Howay

Aye the fact is he gave Lee Charnley control to spend £80m, he also allowed Lee Charnley to appoint the manager and allowed Lee Charnley to preside over the debacle that was not firing McClaren until it was basically too late. That is precisely why the fucking cunt gets the blame, this is his second relegation now and he is the constant of both, he didn't learn from the first one.

Colback will look good down there, he's a slightly below average Premier League player but down there he'll be canny. Dummett will be solid down there as he's okay defensively in the Prem. I think Townsend will stay purely because of his price tag, we paid 12m for him so I can't see Ashley letting him go for much below that and I can't see other teams paying it (likewise with Shelvey). I think Obertan will be good down there, maybe I was giving too much credit to Gouffran though. You could be right on Riviere but we'll have to wait and see with him as he'll be playing a lot of upper League one / lower championship defenders so he might do okay (not that I think he'll play much if we hold onto Mitro and play Armstrong). I expect we will sign some top Championship players similar to what we did last time, to pad the squad out, again I don't think it'll be pretty but I'm fairly confident that we'll get promoted. To Renton's point about Villa and the Mackems, I think Villa are a bit of a mess so it depends on their next move, if they appoint Pearson (or Moyes as Tooj mentioned) they will probably be a threat. Sunderland will lose Defoe and therefore any semblance of goal threat (aside from Borini if he stays although he's inconsistent), I also think there's a good chance Fat Sam will walk out just before they're mathematically relegated so he can still make his point that he has never been relegated. I think we'll be play-off spots at worst but we'll come top 2 imo, which is what I felt last time.

I thought he had one more? I thought I'd read he had 18 months left in January, could have been another player mind. I'm assuming the post by Essembee was aimed at me? If so the players we have in the current squad that look hopeless now but will do well down there are ones like Taylor, Lascelles, Dummett, Colback, Townsend, Riviere (possibly, haven't seen enough of him to be fair), possibly Obertan and Gouffran, I'm not saying it'll be riveting stuff but I'm confident we'll come back up it's a shite league.

We'll come straight back up, there's plenty players in the squad that look hopeless in the Prem and wont attract buyers but will do well in the Championship. We also have youth like Armstrong, Aarons, and Bigirimana who will also do well (Armstrong in particular imo).

I'm not anywhere near as bothered as I was last time we went down, this has been coming for 3 seasons now and Ashley has really taken the least amount of action possible until this season where he finally allowed the club to spend some money. The spending spree was always grounded in his stupid fucking policies for the most part though, it focused on attacking midfield type players and a young striker when we clearly needed defenders and goalscorers, he also yet again neglected to bother appointing a proper manager and went for another cheap option. I'm really hoping this finally pushes him over the edge with the club and he makes sure we get back up then tries to sell the club, we're never going to see good football under this bloke. I think how dross we've been all season has helped the acceptance of it tbh, we've been in and around the bottom 3 basically all season so it's hard to feel depressed when it's all but guaranteed now. I think we'll be back up after a season down there.

:lol:

And Henri Saivet!

He did aye, albeit out of desperation but there is hope it's acknowledgement that his past way didn't work. Had this football lark all figured out about 4 years ago iirc, guess he's just been coasting since.

If there was any hope of Moyes I'd go for him. I'm really hoping Ashley learns, gets rid of Charnley and brings in a manager like Moyes and gives him control, I think it's probably a stretch though.

My mate had never heard of him, so I sent him a video of his commentary and told him to try and listen as long as he could, think he switched off after about 30 seconds of Hudson talking utter nonsense and going mental about how wonderful Messi is over the video of Messi missing.

It's on TV over here but unfortunately the completely unbearable Ray Hudson is commentating on it, Barcelona controlling the play early on and Hudson has so far referred to Bale,Benzema and Ronaldo as the BBC, and called Messi "Magisterial" which I don't think means what he thinks it does...

It's a shame he has really dropped off, he never did anything away from home but he was really good at home but aye since about November or so he hasn't even done much at home. I don't know what it is with him, whether it's a mentality thing (as it seems to be with Sissoko), or whether he's simply not up to the physicality of the league and needs a break (not convinced it's that though), but he has been poor.

I'm more meaning Ashley wont want to take what he sees as a big loss on them so clubs will have to pay what they cost us to get them. Mitrovic is honestly about the only player I'd care about leaving, I think he'd do well down there. The rest can get fucked tbh.

But you're coming at it from an intelligent position, Ashley will be looking at trying to get back up for as little as possible he'll be more than happy to roll the dice again. The Benitez appointment and spending on transfers was all made in utter panic and there was little else he could do really, he can go and appoint a Warnock type for quarter of the price keep some of our players and buy some upper championship players then fancy us to come back up.

I don't think that is as strong a factor as people are making out, even if it was there is no possibility of Mike Ashley paying someone around 4m for a season in the Championship. Last time we went down he simply didn't appoint anyone and let the Assistant manager get us promoted, he'll be fairly confident he can either try that again (with Cathro) or pay some no mark 500k-1m who will get the job done.

I'm hoping his wages will mean we finally see the back of captain fantastic.

I don't think we'll struggle down there tbh, if we keep Mitrovic etc we'll be fine. We're a shite Prem team but a good portion of the Championship is utter fodder. Even if we lose Mbemba a defence with Taylor, Lascelles and Dummett in it isn't really a weak defence down there. I don't think it'll be as comfortable as last time but I still think we'll be in play off spots at worst. I think Mitro, Shelvey, Townsend and Mbemba are almost guaranteed to stay due to the fees we paid for them alone.

No chance he'll stay. The wages alone would put an end to that, Ashley's not paying a manager 3-4m in the Championship it took pretty extreme circumstances for him to even do it in the PL.

What a grim situation that we're seemingly in a position to have a scrap over Nigel fucking Pearson.

Aye Perez is gone, other clubs rate him and he only cost us 1.5. The only think keeping Mitro will be the hefty price tag we paid for him. The Armstrong point is interesting though, I'd forgotten about him to a degree but he'd be one that will do well in the Championship as there's not a massive jump in quality between League one and a lot of the Championship. I see him as a Chopra type who will spend his career scoring for fun in the Championship/lower and never really do it in the Prem.

Aye I'm 100% confident that Charnley wont bother looking until the day Rafa takes the exit option and leaves. He'll still be pretending we're going to stay up and thinking that by not planning he's showing confidence when in reality he's being a fucking idiot. I think we'll end up with some shite English dinosaur about a month after Rafa leaves.

I'd really like to see Mitrovic stay, I think it could be great for him and he'd increase in confidence similar to how it helped Carroll. We need to really sort the defence but I just feel they'll skim on it again, they'll see Taylor and Lascelles as a possible starting pair (if Mbemba leaves).

Utter bunch of losers tbh. Conceding 3 against an utterly dross Norwich teams sums up the ability of our defending. The team only give a fuck when Mitro grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and got us back into the game, then all of a sudden they tried after not bothering all match. Fucking tossers, we should just keep the lot of them and let them enjoy the fruits of their labour by having to play in the division they deserve to be in. Saying that I don't want to watch the majority of them.

Ah well there it is, saying that it was a complete handball there.