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The real question is, who's going to really sign him after Ajax accept our bid?

It's like the entire fucking window has been carefully calculated to drive all of us insane. Fail to win tomorrow and we'll need a suicide watch thread.

We're never signing anyone ever again.

Having done a lot of thinking over whether there are any decent available managers out there lately, quite intrigued to see who Southampton appoint. There aren't a lot of non-terrible options.

It's a no anyway as he's not a yes man and speaks his mind. I kinda wish he'd speak less of it. There's not a whole lot worth listening to.

I really don't think appointing a self-admitted fascist to be manager of our club is a good idea.

I'd go along with this. What strikes me is he started off by handing Fat Sam a relatively massive transfer kitty when he had just arrived, promised to plough 20 million of his own money into the club on a yearly basis and was living the dream in terms of being a sociable club owner trying to mingle with the fans. After the whole Wise/Keegan fiasco and the flack he copped, he has obviously lost his enthousiasm for the club. Even last season's excellent results and the end of the mass public critcism of his running of the club has not changed his stance in this regard; I think he considers buying the club as a mistake and would sell as soon as het got his money back. Unfortunately for us, he bought us at the height of economic prosperity and no realistic buyer has presented himself due to the economic crises that followed, so we are being run as a going concern on a shoestring budget until somebody comes forward to take us off his hands. Massive shame. Pretty much sums it up. In the modern economic climate, Arabs or other arbitrarily-rich commodity moguls are probably the only realistic buyers for a football club of our price tag. Unless we strike ridiculously lucky Ashley is going to be here for the forseeable future.

Meh, all you European types are the same to me.

Exactly what QPR need then. More talented, brooding, inconsistent players.

Remains to be seen whether it will be actually be worth anything or not, but you can definitely feel a sense of urgency in our recruitment that wasn't there before. It seems that those behind the scenes are being strongly pushed by player/manager pressure or genuine fear of relegation. Possibly both.

I mean, yeah, this sucks, but not every bad things has to be pinned solely on the shoulders of Ashley/Pardew. Plenty of other stuff to tar them with anyway

We have proved ourselves to be pretty canny TBF. In this case it's that we don't have enough money. Have we ? We LOOKED as if we did with Cisse, then look at his goals return this season.. We LOOKED as if we did with Tiote but he is now unrecognizable as the player we signed... We probably DID get lucky with both Cabaye and HBA(the latter because he had been at loggerheads with his previous manager) but how long do you think they will remain at SJP if we either get relegated or just miss it? We missed out on De Jong and he has not been a success so far at Moenchengladbach - likewise Douglas - we had to sell Ba for a relative pittance because we wouldn't have got him anyway if we hadn't agreed to the exit clause in his contract and we got lucky with selling Carroll because Liverpool were stupid enough to pay 35m for him. Obertan has been poor and Bigi is still a young player...Good is on loan to Bradford . Colo is probably the best signing we have made and that was under KKs management - there is no way Ashley would have agreed to Colo's original contract. Then we have the likes of Williamson...perhaps we won't go there.. As for Debuchy, there is NO way he would have arrived at SJP if Cabaye hadn't been there..... If we don't have enough money how come QPR did and whose fault is it if a club getting 50,000 gates versus one getting 20,000 odd can't compete in the transfer market ? A London club with 20,000 would be more attractive to most foreign players than NUFC with 50,000 or even 70,000.

Needs to be a balance really. There need to be football people to suggest a goal to move towards and businessmen to ensure they get there in a sustainable way. As wonderful a manager as he is, I certainly wouldn't want Kevin Keegan to be our owner It's obvious thought that Keegan is right here though, and he said this over 2 years ago and nothing has changed Quite a bit has changed since the Keegan days. We're just finding different ways to fail.

He's a centre forward that drops off the main striker isn't he? Yes De Jong and Ben Arfa behind Cisse feels like it would be decentish. We'd get murdered out wide. Meh, just need the fullbacks to be a bit more disciplined and a mobile anchorman who can cover the flanks quickly. You can make anything work if you're willing and able to put in the planning/training hours.

He's a centre forward that drops off the main striker isn't he? Yes De Jong and Ben Arfa behind Cisse feels like it would be decentish.

Needs to be a balance really. There need to be football people to suggest a goal to move towards and businessmen to ensure they get there in a sustainable way. As wonderful a manager as he is, I certainly wouldn't want Kevin Keegan to be our owner

Hardly matters. They're pretty much the 4th richest club in the Premier League right now and in modern football, money = long term prospects for success.

If a smart businessman is one who learns quickly, then Ashley definitely does NOT qualify...! Given how he was during his first transfer window compared to how he is now? If anything the man learns too effectively

Board failed to strengthen with players from a point of strength to keep the momentum going. Been very unlucky with injuries whereas last season apart from Taylor we were very lucky. Too many players playing poorly and a manager who even at times with the better players in the side has seemed clueless this season and lacking ideas.........let alone when we're reduced to all the backups. Hmm. Still, strange to see such a swing, even given things like injuries Our biggest problem isn't not strengthening. We should still be comfortably mid table even with last year's squad and the horrific injury list. The problem is that players who played fantastically well last season are now playing like they belong in the Championship and are doing their best to get the team there.

As a casual observer, I really do not get what happened there. How did such a good side go to being so mediocre, so quickly? I don't either. From the first day of the season you could tell very quickly that things weren't going to click like they did last year. Didn't think it was going to crash to this extent though. Also, calling us "mediocre" is excessively charitable.

At the end of the day I suppose the best way of avoiding the two poles of suicidal tendencies and apathy is to remind yourself that regardless of what happens to the overall fortunes of the club, you'll always have 11 lads in the shirt to support on a Saturday morning. This year is more painful for me because last year made me hope that we might actually be going places. Need to condition myself to take my eyes off the big picture and focus on each game again.

Absolutely.

Just feel like fate is demanding that we go down this year. Everything that could, and some things I didn't even consider to be possible, are going wrong.

BURN

That's partially true, but if so, what approach works other than "have more money than everyone else?"