Bictor

I can see the Championship being the making of a lot of our players next year. The same way that it was for the likes of Colo, Enrique etc. Mbemba, Mitrovic, Aarons, Perez, Armstrong would all benefit from a year of dominating against lesser competition and I think we'd be competitive in the 2017/18 PL season. Janmaat, Wijnaldum, Krul and a few others are the only guys I can really see leaving.

I don't get it because after winning something, what incentive would he have to sell us? Basically I took this interview as him trolling the fans saying he's going to be here forever because we're never going to win anything.

He's not suddenly a great player again. If Jonas is playing a significant role in our season next year it's a signal that we're definitely going to be fighting relegation. I'd be fine with us signing him to a contract if he wants to play a small, outside role, but it wouldn't be some huge travesty if we didn't resign him.

Shola as Director of Football. (I was joking but I actually quite like the sound of a Jonas/Shola managing duo)

Ashley will invest. Undoubtedly. He has to because the risk of us going down is too big. We'll buy a few players and be good. Then we'll sell the players that have made us good, making us awful again. Repeat. I'm interested to see who he makes manager.

Transfers is the only one that isn't bad enough to give "Average level of success"

Qatar want to buy a PL team? Time for Ashley to get his pitch on.

Can't argue with that.

Alnwick, Dummett, S.Taylor, Colback and Ameobi all on the pitch. Nice to see.

But probably not going to help convince FIFA that the integrity of the two teams isn't being compromised

Such an average team on paper. No idea how we keep on winning games.

Europa! Teams take it more seriously and actually play their best players. Outside of England no one cares about who wins the League Cup. Plus the Europa League winners get a Champions League place now.

You don't want to answer valid points so you say I'm letting an emotive subject get away from me? Nothing annoys me more than people losing objectivity because of emotive subjects... My first point was a question asking you confirm what you said in your previous post. I said people were ignoring the views of potential BME candidates after talking about what Olivier Bernard said and you then said you weren't ignoring, you were "disagreeing". All I did was ask you if actually disagreed with what Bernard said. Because, you know, after saying you disagreed with potential BME candidates, one should be able to assume that you disagreed with the only BME person I was talking about in my post, without being accused of putting words into your mouth. My second point was another perfectly valid question. You said you didn't think the Rooney Rule would increase the number of BME coaches and managers and I asked why. Considering the only other example of the rule being employed has seen a 300% increase in the number of BME head coaches in the following 10 years, I don't see the issue. Was it here that I put words into your mouth or appeared angry? My third point is pretty clear. Not really sure how I can word it any better. I guess I can see why you would think I was putting words in your mouth here, but I wasn't really changing what you said as opposed to just pointing out how you were contradicting yourself. If you say you aren't bringing it down to one factor, it doesn't make sense for you to say in the previous sentence that the solution to the issue is "the FA spending actual money on training them". If you think there's more than one factor, surely only increasing the amount of money on training will not resolve the issue? And I still fail to see where I have appeared angry so far in my post. I accepted your point that the Rooney Rule would not resolve the issue. I've said throughout that the Rooney Rule is not meant to be the be-all and end-all solution (granted, we disagree on whether the Rooney Rule will have any impact, but bare in mind my argument is based on fairly conclusive evidence from America, whereas yours is based on absolutely nothing). I then go on the bring up the home-grown players rule, because it's a good comparison, if I do say so myself. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8858634.stm) Given that the two are quite similar, is it not fair to question why people have an issue with one and not the other? I asked if you were against the home-grown players rule for clarification and ended my post with a few ironic exclamation points. As far as I can see, this is as angry as my post gets. But I think it was pretty clear that I was joking, rather than expressing my anger. If anyone is letting the subject get away from them, it certainly isn't me. (hope I didn't put any words in your mouth or come off overly aggressive in this post)

You disagree with Olivier Bernard when he says that if there was Rooney Rule he would try to become a manager again because he would feel as though he would be given a chance? You're telling him he's wrong? Is that not actually how he feels? What makes you think it won't increase the number of BME coaches/managers? Because this is based on absolutely no evidence or facts. Whereas we go to America and see that since the Rooney Rule has been enforced black head coaches have gone up 300%. Correlation is not causation, but this is pretty telling. People are blinded by their bias if they think the Rooney Rule will have no effect. You say you aren't bringing it down to one factor but that's EXACTLY what you're doing. "You know what will?" and then you go on to name ONE solution. You're right "employing the Rooney Rule may not resolve the issue". That is not a reason to not do it. No single thing the FA could do would completely resolve the issue. The home-grown players rule was never going to resolve the British players in the PL issue. But they still brought it in. Because they thought it would have some impact and it was a step in the right direction. I have no idea why the same can't be done with the Rooney Rule. Actually, that comparison is hilariously ironic....Are you against the home-grown players rule because it forces teams to have British players in their squad? Where's all the uproar when Ross Turnbull gets signed by Chelsea to fit a quota? More talented foreign players are missing out on the Chelsea squad because of a British player!!!!! OMG so wrong!!!!

It's not as simplistic as "if black managers don't get jobs because they're black what will the Rooney Rule do?". You could've said the same thing about the NFL. And I've already said that the number of BME head coaches increased 300% since the introduction of the rule. There will never be just one reason. But the Rooney Rule encourages BME candidates to step forward. At the moment a lot of potential candidates don't think they're going to be given a chance. THIS is what the Rooney Rule fixes. More BME people will apply because of it and it's been PROVEN to work. Seriously people... No one wants to get an interview "simply because their black". In a perfect world we wouldn't need the Rooney Rule. But this is reality. If Dyer and Bramble want to go into management and they aren't put off by thinking they won't get a chance, the Rooney Rule is not aimed at them. It's aimed at the Olivier Bernard's. He straight up said if there was a Rooney Rule he would feel more confident about going into management because he would know he'd get a chance instead of being discriminated against. Why are people choosing to just ignore the opinions of potential black managers? The Rooney Rule is not about solving the "prejudice thing". If it was owners would be forced to hire BME candidates. That's not what it is. The age thing may be a factor. But I don't get why people need to bring it down to one factor and use it as a reason to not try to help the situation that is clearly down to a number of things. Funding is also probably an issue. That doesn't mean we don't bring in the Rooney Rule to try and solve another issue. I don't get what's so hard to understand. Or are people just choosing to play ignorant because they want to avoid doing something to help? It's not about square pegs going into a round hole, because the Rooney Rule isn't meant to be and won't be the whole solution. If the lack of BME managers is a round hole this is at worst a tiny square peg that will partially fill the whole and can be taken out when we've worked out how to properly fill the hole. And I don't believe the reason people don't want the Rooney Rule is because they care so much about having more BME managers that they aren't satisfied with small progress (it would be easier if people just admitted that the reason they don't want positive discrimination is because they couldn't give two shits about the progression of minority groups).