mozo

Yep, and they certainly weren't meaningless for Manning, who was under pressure at that stage.

Since 1966, surely every other major footballing nation has won a tournament, plus a few lesser nations? Certainly the big two South American teams have multiple trophies. In Europe, France, Italy, Germany and Spain have all won multiple trophies in that time. Then even Holland, Portugal, Greece and Denmark have beaten us to it. That is depressing! Mind you, Le Tournoi...

Dave, did Oxford play pure Manningball? If so, I'm wondering why they could do it but we can't? By the way, I lived in Sheffield, and it is like a parallel universe

Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker? We will win 5-0. Mark. My. Words.

26.5k was mentioned in the GM interview I think. So that looks right

I think the bittersweet element here is that if we, by some minor miracle, finish top 6 next season, then the board could argue that they were justified in bringing in Manning when they did and managing the budget how they did.

Fair enough. It won't happen anyway The kind of apology you would get from Steve L is "Maybe we could have done things differently but..."

To bring us closer to some sort of closure, I think Steve Lansdown should, and could easily, front up when the season's over, and just apologise for poor messaging around the Pearson sacking. That needs to be followed by a glowing appraisal of the work Pearson did (and best wishes to him). That mea culpa and act of gratitude would make a world of difference to the relationship with the fans. But unfortunately, I don't think many ludicrously wealthy people feel they have to apologise for anything, or accept other people's best interests. At least not this one. Literally all we need is a couple of minutes of grace and selflessness, and then we can draw a line under it.

That's a valid argument, albeit I'm not sure I buy it. But it still comes back to the question, if tactics are the problem, why were we dropping points unnecessarily pre-Manning too (even before the injuries stacked up)?

Yes, but closer to free than his true value.

I've got no issue with people doubting Manning. What I was pointing out to Mr Seagull, was that his assessment that Manning should have won certain "winnable games" is a daft way to assess, because all managers drop points against teams they should beat.

I appreciate no one wants a Nige v Liam debate (sorry guys!!), but it's the easiest way to point out your double standard.

If anyone has seen the brilliant TV comedy series, The Thick Of It, that's kind of how I imagine the sacking of Nige. First of all, the board members, led by Jon, probably passed on the message to Nige in a vague and cowardly way, then scarpered and hid in a store cupboard whilst Nige stomped around the HPC demanding answers. After Nige drives off, they come out to brainstorm how they're going to communicate the sacking without pissing off the fans, which of course spectacularly fails.

Really?! I actually would guess next year. I'm hoping you don't have any intel there!!

The points gap to top 6 is not the barometer that everyone else uses. Everyone else looks at league position and points accrued. This means that we have currently improved on last season. But you conveniently found a metric by which you can criticise. We were good enough to beat Stoke and Birmingham under Nige, but we didn't. Does that make Nige a failure? You and I both know that football is not played on paper.