S-Clarke

Luck does come into it for sure, but there is also an element of having the right people in situ to identify the choices. We weren't unlucky that Jones or Selles didn't do well for us, they wouldn't have done well for anyone as they were shit picks. Ditto all of the transfers we've failed with recently. You'll have the odd bad pick for sure, but when all you have are bad picks then there's clearly something wrong somewhere.

That's the frustration really, when SR came in I don't think the club was broken per-say - we had a pretty stable setup, just incredibly limited due to finances and Gao's lack of involvement. We're in a much worse state in terms of the local leadership nowadays. We obviously followed the Rasmus ''If it's not broke, break it'' approach. Absolute charlatan.

I think Ralph was a Semmens appointment. At the end of the day, Gao sat back and allowed Semmens and David Jones to effectively run the club and make all the decisions. He had nothing to do with us bar his name on the shareholders documents. I thought Martin Semmens was decent for us up to a point, I thought he started to waiver once SR got their teeth into it a bit more - and I think as fans we did like to see the ownership get a bit more involved, but I don't think any of us appreciated how utterly hopeless and underpreped they'd be. I think if you look at the club prior to SR, we had David Jones, Martin Semmens, Ralph, Crocker, Brunnschweiler all at the top levels. They had no money, but they did have a plan and there were football people in the mix. I always felt like we had a little more credence to what we were trying to do, it was just the lack of finances that were really holding us back at this point. You do have to question why so many people have done a runner since SR have come in. As a club we never replaced the Technical Director or Director of Football - they've just morphed it into the roles of 'business' people which is why it's simply not working. We can sack Martin and spend a shit ton of money again in January, but it makes no odds if the club structure isn't in place to make the right decisions.

I think we resemble Sheffield United closest, but I look at our squad and still feel it has a bit more about it. I think we'll get more points than Sheffield United did, I predict the low 20's and -50 gd or similar. Obviously that's 20th by some distance and still one of the worst ever PL teams, but I do think we'll make 20 points.

The fact that Bournemouth have surged in front of us is such a bad show for SR's tenure thus far. Given our resources, reach, facilities etc there is no way a decent run club of our size should be allowing Bournemouth to move levels above us like they have. It's just rank poor management.

That's alarm bells to me, we don't need to keep throwing more money at this in the hope that something sticks - that's all they've done since they've been here, moving from one footballing approach to the next. SR firstly need to sort out their plan, what they want to do with us. Revamp the entire analyst and scouting setup, bring in a 'football' DOF - not a business man who ran Dyson, and then maybe have a look at the budget and see what could improve it. None of that is going to be in place by January so it's best we do very little. Spending MORE money without the above in place will lead to another window of Onuachu, Orsic, Sulemana, Charly etc etc.

If that is the logic SR are attributing to anything, then they're even worse than I imagined. Last season was honestly not cracked up to the fanfare it got. I was never convinced. Promotion surprised me as I didn't think we ever looked like a promotion side, just a good Championship side. Lots of draws, lots of fluky last min wins, some absolute thrashings by teams we were supposed to be on a level with. Our squad is caught in this bubble at the moment - full of players who are very good at Champ level, but ultimately total failures at the top level. Eventually that will erode though if we can't build a squad to compete at this level, and we'll just become a pretty poor Championship side - ala Stoke.

People keep saying the answer is to spend money, but isn't that what SR have done for the last 3 years? They are just absolutely terrible at doing so. It won't matter how much money we throw at it if the same people are making the picks, I include managers in that. I thought the years when we spent on Boufal/Hoedt/Lemina/Carillo were bad enough, but these guys are on another level of incompetence.

We definitely shouldn't open the cheque books like the last January window we had in the PL. Loans at best I'd say, but we'd find it very hard to rid ourselves of Onuachu and Sulemana in January - it's hard enough in the summer. We'll end up paying those two off and they'll leave on free's, guarantee it. Those two signings, and Orsic, are the reason we shouldn't be spending any more money until we sort out the horrendous team who are making the picks.

I thought I'd have a quick look through our history with them up to now (regarding managers/backroom). We had some stability with David Jones, Semmens, Crocker - but one of SR's first jobs was to rip all that apart behind the scenes, and bring in their own people (i.e. Joe Shields) - that was just the start. Ralph was always onto a hiding and it was inevitable SR wanted their own man, so they were always going to bin him off as their next radical change. In comes Jones as some sort of forward thinking, clever appointment. His teams were dull, defensively focused and not particularly attacking. Didn't fit with what we had at all in terms of a player profile. So, they go into the January window and splurge £18m on a big tall centre forward and two wingers. Clear as day it was a hit it long to the channels, cross it for the big ban style approach. It was never going to work and was too much of a change from what we had before in a short space of time. They tried to get Marsch, who himself bailed because he didn't see the joined up plan with all at the club - so they stuck with Selles with the PR that this was another clever appointment. The inevitable happened and he was like a rabbit in the headlights, felt a bit sorry for him - but it was another Wigley moment. So, after changing Ralph with the idea of going with someone who is a bit defensively minded (Jones), we then rip it up again the following summer and totally change tact to the other extreme with Martin. Thus we end up with the situation last summer where we have the likes of Onuachu, Sulemana, Charly (bought for a Jones style) are stuck in the building who are now not suited to this new manager - does this seem like any sort of plan at all? I think at this stage it's plainly clear they're totally lost with no idea. They have no plan, they keep trying things in the hope that they stick - but I don't believe even they know what their grand plan is, they seem totally confused. In the last 2 years we have crossed between a gegenpress, low block and a tiki-taka style managers - we have tried to reinvent ourselves 3 times and it hasn't worked because they don't know how to execute it. I wonder what's next? What other style haven't we attempted yet?

Just about, it wasn't convincing by any means - didn't convice me or many others. For doing that he absolutley deserved a crack, but he's been given that crack and is showing us all what we pretty much felt would happen.

There's nothing to really try for at this stage. We'll go into Dec on 4 points. We are realistically going to need to accrue 30-40 points in around half a season. Absolute impossibility, that's what Man City and co will be doing. We've already tossed away the Leicester and Ipswich home games, the Wolves away game etc - the list will go on.

But that doesn't let anyone off. The fact they weren't cheap and we had to pay for them, and then pay them off, should be ringing even bigger alarm bells in terms of who we have running this place.

All of our choices under SR have been horrific, no getting around that. They may have spent a fair bit of $$ on them, but that's on SR and their absolutley clueless approach rather than the calibre of who they were working with.

Either that, or they totally re-evaluate what they are and what their plan is - bring in football people at the head of the club, and personal who know what it's like to run successful football set ups. I'd dump every single scout and analyst we have and start again. They have consistently scouted shit for too long to be allowed to continue. That entire area needs completely destroying and starting again. At that point, with the right people in the right places we may stand a chance - but in the current guise this is just a complete catastrophe.

I think if anything, the ownership of SR has proven that money is only a small part of achieving footballing success. There has to be a plan and some understanding of what you're doing as a club, not just money. We've spent money, too much money on rubbish - including managers and their payoffs. ''They have to throw money at it'' is no different to what they've been doing up to now. The first thing they should be doing is filling that boardroom up with people who understand football and how to run a football club, then work out what money we have to spend on it. It's not an overnight fix and it's not all about throwing money at it, it's going to take years to get over this season.

Not saying Martin shouldn't be sacked, but do you have any trust in SR getting the next call right? They seemingly don't have a clue. Jones - horrendous. Selles - An unimaginative gamble Martin - load of fluff. We were fortunate to be promoted, he didn't rip up any trees or set any special culture - as this season is proving. Who is next in their horror show of choices? I don't even want to imagine.

Their approach thus far has been throwing money and hoping something will stick, but nothing is sticking because they have no idea what they're doing. Their choices are consistently terrible and their plan is all over the shop. As it stands we are a broken football club. I don't know where we go from here.

Totally bored with this team, there's nothing to get behind and nothing about us at all. All this talk of process and philosophy is fluff for not being good enough. Last week was just as bad, we won, but it was very poor. I struggle at this stage to see where this season starts, it's just going to be a really big test for us fans as we are on the highway to a humiliation season without a doubt. Today was as bad as it's been this season, against another truly terrible side. We are just a pointless team to watch. Relegation is pretty much confirmed at this point, we just need to make sure we don't set any unwanted records. That's the only target we can realistically have now. I'm not even looking above 20th because it's pointless. We can sack the manager if we want, but it'll make no difference because SR's decision making doesn't belong on earth.

Mark Bitcon took up the role of 'Director of Football Operations', working closely with Mowbray and Martin. So technically, we don't have a proper DOF in any way shape of form no matter what MLG says!

I find it really hard to read too much into games like yesterday, it's irrelevant if we toss it away against Leicester, Brentford, Ipswich, Forest etc. Means fuck all. I don't care if we play well and Pep gushes or pundits gush, the reality is 0 points. We head into November on 1 point. Absolutley pitiful by even the most negative supporters expectations. I take nothing from yesterday because it's always the way. 'Underdog does well against big side''. When we got relegated we beat Man City at home, so how we perform in these games means fuck all - it's a glorified friendly.

He's decent, certainly better than that lumbering BBD. He'll be huge in the Championship next season.

Probably focusing in on Rasmus's involvement at Brentford, at the time looking like a coup, but now it's plainly obvious that Giles was the mastermind behind Brentford and Rasmus was just his PA, if that. The entire 'group' is bereft of any actual footballing experience, that's why having someone like Wilcox around was a positive as he knew the actual game in this country. I know big clubs will always tempt players/staff away, but the frequency at which it happens under SR is incredibly alarming. Doesn't strike of an environment that's fostering any sort of consistency in anything.

I think that unbeaten run created a false illusion about how good we actually were. We did stagger over the line on quite a few occasions.

What about the actual left back, Charlie Taylor?