Topcat

Steve Grant, a great summary of the problems going into the game. "We had 9 players starting". Hoedt and Austin a waste of space and dragged down the team.

It was just a very gentle pass back to the goal keeper. Very kind of him, are they mates?

The three teams below us have all played more top6 games than us and have therefore a slightly easier set of games for the rest of the season. To date we have played just 3 of the 12 games whereas Huddersfield have played 4, Fulham 4 and Cardiff 5. Of course by the end of the first week of January, we will have had 9 more games of which 5 will be against top 6 sides.......... if we are out of the bottom 3 on Jan 5th by at least 3 points then we will stay up IMHO.

Cedric was rated in a Guardian article as one of the worst players this season in the prem.

A water into wine level of miracle required.

If, Fulham's defence has a miracle performed on it and manages to play well, then a loss by us could see Hughes out.

Not sure that Reed may have had a hand in discouraging the selection of Yoshida and Gabbi. I agree with you on the Austin substitution.

I agree with Supersubpuckett's summary " LES GOT STUCK IN HIS WAYS, HAD TOO MUCH INFLUENCE AND BECAME OUT OF HIS DEPTH. HUNTER DID A BAD JOB WITH THE ACADEMY. HUGHES IS NEXT IF THE RESULTS DON'T PICK UP. OUR AMBITION IS STILL TO BE BEST OF THE REST BUT CLEARLY FALLEN WAY SHORT OF THAT RECENTLY. WE'RE GONNA GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT FOOTBALL TO HELP US." FWIW to get relegated a Club usually has to have major failings in several areas. 1) Bad manager/coach, 2) Poor player purchases 3) Inadequate U23 player development. Currently we have failings in all 3 and only 1) "The Manager" can be fixed now and 2) "Player purchases" has to wait until January and needs the best part of £100m to start to fix. The fact that Reed and Hunter were not replaced in the summer does indicate that Kreuger does not have a good enough grasp of what a well run football Club looks like.

Ten points looks very optimistic. 4 relegation battles, 3 of which are against teams that are playing better than at the start of the season. The other 3 games are against top 6 sides.....

I agree not much improvement. At home we had less possession and they had more shots on target than us. Relegation form.

for which side?

Something clearly started failing with the u23 etc developments in the time that Hunter was in charge. With Reed being matey with Hunter, suspicion will now arise on what else had gone wrong under Reed.

If Reed and Hunter really had become a negative presence at the Club then we should expect a solid win against Watford. A loss should finish Hughes off.

We have a team full of under performers. it would therefore make more sense to let it be known that there was a budget for January to bring in a couple of players.

We may never really know. What has emerged is that Reed and Hunter are being blamed and most of us did not know that Hunter had any involvement. Hughes was clearly not "bought in" to the purchases since he has been leaving them on the bench or in the stands. Ross clearly has some involvement but the picture seems to be one where he presents a list of possibles and Reed with Hunter decided exactly who.

Yes and Kreuger would know that eventually either he or Reed would be fired so it was best to save himself by recommending to Gao that Reed left. Gao's in house representatives would have come to that conclusion and left Kreuger little option apart from resigning himself. Kat 9on the Board) and with 20% would have also played a role in that she appointed Kreuger who has enabled her to extract £200m, whereas Reed was not her appointment.

Pulling a few of the threads together. When "consultants spend significant amounts of time inside a business they often create an alternative power structure to the existing management structure. With the two "spys" of Gao wandering around the Club, any dissenters to Reed etc had a possible conduit to Gao. Interesting that the Guardian refers to Ross Wilson as well regarded. They would have got that from either Kreuger or Gao's people. For Ross to escape this initial clear out, then Ross has been able to present to Gao's people with a credible version of the transfer foul ups that presents Ross as an "innocent" in this. Time will see if that spin holds up.

Best News of the Day.

Pearson would at least intimidate Reed.

We could. We could also win the next 2 and still find ourselves in the bottom 3 on January 3rd. That is how bad our fixture list is for the rest of 2018.

Bottom may be League 2.

I mean the standard that liverpool are now at. I cannot see any of ours attracting Liverpool any day soon.

NordicSaint - that info reinforces the need that Gao has that we do not get relegated. He is going to have to act very soon and after the relegation scare last season may now feel able to tackle the problem of Reed. I can but hope. Realistically, Hughes will probably be blamed and will get fired very soon unless we start winning games. There is always the chance that Kreuger fires Reed to save himself.

I agree with doggface.

Bertrand is playing at League 1 level. He is not good enough for Liverpool. Are any of our current players up to their standard now?