Elma

Yep We'll go down, Rafa will leave and we'll hire some no mark as Charnley will say, "Well look what happened last time we listened to the fans..."

Impossible to say really. We've got to look at the table like this now and aim to win it. Sunderland. P 0, Gd 0, Pts 1 Norwich. P 0, Gd - 4, Pts 0 Newcastle. P 0, Gd - 6, Pts 0 Technically we should be P-1.

That's what I was saying earlier, only I was thinking that they would keep him on as a coach as his contract probably says Head Coach - so it would probably be easier to get it through from avoiding a constructive dismissal case. Either way, I've a suspicion he will stay in some capacity.

What if his dad answers?

....and on pills for his nerves? The Bobby Chariot of football.

Kind of what I'm thinking, although I actually think McClaren is a proud man and part of his statement was "...regardless of whether I'm sacked I know I can get out of it". That's deluded of course as he and the team haven't shown it. I'm not actually sure he would have been aware of their immediate intentions when he said that. I just think that the club won't mind writing off a couple of million if we stay up, but wouldn't want to if we're heading down, particularly that if we do drop whoever comes in is unlikely to stay on and they will probably think that McClaren will be more suited to the Championship. It would have been 2 million ripped up in tough financial times ten weeks before he may have become useful. I see them covering their arses by saying they didn't get it totally wrong in that he is a decent coach, and provided he accepts that role then they will be saving a pay-off now whilst keeping him in their back pocket for a championship campaign. I appreciate how things going tits up at Derby would negate that argument for most of us, but Charnley & Co don't think that logically. They've also seen a similar appointment work pretty much immediately at Swansea. If you think it through financially (which is what they will be doing), then McClaren will be on the most of him, Simpson and Cathro. The new man will more than likely have to work with the existing coaching set up due to time constraints. The normal route would be letting McClaren go while retaining the assistant coaches. I just see them hedging their bets and keeping him on too to save the outlay and cover the very possible Championship challenge next season. Provided his contract and ego allow for that. If his contract does but his ego doesn't then they might win again by saving the pay-off. I don't know anything on this - I just explored the angles on it last night and this scenario jumps out as logical (if you try to think like Ashley/Charnley based upon previous decisions).

Maybe we wouldn't have to re-hire him? I was thinking this through last night. I think the reason for the delay just might be that they want to keep him on and are waiting to see who we get, and whether McClaren will accept it. They just might have stitched McClaren up contracturally with the title Head Coach, allowing them to restructure and bring in a Manager above him without McClaren able to do them for constructive dismissal. I think it's fairly well accepted that the new man (if there is one) will most likely only come in for 10 games. The chances of him bringing his own team in for that time are slight. They may be already in work and wouldn't leave a given job for one which might end after 10 games. The club will also want to avoid ditching the existing team team with over two years left on their contracts and will want some continuity to provide a smoother transition for the critical final ten games. McClaren's salary is apparently 700k a year, so we would owe him somewhere in the region of 1.6-1.7 million to pay him off. The players do suport the generally held belief he is a good coach but at the moment Simpson and Cathro are taking most of the sessions. Maybe they see him as suited to the Championship and would do what they did with Shearer/Hughton if we dropped. i.e. have him support the new man as head coach, but save themselves 1.7 million should we actually drop by having a ready made championship manager on the books for that eventually. If we stay up they will then have no qualms in sacking him if they believe the new man (who will then want his own coaching team longer term) to be the way to go as 1.7 million plus the cost of the contracts of Simpson and Cathro will be small change compared to what we will have saved. To me that seems the most logical reason for not sacking him at the moment.

Keegan after fat Sam. Could not have been more delighted. I thought I had actually got Ashley all wrong. At that point he'd done nowt to be hated for if I recall correctly? It was the whole, Vetere/Jimenez/Wise vs Keegan that started it off. He had inherited Allardyce, given him a decent amount of time, and Mort was saying all the right things. Outside of initially bringing Keegan back, Mort's the only reasonably competent decision Ashley's made in my opinion, and I think that was a fluke.

Interesting choice if so, we need a miracle. At least we might get more crosses in....[sorry]

But it blatantly hasn't worked for the last few years, if we don't know how to appoint a proper footballing MD, then the next best thing would probably be to hire a highly rated manager and let him do the job. At some point even Ashley must surely realise this? Agree - put in a good knowledgeable MD and the rest will follow. We wouldn't then have to tolerate weak managerial appointments and Carr would have been out the door long ago. Ashley should know by now that spending a few million on the right MD and manager, and letting the manager have more of a say on players (ins and outs) would save a load of money wrongly invested? However much evidence is thrown at him it seems he still wants to be surrounded by 'yes' men no matter how much it's costing him (the club). It's truly bizarre - he's probably just doing it out of stubbornness now.

I wanted Bilic in the summer and would take Moyes or Rodgers now. I think Moyes would do a good job long-term, although something tells me, maybe based on Keegan's style, that Rodgers and NUFC would be a good fit. Would take either of them in a snap at the moment, although Rodgers has said he'll look for work in the summer so may need a bucket of cash to persuade him. A lot less money than we'll lose by going down though so it's worth the approach in my opinion. Mind you, it'll never happen with Charnley there. If we remove McClaren then it'll be Nigel Pearson or someone similar. Despite squad imbalance and some criminal recruitment, the current squad is still good enough for 30-35 points by now and the reason I think the mackems are favourites to stay up (out of those on 24 points) is that Allardyce will bully performances out of their players. A Pearson or Moyes may get that response short term although Pearson long-term doesn't particularly fill me with excitement.

Agree with that. That's why I'm thinking Rodgers as we're certainly not going to defend our way to safety. We need to keep the ball, frustrate the opposition and use our midfield to create enough chances that we might just take one or two. There's a half decent side in that squad which should have at least 30 points by now. Why we never signed Huth when he went to Leicester is beyond me though. I was so pissed off at the time. £3 million

I'd happily take any of Benitez, Moyes or Rodgers. Benitez we've got no chance, Moyes would build long term and might be best for stability. However, I've a feeling that Rodgers might just be the right fit for us. He plays an attacking style and tries to keep the ball. He has said he's taking a break until the new season, but he might be tempted if we threw money at him - he might also think that a large club with gates around 50,000 and money in the bank might be a great place to get his career back on track. With Charnley there we'll get Nigel Pearson.

It is and I have been saying it for months but he still hasn't. We will know in the next 48 hours but I'm not holding my breath. My one hope is that with the money spent it must be near the time his trigger finger will be getting itchy. He won't do it but of course he should. He should boot Charnley out at the same time otherwise we'll end up with McClaren MKII if they do pull the trigger...

I wasn't....you might have missed the point there, or maybe I didn't explain it well enough. I was pointing out that Colo and Taylor have form as a pair. I haven't done the stats going back five years but I'd bet our goals against is far lower when Colo and Taylor are paired, than that of any other pair over the same period. Granted they aren't up against much (Williamson) and I'm not having a dig at Mbemba - I like him and I think he'll be a decent player for us. I'm just pointing out that Taylor and Colo have historically (and the few times they have been paired this season) looked more solid as a pairing.

We've kept four clean sheets all season in the league. Steven Taylor has only started two games. Those were two of the four. OK, so it was Man U and WBA, neither of whom are known for being prolific this season, but with other combinations (principally Colo and Mbemba) we've only kept two from 23. For comparison that group of fixtures includes Villa and Norwich at home. At the start of 2011-12 we conceded something like 12 goals in the first 13 games with Colo and Taylor together before the 0-3 Chelsea game when he first snapped his achilies. The stats suggest he's better than he's sometimes given credit for - he's just injured too often.

.....and money.

Exactly - none of Rodgers, Moyes or Benitez were free in the summer but they are all free now. They may have some contractural agreement with their last clubs that we need to cover but it's better than what we will lose if we drop out the league. With a nine day break before the next game now is the time to move.

I don't dislike Steve McClaren as a person - he seems a decent bloke and I wish it would work out for him for all our sakes. I also hate changing managers and think that stabilty brings success. However, that is only if you have the right bolke in the first place. Unfortunately Steve is just not a good enough manager and never was. Most of us knew that from the start but he was an easy choice as he was free and available. Never in Ashley's tenure have we gone out and actually spent money to recruit a manager/coach who was on the up at his current club. It seems to be the feeling that the coach is more or less an irrelevance and if we spend money on half-decent but cheaply acquired players now and then any old fool should be able to mould them into a side capable of keeping the TV money rolling in. We would be much better off if Charnley admitted he got it wrong in the summer, and we used the Townsend or Berahino money to sack off McClaren and bring in a top coach. Despite the fact we are missing a natural goal scorer, a left back, and a centre-half (at the bare minimum), this current squad has enough about it to already be at the 30 point mark in the right hands. Even if they wanted to continue the current approach and get a manager who is free, they could still improve with Rodgers, Moyes or Benitez. OK, so I'm in cloud-cuckoo land with Benitez, but provided they give the new bloke a greater say in transfer dealings then they've got a chance with the other two. Personally I'd take Rodgers over Moyes as I like his style of football and think he would be a good fit for us, but I've always been a fan of Moyes too and if you're going to give someone a longer period to get it right he could be just the bloke. For someone as stingy as Ashley, I still can't believe that he can't see this.

Think the difference was that one was on the ball and the ref waved play on at the time. Although Swarbrick mopped up after the Shelvey/Valencia incident, he didn't actually see it and it was technically off the ball. Never going to ban him though as although it was a cycnical foul to stop a player breaking into the box had the ball been released - if the ref had seen it it would only have been a free-kick and possibly, just possibly a yellow. There was no elbow and the FA will not retrospectively rule on fouls and yellows, only serious foul play.

Wait.....WHAT? Get out....get out now and don't come back. Unless you're born after 1987 there's simply no excuse for that....

Surely you can't break something you haven't got?

With Villa...oh my....

This is absolutely f***ing spot on. For all the talk of Ashley being the reason for the malaise at the club this this the real reason. Coming on 5 years with managers too afraid to do anything. McLaren should have come in and binned about 6 senior players off the bat. Instead he's handed one a new contact and made him the leader of the club, played Obertan and Colback etc. True - but the I believe the fact that Ashley has never gone out and paid money to hire a manager actually doing a good job and in the ascendency is actually the underlying reason. He always employs someone free, unemployed and ideally with connections to someone already at the club as it's the path of least resistance. He still doesn't realise that 5 million spent to release a decent, effective manager from a current contract will get millions more value from the existing playing staff. This is far more important than shelling out millions on additional players and expecting any Tom, Dick or Harry to come in and manage them into an effective unit. The same goes for the executive team. Charnley is nowhere near qualified enough to be doing the role he is doing, and his recruitment in effect led to McClaren's, but it was the easy option for Ashley. Ashley needs to wake up and realise that Charnley, Carr et all need to go, to be replaced by an MD with good experience for the role. More of the transfer sign-off needs to pass to the manager too, although I can never see Ashley agreeing to that as he seems dead set on the DoF model and the manager simply coaching the players bought for him.

The season we finished fifth we were rock solid in the first 10-11 games. We didn't look as good after Taylor snapped his achilles against Chelsea. I firmly believe that (prior to Mbemba settling as we don't know how that's going to pan out) him and Colo are the best pairing we have. I'd love to see the stats of goals conceded over the past few years when him and Colo have played together, as oppose to when it's been Williamson or someone else. On the assumption that the hierarchy won't sign another centre half I hope he can stay fit enough to play 25+ games this season.