Out of interest why should we piss the league rather than Sheff Utd, Luton, Norwich who’ve alll got parachute payments or indeed Leeds who seem to have endless supplies of cash? Sheff Utd doing lots of business at the moment with some signings who look very good.

Sorry Abbey I meant no point us playing tit for tat.

Of course you do 😂. As things stand we should definitely be in the mix - infact anything less represents failure. Hard to say what changes Parker has made as other than the Cadiz game at the weekend most of our pre season have been behind closed doors. A lot of the backroom staff have changed of course as Kompany took a few and Bellamy left for Wales. As far as I can tell our ‘style’ will be a mix, lots of possession but more willingness to go direct than under Kompany. Also looks like he might stick with zonal marking and I’m not a fan & think teams like Luton will exploit this again. We still have Berge, Cullen and Brownhill in CM, have Beyer, Esteve, O’Shea, Ekdal at CH, have a new RB and LB and a new keeper. I’m assuming Trafford will be gone soon and Muric already gone. We also still have Odobert and Koleosho who are frighteningly quick - with Benson and Zaraoury also still at the club. Up front we have Foster, Obefemi and Rodriguez - and Tresor who so far has been a disaster of a signing. And we still have Vitinho, Roberts, JBG. Of course there will still be movement. I can’t imagine we keep Berge and Odobert and we need to clear out at least 10 squad players - some talk of a deal for Conway with Twine & McNally going the other way. Always dangerous calling leagues, especially with transfers still on going, however Leeds look strong, Luton will be there as well. Sheff Utd I’m less convinced by but resources alone should have them up there. Alongside the usual suspects there will normally be one surprise package - not sure who that will be.

I think you gave us less than we’d given you but either way it makes little difference. We physically can’t offer you more - though there are plenty of ‘hospitality’ tickets - and some of these have been seated in the middle of home fans last season. In your shoes I wouldn’t ever want to be giving 6-8 thousand tickets to anyone. I always hated away fans getting the whole cricket field. I’m not sure how much difference the crowd really makes however the whole stand thing can’t help. I imagine the bottom line ends up taking priority, hence why the Americans are happy to put away fans next to home fans and don’t see why it’s a potential problem.

You’ll get the full half of the Cricket Field which is the standard now for away fans. No value in playing tit for tat over the allocation - it’s not like we could sell any we don’t give you to home fans. We won’t give you the full stand though as there isn’t room elsewhere to move season ticket holders in there. What you will have is some safe standing tickets and I’ve no idea what impact on capacity installing that has had, so whether it’s the same, a few more or a few less is anyone’s guess.

Oh no we need to sell around 20 players because we have too many. So that’s 20 players raising 50 million ish. Then of course there is the issue of which of our better players may get taken (Berge, Odobert, Beyer, Esters, O’Shea, Amdouni, Brownhill, Cullen) and what quality we can bring in (or not). You can’t guarantee winning anything but a manager who can’t get a club whose come down with parachutes top 4 has failed - except in extreme circumstances of financial distress etc.

In fairness Bellamy has never managed so I don’t know think it’s unreasonable that fans weren’t enamoured with the idea - plus if that’s where you are going why take so long? As for ‘who did they want’ - well I can’t comment beyond the profile I would have liked. I think based on CV only then Parker would fit the mould. My reservations are around how it all ended for him at both Bournemouth and Fulham. I have to hope he’s reflected during his sabbatical and where he needed to improve. But who knows. Also worth noting he’s head coach, not manager.

The appointment of Bellamy perhaps says they plan to take their time. Great as long as we don’t miss out on transfer targets etc. Lampard had one decent season at Chelsea but it was all round weird with transfer embargo’s etc. underwhelming at Derby, poor at Everton and woeful back at Chelsea. Nothing about him says to me he can get a team like ours ‘purring’ Parker - did well getting out of the championship twice but seemed to self sabotage once promoted. Not one I’d chose. Rosenior I wouldn’t mind but I fear the chairman wants ‘a name’ - crazy I know but that’s my worry.

Will we? Why is that? Honestly think the Prem is more physically demanding than the championship these days. We have a number of players who will scare championship defences to death but are short on strikers. If (big if) we go into the season with largely the same squad and a competent manager we should be competitive at the top end. We also have Odobert, Koleosho and a couple of others added in. We look weak at full back though - and of course have no idea who we might get sell or buy . There are always those types - last summer they were saying we’d be top half 😂. I will say this,. With our budget and starting squad anything outside the top 4 is failure - the only caveat being the owners don’t sell all the players and keep the money. Cooper I thought had declined the opportunity to interview. Barnes is a big miss and I think letting Cork and Gudmundson go is a mistake. If we go through this season with the squad we have right now then we should be serious contenders if we get the appointment right. Other teams will also be strong so promotion is never a given however as I’ve said already, less than top 4 is failure for one of the best funded teams in the division.

I don’t know, they like ‘a name’ it is said. Maybe they’ll ask Xavi 😂

And like a bad dream he (Lampard) is now being linked to our vacancy. You guys may yet get your wish, we might actually appoint someone more useless than Kean.

I was absolutely stunned at the Wharton fee. Even through my Claret tinted lenses you could see what a genuine talent that lad is.

Not for me, no experience Would imagine he’s got his sights set higher than Burnley or the Championship. I wasn’t his biggest fan either to be honest. Stories suggest around £13 million/15miilion euro - crazy stuff I’ve heard him and Bellamy had a big fall out pre last game of the season. Some suggestion that this move was already in the works.

I wouldn’t object but I’m not sure he’d leave Cov for us.

lol - no my weekend will be fine but I won’t pretend it isn’t a little disappointing. Let’s see who we appoint as his replacement and what they can do.

Probably rules him out then - though as we are seeing, contracts don’t mean much.

I honestly don’t know enough about most of them. Rohl seems interesting if we want a younger manager 🤷‍♂️. It always comes back to who’d come, who can work within our structures etc, can buy young, develop and sell for a profit. It seems Bayern don’t fancy paying for Kompany though and we aren’t minded to let him go on the cheap so this might rumble on a bit longer.

Alright all - I guess what this teaches people like me who berate clubs for pulling the trigger on a coach who’s done well but having a bad season is that loyalty in football management is all but non existent. Not sure how I feel about this - I’d bought the whole ‘5 year project’ spiel hook line and sinker so half of me is disappointed but last season, and especially the whole Trafford/Muric thing, not pulling out all the stops for Tella and not having a plan for left back, just maybe Kompany wasn’t the right man for us - as others have said, perhaps he’s a good manager when he’s amongst the best resourced in a league but not so much when he isn’t. I kind of hope we try to get Cooper as his replacement.

Haha - as you know I’ve not been coming on much. This relegation has been so long coming that I was over it before it was confirmed really. A disappointing season all round. Complete lack of experience and it showed. We looked improved with Muric in goal but still couldn’t get games over the line. So it’s onto next season and the return of t’crapico with the inevitable ‘2 bald men arguing over a comb’ debates around attendance and allocations. Be much the same as recent seasons I’d imagine - one plus is there is now some safe standing at the back of the cricket field. I guess we will have to see how each squad looks come August. Personally I’m hoping we can make it 7 wins on the bounce and 15 years since you last beat us 😬

Oh god did you not see the stuff about a drum and getting us waving flags (but only ones approved and bought from the club) to improve the atmosphere? I’ll let you google it and enjoy. If it was your club you’d be dying too. Is that accurate? I thought I’d only been here once previously this season, after the City game in August? I don’t recall posting at any other time 🤷‍♂️. Anyway, good tidings to you all, might see you in a month or so after our next win 😉

Well that too 😬 - but as I say, more embarrassed about the flag nonsense than the football.

Not smarting from barbs on here so much - & more worried about the stupid flag sh*t the club put out than the results 😳 . In addition we find out the club are selling hospitality packages to away fans and then seating them in the home stands - kicked off in a big way on the Everton game. After being nearly faultless last season they are making big mistakes with the fans this one - well IMO at least: I do have faith in VK’s style but the plan only works if you recruit well. Not signing Harwood Belis and Tella seems short sighted for example. Always felt relegation was the most likely outcome but second half of the season we need to play consistently well if we hope to come straight back up. I might be an outlier but I see improvement week on week, it’s just you can’t have a whole team ‘learning on the job’ against experienced top level players if you want to stay up.

No update sorry - & I stayed away as requested by quite a few. One swallow does not make a summer and unfortunately we generally cannot win games where we are the better team and when we come up against good sides and well drilled ones we are to easy to score against. So todays win doesn’t represent a huge turnaround but at least we won’t set a new record low points total - though we could still equal it. Merry Christmas to you all.

Absolute knob heads - what the f’ing half assed pitch invader was at I’ve no idea. The knob throwing lighters - imagine spending £40 just to get banned. I hope the pillock has a season ticket and is about to lose £400. Fucking embarrassing.

Lol / just got home drunk. Thought I’d read some informed views on the game from our fierce rivals. Sadly all I see is green. Long old season ahead, let’s see how we go. Foster looks more like what we hoped, Amdouni and Kula Shaker look like they have something about them. Our season won’t be decided by games against one of the best teams in history or Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool etc. It’s fair to say the odds suggest we will be relegated but there is still a long way to go. I didn’t love tonight but expected it. I’ll come back 10 games in and see where we are. Have a cracking weekend everyone.