Mashed Potatoes

He had 15 games - from which he got 22 points. He inherited a situation where we had 29 points from 31 games. So on a points per game basis he improved us by a factor of approx 50%. In any walk of life management which achieved a 50% improvement immediately with the same resources would be regarded as doing an excellent job

Decent post. Johnson, Adkins and Pearson are the three most realistic names.

Get real. Wagner is at Schalke, Jokanovic has a no doubt highly paid job in Qatar- Hughton will be waiting for something better

Nathan Jones was a "young,hungry manager" and look at what has happened with him at Stoke. I think it is facile to suggest that that profile of manager will automatically lead to top 6. If someone new did come in, they have to have a personality that means they can work with the conditions imposed by the owners - Paul Lambert clearly could not put up with it.

I live down South so you have probably been to a lot more games than me. Like you I have doubts about TM but per my post above think we should stick

Agreed that the club was a 1000% better run then; the problem I have with some of the criticism of Mowbray is that implicit is that his successor will be a better manager. There is no evidence in the last 9 years to suggest that that is likely. I also think that the "best" manager for the club is the one who works best with the current owners and I cannot think of who that would be - hence I prefer to support Mowbray despite some legitimate concerns

Attended my first game in October 1965. Don't disagree with you about the owners who are clueless. I was trying to introduce some sense of proportion - it is part of the modern football culture that people over react to what has happened in the last few days. Had similar people been around when Kenny was going through that terrible run, who knows what nonsense would have been spouted ?

Can't see the relevance of "Jack". The point is that even the best managers have bad runs

Imagine being able to name him

We lost 3 home games in a row under Dalgleish in 1991-92

Given that it was Mowbray who signed Chapman why do you think he has a down on him ?

Alternatively,standards and expectations might be lower at Wigan; after another defeat last night they look to be facing a relegation battle.

It is the same approach as adopted last season by Aston Villa and Sheffield United - seems pretty good to me

Our main problem to address was the defensive weakness - Mowbray signed a new goalkeeper, a new left back plus Tosun to compete as centre back and there has been a significant improvement in the goals per game conceded as a consequence.

But Chapman is one of Mowbray's signings rather than one of our youth team players - which of our youth team players are better than Mowbray's signings ?

I don't understand what you are saying about Mahoney. He got the majority of his first team opportunities with us from Tony Mowbray but refused to renew his contract and then moved to a Premier League club where he never played - but presumably was better paid.

Yes, it's a lot cheaper to fire the manager than all the players. Jones did well at Luton so it does show that success in one set of circumstances does not automatically transfer to another

Without seeing the contracts for the deals we can never be sure what the club are liable for. As Joe Harvey pointed out there is likely to be a trigger for payments in the case of promotion to the Premier League ( and also appearances for England) and those potential liabilities can be included in the fees for players that are quoted in the media. But it wouldn't be fair to say that we have "spent" those sums

I doubt if Brighton would have wanted to loan Walton to us unless they were confident he was going to be playing regularly as first choice. To know how much money clubs were spending last season we will need to see accounts to the end of June this year - I don't think ours are yet available ?

Pretty well. Last season after 8 games Norwich had 11 points; we have 13

Those "poor signings". Didn't they sign 5 players in one day in the summer ? Then people came on here saying how well they had done !

But aren't those two both better suited to playing on the right side of central defence whereas Williams provides balance by being suited to the left side ?

Alternatively it might be best in the long run for Brereton to go on loan to a Division One club for the second half of the season and get a run of games where he could start scoring goals and re-discover his confidence - unfortunately I suspect that the reaction of the owners to my suggestion would be strongly negative

Yes, I think he is a striker suited to playing in the centre but he was played out wide for a while in Division One and consequently lost confidence in front of goal. It's good news that he is on the way back.

Thanks, I didn't know that - not always the easiest situation to be in for any walk of life and there is the risk that he is an easy target.