tajjuk

Would be surprised if it wasn't this.

As a manager where he got 7 whole games, but then he's not our manager. He's also been an England coach and England technical director as well as working at virtual all levels within the England coaching set up. But of course he was crap for 7 games with a crap team so he must be rubbish

oops double post

I'm not picking numbers to suit and argument, 14 points from 10 games is mid table level form. We are picking up points and in reent games we have started picking them up against teams we weren't expected to, continue like that and we will be fine. History? What the f*ck has that got to do with anything. Also the bookies are wrong all the time, they had Adkins as the first to be sacked. You sound like a cliche, old, has been football pundit.

I like this one - We have graduated to a 'poorish team'!

We were predicted to be relegated, currently we are out of the bottom three. As a club we are achieving about as much as was expected from us, i.e. battling relegation. Our start to the season was tough and led to some poor results but we have improved massively since then and we are much more stable as 14 points from 10 suggests, and only 2 defeats (both being 1-0) would indicate that we are being competitive, that sort of form for the rest of the season will see us clear from relegation. The Di Matteo thing for me is weird, he won a Champions League but I think that was more down to the players than him (and a whole slice of luck) The league form considering their subsequent summer spend wasn't that good and his decisions cost him (no striker v juve) as did is inability to rotate his squad. I think people are also overstating his reputation. He's hardly been linked with many jobs and I don't see his 'reputation' winning us any star players, it's the money offered that matters.

And fair play to them, but Adkins has a far better managerial record and has already proven himself better than them, he's proven to be a good manager at every club so far, yet those other 3 have had failed at every other job.

Jewell at Wigan is 43% which is not bad, but that makes every other job he's done a failure, only just kept Wigan up as well. Brown at Hull 33%, got up through play offs and stayed up in 17th place then got them relegated. (and that is the 'highglight'of his career) Boothroyd at Watford 34% win ratio, got promoted (again play offs) and then got his team relegated in 20th. Still no real comparison to Adkins, who has had 4 (3 automatic) promotions and had success at all 3 clubs he has managed, whereas the 3 above have had limited success and failed at every other attempt. Adkins has never been sacked in his career.

Exactly how they looked against Bradford, wasteful in possesion and leightwieght and lazy in midfield. Their back four is also woeful.

That's their career records, all those managers you have mentioned have spent most of their careers in the lower league yet haven't managed a 50% win ratio in league 1 or the championship like Adkins has at Saints. Phil Brown's record at Preston - win ratio of 29% Championship and league 1. Paul Jewell's Championship record at Derby - win ratio of just 20% Boothroyd's record at Coventry - 30% win ratio. You said he is right up there with them, but his managerial record at similar level clubs is clearly vastly superior.

Currently Adkins has a 51% overall win percentage in his managerial career. Phil Brown - 30% Paul Jewell - 38% Aidy Boothroyd - 37%

No distancing from us then!

Was on it for about 4 months, pretty sure they said that if I turned down a job that was within the criteria I agreed with them they could potentially stop the JSA, correct about the jobs though, 2 a week you have to apply for.

Doubt this is real, probably just a wind up. People who turn down work on that sort of basis loose their benefits. You agree a certain set of parameters for the jobs you are seeking and if you turn down work inside them you loose your JSA, you could probably turn down working at 5/6am if all your previous experience has been 9-5 stuff but I distinctly remember that the time period for day stuff is like 8am to 7pm. The longer you are out of work the more the parameters change, so after 7 years no way. JSA is paltry anyway and most of the time it's paid out of your NI contributions, the time I was off work I just got paid money based on my previous NI contributions.

The whole team were awful second half against West Ham, Fonte was mainly at fault for that freekick and there were cock ups from everyone, harsh to single him out. Against Spurs he looked fine to me, Bale's header was pinpoint and Clyne should have attacked the ball better and I thought he closed down Defoe well and made himself big but Defoe actually scuffed the finish and lucky to get it through (and Fonte should have cleared it but slipped) not to mention the woefull defending in the build up as Tottenham were given all the space. Against Arsenal he had two dodgy moments, and his long kicking was a bit wayward but his throws and short distribution were good and he was looking composed by the end. Against Chelsea I thought he did ok and you couldn't expect much more. I don't rate Gazzaniga at all, I think he has poor technique, especially his handling and that leads to his mistakes. He's made more than two mistakes but got away with them because the teams we played were poor, against QPR he was woeful and another day he would have costs us the game. He's also the one that has cost us the most dropped points against teams we couldn't afford to drop points to. IMO he'll be a league 1 keeper at best.

Villa's strength is clearly up front, Benteke is a handfull, but I'm not sure he's as good as people think he is and Hansen's "most complete forward in the prem" comment might haunt him. Howevert add in Bent, Agbonlahor coming back and Wieman has good movement they can worry us, but the game is won and lost in midfield, and against Bradford Villa's midfield was woeful they struggled to gain any control and their supply to the forward's was hit and hope a lot of the time, they also seem to give no protection to the vunerable defence. If we have cork in there with Morgan and Gaston I think we can win the midfield battle and then let Lambert bully them up front. Clark, Bennet, Baker and Lowton, none of them can come close to Rickie in the air. Also whoever Benteke is marking at corners will have a good chance to score as he doesn't stay with his marker.

I don't think anyone diasgrees with this but he's had four games, two and then about two months before the next two. His class and experience means he should at least get a go to prove it and I don't think 4 games where unlike our other two keepers he has been largely blameless for the goals is a fair enough chance. The two he has had recently he had a wobbly start against Arsenal but then was pretty regulation aftert that and then he did his best pulled off a few saves against a very good Chelsea where the team as whole were poor. Some of the reactions on here you'd think he was single handledly responsible for our lowly position and was throwing the ball into our net every game. The descriptions, reactions and opinions in this thread are no where near proportional to his actual performances. I'm not epxecting miracles from him but it would be nice to have a game where the opposition doesn't get gifted a goal by with our GK or the defence or the ref. Thing is he won't get any credit even if he does well, Kelvin and Gazza have literally lost games for us this season yet people still want them back in. If Boruc concedes on Saturday I full expect some more 'rants' on here even if he has no chance of stopping the goals.

Arsenal will sell out those remaining tickets that City returned and Arsenal sell out the Emirates pretty much every week even with the highest prices around. People pay like £125 to watch Madonna and the tickets sell out in hours. Demand is there and that sets the prices. There is an argument for us lowering prices because we aren't selling out every week, don't think there is one for Arsenal.

Arsenal will sell out those remaining tickets that City returned and Arsenal sell out the Emirates pretty much every week even with the highest prices around. People pay like £125 to watch Madonna and the tickets sell out in hours. Demand is there and that sets the prices.

I agree but I think the wide man is a bigger priority than than a second centre-back, so is probably the GK. Seems from the link to that Danish guy from Bolgona that might be what we are doing though.

Maybe the first one is an 'ex-PA' for a reason?

To be fair I think if there are games that might suit Jos then this might be one, a bit like the stoke game I think with Benteke up fornt there might be a bit of an aerial battle which he should relish, or at least prefer to small tricky strikers running at him.

Not sure 2 centre backs are a priority, 1 is and then a wide player then a goalkeeper and then maybe another DC. We can't possible need a stiker though can we? as it's widely known that we wasted our money in the summer buying too many strikers

This is the issue it in now way benefits the selling club because they have a player who know's he is going elsewhere so lacks motivation and the selling club can't get a replacement, leaves the selling club and the player in limbo. There is also the injury risk to the buying club if you commit to buy a player who then crocks himself. There is also the the fact that most clubs don't want to sell their better players. A few months ago I doubt Cagliari would have thought that they may be forced to sell their best assets for lower prices, they agreed a deal for Astori to Spartak for more than we are offering but the deal fell through. I would think that Coutinho in the summer might have flet he had a chance at a regular starting place, 6 months later he's been on the bench a lot and is thinking that he should maybe leave permanently and maybe Inter who are cutting costs are having their hand forced more than before. Things change all the time in football, I doubt Astori and Coutinho would have been on our radar a few months ago, but circumstances change, the player becomes available and we then look to take advantage.

I think John Terry, Frank Lampard and whilst he was there Drogba ran that Chelsea team and have done really since Mourinho left, they literrally didn't play for AVB because they didn't respect him and he wanted to do somehting different. His stint at Spurs I think is showing he's a good manager. Whereas there was abit more respect for RDM, as ex-chelsea, but I wonder how 'in-charge' he was. Also like I said his WBA stint doesn't convince me he will do antyhing different from Adkins, got them promoted playing nice football, continued to play nice football in the prem, won some plaudits but not many points. Got sacked and Hodgson took the same team to 11th. If we get rid of Adkins then I would like to see someone of the Hodgson mould, but I think Adkins is learning, his set ups in recent games are in contrast to the 'we play 4-3-3, we'll attack' stance at the start of the season.