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That would be making the assumption that Ashley and Mort have good knowledge of the game. They remain unproven, so you can't say how good or bad the appointment is going to be. Although I see Ashley as the type to do it his way how about assuming just like anything in business you research and you ask for opinion. Maybe I am being stupid thinking there is a chance Ashley will know who he wants due to him asking the right questions of the right people.

Out of interest HTT and forgive me if you have already been asked or stated but who would you like to see come in to make this whole thing "worth while"??

So they fired the manager without having someone already lined up? ffs. ssn have been very contradictory on one hand they say Ashley knows who he wants they are also reporting that they will take as much time as they need. All seems to point they know patchy information to say the least. The common sense part in me recons no one would do this unless they have a pritty good back up plan saying that we still dont know exactly how good this board is at making "crunch" choices

cause they said "fuck off" and he didnt fight it he took the bag of money and ran to his car laughing going "yippee yipee I am comming steve to buy a house next to yours" btw its just a theory

no shearer and no foreign manager so who the fuck do they want!!!!

well I dont see why he doesnt give carroll a good look over but obviously as many have said he hasnt exactly set the world alight when he went to preston.

it appears sa has more faith in carroll than shola, I feel if he had a bit more go about him he would have moved on as he is never going to be anything but a bench warmer here. I too dont know him personally but my friend from work sees him every week obviously for church and regularly gets a chance to talk to him never seems anything other than a humble lad who knows he got lucky finding his feet with newcastle. He always had decent perfomances in the uefa as teams didnt know what to make of someone so tall and "gangly" but never seems to cut it in the prem.

it reminded me of boa morte's place that not grand putting into account how much they are on when you compare their places to redknapps place its like they are living on a council estate

Dave that episode is ancient he will have remodeled a few times by now surely!

not that i want to start a debate on this but the guy i go to work with is in shola's church group, they dont sit round pointing people as sinners, and by all accounts he is a really down to earth lad.

have often thought what it would have been like if he had been given his shares and moved onto a directing role at the club, but i feel after he moved on it wasn't really the same Keegan for me. 200m could be sunk into the club on the pitch and we may still go no where certainly a romantic thought having it go back to the good old days but as many have said times have moved on dramatically and I just dont think he has the mental stamina to ever do it at top flight again.

I am sure i remember when he left Bolton it was supposedly for a break from football then he gets offered a big challenge in us that he felt he could do but mentally he may have still wanted the break. Only time will tell I voted to loose him now but agree with HTT's comment in a previous thread that it would have to be for someone that was a mark improvement and not just someone of equal ability, we are somewhat a poison challace and need a special sort of manager to turn it round.

few articles i have read have suggested spud, us and man u were after him with man u being the more likely destinationl. Fair play to him showing the club some loyalty obviously ramos wants to get the spuds leaky defence sorted

He needs service. When he gets it he messes up far too often i'm afraid, and i'm sorry parky, what torres cost liverpool is irrelevant, whether you think he was worth the money or not isnt gonna make martins a better player Martins is not a top tier forward comparing him to the likes of Torres or Villa or RVN is grossly unfair. If you lot want a forward all these posts reflect well stump up the £30m and you can have one. and just ask chelsea about crespo and to a lesser extent shev how more of a kick in the face it is to invest huge and get limited return

Ignoring the agenda driven opinions, this is correct. The whole balance of the team is wrong, I've been saying so for over 12 months, the sale of Solano and Dire - even though he disappeared down a big hole for many matches - has made it worse. Somebody at the club decided not to replace Solano, and Dire with someone who actually plays. Was it Allardyce's decision, if so he wants shot. Or was it a financial decision by the club ? If it was, to balance the books, and if this is going to be their approach, stand by for real mediocrity. Those who prefer balancing the books will then have nothing to complain about. This is a fairly basic point and it would be nice to know the answer. Solano and Dire both wanted to go mate, for different reasons, but they did. One I was happy to see the back of, the other not so. I think the aim was to get defensive replacements in for the summer window it was obvious to all that we were shite at the back and keeping the back four would mean we may as well just play without them. Adding to this the "review" that mort put in place right at the end of the window. I think Sam has said he did have ideas of who he wanted but by the time he acted they either were no longer available or had moved on. I dont know if that then made him rush into buying smith due to dyer wanting to go, parker not being part of his plans and solano wanting to go sam may have felt another player with no prem experience was a big risk too much to take and we may be suffering for it. Smith reminds me of Parker loads of passion and commitment but if you had to rely on him to be your goal threat or your creative outlet you were barking up the wrong tree. I guess waiting till the summer (if sam is allowed to stay) will see where sam wants to go in terms of his formation plans and his player choices.

remember too mate your idea of a consistant back 4 aint going to happen with the african nations comming up. if we are going to improve in midfield I think it should be a top class defensive midfield player and maybe a new right winger. The back 4 obviously need more shielding and we need to have an attacking presense on the right wing, where are our crossing comming in we have a target man in viduka and I have seen martins jump like he is on springs so goals would come just at the moment any attack we do seem to come straight down the middle and when we press we leave this massive gap between the midfield and defenders for even the least creative teams to have a go at us.

its frustrating when you find gems like beye but other than that I really think the rest of the back could be improved on. I agree that consistency is important but I just have this horrid feeling that we are still in a need of a high calibre centre back.

so being 12 points infront of sunderland who are in 18th means that we are likely to be drawn into a relegation battle? dropping 2 points may make the difference between us getting a european place this season but it wont see us drawn into anything at the bottle luckily for us this season there are plenty of poor teams struggling for points allowing us to make this type of fuck up and get away with it.

so basically minus the "gelling in factor" we still have a weak back 4 regardless of the total replacement of the 3 B's

swap that for either sunderland or boro and you may be close to being right.

I think Brummie hit in on the nail when he said many had us up there back in the mix of top 6 no problems I knew this season and possibly even the next was going to be tricky. Alot more clubs out there have become alot better there is now a pack of teams from 6th- 12th that all seem to be swapping league positions. I think many myself being one feel rather let down when we seem to play so badly against the "lesser teams" I think you're right. I had personally hoped for a run at the top six this season, which is looking increasingly unlikely, (even though we're only 4 points behind 6th place now). It's funny how raised expectations lead to increased feelings of disappointment... anyone who says anything this season is worse than losing 1-5 to a Championship team needs a lobotomy, in my humble opinion. Today was massive really, and unfortunately Allardyce and the players have blown it. 2 points behind Everton/Portsmouth, 1 point behind Villa and still only 5 points off Liverpool and things look miles better. Of course it's only 2 points dropped, in the grand scheme of things, but Sam will know how important a win was here. Wigan takes on huge importance now, even more than it had previously. Let's hope for a Bramble disaster or two. we all tried to tell ourselves not to think about steam rolling a team as "no team is easy to beat in the prem" and "on their day any team can beat another" but lets be honest we were all licking our lips at this fixture especially sinse its really a tough few games comming up and with players going and unkown transfer situation we can all start to feel negative again. I said before the season I would be happy for top 10 this is still very likely maybe even an intertoto cup place maybe be all we can hope for but this is still progress in my opinion based off the last few seasons as there have been so many across the board type changes.

I think Brummie hit in on the nail when he said many had us up there back in the mix of top 6 no problems I knew this season and possibly even the next was going to be tricky. Alot more clubs out there have become alot better there is now a pack of teams from 6th- 12th that all seem to be swapping league positions. I think many myself being one feel rather let down when we seem to play so badly against the "lesser teams"

Well the wait may have been worth it then should definetly be allowed to start for the Wigan game just because he has scored 2 in the behind closed door games and was like a breath of fresh air when he finally came on today (although in my opinion 10-15 mins too late)

one of the only things roy keane ever taught smith was to have a go at the ref and every other official within ear shot. Doesn't make him a bad player just when he isn't doing it on the pitch his bitching can become that more annoying.

Well once we grabbed the lad back I think we did it in that brief session in something called the uefa cup. Yeah I think he played there against Palermo and got an assist. Not sure if he played left wing on many other occasions, Man United at home? I know its getting a bit off topic but I cant remember if it was roeder tinking or if it was when zoggy was injured and we were playing Duff as a striker and I think he was asked to play their. From again what I remember he did ok and certainly he has not showed himself up when being asked to play there for SA I just agree with everyone that the lad has a lot of his game to improve to really deserve a week in week out place (possibly more competition will bring something out of him)