Mashed Potatoes

I have no intention of smearing anyone. I responded to what I thought was very unfair criticism of Ben Benson. Good old Johnno gets a free pass on here because he is a popular former player whereas Benson is not. But I can see no reason for getting rid of Benson.

Flattered, old boy. Let's hope we are still in the Championship which sadly is not a given.

I think Benson has been coaching at the club since 2015 so is no longer a novice. Good old Johnno may have been a decent player but he is listed as being the Technical Coach and Head of Player Development so can hardly be absolved from responsibility for the disappointments on the pitch - if only he had been as successful as Ben Benson.

I think you are the only person who truly believes Nyambe to be "top class" which I would define as being the sort of player who the top 6 or so clubs in England would be interested in. I'm going to post my views on Tony Mowbray after the final game of the season.

Yes - and Bill Belichick, the most successful NFL coach in history, never played the game after the age of 23.

The problem with your sort of argument is that Benson can never win - if the player he coaches does well then apparently it is all down to the player. Noboby is going to tell me you would use the same argument if Benson was a popular former player like "good old Johnno".

You don't say what you mean by "top class" but if at now the age of 23 Nyambe really had reached that level I would have expected a Premier League club to be in for him rather than Stoke. Lenihan has become an Irish international under Mowbray. Travis keeps picking up injuries.

It's a fallacy to believe that someone has to have played at a high level to be a good coach. Not sure why you have something against Benson. He is the goalkeeping coach - the one area of the team where there has been visible improvement this season. It is a pity that the other coaches like Lowe and Johnson have not had the same impact.

The issue was never about a view being challenged but rather the absurd and I would have thought insulting accusation that the poster was a "plant" - a point you don't address. I find it hard to believe there are any on here - the board is just not that important. There's been a bit of a hiccup on the progress front.

How do you tell the difference, though ?

As has already been said, it defeats the purpose of having a messageboard if you simply dismiss any minority or contrarian view as coming from a "plant".

The word is that he will get the Celtic job.

I am not very good at posting links but there is now an article on the LET in which Steve Waggott discusses the proposal. Regarding your point about facilities he seems to suggest this would be settled by having a 2 storey building. He states that he regards retention of Cat1 status as "vital".

This is complete nonsense.It is impossible to sneak large scale developments through planning in secret; the local council will write to those who live in the vicinity.

My hunch is that the idea will have come from external consultants - Venkys do not seem to trust employees to any significant degree.

Very disturbed by them - clearly an attempt by the owners to stem the losses they are making through their continued ownership of the club. Hopefully the proposals will not be implemented.

Pity they don't have a name.

One point about this proposal. In the discussions about possible successors to the present manager there are some names flying round - Howe, Lampard etc- which had already struck me as completely unrealistic. Nobody now can surely believe that those sorts of managers are going to be attracted to a club which wants to sell off half its training grounds ?

To be fair to Lampard I doubt if he had much of a say regarding the players that the money was spent on.

And Mowbray wins the game.

A fair point but I suppose the question has to be : does he go so far with his behaviour that his players lose all respect for him and effectively down tools. Based on their result last night after his behaviour at the end of our game the answer may well be yes.

Warnock's Middlesbrough lose 0-3 at home to Rotherham.

You probably were not aware but Morsy is unpopular here because his challenge put Dack out for a year when he was at Wigan.

A very fair post - you are very welcome here. Do you think you will get in to the playoffs ?

We are the tough boys now and Warnock is crying his eyes out - it's how you win. Ask Roy Keane and Greame Souness.