afar

I think that's fair, honestly Terry was nothing special at all, just consistent inside a quality team, far easier to be a CB in a team that dominates games than one in a team that is on the back foot all the time. All the players you mention where better CB's than him.

Very happy with this, think he can only get better, his form towards the end of the season was excellent, stepped up when we needed him most.

Totally depends on who they hire, we've seen this year that teams like Huddersfield and Fulham have done well on a shoestring budget mainly because they've got a good young manager in, Monk too at Leeds, turning them around despite the crazy crap going down with their ownership. A good manager changes everything, hopefully they go with Phillips or Ball in the misguided notion that one the their Legends (and due to the caliber of the players in question, I use that term in the very loosest sense) will bring back the good times.

Wow, so his last ambition in football was to save a South London club which he had no affinity towards from relegation ? Clearly more to it than what's being said. Mackems are gonna be heartbroken, the minute though things start to go wrong with their new manager whoever that is, this guy's fat face will be everywhere with them.

Can see him going to one of the Manchester clubs or Chelsea for 50 million in a couple of years time.

We are biased, but in championship terms it will be seen as a big job. Someone who wants to get a start in management too will be attracted. It'll only be when the new manager is in place for a while that he will realise that the situation is grimer than it was sold to him as. See on one post on their forum it has Giggs as favourite, I would love that, totally unproven and likely to fail, he's exactly the type they would go for, thinking he can do what Keane did for them.

There are a lot of good young managers around that may fancy a chance at a "bigger" club, like the guy at Fulham whom I can never remember or spell his name, or Wagner at Huddersfield if they don't beat Reading next week. Lets hope they don't get one of those and instead opt for a re-tread like Owen Coyle for example or Steve McClaren, I worry about Pardew and his initial good 18 months at a club.

I don't know a lot about Gray, I admit to practically ignoring the PL last season, since we weren't in it. I hadn't heard of him prior at all. So don't know how good he is, however above all else we need to look for players that fit Rafa's system, it's clear from this season Rafa's not going to change to fit the players, it'll be the other way round. If Gray is a pacey, goal getter in the Gayle mould, then we absolutely should be looking at him, if not move along to someone else.

WTF man. Villa's net spend was significantly higher, did they buy 13th spot or wherever they finished. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I would lay money on the fact that no one in the championship had a net spend less than ours. How is that buying the title ? We loaned one player, who was a part time player, whom we were trying before buying. Unlike others such as huddersfield who had half their matchday team on loan, so that point is ridiculous. You've just proved my point how even our own fans seem to be brainwashed into thinking we bought the title, it's ludicrous.

It amazing how many forget or completely ignore the amount we brought in last summer, it's got to the point where even our own fans and local media are plodding the line that we spent 50 million to buy promotion, the fact that we were just replacing the players left and our net spend was negative 30 million is now almost universally ignored. Here's a quote from the mensas on their forum: amaistonsrightfoot said: ↑ Because the last thing we need is to spend 50 million to get promoted to then spend another £70 to compete in the prem. It would finish the club Newcastle bought promotion, and like you say, that squad will be ripped up and starting a fresh by majority. https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/were-after-daryl-murphy-according-to-chronicle.1364466/page-5

He should say f that, take all his money out of Arsenal and make Mr Ashley an offer, could save himself about a billion in the process and own a PL club of great tradition, imo anyway

I rarely get names on the back of my shirt, but for this one I got Hamann on the back of this one ahead of the cup final, within a month we had sold him, had to buy another shirt with a blank back, think I only wore that other one the one time at the final. The only other shirt I have had with a name on it is the White away shirt from our relegation season last year, it has Mitrovic on the back of it, it's a curse and I'm not going to do it again.

? Reading finished 3rd and Huddersfield only 5th due to goal difference. They were practically in the top 4 all season. For sure, the two contesting the final have been the ones up front all season and deserve it, did we at any point think Fulham or Sheff Wed would catch us ? I was watching Mooy closely tonight, got to say not impressed, I don't think he can make the step up to the PL based on tonight at least, he's 26 now too thought he was younger. I would lean towards Cairny if we are going to buy one of the two for sure.

It's not quite as bad as it looks. Oscar Garcia resigned shortly after being hired owing to a heart problem and his replacement, Billy McKinlay, was only brought in as an interim. Jokanovic then left after winning promotion having wanted daft money to stay on. Take those three out of the equation and it's still more than one manager a season, still shocking, amazing they are pretty stable.

Happy both our bogey teams from this season have gone out, the winner of Huddersfield and Reading will be favourites for relegation. Don't get the Sheff Wed love in with some on here, they don't hold any special place in my heart and why would you want a team that has beaten you three times in a row to be in the same division next year ? Think Reading will win the final, a team beaten 7-1 by Norwich City, both clubs will need major improvements if they go up, which is great for us, as they'll be a rival.

9 Managers in 5 seasons apparently, that's Mackem level of shocking.

If all we buy is cplayers who shone in the Champ last season, then you are right but it would be stupid especially in today's inflated market to ignore 2 or 3 of those players who looked the part to augment more proven top flight experience. The truth is we are re-building a squad here, there's a lot of work to do, in the end we'll probably sign close to the same number we did last close season and they won't all be Messi or Ronaldo or even James Milner.

8 assists in 80 goals That's not telling the full story, he's often starting the moves that opens the play up that leads to goals, assisting the assiters if you will. I'm not sure why he's getting so much stick on here really, honestly people have short memories of how bad we were when he was suspended. Shelvey was critical to our promotion, to many on here try to belittle his role for some strange reason.

And we'll (should) be able to get Cairney. If Reading do win hopefully whoever they get in the final beat them. Don't want them in Premier League. Boring club. My primary preference for who wins the big prize is a team we can beat twice a season, hence I don't want Fulham or Sheff Wed to win, out of the 4, we took most points off Reading this season.

How's Reading/Fulham looking, would rather Reading win as we've got a shocking record against Fulham.

I always wondered why NFL teams didn't have shirt sponsorship, or other things like pitchside advertising but when you look at these numbers and stack them against the amount of money coming in through the TV deals you realise that it's all kind of peanuts. I would imagine the NFL sells it's TV rights based upon an advertsing free product, where the broadcasters can chose whom they partner with, like the Verizon red zone or the tools to the success presented by Home Depot. It's a whole different approach, I wonder if the PL will eventually go down that route themselves.

I understand where people are coming from about the CB position, but it's down on my priority list because we have adequate bodies in there already. No. 10 for me is higher priority because we've lacked this so much this season, CM too when we have lost Hayden or Shelvey has been awful, we've had little production from an attacking perspective from the left hand side of our team. While in all that CB has been pretty good on the whole, didn't we concede the least number of goals ? I think we all agree Clark is more than capable, Mbemba is very young and probably our most talented CB, Lascelles is only a little older and full of potential and outside the end of the season was very solid. Hanley is the only real discussion point for me , he did not live up to expectations but he's also not that old so has time to develop. If we sell one of them then, this all changes to a much higher need but I'm not convinced we will.

Not sure how much truth is in that one but wouldn't surprise me at all that we try to pick up a couple of the players we crossed paths with last season in the Champ. Abraham, Cairney, Taylor, Mooy and others will be on our radar for sure.

I'm still very torn with the lad. Love his sheer desire to wear the shirt, the enjoyment he obviously gets from the good times. That's not however enough to warrant a place in the squad. He does a lot of work on the pitch to being others into the game, in some respects he does more of what the number 10 should be doing than the number 10's we've had. The problem is an obvious one, he couldn't score goals on a regular basis in the 2nd tier, I haven't done the analysis but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a better record scoring in the PL than he did in the Champ. He's only young with time to develop, we have to take that into account, but he's totally an unsuitable type of striker to play in Rafa's system right now, could he adapt to it ? Maybe that's not impossible. Again Rafa's call if he thinks he can work with him he'll still be around come September, if not, his age, form at Anderlecht and record at international level is good enough to make him a player we can easily move on if we are sensible in our valuation.

Dunno what the FFP situation is with the Mackems, but the extra year down in the champ is going to kill Villa I feel, it was reported yesterday that their transfer budget for next season is 1 Million ! They will get some money back on player sales and they will have benefited greatly from the bumper new TV deal, that Villa missed out on. Will they re-invest that in an attempt to do what we did and bounce right back or worry what happened to Villa. They can probably target more our net spend last year of plus 30 million than the Villa's negative 40 million or whatever it was. They've got a lot of work to do for sure but people writing them off as no hopers next year are wishful thinking at this stage. If for example they do sack Moyes, Huddersfield or Fulham fail to make it in the playoffs, they target one of those managers and get them, they will be in a much stronger position. Moyes himself had a pretty impressive record at PNE (although he never got out of the Champ).