Cronky

Sheffield won a lot of headers today, and the defence was under pressure from a not very subtle attack. I think Harper was decent again. He perhaps should have punched the ball for the second goal rather than relied on the ref to spot a foul. It's obvious what a striker is going to try to do in that situation. But that's the most you can say against Harper.

A real cock-up for the first goal. Colo was easily the best placed to close the cross down but he stayed put. I don't know how it's organised but whether or not it was Jonas's job to watch the corner taker, in that situation Colo should have taken the initiative and relied on a team-mate to cover the area that he was vacating. Colo isn't a leader. The second goal was a clear foul and illustrated how poor the refereeing is in this division compared to the Premiership. Mind you, I think many keepers would have elected to punch the ball because you can't always rely on referees. It also balanced out Shola's offside goal. The difference between this performance and previous ones is the difference between Butt and Smith. Smith can pass the ball quicker and more accurately into the player who is in the best position. I know that coaches say you should play the way you're facing, but the trouble with Butt is he can only play the way he's facing. He very rarely switches the direction of the attack and it's very easy to tell what he's going to try to do. All in all, lucky to get a draw.

I see the point there... but if we went up under Hughton and a manager of Mark Hughes' calibre expressed an interest in the job - it'd be a huge mistake not to bring him in. Aye he hasn't broken records anywhere yet, but he's a proven manager in this league and some would say a very good one at that. A far greater catch for incoming players, too. Aye it would potentially upset some of the harmony in the dressing room, but the majority in this squad shouldn't be regarded as key players next season if we go up anyway. The whole point of getting promotion would be to rebuild; start again. I totally understand what you're saying, but football is different to your average workplace. We've made these sort of mistakes before and it's cost us. I've got some doubts about the long-term consequences of coaches becoming managers, but the decision about whether to replace Hughton is different from a kind of theoretical discussion about whether manager X, Y or Z is a 'better' manager than him. For the first time in many years, we have a Chairman and Manager working together, a Manager working well with the team, and a united dressing room. I'd be very wary of upsetting that applecart, because we're going to need it if and when we go up. Even with some new players coming in, we're going to be one of the bottom half of the table strugglers, and we can't afford too much disruption. One thing I like about Hughton is he's always given the message that it's a privilege and great opportunity for him to manage the club. We need to attract players who are going to feel the same way.

Getting a near 50,000 crowd for a Championship game that was being shown anyway on terrestial TV was quite amazing, and it didn't get the recognition that it deserved. However, with that support, the question of why we've not won anything in 40 years becomes all the more pertinent.

I think Hughes is a decent manager, but Hughton has earned the job and I wouldn't look to replace him unless things start to go belly-up. If he achieves promotion, he should get the chance to move things forward. It's important that everyone at the club gets the message that if you do your job well, you get rewarded.

Hmm. When he starts off with Sir Bob saying 'I'd have given my right arm to be a pianist', you wonder how many of the others are made up as well.

He's yet to show this for us at all. In fact he's up there was one of our least effective and talentless players. For reasons of injury and misdemeanour, he has yet to have a run of games where he can build up his fitness. Yes, that is largely his fault and he has let the club down badly, but that doesn't make him a talentless player. Even in his short bursts of first team activity, we've seen that he can open up the opposition defence in a way that our other central midfielders can't.

There might well come a point 3-4 months before the end of the season when the momentum starts to flag and players get a bit jaded. Barton would be a good player to bring in to freshen things up. When all's said and done, he is our most talented player. If his career hadn't been derailed by all the trouble that he gets into, he'd be playing for one of the big four, I reckon.

Could you not argue the same about Bellamy a) for threatening to leave if we'd signed Rooney and b) not playing in a different position when the manager felt it was for the good of the team? Well for sure, Bellamy was no angel. He got too big for his boots so perhaps some kind of parting of the ways was inevitable. On one level though, I accept Bellamy for who he is, as Sir Bob did. Given on the other hand.... He could have stayed the season out. He just wanted to grab the opportunity of joining a bigger club in case the chance disappeared later on.

Got to correct you there. I think the original saying was that rugby was a hooligan's game played by gentlemen, and football was a gentleman's game played by hooligans. However, since professionalism came into rugby union, it's looked more and more like a hooligan's game played by hooligans. On the theme of arguing with referees, it seems to be tolerated in football to a far higher degree than in any other sport. It could be so easily cut down if the authorities were to get tough on a consistent basis. A good start would be cutting down on situations like we saw with Pogatetz on Sunday, where he ignored the referee when he wanted to talk to him. If they walk away from the ref like that, give them a red. That would cut it out in no time. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding there - you sanctimonious, superior, condescending bastard... ...I bet you love rugby. Delighted to set one of the lower classes straight, old chap.

I imagine both are being paid huge salaries which no other club will be able or want to match. I'd take Bellamy back. It's a risk, due to his chippy personality, but he was such a good player for us. Barton might be able to put him in his place in the training ground. As for Given, no. He put himself before his team-mates. He should have waited till the end of the season.

Got to correct you there. I think the original saying was that rugby was a hooligan's game played by gentlemen, and football was a gentleman's game played by hooligans. However, since professionalism came into rugby union, it's looked more and more like a hooligan's game played by hooligans. On the theme of arguing with referees, it seems to be tolerated in football to a far higher degree than in any other sport. It could be so easily cut down if the authorities were to get tough on a consistent basis. A good start would be cutting down on situations like we saw with Pogatetz on Sunday, where he ignored the referee when he wanted to talk to him. If they walk away from the ref like that, give them a red. That would cut it out in no time.

I share your irritation at this. It's true that rugby players don't argue with referees as much as footballers do, and that does a lot to harm the image of our game with non-football fans, I feel. But there's so much thuggery going on in rugby which gets excused in ridiculous ways. As an example, in the British Lions tour to South Africa recently, a South African was spotted by a touch judge gouging an opponent's eyes. He didn't get sent off even when it was reported to the ref, and when he got a ban of about 6 weeks, someone in the South African management said it was only part of the game. I agree it's also annoying when rugby players as a group start throwing their weight around in hotels and bars.

His reputation abroad seems better than over here. I don't know why so many are critical of him. He's a great player. I'd also put in Rooney for that big soft Portuguese poser.

The issue of when Mancini was approached is a bit of a red herring. When a club is unhappy with their manager, they will often sound out other possible candidates. I wouldn't expect clubs to only begin searching when the manager is sacked. Trouble is, Man City have made a bit of a hash of it by not being completely honest afterwards. The main issue for me is whether the Man City owners have made a sensible decision, and I don't think they have. Whatever talent Mancini has, I reckon he's walking into an unhappy dressing room and you can't achieve anything in that situation.

It would be interesting to have got the Guardian's opinion when Hodgson was sacked by Blackburn. I don't recall him having many supporters then. Maybe not but he had a good reputation before that, and his Fulham side play good technical football which is easy on the eye. He's earned his stripes to a large extent. I'd agree when you look at his overall record. I just feel that a football manager's reputation is very vulnerable to the mood of the moment. Many fans and club chairmen base their judgement on how things went in a manager's last job, or even on how things are going at the moment, without taking into account other things that may be going at the club, or particular difficulties that happen to be around. Hodgson's career took a knock at Blackburn, and his overall standing in this country has only recently been restored IMO. If I remember right, even Fulham only gave him the job when they were in trouble. Likewise Hughes. It's all very well buying expensive players, but it takes time to forge a team. Hughes has been judged too early.

It would be interesting to have got the Guardian's opinion when Hodgson was sacked by Blackburn. I don't recall him having many supporters then.

Beat me to it. When I first saw him, he really did look like he should still be playing for Tow Law. Weak, slow, lacking in confidence - if anyone had said he'd go on to win 60 caps you'd have said they were mad.

I'd like to see Blackpool do it. They play some decent stuff.

With Carroll, Shola and Ranger, do we really need another centre forward? I don't think so. With Shola out for a long spell, I reckon he was brought in to bridge a gap. Let him go now, he's nowt special.

Oh no. Now that is a misjudgement, however well intentioned.

Toure and Lescott aren't the best centre backs in the league, but arguably they were the best available. The really top players are out of reach because those players are at big clubs and want to stay in the Champions League. So City have paid over the odds for players in the second tier, in the hope of bridging the gap as soon as possible. That's hardly Hughes's fault. That's the aim of the club. I suspect that they've ended up with a divided dressing room. The influx of all those players at once isn't likely to lead to a harmonious atmosphere. I think there are a lot of players who support Hughes, but the club have effectively listened to the wrong ones.

As an aside, there was an incident in the second half when Harewood chased down a pass back to their keeper, and nearly got a goal by getting in the way of the clearance. The notable thing was that Harewood chased the ball at full pelt and spread himself as wide as possible to get the block in. I get irritated when I see strikers do a half-hearted chase in that situation, and that tends to be the norm. If you're going to pressure the keeper, give it all you've got. You never know what's going to happen once you put a bit of panic into the keeper's head.

Did you miss the Ipswich match? No. I just thought we played better in the last 15 minutes against Boro. But I wasn't trying to start a debate about what was our best performance. My point was that we don't always play with the confidence that we're entitled to. When we do, the gap between us and the opposition looks huge.

In the last 15 minutes, we played the best football that I've seen from us this season. We need to carry that confidence into the next few games. I know we're top by 10, but I actually think our performances can improve. We often seem to be paying the opposition too much respect.