Dr Gloom

apparantly terry mac is on well over £100k a year. not bad money for putting the cones out for training and getting the bets on for the boys

apparantly he's just been seen coming out of the greggs by the hippy green

agreed - we could do much worse. even better if he gets shearer on board as his number two because then the fans will get behind them both and hopefully give them time to do the job. although the latest stories seem to imply that shearer would only take the top job so that idea might be non-starter

Very true. The last bit applies to SBR too. some of us knew what we had when we had him! i can't believe so many thought (and still think) we should have sacked robson.

You'd take him over James, Carson, flash gordon? yeah.

still a world class shot stopper. needs to work on his kicking. i wouldn't swap him for many in the premiership

;)

agreed. idiotic timing. hopefully we've got enough in the current squad to stay in mid table saftey.

i remember his first match in charge of us...against bristol city iirc. non-stop chants of "keegan, keegan!" he may be a barmy appointment at this stage - managers that go back for second stints rarely succeed - but at least the fans would get behind him.

derby and fulham are lookign doomed like but i reckon sunderland could still get out of it. bolton, wigan, boro and birmingham are all still in the mix. us and reading could get pulled into it too.

the bolton game is massive. win that and we can start looking up instead of down. if we lose or draw and other results don't go our way, we could easily get sucked into it. there's always one side that sinks in the new year.

up there with "he's gay, he's dead, he's hanging in the shed.....fashanu! fashanu!"

i think houillier would be a better bet than the likes of hughes or redknapp but there are other foreign coaches who i think ashley should approach first. van gaal, hitzfeld and mourinho for example.

i'm not sure i'd fancy houlier being the one to identify players. he signed plenty of shocking players at liverpool. cisse, song, diao, le tallac etc

don't forget to close the door on your way out nige

I don't even think any of the above were considered let alone sounded out... Me either. They all have far better CVs than Redknapp. Smokescreen imo. Unfortunately I fear that is the truth of the matter. Have to cast the net as wide as possible now and not run rush into anything. There really is no need to rush. This season is a complete write-off so lets just see it out. ...and pray we don't get sucked into the relegation battle. there are a worrying number of teams on 20 points, just a couple of wins behind us. The 'only 6 points clear' bit really bothers me. The only thing that calms my nerves is the amount of sides below us. I.e. they can't all keep winning / picking up points as they have to play each other at some point. I am nervous about us though. there's usually one team that sinks like a stone and gets sucked into it and we're looking a rudderless ship at the moment. you look at the team on paper and there should be goals in it but i can't see where our next win is coming from at the moment. if we do wait until the summer to recruit the new manager, pearson is going to have to get them organised and playing asap

I don't even think any of the above were considered let alone sounded out... Me either. They all have far better CVs than Redknapp. Smokescreen imo. Unfortunately I fear that is the truth of the matter. Have to cast the net as wide as possible now and not run rush into anything. There really is no need to rush. This season is a complete write-off so lets just see it out. ...and pray we don't get sucked into the relegation battle. there are a worrying number of teams on 20 points, just a couple of wins behind us.

I read something which suggested that they spent an obscene amount for a German club but are only just ahead of second so it was considered "failure". They started brilliantly, playing decent football for a change, which was something they tried to focus on. But they lost their momentum quite quickly with a couple of goalless draws where they failed to convert a plentora of chances. They have only lost one game this season though. The biggest criticism was the draw against Bolton at home, where Hitzfeld took of his best players early because they had to play another games less than 48 hours later but was heavily attacked by Rummenigge ("football is not mathematics"). It seems that Hitzfeld then made his decision not to enter talks about a new contract. It really seems that he isn't really bothered about club football any more. As I've now said a couple of times people really should forget about him. He made clear that he either takes the Swiss job or none at all. shame but it's encouraging to think mort and ashley are at least sounding out names like hitzfeld and not just the usual suspects like hughes, mcclaren etc

Worrying when you consider what damaging effect Shepherd evidently had on the club. Amazing the stuff that's coming out now about him to be honest. Ashley appears to be doing things above board. That in itself will take the club further. i'm optimistic that a man worth almost £2bn will take us further than our cretinous former chairman. but the early signs aren't great are they? in fact, when you look at it, the manner in which the allardyce sacking has played out is shepherd-esque. there's the timing of the dismissal (slap bang in the middle of the transfer window), not having a replacement lined up, the courting of a second rate english manager and the resulting public rejection. the only thing missing as far as i can see is some moronic comments about the geordie nation...

indeed. the only issue i could see with him is that he's getting on a bit. his record is different class. i'm surprised the n-o boys haven't replaunched hitzfeldforthetoon.com

i'd take any of them ahead of hughes or the keegan/shearer dream team

i've got the first two series of weird weekends on dvd from years back....still watch them fairly frequently. love the one where goes to rap in the deep south and the one with survivalists.