Hughesy

It could well be that the ingredients he want aren't easy to source in Turkey? Really isn't that weird..

Guardian article on Paco Jemez for those who are interested - http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/mar/17/rayo-vallecano-all-or-nothing-approach-sid-lowe

I'll join you on that campaign - from what I've read about him, he sounds awesome. There are so many foreign managers out there who could breathe life into our squad and probably wouldn't need that much cash (either in terms of salary or transfer budget).

Will never forgive nor forget the Keegan s*** at Wembley with Manyoo. He was dead to me from that moment on. Yep - no respect for a player who do this kind of thing. Same with Bellamy to a certain degree.

Isnt that bad? He was a fuckng laghng stock at Sunderland. He's done pretty well everywhere else.

I think it's more the fact that people immediately dismiss someone like Bruce - but when you actually analyse his record, it really isn't that bad.

Bruce is massively underrated as a manager. I'm interested to see how Mark Hughes progresses at Stoke, given I still think he has done more good jobs (blackburn, Wales, Fulham) than bad.

Like Coloccini added it, you mean? I am not sure how the inability of one player to improve a particular attribute means that no other player can do so.

I am sure the contract clause is a massive factor. Still shabby treatment regardless.

Is that in any way related to being banished to train with the reserves and excluded from the squad? I suspect he has made a request based on what he has been told about his future. There are ways to treat people - with dignity and professionalism. Currently it seems as if we have not managed to do this.

MYM wasn't weak - he just wasn't naturally physical, mainly because he hadn't played his football in a physical environment. I am sure that given time to adapt he could have added this to his game.

To be honest, whether or not people think Jonas is any good or not, the way he has been treated is classless. So utterly befitting of the regime we have.

Far too many people seem to be regurgitating the crap about Hba not producing enough or working hard enough.

I like welbeck - think he is underrated to be honest. Would score goals as a number 1 striker.

If we hadn't signed Colback, I'd have been interested in us going after one of Sandro, Dembele or Capoue.

Some absolutely bizarre signings made to be honest and such vast sums spent. It sort of reminds of playing fm where you forget what players you really need and end up buying players you don't need and overlook the glaring deficiencies in your squad.

Decent article by Mark Douglas on Hba. Still some idiots on twitter standing up for Pardew..

Bielsa is not manager for clubs where he must be with players every day. Zeman is far away from Premier League standards, and quality what Newcastle need. Manager for Seria B teams. Bilić is nothing more then average European manager. Vaha would be interesting, but I don't think he will be there long under this transfer policy. To be honest they were examples of how relatively easy it is to think of alternatives. I am sure people can think of reasons not to appoint all of them. But in reply - not sure what you mean re Bielsa, Bilic did a very good job with Croatia, and Zemen has done enough to clearly be better than Pardew.

Hit me with them. Are you asking me if Ashley would realistically appoint them or if there are better managers who hypothetically might be prepared to come to us if asked? Off the top of my head, I think we could have approached and had discussions with Bielsa (before he went to Marseille), Tuchel, Paco Jemez, Dragan Stojkovic, Zdenek Zemen, Laudrup, De Boer, Ketsbaia, Eddie Howe. I don't see a reason why the above list that I came up with in one minute could not be enlarged with extra thought. Clearly not all of them would be prepared to work for Ashley but that wasn't what I said. is there a reason you didn't mention moyes btw? Forgot about him to be honest. I'd like Moyes here but I suspect his wages would be too high. I think in general, as with English players, better value seems to be found abroad. For example, I think Bilic is only on 600k a year, and the Algerian coach was on 300k or something low.

You could add to that list Slaven Bilic, the Algerian or Chilean manager.

Hit me with them. Are you asking me if Ashley would realistically appoint them or if there are better managers who hypothetically might be prepared to come to us if asked? Off the top of my head, I think we could have approached and had discussions with Bielsa (before he went to Marseille), Tuchel, Paco Jemez, Dragan Stojkovic, Zdenek Zemen, Laudrup, De Boer, Ketsbaia, Eddie Howe. I don't see a reason why the above list that I came up with in one minute could not be enlarged with extra thought. Clearly not all of them would be prepared to work for Ashley but that wasn't what I said.

I hate the 'there's no-one else to appoint' argument that some idiots run. There are loads of realistic appointments we could make.

If he's instructed his agent that he's staying put then there will be very little in the way of false press speculation... find that line of thinking difficult to believe unless he likes the idea of playing with the reserves for a year. At the very least you'd expect him to be looking for a loan move to actually play games. I'm sure he'd rather be playing, but it's not in his hands. He can easily see out the remaining year on his contract then have a much bigger pool of clubs to choose from in January. It's Pardew who's cutting his nose off to spite his face here. And a much bigger salary/signing on fee if he is on a Bosman. Bit of a no-brainer really for HBA.

Yep - he's a much better player than people are making out on here.

He had plenty of chances to establish himself at Chelsea, especially in the 6 months prior to Mourinho's arrival and with a shot Torres as his only competition. Fact is he looked useless in the Premiership in front of a midfield that contained the likes of Lampard, Oscar and Mata, and only really came alive in the cup competitions. His all round game just isn't good enough. In fact, he's a p*ss poor footballer outside of the box, and needs goals to mask how mediocre he is elsewhere on the pitch. I've never really understood why so many of our fans considered Ba to be a good all-round footballer when he did the sum of sod all in general play and slowly progressed from "meh, runs into the box alright" to "can't control a ball or pass it" during that 4-3-3 period where he was out wide on the left and his confidence dropped with every goalless game. Not sure that he did get a run to be honest - I've only had a brief look but he only started 16 games in the league for Chelsea and made 17 sub appearances. That indicates to me that he didn't get a consistent run of games in his time there.