KaKa

Would love to see Hughton thrive and go on to be great. Barring that then Sven Goran Erikkson, who would be a realistic option I think.

Rio it is then. Capello is brilliant.

Is Rio a guaranteed starter these days though? If he's fit he has to be surely. Still a great defender, despite the odd blip lately, and just so experienced and accustomed to big games and high pressure situations. Also a very vocal leader on the pitch, and you need as many of those as you can get in big tournaments.

Don't think the decision is completely based on morality either. I think if anything it takes the pressure of Terry.

Next captain has to be Rio. I was surprised Terry was made captain ahead of him in the first place. I like the idea of Rooney too, but that will come in time.

Think it's the right decision. Leaving him as captain would have been soft. Capello's MO has been discipline from the outset and it's worked a treat. Everyone knows he is no nonsense. It's got the best out of the team. This move further emphasizes that. Absolutely no one is untouchable or above Capello's demands. I think it will serve to keep all the players even more on their toes and will therefore have a positive effect if anything. It's an embarrassment and disgrace for John Terry, and if he is still in the squad then I imagine he will seek to redeem himself by playing his absolute best. Should have a positive effect on him too. Good, strong move by Capello. Excellent leadership.

A number of interviews in the Journal with him today. Sounds like a very sensible guy. Really does seem to have his head screwed on right. Think he's going to do really well.

Black power! Just can't beat it.

Bingo! This guy really could have been something else. Immense potential and was so young when he started coming through. Completely threw it away by just being a bum. Maybe we'll sign him in the summer and he'll turn it around.

Interesting to see how things play out for England, but it could get ugly.

As has been said before. How do you know that without him, we'd be playing football that deserved to win? You dont know that it would happen, people simultaneosly accept that areas of our team are rubbish & then also expect that we've the quality to take apart every team with the right manager. The central midfield he's had to work with, isnt really the best for passing & moving football is it. For all we know he's getting the best results out of whats largely been a side with a massive weakness all season. We may have had to play as we have been to get the results we've had, that doesnt mean its perfect each time. But in the majority, it may have been. The commitee of players thing is based on little more than the players saying they got together after the Orient game afaia & has been exaggerated for amusement since then. It isnt rare for a manager to let the players have meetings and sort things out between themselves, its happened for many sides. It doesnt mean he has no control does it, again its assumptions formed to fit a negatively biased opinion of him. Before the last game itd only been 3 games since Nolan scored. Its a managers job to put faith in his players, let alone the sides top scorer. I imagine he'll be coming close to a decision to drop him soon, i see no reason to think he wouldnt. He has shown he can identify the weaknesses in our side previously, hes not blind. With Smith its a case of him or Butt & people are happy with neither at the moment. Butt was better than both in the last game for me, but people werent happy about him staying on either even though we ended up massively on top after the other two went off. The things he does arent that baffling. You could argue that you'd do it differently, but the choices he's making arent as idiotic as theyre made out to be (on the whole). Good reading. Very, very sensible guy.

Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor to me. I think in Hughton we have a manger who makes players feel good about themselves more so than the opposite, and so it hopefully works out.

Word is he's s*** though. One man's dung is another's diamond. We'll all cross our fingers and hope for the Best (see what I did there!).

Isn't it also quite refreshing that the club seems to know what it's doing this time around? Moved very quickly onto other targets when they were unable to land the first ones they went for. So early in the day and it seems this deal for Best has been all sorted out. No more silly, cringeworthy emails with empty promises from Mike Ashley to Sky Sports. No more weird quotes from the manager about Ebondo and M'Bia. Just an actual signing would you believe! An intriguing one at that. Let's hope he grasps his opportunity.

I have to say the response on here is really disappointing. This is a young player who seems to be coming into his own this season as far as scoring goals goes. At the very worst from the tiny bit I have actually seen of him, he has a lot of pace and he is strong. Two things we severely lack upfront. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that the club didn't just succumb to bringin in a tacky loan signing like Daniel Cousin in instead. Best I believe was in the final year of his contract so he wouldn't have cost much, and will now have a chance in a much better team to show if he can make the next step up. If he doesn't he will still be a very affordable and useful back up striker next season, if only for the fact that he would be useful of the bench because he is quick and strong. People say he is worse than all our strikers? Really, as far as I can see our strikers not only struggle to score consistently, but they also cause no threat through their sheer physical attributes. The only one who seems to have any potential to do either of these two things is Nile Ranger, but it seems the club prefer to bring him along slowly. I really hope by the end of the season we can all look back at the initial reactions in this thread and laugh at how silly they were. Why anyone would ever be so harsh on a player before he's even had a chance to step onto the pitch is beyond me. Moving to a club like Newcastle might just be the making of the player. In my opinion a lot of these sorts of players who are deemed too average don't get enough chances at better club, especially considering their youth. It might just excite him enough and give him more belief in himself. Happy that we have another young player in who is not just a lazy loan signing. Also really happy that he is a good athlete who has got strength and pace as we need this badly. Good luck to him.

Can't believe the attitude towards Hughton on here. In my opinion he is winning in spite of the state of the team. People on here were clamouring for Mark Hughes and I had to laugh. If Mark Hughes came in tomorrow who do you think would be in the first team? You think he would leave Smith, Nolan or Butt out? Keep kidding yourself. Huge credit to Hughton for benching Butt, which I honestly don't think most other British managers especially, would have done. It's a tough balancing act, as unfortunately our worst players are our most experienced. If he can just promote us and get us into the summer I feel he has a good eye for decent players and would sort things out properly. For now he's grinding out the results however he can get them. Sack him? Crazy talk.

Are people still really slitting their wrists over this?! Get over it for goodness sake. Pathetic!

Very good point. If he ended up at Forest or WBA that really would be tough to take.

Ambrose wouldn't be a bad second prize. The only central midfield player who can really get forward is Nolan, and he's so slow. Would we even play Ambrose in the centre though? Pointless bringing him here as a winger. Ambrose has played behind the striker for Palace this season right? It seems he has really had a break out year playing there. Really scoring a lot of goals. We have Jonas and Routledge, so hopefully he would indeed play through the middle if we did get him. I think it would be a good option if we could get Ambrose tbh. Still young at 25, and really seems to be hitting his stride now.

Wow ... no need to get so down about this guys. If we don't get him then it is what it is. Hopefully we can at least land an alternative player in a position we need to. We have brought in decent players so far, and hopefully we continue to do this, whether it's Moses or not. Don't get me wrong it would be dissapointing, but let's see what else we pull out of the hat first. It was fun while it lasted.

Hope our link to this fella was true if we fail to get Moses.

I think Hughton is trying to balance the fact that our most experienced players are our worst and it seems the younger our players get the more talented they are! It's a tough situation for him. The fact that we're top shows he's done a decent job so far. We simply aren't going to play pretty football with Smith and Butt in the team. I'm sure Hughton knows they're crap. He just has to ... we just have to hope we go back up and I'm sure in the summer more changes will be made.

It's like he fears every side in this league. The 4-5-1 wasn't necessarily the problem I don't think. It was the fact that Guthrie wasn't central n this formation and because Carroll was so poor upfront. If we play that way with Guthrie and Smith central, Ranger or Shola upfront and Jonas back out left with Routledge right. We would play great I feel.

Williamson is class ...

Nobby is on ... no stupid freekicks around our box please!!!