PRL

Yeah, I think to say Hughton is 'inept' at PL level is pretty harsh considering he's never actually been a PL manager. You cannot judge someone on a few games as caretaker, it's madness. I actually think Mowbray was treated harshly by Celtic, they should have given him this season to entirely bed in and judged him on next year, but that's football these days I guess.

I don't really care about 'liking' the way a team play in the Premiership if it means that they are going to get relegated as a consequence. You admit that our players wouldn't be capable of playing the football he'd try and get them to play and even when he had his 'own' team in the Premier League he was unable to keep them there. That sounds like an awful plan.

I have us on 98 them on 88. They'll go on a bad run from Reading away I reckon.

Bit gutted they've got rid of Johnson, they couldn't play any worse than they have the past few weeks. Getting twatted at home by Donny in their last match had me very confident, not so now. Will be at this one.

Yes, thanks Chris, and as a thank you we've given your job to someone else. I think if Hughton will be still here next season it will be as manager. If he isn't the manager he won't be here anymore. Joe Hart for example also went away from Portsmouth after being sacked and didn't go back to his former position. I think I'd rather keep nets for Brum than manage Portsmouth...

Slaven Bilic was rather decent on one of the shows the other day

The Beeb's official stats are fantastic reading. We only had 5 shots on target apparently 1 of the goals was a header. I think it's more a case of penalties not counting as a shot, still confused me initially when I glanced at them. Nor do headers, but were both probs right, with us having one shot on target that didn't go in. what? Of course headers count as shots on goal! What would make you think otherwise?

Shows they’re not fickle though doesn’t it? That they’re not going to start kissing his ring just because we win a few games in a league we wouldn’t even be in of it wasn't for the Ashley inspired disaster that was 08/09. Was there any need for Dekker to accuse them of not being proper supporters? I have my reservations about overall benefits of the signing section but they get behind the team game in game out. so not chanting about him is kissing his ring ? as for getting behind the team quite alot of it is taking the piss out of the oppositions fans and starting anti ashley stuff. i personally like the gallowgate east stand corberes response when the kids start with the anti ashley stuff.......they start chanting "newcastle newcastle newcastle" this was noticeable on the radio and made me smile. We're stuck with the guy, we are top of the league and we are winning 6-0. Not the time or the place. All that said I wish llambias would shut the fuck up, BBC, sky and program notes repeating same thing and clearly having a bit of a dig, all so tit for tat

sounds like we're the better team without creating much.

QPR have been appallingly mismanaged / owned... Attacking-wise they have some of the best players in this league. I actually quite like them, hope that Warnock turns them round (with the final game of the season an exception)

As someone who hasn't followed the thread... How has Parky managed to rack up a 3 goal lead with Benitez remaining in his job? Upsettingly reminiscent of Istanbul.

Fucking yanks I play saturday league at the moment, which is supposedly of higher standard than Sunday leagues, and I'm surprised I haven't seen anything kick off properly yet. I think it's partly because my team are a very sound group of lads but it's got close a few times. Having said that I was on the receiving end of a horror tackle 4 weeks ago (still got massive bruising) and my own team were laughing at it, the cunts. My experience of playing Saturday league was the standard is way higher but a lot of the teams tend to be full of cunts. Sunday League there is far more risk of an injury as players are slower, fatter, hungover and more inclined to Shawcross you. But they're generally a good bunch off the pitch. With the Saturday league team i played for i saw people getting offered out in the car park with bats and the likes. Half the team I played for were recently out of prison and clearly had nothing other than football in their lives and just weren't good enough to make it professionally. I played for the last 10 games of the season and did not go back. I too was / am a keeper. Appear to be a lot on the board.

I've not heard of any baggage in terms of off-the-field stuff. But every club he goes to seems to get disillusioned with him after a season or two, and he hasn't quite found his level. Keane produces moments of eye-catching skill which might tempt clubs to see him as the answer, but he's not particularly quick or strong for a player that seems to prefer an out and out striker role. Clubs tend to eventually opt for someone with more physical presence. I rate Ranger and I'd like to see him given more game time. Totally agree with this. Speaking to Spurs fans they haven't rated him since he came back, he didn't do anything at Liverpool so his last reasonable form was 2 years ago as he approaches his 30s. No thanks. And again on the Ranger issue, he's still not had a proper run in the team. I think he's totally equipped for the Championship and playing week in week out would bag a fair few goals. Unfortunately it's likely that won't happen with us, I really hope he does go out on loan rather than get flogged though. Hughton does keep mentioning him so seems he does have a future.

Nah, I'm sorry, I do understand the need for cash but this is an absolute piss take. The longest trip in the British football league calendar and to move it to a Monday night. No real excuse, totally inconsiderate. Saturday lunch, evening or Sunday would have all been far more bearable, now we are conceivably in a situation where we could seal the league at a game where supporters who have been going all season can now not make it down.

I seem to remember he was ill a few years ago and almost died, cannot remember why though. Seemed a decent manager too.

So has anyone got cheaper? You could argue that if everyone else had just left the cash in their bank account and earned interest they'd be better off than all those who paid in advance (essentially providing NUFC with interest free 3 year loans with zero return) You could, but it would be clutching at straws somewhat. I paid 3 years upfront fully knowing that all I was sure of was that I'd be protected against any price rises if there were any. If having my money early has saved one more of the normal people (ie those working in the background with families to support) at the club from being made redundant then that's more than enough for me. Ha, I was indeed being fenickity (sp?). Good point though, paying for the protection against rises is actually worth the advance alone and i don't really have a problem with loaning money to the club / paying advances. Well, as long as they don't do what Cardiff did.

So has anyone got cheaper? You could argue that if everyone else had just left the cash in their bank account and earned interest they'd be better off than all those who paid in advance (essentially providing NUFC with interest free 3 year loans with zero return)

Funny thing is, if they just kept their mouths shut, got on with it and got us promotion, they genuinely would get a lot more people back onside. It's the constant fanning of the flames. Llambias needs to sit down with Mort and learn if he's going to feed the fans bullshit at least do it with some creativity and tenacity.

This is the critical point to me. If Barton comes back and hasn't been given a decent chance by the end of the season and we're still playing Nolan / Smith, i'd be far more withering in my assessment of Hughton, but until Hughton has actually had the opportunity to replace Nolan with someone potentially a lot better, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Parky - bit harsh, think being a coach and being manager must be pretty different roles! Ronaldo - Thing is, everyone thought Pancrate was fucking appalling after the wondergoal... In recent weeks he's made some promising sub appearances but most agreed he shouldn't be starting. (this is under the assumption you meant we should leave Nolan out, stick Guthrie inside and play Pancrate on the wing in the absence of Routledge?)

That's the difference a few wins (and a goal) makes. We'll see a different set of opinions soon. I don't think anyone on here will be happy to see Smith and Nolan as our central midfield pairing at the start of the next season. Ideally we'd all like a creative central midfielder who can bring some mobility to our central midfield. Howver credit is due where credit is due, Nolan's goals DID get us a hell of a lot of points, and if it weren't for his goals we'd be much lower down the table. From what I've seen of Nolan, he doesn't get involved as much as he should beause his general lack of mobility however when he does get on the ball he's an intelligent player. So there Nolan's a shit premierleague player due to his lack of mobility, but down here in the championship I think he did a decent job despite looking like shit. Now I'm sure everyone on here, including Hughton would rather have Kaka in our central midfield than Nolan, but lets be honest, Chris Hughton has had to severely cut our wage bill whilst trying to build our paper-thin squad to last the season and mount a promotion challenge. I think he's done quite well. Yes Hughton hasn't dropped Nolan much this seaon, but let me ask you this, who would you have rather played? I mean Barton was injured, lets not even talk about Butt. That leaves us with, Guthrie, Smith and Nolan who we've seen a lot of this season. More often than not when Smith and Nolan was paired, it was when one of our wingers were injured and Guthrie had to be moved out to the wing. If we had a certain Kaka sitting on our bench, and yet Hughton was insisting on Nolan starting in central mid, I'd be calling for his head too. Yeah he's dogshit but he's the best we've got and he's done an alright job. I think Hughton has done well with the shit he has. Yes we'd like to have signed a central midfielder but, in the January transfer window Hughton signed a right winger, 2 back up centre halves, a left back on loan and a back up strike. I think that's good activity for one transfer window, and he did this while spending hardly any money at all. Priority was filling the gaping hole left by Taylor and Enrique getting injured, and he's done that well. My faith in Hughton signing a better cental midfielder before next season lies entirely in the Wayne Routledge transfer. Noone here expected Hughton to sign a player like Routledge, everyone could see that our team was unbalanced with all our attacks coming from our left, we all thought Hughton was a daft prick who couldn't see this and would settle with Pancrate, it was just one of those things which we fans could see but the manager just didn't seem able to. How often have you felt that way since Sir Bobby left? I've felt that way many times, where our problems were so blatant but the manager didn't address them or just didn't seem to know. Well Hughton did see it and he signed Routledged which has drastically improved our squad. Because of this transfer I believe he's not as stupid as many people think he is, and I believe he will sign a central midfielder. I also think Hughton is learning is trade and is improving, like our later games he's been fielding a slightly more offensive team, I think he's actually a better manager now than he was when he was our caretaker in the premierleague. Top post. What I wanted to say but put far more articulately.

I'd have to say the Shearer argument doesn't really work - he'd had a rather serious injury or two causing his lack of running. To my knowledge Nolan has never suffered a career threatening injury. Looking at the size of Nolan (and having tried on one of his shirts from earlier in the season) he does seem rather on the large side for a professional athlete. I think he was used to being hammered by Allardyce and his team of obsessives and since he's not had them to push him, he's let himself go a bit.

Yeah, I quoted the wrong post further up, sorry about that. As far as Nolan's attitude goes, I've not seen enough games in person this season to judge whether what I see on TV (ie his complete non-appearance in games except when popping up with goals) is actually representative of his game play, or an unfortunate trick of the cameras (cameras also add weight, so of course he could also be a lot skinnier in person...!)

Well, it's relevant because you're using Nolan playing as a reason that Hughton isn't cut out to be our manager. Totally agree with your midfield choices and I think Hughton might too. Guthrie, when Routledge has been available, has started in central midfield of late, and hopefully once Barton is fit he'll get on there regularly. I just think we're having to cut our cloth accordingly at the moment with Barton having been out so long and no decent option on the right side until Routledge was signed. Will be very interesting to see what our midfield does if and when we don't have any injuries. Would allow us a chance to judge Hughton more fairly in that respect.

To say he has been a disgrace, is nothing short of embarrasing TBF. Nolan's attitude has been brilliant and he has brought a dozen goals to the team. To say that he lacks fitness and ability on the ball would be accurate enough but to say he has been a disgrace is laughable. His attitude on the pitch is good. That however, is the easy part. I'm confused, you seem to rate Ameobi, who I see as bringing zero to the team except goals, yet you despise Nolan, who brings zero to the team except, err, goals. For what it's worth, I hope neither gets anywhere near the team next season, but this season they've been equally infuriating when on the pitch, yet have scored some vital goals that have won us matches. I don't rate Shola at all. But he's scored a goal for just about every start in this league. Which means i'm happy for him to play. He can't be compared to a midfielder scoring a goal every 3 games and doing nowt else. A midfielder is resposbile for winning and maintaining possession and driving the team forward. Nolan has neglected those responsibilities all seeason, as he did last year. Just out of interest, who would you have playing in CM at the minute?