Broughton and his team taking charge of all the admin involved with transfers is about as comprehensive a change as you can have. He has no power to fire the Club Secretary, but he can sideline him.

For actual fuck's sake - can we not have a decent manager for more than a year?! God we're a cursed club.

The Lombardy Wharton.

Burnley had Barnes man marking him. The Championship already know how good he is - they just aren't good enough to get near him, which is why the 100 points accumulating champions resorted to kicking lumps out of him (and rotated who did it to share the yellow cards around).

I mean technically he got the O'Brien deal done - it was Waggot and his pal who failed. With regards to 50% of the players signed by the end of June, that just adds weight to the argument that we'll be heavily involved in the free agent market. You have to get those players signed early.

Why would we want him further up the pitch in our system? His ability to take the ball from the CBs and turn on it is priceless.

I mean we do have a playing style, but I think the more pertinent question is do we have a Jansen / Duff / Dunn in this team?

I think he's managed this game incredibly badly. Took off their CM who was making things tick and they've barely touched the ball since.

Pretty much - it's his first Director of Football job (you have to start somewhere) and his first January transfer window. He tried to loan Undav and Kone in to solve the CF option and both fell through for different reasons (one player turned us down, the other had his club pull the plug at the last minute). Let's hope he's learned from the experience and doesn't make the same mistake again.

I would happily take the lifetime stadium ban I'd get for rushing the dugout and throwing my season ticket at the bench.

Don't act like that doesn't sound exactly how they operate - a quick phone call to someone they trust who is completely unqualified to make a judgement on the situation. Classic Venkys.

Does that guy ever link us with positive news?

I had one tell me they'd stop watching football if Everton went down - like they had a divine right to play in the top division. They've simply made up the numbers for 95% of their time in the Premier League, yet you'd think they're footballing royalty with the way their fans talk about themselves.

Weakest Championship season ever tho, remember? Just like this year. The bottom of the Premier League is terrible.

I don't feel anything for fans of any other club after we were lambasted for our protests against the Venkys and Kean. Fuck every single one of them.

I don't think he's out of shape at all - he's just lost any athleticism he had after two serious knee injuries.

Bold appointment for sure.

Give over.

The Birmingham fans I've seen think he's alright, but not a patch on his brother. £3m on an unproven teenager though tells you that Sunderland are a rich club.

I really dislike their fans, I was enjoying their suffering. I don't much like Luton either, so I'll be giving the final a miss.

Yep. We have the usual suspects tying themselves up in knots about our lack of a hard man, experience, a nasty midfield destroyer etc. At the end of the day our inability to convert our chances was the problem - which then heightened the fluky PNE equaliser and the Coventry handball. I hope the front line is completely revamped for next season, but a good Championship striker signed in January would have seen us promoted this year.

Can point to serial mismanagement.

Bloody hell, what a bottle job by Carrick. All those resources and he couldn't beat Coventry.

I did, yeah. Sunderland were very, very poor. A typical Mowbray performance.

They didn't bully us at Ewood, what makes you think they've have bullied us at their place?