about OTT opinions.

BBC sport usually has them up 2 days after the game I think.

Boycotting, fuck me. Going to the games is the only enjoyable part of supporting this club at the moment.

Bit controversial I guess but felt like I needed to make this thread. I can't take this anymore - and I don't mean from the club. The reactions to us losing some games on here have been fucking pathetic of late in my opinion. No, I'm not happy and I'd rather be winning, but football doesn't work like that - you don't win every week. The OTT reactions (I know most of them are knee-jerk, but even so) are just pathetic. Several people say they can't be bothered with it anymore because we lost to Scunthorpe; I don't want to come across Superfan here but you signed up to support the team, you fucking support them whatever's going on. Things like "this is pathetic, we shouldn't be losing to Scunthorpe". Why not? If they outplay us we should, that's how football works. Yes, we're all gutted with the damage Ashley has done to the club culminating in our relegation but football goes in cycles, everyone goes through lean years. Football is transient, nothing lasts forever and just because we've been better than a lot of teams in this division for a long time now doesn't mean we "should" be beating any of them, whatever that means. Part of the appeal of football is that it's constantly changing and you don't know what you'll get next. I think we might have been spoilt of late, my old man reckoned 16 years was the longest stint in the top flight he could remember. The reaction to Hughton is one I find staggering. 5 games ago he was getting lauded for performing well above expectations and rightly so. Now it's changing and we've dropped a few points he's getting panned (even though I suspect not that many people would have expected us 2nd after 13 games with no investment and no change at the top). He's still the same bloke, out of his depth, doing his best the same way he has been all season: why have the attitudes changed so much? It seems as though we can't take losing. No-one enjoys losing and it winds us all up, but reading some of the reactions to the inevitable dropping of points makes me understand why other fans sometimes get the impression that we feel we have a divine right to be in the top flight. I don't think I've worded that anywhere near as well as I planned but the general point holds imo.

More money that Ashley's cost the club through his inability to not be a cunt for a few seconds.

Without a shadow of doubt LBW. I'd love to see his tactical pre-match team talk. At a guess I reckon he'd spend about 4 minutes trying to say "tactical", fail, start laughing and then leave them to it. I reckon it'd be an improvement.

Cheaper than fat sam cost him I guess.

What's your prediction Gol? In the unique position on this board of knowing about both teams.

How many did he injure last season? There was Beye and Barton for us, sure there were a couple of others.

Scores goals from there though. As Ronaldo says, he doesn't. Hattrick he was behind Ranger and Carroll, same for the goal against Plymouth where he was fucking awful until a second striker came on. Was on holiday for the palace and huddersfield games mind so can't comment on those.

Haven't been impressed by Nolan behind a lone striker once this season.

I'm more concerned about the sitter he missed than his effort, although I found him to be as annoying as fuck on Saturday. You can get away with a style that doesn't look like you're trying if you're actually playing well, if you're not it will cause people to get on your back. Ultimately, when the chips are down the fans want you working your bollocks off to rectify the situation.

We've still only conceded 2 in the last three though, one of which was a deflected shot from outside the area. It's the continued lack of ability to create or finish anything meaningful going forward which is costing us and it's down to the midfield not functioning properly.

I've got a feeling we'll turn it around tonight. Just think we'll have too much. This isn't based on much in particular.

One of the few players getting his name sung on Sat.

Just another body to deflect some of the blame away from Ashley whilst it all crumbles around him.

What is there to negotiate? You'd think Hughton was holding out for a better job the way he's going on Hughton probably wants some sort of dwarf to come in and do the transfers bit for him.

A booking the ref said sorry to Smith for at HT I was still trying to get my pint finished on the concourse and missed it

The critics of the Ashley regime have been cropping up more and more of late. They're very late on the bandwagon but the media always are in football.

Our midfield was the worst in the premiership last season and has only got worse.

I dunno...with Bramble you always knew the talent was there but he just couldn't concentrate. He had some great games but pulled out a few too many clangers. Shola's pretty much been shit his whole career with the odd burst of 2-3 decent games.

Shola's turned out a lot of shite performances for us over the years but i wouldn't say he comes into the 'worst Premier League strikers' category. The turning point for him was at the end of the 05/06 season, when he was finally out of Shearer's shadow. I'm still gutted for him over that pelvic (?) injury that kept him out of the following Roeder season. He's never recovered. Nah, he's nowhere near it really. I'd be surprised if there's a worse premierleague striker who's played as many games as he has though.