Wallsendmag

Spurs have finished 4th bottom for 2 seasons in a row. When does them being a top 6 team not be seen as a normality? To go from 17th 2 years running to top 6 would take a miraculous turnaround. Chelsea have a very good manager now so they'll undoubtedly move back into top 6. Villa have CL football next season and may well drop out of it.

Yeah I see what you're saying but in a regular season I don't think there's a hope in hells chance of a newly promoted Sunderland finishing 7th on 54 points with a -6 GD as an example.

I just thought the standard and quality of football throughout was poor. Barely watched a game from start to finish that didn't involve us (even switched a few of ours off well before the end) as I found the vast majority of them boring as hell and that's not like me.

Personally I thought the league was of very poor quality last season. Arsenal basically won it on set piece goals, Man City nowhere near consistent enough to put genuine pressure on them, the defending Champions were awful and lost 12 games, Bournemouth finished 6th despite losing their best players and a newly promoted team finished 7th on a negative goal difference. Top 6 has to be the aim next season especially with no European distractions.

Made 4 appearances for us in something like 5 years and the daft cunt is moaning on because we didn't recognise him when he was out and about. In order to recognise someone surely you've got to know what they look like in the first place.

Bournemouth just finished 6th. Sunderland were 7th, Brighton 8th and Brentford 9th. It should absolutely not take a miracle to finish above that lot.

The decision to sack SBR was the correct one. He'd lost certain players in the dressing room (the brat pack) and the team was starting to decline. We'd only won 2 out of our final 9 games in the 03/04 season and performance levels had dropped off massively. We then started the following season in similar form and won 0 of our first 4 and he was gone. This is what can't happen next season. The problem was who they brought in to replace him. They went for someone who would rule with an iron fist to get the aforementioned brat pack under control, ignoring the fact that he was a very poor coach and we were entering into an era in which you couldn't control the dressing room in that way unless you were Alex Ferguson.

Always felt that people thought he was better with his feet than he actually was, probably because he wasn't Pope, but even so that surprises me a bit.

That's my worry. I believe he'll be able to get the best of him. I'm banking on a career ending injury preferably in this first game of the World Cup now as I think he'll be excellent next season.

No more excuses. We need to come out the blocks flying in August. Losing 5 and drawing 1 of our final 8 games after exiting the CL was disastrous. There's been many cases of clubs ending seasons really badly and then continuing where they left off the following season. That can't be us.

Some people thought that once we were down to 1 game a week for the final 2 months of the season (8 games) that out form would pick up and we'd maybe grab a European place as we were 9th at the time. It was a fair assumption and I remember debating with Yorkie about it as he thought we would whereas I thought the malaise had set in and we wouldn't. We both put fair enough arguments across I felt. In the end we dropped a further 3 places when we dropped to 1 game a week and finished 12th which was desperately disappointing. Not sure if the players, or some of them downed tools or not. It's impossible to prove anyway. I'm 99.9% certain Howe wouldn't. I just don't believe he's that way inclined. My gripe with him was more about his summer signings, tactics, style of play, in game management and squad management. Obviously whatever he was saying in his HT team talks was having the opposite effect to whatever he was wanting as well. Playing a near enough full strength team for the 2nd leg v Qarabag bordered on the ridiculous with us being 5 goals up and going into it on the back of an energy sapping game at Man City where we spent a lot of time chasing the ball. We lost the following league game at home to Everton iirc. Hopefully they don't just draw a line under last season and write it off as some are suggesting. I want Howe to learn from last season and not make the same mistakes again. He can't afford to anyway. Lot's of wrongs need to be put right and a good summer window and a quick start next season are vital. If there's a repeat of last summer and a repeat of last seasons start to the season he'll be away by the October International break and that's something nobody wants.

I've got no time for either Liverpool or Man Utd but facts are that we will always be vulnerable to losing our best players to these teams. They're simply further up the food chain than we are. It's nobody's fault. That's just how it is.

Flip flips on (your words), downed tools. Pretty much same thing really.

Well isn't that a damning indictment of Howe and his squad if they downed tools with 2 months and 8 games of the season still to play whilst sat in 9th position. Plenty of other PL teams have more players at the World Cup than we have, including those 12 miles down the road, and didn't seem to suffer with the same lack of effort.

The next mistake you've made is taking the utter cesspit that is Twitter seriously It's full attention seekers farming for interaction.

It's easy enough to go back 2 years on this very thread (I've done it) and see for yourself that there wasn't "loads" of people on his back at all for the 7th place finish so yet again you're talking shite I'm afraid.

I lost all faith in the possession stat having much meaning when we battered Brendan Rodgers' Swansea team 2-0 with 25% or so of it.

That's just an assumption from yourself as we didn't get an extra 4 points and finish 8th, we finished 12th. So it's basically irrelevant. What we do know as fact is that when we finished 7th 2 seasons ago (level on points with 8th) there wasn't really any whinging or Howe out noises at all. Certainly anyone with that view was massively in the minority. I'll be honest I can't even think of anyone who wanted him sacked after that and why would they? Last season was nowhere near good enough. The football was poor and loads of other flaws in our game, mentally (throwing away leads, conceding last minute goals and technically (awful ball retention) I don't think you'd get much argument against that. The debate is whether Howe can turn it around or not. The signs haven't been promising in my opinion. A lot of his backers said we'd see a big improvement when we reverted to 1 game per week after going out of Europe with 2 months of the season to play. Some even thought it would help us push for European qualification again. Didn't happen.

Real. Seen the interview.

I was in there for the Liverpool game last season. Atmosphere was excellent.

We finished 7th 2 seasons ago (same amount of points as 8th place) and people were genuinely satisfied. As it happens we didn't finish 8th this season so I'm unsure as to what his point was, if there was one.

Correct decision. Nowhere near good enough.

You were making a point?

You can't use the "too many games excuse" for a shit season and then fail to include all the defeats in those extra cup games though

We also finished 5 points off 16th. We lost 23 games, spent obscene money on rubbish, let Sunderland walk over us twice, and lost more points from winning positions than any other team. Finishing 4 points behind 8th in 12th position isn't anything to crow about but you carry on polishing that turd of yours.