Gallowgate Toon

No idea. Moyes would be a success here, longer term, but it's going to take a while for a defensive manager to iron our awful defence out and he's not going to provide much motivational input to counterbalance that in the short term. We need someone with presence but nobody really springs to mind that would actually want to work here.

4-3-3 has been used sporadically, aye, but we had a pretty decent run of playing Gini left, Sissoko right and Perez & Mitro up top towards the back end of last year. Edit: not arguing it's not due another shot with Townsend, btw. That'd be a possible way for us to go for the foreseeable, with Gini now looking so rubbish.

I think you can blame McLaren for his part in this. We look bigger losers than ever and he has persisted with a terrible formation all season. We have no width, midfield is overran too frequently and 1 up front has been killing us. A reluctance to dump players like Sissoko, Colo and Wini away from home and not realising Mitro probably needs a partner up front To be fair to SMC, we've tried quite a few different formations and there are a real lack of options within the squad. 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and 3 at the back. His selections are what's killed us so badly recently, along with his inability to motivate some key players.

Down and I don't really care. Just hope we keep a good core of players and can rebuild properly. Starting with that cunt selling the club.

Some of his selection choices have been very, very poor, recently. He also didn't need to change the home formula from the last game, and it was imperative we had a good start yesterday - we did try to start quick but the likes of Riviere stunted it. Far too panicky with some of those choices. He should go. I do think he's made some progress on the footballing front in his time here but that's ultimately nowhere near enough. This squad's doomed, though, so much shite running through it and still a huge lack of mental strength. Craig Hope can fuck off too. His article about that press conference is an absolute disgrace, reads like a fucking awful Sun exclusive. Calls himself a fan, man.

Sissoko's biggest problem is a lack of resolve. He's a very decent footballer (if inconsistent), in most aspects, but a man of his stature should be raging around the pitch and taking hold of games. Instead, he's an absolute sack of shit when things aren't going his way and fannies out of anything that isn't a one-to-one shoulder barge. The 'fighting' thing is a cliche, but you could see it in Shelvey yesterday, he wanted it and was going at it even against the odds. Although I hated his performance, I still don't think Sissoko deserved the boos and jeers when taken off. He generally puts in more of a shift than most (still could be better on that front) and actually tries things.

Terrible decision to start him.

Terrible, terrible decision to bring him back in.

Shelvey put so much of that lot to shame, today. Not necessarily in terms of quality, just actually caring and doing the minimum - he wasn't bottling tackles and was actually showing desire on and off the ball.

Normally stick up for him but today was abject. Him and Wijnaldum looked the definition of couldn't be arsed. Actually furious with Wijnaldum, tbh, thought he was a much better character than what he's shown in the last few games.

So true. He looked lively, to be fair. Showed a knack of getting onto the end of something, at least, which Mitro really can struggle with. Should've been on much earlier.

It's unabidable (if that's even a word). What happened was entirely predictable and when we finally did give it a go they suddenly looked vulnerable. We could have got a point or even a win if the manager had some cojones. Tbh, I'm past the point of caring now. I don't think it's objectively bad, we've tried attacking this season and tried defending and been poor at both.

Sigh. Can abide keeping it tight at this point in the season but his team selection was poor.

We're awful defensively and need to start picking up away points. If there's a time of the season to forget pretty football and just do what needs doing, this is it. Sorry mate, but if your idea of fun is to hope for more of this crap in the hope that we may survive to get even more of it next year I don't know what to say. We're beyond s***. The results are s*** and the football is s***. We are the turd that won't flush from this league. If rather than giving it a real go and trying to play some decent football we are resigned to hoping Sunderland don't beat Palace and we can draw at Stoke playing hoofball with 10 men behind the ball this club is in a far worse state than I ever imagined. Why would this be my idea of fun? We need to pick up some away points, in the short term. This isn't what I'd ever want for NUFC proper, this is simply what we need to do now to see this season out.

We're awful defensively and need to start picking up away points. If there's a time of the season to forget pretty football and just do what needs doing, this is it. We've not played pretty football away from home, all season! It's just the same rubbish which has gotten worse by the month. There's zero gameplan, belief or determination. Too many simply going through the motions, with one eye on their next move and of course, backed by an impotent and clueless coach. We've approached games more openly and been cut through with alarming ease.

We're awful defensively and need to start picking up away points. If there's a time of the season to forget pretty football and just do what needs doing, this is it.

Fuck off David Craig.

The last couple of away games have seemed very complacent. I know we don't have a team of grafters, like, which we probably need a better balance of away from home, but it appears a little like some of them have taken their foot off the pedal because we've got some new players in and they can pick up the slack instead.

We'll agree to disagree there. A better manager wouldn't have us near the bottom three. I'm pretty sure of that. It's irrelevant like. Same here, I just don't get it, we've had s*** managers for 5 years yet some people can't or won't look past the players. Perhaps there's no goals and a leaky defence in part because the coaching and tactics are s*** as well? The idea that people think Mitrovic, Perez, Wijnaldum, Sissoko, Shelvey, Townsend & Aarons aren't good enough to be firing us out of the bottom three is beyond my ability to comprehend. Aye, we've not had any strikers in the last 5 years that have scored plenty of goals under crap management. Even this season Mitro should have close to 10 already but has missed plenty. You can only blame coaching on so much. We've got some nice technical players, yes, but there's an overall lack of clutch between them. We could be in the early stages of making a good side but there's still a long, long way to go. Any mid-table side worth their salt should, at the very least, have a solid defence. We just don't. I blame all parties for the mess we're in, they're just as culpable as one another. Nobody should escape blame. Edit: we shouldn't be bottom 3, btw. Lower, lower mid-table is where we should be.

McClaren isn't very good but the idea that this team should be comfortably mid-table is a very misguided one. Not enough goals and a poor defence.

Setup might be one thing, but it sounds like he's consistently having much less of the ball than his team mates when away from home. That'd suggest it's more an individual thing than a team issue.

There'll be plenty of twists and turns yet. The mackems put together a mini run a while back too and then sunk back again. That'll be the general pattern for most clubs around us until the end of the season.

Just look tat Derby, if you want to look at the credit he should get for us playing good stuff. They've got a fantastic squad for that league and their fans are openly saying the football isn't as good as it was under SMC. It's not as simple as saying, better footballers = automatically better football.

He's meant to be a massive pisshead, no? They've been dropping down a while but surely, if it was for footballing reasons, they'd have given him longer.