Mashed Potatoes

I doubt very much that Mike Ashley has got to where he is in life by being the pushover in negotiations that you are assuming.

Apparently Newcastle expect the club he is loaned to will pay his £60,000 a week wages.

Unfortunately the days of getting round FFP are at an end. There is a report that I have just read in today's Daily Telegraph that last week 5 unnamed Championship clubs visited the EFL for a meeting to demand that a date be set for the hearing in to the Sheffield Wednesday situation be set and to complain about Wednesday still bringing in new players. I am afraid that there are now an increasing number of clubs who are bringing in lawyers to consider action to ensure that the EFL enforce the rules and we are going to have to live with that.

Agreed - but an indication of how the owners have set the club up.

Have the various CEOs actually had the powers and authority that would normally be associated with that position ? The impression I get is that these people are really just administrators.

What on earth is the connection between FFP and a mental health campaign ?

If true,disturbing news, if not unexpected. Personally, I would rather see FFP bite with a points deduction than see Ewood Park sold off. You only have to look at Coventry City's problems to see how inadvisable it is for a club's ground to be owned by someone other than the club. As I have mentioned before, the EFL look to be getting much tougher with regard to the enforcement of the FFP rules, not least because Steve Gibson and Middlesbrough have got lawyers on the case to see that they do, and the blithe remarks above about what other clubs have done in the past do not address the reality that the club now faces.

I've no idea who was pushing Brereton to the owners. Do you ?

In which case he follows all the others who have told Venkys the truth and paid for it with his job - perhaps he thought he might be able to make something of the lad.

He could hardly come out and say it was never his idea and came about because of agents in the background.

If as you say, rightly I think, Mowbray has never rated Brereton does that not point to the signing having been instigated by someone else ?

Well with Kean,Berg,Appleton and Coyle the owners have already managed to come up with someone worse on 4 occasions - so why not a 5th ?

Yes, I know - sadly they are the ones who make the decisions

My thoughts entirely. I didn't know that Mowbray received that advice prior to taking the job, but if that is true it is indicative of how toxic the owners' reputation is in the game and as such a serious deterrent to anyone with a choice as to where they will work. Lambert had much the highest standing in the game of anyone who joined us - and indeed was the only one who went on to good jobs after us - but he was never going to take the job here unless he had a get out if things were like he was warned . Unfortunately they were and wore him down to the extent that he jumped.

If Mowbray goes some people want an unproven coach in Damien Johnson to take over

4 of those 6 posts were replies to posts to myself, 3 of them courteous but the other 1 suggesting nobody should bother to converse with me.

Not much point to a messageboard that only allows one opinion.

I want the club to be run well without micro management from thousands of miles away and without the fear that there is an absurd decision coming just around the corner. I think the manager - whoever it is - is probably hamstrung by policies regarding incoming transfers for any degree of significant fee being limited both in terms of the position of the player and their age whereas the manager's professional judgement should be employed to sign the players thought most likely to get the club in to the Premier League. I hope that in next 5 years - indeed the next 5 minutes - the owners are gone and the club is once again run by people who understand how a football club should be run.

I don't think there's nobody out there better - I think the owners wouldn't identify them/they won't want to take the job/they won't stay for long if they did

I was referring to McCarthy at Ipswich although I do remember people complaining about Allardyce - "hoofball" etc.

Exactly - and I bet there was some poor sod on the Ipswich messageboard telling the others there that they weren't going to get anyone better but they told him to shut up because there were better managers out there.

Weren't the Ipswich fans dancing in the streets when McCarthy got fired ?

The owners have already said no to Warnock once

I realise I wouldn't have the information. I'm forming my opinion on the basis of what I surmise the position to be and how the owners have behaved in the past.

My memory must be failing but please could you name these managers and explain what they have achieved.