What would they have to do to be worse ?

I think either of those clubs you mention in the event of losing their star player for twelve months at that point in the season would have gone out and got a replacement, even if it was a loan player.

Invested ? Cow = Handful of magic beans.

Scouting players, really ? Johnno's the chief drone pilot so there isn't a vacancy.. What sort of advice have you got in mind ? " Get rid of those ripped jeans son, and you look a right dipstick in that back to front baseball cap " ?

You missed a treat last night. One of the best things I've seen in a long time.

I saw a quote in todays paper earlier. " I'm delighted to walk out having only got beat 2-0 " said a furious Chris Wilder. " Their heart was bigger than ours ". How often could that be applied to lesser opponents this season who have gone on and turned us over ? There's no heart in the club from top to bottom, there hasn't been for years, and I'm sick of having to say it !

Stockholm syndrome in a couple of sentences. Maybe you can't see it but lots of contributors to this site are losing the will to watch football because of the current manager. Me for one.

We've had right footed left backs before that could put over a left footed cross no problem. What do they do in training ?

The whole set up needs a shake up from top to bottom. I remember listening to Radio Lancashire one Saturday afternoon. The dingles were getting battered at half time at home to some no mark team like Gillingham. Stan Ternent, who hadn't been there long, had made all his subs at half time. I caught the interview after the game. You could tell he was absolutely furious, he said said " There were players out there today that will never play for this club again as long as I am the manager. I will never, ever, accept lack of effort from any player ". One or two he was criticising were high profile players but a bit long in the tooth and as far as I know they never did play for the dingles again. That's what we've been short of, some straight talking.

Holiday camp mentality.

Let's say you've been appointed as the works manager of a large manufacturing company. You get called into a meeting with the higher echelon and they tell you that 1) Production is solely your responsibility. 2) You can spend some money on new machinery. 3) The money spent on maintaining the building, servicing, repair and maintenance of the machinery has to be kept strictly to minimum. How long do you hang around in that circumstance ? How long do you accept " responsibility without power " ?

That's about where we'll finish next season with a bit of luck.

That's the bottom line in my opinion, is the football on show at the moment - 1) Worth watching 2) Likely to get us promoted ? I'd say no on both counts.

If you like live theatre you should be watching " The National Theatre " live performances recordings on Thursday evenings at 7-00pm on Youtube. We've seen some really good stuff. Last night it was " Amadeus ". A terrific perfornance, with some great acting by the principal players.

I would suggest that getting 50% of your signings right would probably get you fired at a lot of clubs. Good managers get about 75% of their signings right. IE their signings become first tean regulars eventually. Going off the lists earlier in the thread I would suggest that Mowbray's success rate is about 20%, or being kind 25%. It's unbelievable that he's still here, only in football. In industry he would have been long gone after that sort of investment failure rate.

If we're looking for someone to " integrate the lads" I would suggest that Mowbray's record in this respect is pretty poor. If that's the plan Johnno could well be a better bet.

We were on their list of priorities for five minutes back in 2010. Since then we've been at the back of the drawer.

I'm getting to the point were I might agree with you. Mowbray's a positive football vacuum, a black hole that's sucking the life out of the club.

I was only thinking the other day if we had a time machine and we could go back how many of his signings would you still sign ? Not that many in my book.

Yes, you need a few out there who can fight fire with fire if it's needed. We've been a team of nice boys that other teams know they can take liberties with for too long.

Me too regarding Ferguson. He looked to have it all, in fact he reminded me of Souness himself at times. I've seen him play internationals for Scotland and be the best player on the pitch. It's inexplicable why he didn't make the grade at Rovers, maybe his heart wasn't in it ? Not every transfer works out. I remember Fergie signing Juan Veron. I thought it was a master stroke, he'd been awesome in Italy. He never made the grade either. Podborsky was another that looked to be a brilliant player until he signed for Utd.

Reading between the lines the crisis hasn't been a disaster for the whole of the economy. There are plenty of firms out there doing very nicely at the moment, it all depends what line of business you are in.

If I was picking a team for the Premier League since day one Keane would be one of my first picks. I've seen a lot of central midfield players in my day and I can't think of a better one than Keane. It was like having 12 players on the pitch when he was playing. Ok, he had a nasty streak but every team needs a player or two like that. At least he'd stab you in the front not in the back like some players. I remember reading an autobiography written by one of the 1966 World Cup squad. The player was a defender and he named his " Dirty bastard 11". I was really surprised at some of the forwards he had in the team. He reckoned they were sly, crafty, players who were experts at making the injuries they inflicted look like an accident.

Players can hit the " wall " at any point in their thirties and it can come on really suddenly. Downing isn't worth the risk for me.

That wouldn't surprise me.