benno2

This may be because a good proportion of our least wanted players on high wages are also midfielders. With the playing prospects of Aquilani, Poulsen, Cole, Jovanovic and possibly Meireles and/or Maxi reduced in their own minds by the arrivals of Henderson, Adam and Downing, the strategy could well be to get them to read the runes and accept a reduction in wages elsewhere. With the clock ticking down, their readiness to do so, could well accelerate depending on how desperate each is for action. There are signs that this may be working in the cases of Jovanovic and Aquilani.

Given Kenny's words along the lines of signings aren't just for Christmas, why do people think he'll rate him less in the summer? It makes no sense to me.

You might be right. But Spurs might not be in CL and we should be on the rise with a Scottish legend at the helm. There's nothing to say he won't be just as much a squad player at Spurs. If I was Adam, I'd have taken note that it was Levy, not Redknapp, that was trying to do the deal late. Whereas it should be obvious that Kenny was driving our interest.

I'd sell him too. There's too many doubts about his fitness record and abilities to withstand / thrive in a league as quick and physical as ours, for all his undoubted ability. The price isn't £12m either, it's more like £13.75m. We could save both on transfer fee and wages with Charlie Adam, who is arguably more likely to be effective here, whilst also ramping up our set-piece abilities considerably. Plus, Kenny clearly wants him.

My bad, had in my head matchday squad was 19 and went from there. Personally, I think Coady will get the nod for the bench. Defensive midfield is where we're thinnest with no Poulsen or Spearing. We've plenty of potential full-backs and attacking midfielders in this squad.

Agree with the Wilson thing. I've no idea how Sparta play, obviously, but I reckon we could see a reversion to the 3 man defence here. Something like: Reina Carragher Skrtel Wilson Kelly Lucas Aurelio Johnson Meireles Maxi Kuyt with Cole likely coming on at the hour mark. Plus, with 3 keepers in the squad, at least two of Sterling, Coady, Ince, Flanagan & Robinson will be on the bench.

You might be right. Can't think of a case to corroborate this though.

Not without a work permit we couldn't.

Why? No-one picked up on NESV with us until it was done.

None of this adds up. If we were looking to keep him long-term, surely he would be being given the odd cameo late on, at the very least. If only to keep him motivated and interested. Despite being under par in the games he's had, he hasn't gone to being totally useless overnight. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there's a deal in place with someone like Spurs if we pick up Suarez & Adam. Otherwise I just don't get it.

Whilst I tend to agree with that, I'd say getting both of their wages off the books as well as the £6m would be too good a chance to turn down. Especially if we were able to add the sort of pace and class out wide that we've long wanted / needed.

Brian Reade was pretty sympathetic towards Rafa and the treatment of him, But it didn't stop him pointing out faults as he saw them, and nor should it.

Shelvey replaced Poulson on Saturday which makes more sense anyway and then played pretty well whilst we were ahead. It was different against Everton though at 2-2. This is more about Cole though, he may or may not be worth £90k per week, but that's what he's costing us and can't even get on in a game for a cameo when we really could have done with a win. There doesn't seem to be any sort of plan for him at all, unless we're trying to force him out.

So what's going on with Joe Cole? He's now continually below Shelvey from the bench, and he looked fully fit when warming up at half-time on Saturday. I know he's not exactly starred so far, but surely he's better than the PFK treatment. There's no news that he might be off either.

I see, pithy and to the point. The fact that Spurs are now consistently way above us in the league, are in the CL KO stages, play a miles better brand of football than we do, whilst having a wage bill at least 30% below ours (and more so behind ManU, Chelsea, Citeh & Arsenal) is a measure of a failure of their approach is it? This from a position where they were more in danger of relegation 2 seasons ago than we now are (which shows what can be done). Arsenal have done things differently of course, have spent little on transfers (relatively) but heavy on youth and wages. If you're talking about winning titles, then fair enough, damn them for their failure to beat the mega-spenders. But with the way things currently stand, one or two buys for Spurs, ditto for Arsenal could easily see them right up there next season and neither are out of it this season yet. If we're to get back to the top, we have to go through where they are, so airily dismissing the way they've done things without a sugar daddy or massive debt-free stadium (recently in Spurs' case) is a bit rich for mine. To do so whilst touting Downing for us, the type of signing (short-termist, mid-standard, Pennant-Maxi-Cole, dare I say even Konchesky-Poulsen-like) that has got us to exactly where we are is the height of irony.

Interesting that people see this as being the Americans' theme. All that I've got from what they've said is that they look at our squad, net spend and wagebill and compare them to those of Spurs & Arsenal, for example, and they see what's possible.

Agreed that it looks lopsided for our current predicament. However what if the two strikers are available now, yet the players Commoli's targeted for those other positions aren't available until the summer? Surely it's about getting the right players in the end for the long-term. No more fannying about with second/third/fourth choice targets etc.

Cheers.

I don't know. I certainly hope not. But I think his beef was not playing. Where does this refusing to play thing come from? What evidence is there to base that on? He's injured as far as I'm aware and has complications that are potentially serious long-term. Do you know this is a cover-up?

I know what the point is, the point is getting it right but the long-term solution is elusive. JWH has met the players and has said there is no indication of them planning to leave. All but the older ones agree that long-term thinking is what's required. I understand the panic, I feel it myself, but it's the last thing we should be pushing the owners into. We've seen where bad leadership gets us.

The owners will already know the depth of feeling on internet sites against the manager. It's all out there and they've shown that they're in touch with fans way more than any previous regime that we've had. It's only a few weeks since the last set of results showed overwhelming distaste for Hodgson's performance. So I really don't see the point in having another poll so soon after. The very position we're in shows the dangers of the fire first, think replacement later model. How stupid would they be to repeat that as their first real act in charge? Do that and you lose control of your destiny and are at the whim of the market. They've repeatedly said that they want their decisions to have long-term repercussions. Putting a caretaker manager in charge would be the antithesis of this. Putting a 59 year-old club legend in that role, someone that has actively shied away from being a club manager for 10 years otherwise he would have been one, would be both a risk to his reputation and the club's position. For all we know, the owners might think this is no way to treat a club legend and, on top of that, they have no recent track record with Kenny to go on. No idea about his tactics, whether he'd have coaching schemes able to to deliver those tactics, no idea of his understanding of sports science, no way of evaluating whether Kenny knows who the best coaching and support team to surround himself with might be etc, etc. A quick for instance, Hodgson has been derided for his choice of an ageing, English goalkeeping coach whose methods are deemed to be way out of date. Would Kenny be instantly able to replace this guy with a known, modern coach that Pepe would immediately respect and whose methods he'd buy into? I don't know, the owners probably don't know, even Kenny might not know where to turn for this. That's not to show him any disrespect, merely to state the obvious, as it's a long time since he's even had to think along such lines. Presumably all the best ones are already snapped up anyway. We'd likely be back to a Joe Corrigan, i.e. ageing and English, because that is better than having nobody. Would we have moved onwards and upwards here? No, just a big sticking plaster would have been applied wasting money along the way until the long-term solution is found. Not very moneyball, in fact f*** moneyball, it's just plain stupid. It would be a fairytale to believe that Kenny could deliver us back to where we want to be. I would love to believe in it but is there any example in any top sport of somebody 10 years out of the game coming back to coaching and delivering against the odds? I don't know of one. It may have happened but most attempts end in ignominy. So it would be a huge gamble on the part of the owners. They have no track record of taking a punt, so heaping the pressure on them to push them that way is asking them to go against their own successful instincts. Why the hell would we do that? The one chance we've got of them being successful here is to allow them to act like them. Kenny's judgement is still sound, as he saw this coming after all, which is why he put his name out there in the first place. But if he was really serious about it, he would have been managing elsewhere to ready himself. None of this either is to say that the owners should not now be feverishly working behind the scenes to find a remedy. Personally, I thought it was obvious from about 4 Prem games in that Hodgson was a fish out of water here. But this is fraught with difficulty. Whereas the fans are virtually unanimous (on the internet at least) that Hodgson has to go, there is nothing like a consensus as to who the right man should be to replace him, because other than the pipe dream of Mourinho, nobody ticks all the boxes. There's just the familiar hunger for immediate change and a leap into the dark because, 'anything would be better'. For some here, this must be a familiar feeling. And look where that got us. Give them time.

Agree on the others, but Souness took at least half a season too long.

I don't think it's a question of a lack of intelligence at all. They may for instance, already be of a mind that Roy isn't the man for the long-term. They may, on the other hand, be only erring that way, and in their shoes it would be hard to blame them for being a little bit confused as to the mixed messages they'll have received from the performances since they arrived. But I would bet that they know how important it is to have the right man in charge and also realise that their expertise is still lacking when it comes to picking that man out. They'll also likely know about the power of the media. If they were thought to have acted hastily in getting rid of Roy and then get the next appointment wrong through a lack of knowledge, they'll get slaughtered. From the fans too. This will not be how they would like to start off here. So I don't blame them for taking their time with this. If we get the right man in 6 weeks time and it all leads the way it should from there, how many will blame them in 3 years time for taking that bit longer? I still don't think they'll make a huge decision like this until a CEO is appointed and they've got their full executive team in place. They'll want their long-term manager to have the whole-hearted support of the whole management team ('everyone on the same page'). They could well also be looking for a CEO that has the sort of knowledge and experience in the game to enhance their ability to make that choice. It's almost certainly true that all the fault shouldn't lie at Roy's door. Even if, overwhelmingly, we here believe that a huge proportion of it is his fault, only the most narrow-minded would say that all of it is. Note JWH says no more than this. The bit about the players 'determining to win' hints at other problems as does his post-Chelsea tweet: 'An indication of what can happen when this group comes together as one?' These may also not immediately disappear with another new appointment.

You're right, of course. The day it does happen will be the day it will have felt inevitable all along. I get the feeling that it's really not imminent though.

Depends how you read it, but the bit about not blaming everything on the manager and players trying harder and the players 'determining to win' - note: not the manager. I think only a truly disastrous series of results will see him out soon.