Mick

We almost moved out of St James' when Sir John ran the club and the only people bothered were people (Dolly Potter and Co) who would have had nowhere to take dogs for a shit. I don't remember too many fans complaining that we would have possibly moved to a new ground which would have almost certainly have had a new name.

It'll be in next years accounts, I doubt he'll lie about it and everytime he's said it so far has been proven to be true.

It goes back to the original point, why is he taking it off the market over £20 million which he would/could have received at a later date when he could be out of pocket indefinitely? It doesn’t add up.

An increase in value is worthless if nobody is willing to pay him. He's sticking another £20 million in and will probably have to do the same thing next year as our running costs will increase if we do go up.

I honestly think we'd need an owner with the same amount of money as Man City. They would have to pay something like £150 minimum and that's before a single player came in. You would probably have to add another £50 million on players to guarantee staying up. The two sponsorships and possible renaming of the ground would at least help find some of that.

The thing is, he's allegedly taken the club off the market because of £20 million that he was going to get at a later date then he's coughed up £20 million now, it doesn't add up.

I'd rather have seen somebody in now who was planning for the future of the club rather than looking to find a buyer. If we sell in the summer then we'd need to spend a lot of money to avoid dropping back out of the division.

That's a very good point.

If we get promoted he'll just up his selling price when he next puts us on the market, the for sale signs will always be just a few months away with him.

The only thing we can't accuse him of is not putting serious wedge in, he's put s*** loads in.

Moat would probably offer what we need most and Ashley will never offer, stability.

"We are delighted that Chris has accepted the post of full time manager. He has done a terrific job this season and we wish him every success for the rest of this season and beyond. He will continue to receive our full backing and support."

I'm not sure he has to tie them down, I'm sure the Arbitration Panel clarified that it was part of a managers role to have final say on which players come into clubs.

The Leazes was as old as the ground.

Kenwyn Jones

Agreed, St James' will always be St James' and if we can use it to bring in extra revenue to spend on the club then so be it.

I hope he works out for us because he has had more shit to put up with than most managers get in a life time.

I forgot about Owen getting dropped and can't remember him facing down Barton and as I've said I'm not trying to make Shearer out to be anything better than he was. We'll never know if he would have been given more slack or not, I don't see why he should but he probably would have.

The whole of last season after Arsenal away was insanely chaotic and if you want to give Hughton the West Brom game then he won 1 in 9 and drew 2. Shearer won 1 in 8 and drew 2, not that I'm trying to big his results up anyway.

I wonder if Hughton would have had the balls to drop Owen or to take on Joey Barton? I doubt it. At least Shearer didn't pick by reputation. Also, we were playing in a much tougher league last season. I'm sure Hughton had a record last season which read 8 games played, 6 games lost, 2 drawn and didn't look as if he'd get a win in that division if we played 100 games under him, he had a worse record than Shearer.

I could have sworn Butt and Smith played together against QPR at home when we drew 1-1 and started off on our run of poor results.

Butt has been injured quite a bit and that is probably why he hasn't played as often as he might have. His first game back from injury was Palace away when he came on after an hour and he started against Huddersfield which was his second game back from injury. He was injured for the Leicester game and came back for the next game when he again came off the bench. He started the next game against Blackpool when we lost before going back to the bench then started the next two games against Ipswich and QPR before going back to the bench again. When fit, Nicky Butt plays more often than not. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have Smith back, Guthrie might be the odd one out although I don't see how he could fit both Smith and Butt into the same team.

I don't like Hughton as a manager because I think he picks on reputation and not on form, I like him as a person and hope that he can develop as a manager. I think the senior players probably have too much say when it comes to picking the team and because of it we're unbalanced as a team and suffer because of it. Nolan has said that Hughton tells the players to keep the ball on the ground, if that is the case why does he allow them to keep humping it? If he doesn't want that then why does he not drop the players who are guilty of that? Why does he not set out a balanced team which would create more space to allow the humpers to find a player in space? We have players who are playing the long ball and we have players who try to bring the ball out of defence, Kadar tried to play the ball but more often than not had nobody to aim at. Hughton isn't the best when it comes to making changes but he got it right yesterday, he still got it wrong with his team selection and our first half was too predictable for so many, it wasn't for him. This to me is another sign of senior players having too much say and is a sign of somebody who has worked closely with the players and is now struggling to distance himself from them and if he's going to be a manager then he's got to show the players that he's boss. He comes across as a nice bloke and that seems to be his biggest failing, he's got to grow balls and manage the players if he's going to do well. It’s up to him to make the jump from being a coach, I’m not sure that he’s got what it takes, we’ll know better in a week or two as he has some big decisions to make and I don’t think he’s capable of making them. If he reacts to outside pressure then the players will sense that and he’ll lose the dressing room, he can’t let players get the better of him and he needs to do something while he’s in a position of strength. Hughton needs to motivate the players and I can see him failing if he lets things go on as they currently are. Players are like everybody else and are usually motivated by one of two things. Usually motivation comes from wanting to do well because you want to be a success and gain the rewards, or, you’re worried about failing because failure brings shit. The kids will be motivated by the possibility of playing 1st team football but they’ll lose that if players keep coming into the team on reputation alone. The local lads will want to get us back into the Premiership and will be motivated by pride. Players like Alan Smith and Kevin Nolan are probably embarrassed to play in the Championship and will be motivated by wanting to get out of the league. Motivation will suffer if players think that others are not pulling their weight as they’ll think that they have to carry the dross. Nothing de-motivates more than people thinking that others are getting special treatment and I can see how some of our players could feel that way. In short, Hughton needs to balance the starting 11 and play the players who are performing, if he does that then we could walk this division and he could become a manager.

I doubt it, if we wanted to be unique we'd have to accept poor performances and defeats without questioning what was going on, I doubt any fans do that.