Ankles Bennett

In my view this board will stick with McLaren through thick and thin. Its their judgement that is on the line by appointing him, and they just can't bring themselves to admit their judgement was horribly flawed. Ultimately though, the main reason they will stick with Mc Laren is the old adage that if you give the manager time he will eventually build a succesful side. Quite where they get this belief is beyond me, because the only managers who have ever been given time have been sucessful pretty much immediately, which has in turn bought them more time, even Sir Alex was on the verge of being fired when he got a stay by actually winning something. The Arsenal fans have been clamouring for Wenger to be replaced for at least the last four or five seasons because they haven't won anything of note by their standards. Even Liverpool are on their 4th or 5th manager in the last ten years or so. Chelsea have had quite a few successful managers in the last ten years who have been sacked as soon as it's become apparent they won't win the title, and even Man city are turning over managers on a fairly consistent rate despite winning titles and trophys. How on earth our board thinks McLaren should be given time is staggering, wgiven the attrition rate of managers in the top clubs.

Ashley will go to the other board members aka Charnley, Carr, and Moncur and ask if McLaren will be able to keep us in the EPL, and we all know what they will say as they chose the useless bu**er. They most certainly are not going to tell Ashley like it is. They will tell him to take no notice of the fans because we are completely overreacting and that schteve has assured them that there is no chance we will be relegated, and Ashley will believe them because they are "football people". Chances are they are waiting to be sacked as well so they can get a golden handshake too. Wouldn't surprise me if they chose McLaren for that reason in the first place.

I will predict now that this warmwarm weather training camp will have opposite to the desired effect. The players will come back thinking they have worked really hard and that all they have to do is just turn up and try to replicate what they practised in la manga. The problem being Stoke City couldn't give a toss how hard we have worked in Spain and will we will be stuffed yet again.

In the old days managers had a bit of decency. If they knew they were failing they resigned and stepped aside to allow another manager to try and save the club. Nowadays, managers know they will forfeit their wacking great salary if they resign so they wait and wait until they are sacked. They have no regard to the fact that the fans who pay those wages are then left with a club they love languishing in the Championship or worse. The only way to ensure failing managers do the right thing and resign is to ensure all clubs pay up their managers contract in its entirety regardless of whether they resign or are sacked. That may have two outcomes. One, clubs will put managers on a rolling year by year contract, and two, the likes of Mc Laren won't keep hanging on waiting to be sacked.

Some of the optimism on this topic is laughable. Despite our absolutely atrocious form, some people actually believe we will win all our remaining home games and somehow avoid relegation. Wake up and smell the coffee people. We have won 6 games in 26, so what makes anyone think we can win 5 in 12. We will be lucky to win 2 more home games imo. This club is a walking corpse as far as the EPL is concerned. Someone needs to put it in a very deep hole and read the last rites over it.

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The scousers must be desperate to offload this sicknote. He's always been injury prone when at man City then also at Chelsea. Now at Liverpool it's plain to see that whilst he is a talented striker his body can't stand the rigours of professional football. Time for him to retire on medical grounds in my opinion.

Ferguson didn't get sacked.

Would they even know how to go about doing anything to stop it? It was Charnley who appointed McClaren in the first place. The only person with a football background at the upper echelons of the club is McClaren. At least last season we had some points on the board and got dragged into the relegation fight but this time the team seems incapable of gaining any points so it looks as though the rest of the season will be a fruitless battle to retain our EPL status, but frankly we just don't deserve to survive based upon our feeble performances. To be honest I don't think these players would survive in the championship. They have got no backbone whstsoever so we could be looking at league 1 in a couple of seasons unless this lot are binned next season. As an aside Mclaren should be ashamed of the completrly inept performances his side keep on producing.

It's time to bring in Shearer as the strikers coach.

Not strengthened the side at all is shelves any better than what we had? Probably, but can't say the same about saivet or even townsend who was completely ineffective last night.

Benitez is available as are mourinho and moyes.

So now having signed the much needed striker we are told he isn't fit enough to play. Does that mean we won't see him in the team until it's too late and we are already relegated. Way to go Nufc.

Does mclaren know aarons isn't actually a left back?

We are looking just like qpr. Spent a fortune on players including nicking remy but still couldn't stay up. We need to start planning for next season in the championship.

Mclaren has clearly lost the plot by taking save off when he was our best outfield player. Time for him to fall on his sword I think.

We need at least another 19 points t reach the supposed safety of 40 points. To be honest I can't see that this team will be capable of getting 10 more points from the remaining games.

Couldn't agree more. No plan b if there was even a plan a

He as shown his quality in home games so for me it's all down to McLaren's tactics away from home. They just don't understand what he wants from them.

It was telling that we only started to look anywhere like a threat once Mitro came on

Has he not gone yet?

Ok it might be too late but at least we are now showing g some ambition buy spending big.

The really worrying aspect of our team is there is no one in the side who will take the game by the scruff of the neck and drive the team forward. In other words not a single leader on the pitch which means we will be relegated. I believe it will be villa us and Norwich who go down because the mackems have got goals in them. We haven't.

Lose to w brom and I reckon mclaren will be gone.

That's because its their stated policy that they don't publish rumours/heresay