Ron W

Eh? Pearson has worked within a very limited framework, possibly worse than McInnes’ but it’s difficult to tell 10 years apart. Difference is we aren’t heading for League One…

Everyone remembers things differently but I’m surprised how positively McInnes is remembered - and especially to the point of being one of our most talented managers. No doubt the club was a financial and logistical mess back then, he’s spot on, and he did have a difficult hand to work with. But look at the guys he brought in… Stephen Pearson, Richard Foster, not only limited footballers but not great for dressing room unity either. Add to that going 11 league games without a win, with a bad squad but not one bad enough for those results. And then dropping Tom Heaton because he’d run out of other ideas during that time, which ended up lowering the morale even further, and you start to think he’s got to take some responsibility along the line. We were a shambles of a club, but he has to take some responsibility for that.

Outrageous how Bristol City players famously avoid being spotted in public outside of match days as well.

He certainly does have an interesting relationship with property development.

Credit to everyone there today. Brilliant support given the distance and our form.

You think about how good we were and we could afford to carry him when he played, and use him as a luxury player. An unbelievable talent but definitely parted ways at the right time.

It's not quite no money. They spent more than they have in recent years in the summer.

There was a time when we looked like competing for the Championship title and were in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup with Ashton, and most of us were of a mindset similar to yours. As others have said though, be careful not to get too swept up in it, or when your next CEO takes over you might end up considering a points deduction too.

Again, not a Forest expert but they won 14 games in almost a year under Hughton. Doesn’t smack of having loads of clear direction.

At the end of the day, we were a largely second or third division club long before SL came along. Yes there are other smaller teams who have got it right and got to the Premier League during his time but there's also plenty of teams who've had a worse time than us too.

Saviour perhaps not, but certainly a facilitator with the investment in the squad, the stadium and the training ground. The issue is some of the clowns he's had around him, and how culpable he is for that. At the moment we've got an experienced football manager who's been there and done it at the helm, and a respected operator as CEO. That set-up is one of his better calls of the last two decades IMO.

Not going to pretend to be a Forest expert but isn't saving a team from relegation rather a stretch when you take over after four games? And despite having a pretty talented squad on paper (which I don't think you could say for us), they still finished 17th? Just not sure we are in the same sphere as Forest. Look through the squad and there's quality in most parts of the pitch.

There’s an argument for how Cooper rejuvenated the Forest squad… But that’s probably a slightly easier job than doing it to ours.

Is that how it is? I haven't read much of OTIB for a while. Always difficult to balance where you are against where you theoretically should be, and if there is a convincing argument as to why Pearson should be replaced then... Well, why not. But as you say, much easier to say than to justify.

Non-leading question - who comes in? Will they do better with this squad? How will they circumvent the financial issues we have?

This is a great summary. Wanting someone to blame is a very natural reaction when things are going badly but if you decide it's at the manager's door, who is going to come in and perform a miracle? It's not like this is anywhere near a Premier League squad, in terms of quality or mentality. We have got to a point where we are publicly contemplating a points deduction because our finances are so bad. We've been spoiled in the past 20 years. We've either been pushing for promotion in League 1 or telling ourselves we should be doing the same in the Championship. Sometimes it just ain't gonna happen and I think this is where we are. We shouldn't let the way the finances have been allowed to get to this stage just pass by though. It was a big risk even before the pandemic and it's been horribly exposed.

Couldn't remember the laws on this so looked it up. Maybe Gavin Ward should too.

Can we just talk about that Weimann finish? Outside of the boot, near post. Oof.

Was it not a relatively comprehensive summary of Simpson’s tenure and his thoughts on the club? Something we haven’t seen anywhere else? You sound about as keen on Gregor as Ole does on COD!

No disrespect Henry, but you haven’t got a clue. Clubs don’t give cart blanche to random journalists covering totally unrelated sides to ask as many questions as they like during a press conference. The fact Gregor has got a one-to-one of this length is pretty unusual, and impressive imo.

Totally. It's entitlement. Do the parents think there aren't thousands of other kids who would like to be jumping the barriers to get on the pitch on a matchday?

We might sound miserable and we probably are but we've all sat through years of City being dross as kids, bordering on child abuse, and would we have run on the pitch to get a player's shirt if we thought it was okay? Well maybe not for Tony Dinning but generally yes. But the point is we didn't, because sadly we can't just do what we like. Unless we work in Downing Street.

We seem to go through stages. Minor investment optimised by great management - Johnson Snr/Cotterill Large investment put to waste, haemorrhage money - end of Johnson Snr/some of Johnson Jnr/Millen “We’ve decided to cut our cloth and stop this excess spending once and for all” - McInnes, Pearson Repeat ad nauseum.

It’s not as simple as that. Without the Lansdowns, would we have had an owner so willing to pump money into the club for 20 years? Probably not. Might we have had an owner with more football-savvy, who would have got us to the Premier League? Quite possibly. The guys who think SL is here for a quick buck I have to ask, how do you see that actually panning out? Unless you think SL is another Steve Dale, it seems like nonsense. The questionable-at-best running of the club, fuelled in recent years by a man who was run out of Watford and Wycombe, has plenty of questions to answer tho

I don't believe you don't know the difference, whether it applies in this case or not. But there feels like an added undercurrent of spite towards COD which other players don't get, and the same at Luton.