Come on. Hes in a job of a better prestige and pay packet than he likely will ever get again. You would throw that away because you arent happy that other staff members were trying to organise transfers?

The owners shouldnt be refusing to authorise deals full stop, thats the issue. And they shouldnt be refusing to spend a money when a club record fee comes in. Having all of these incompetent staff underneath only compounds our issues. Had we signed him on a loan with an option we wouldnt have utilised, that would have been the best possible solution under terrible conditions. As it was, we fucked up even that.

Butterfly effect, but totally unfair to pin that on Sven. Criticise the selection issues but what unfolded after is a seperate issue to that.

Why would he leave? He is hardly going to walk into a similar job at a similar or bigger club, and why would he give up a job which benefits him and his family over a transfer issue.

Did we used to struggle against teams like North Macedonia? Even during the spell between the "golden generation" under Sven, aside from McLaren straight after, we used to always stroll to qualification and between that side and the current side, the quality of our squad was definitely reduced. The Iceland defeat was a shambles well below any sort of standard a manager should be aiming for but since Southgate has taken over, he has been fortunate in the quality of players at his disposal has massively increased year on year. The squad we had in 2018 was nothing special and a semi final was well above expectations albeit he was fortunate with the run with Colombia (via penalties) and Sweden being very favourable draws, before losing to a Croatia side who were obviously good but not an elite team. In the 2 tournaments since, the players he has had made us one of the favourites. You go back to Sven, he undoubtedly did not get the best from that set of players but he came unstuck to Portgual twice on penalties and to Brazil in the quarter finals. To beat the teams Southgate has in knockout games still warrants respect but none of those games would have been with us as anything but favourites, maybe the Germany game was the closest to an exception. He can be proud of his record but equally there is more than enough to suggest that he could waste a very good squad of players.

It is difficult to judge an international manager in the same way as a club one because a league is obviously not subject to the draws you get. Southgate has been fortunate in his major tournaments to have draws that have been incredibly favourable. His knockout wins have come against Colombia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and Senegal. Good teams but not the very top teams, ones you would expect us to beat, Germany is the stand out one and even they were very much not the Germany side of old.

Im not sure you are particularly positive yourself hence celebrating draws at home v fellow strugglers!

That statement isn't worth the time it took to be cobbled together. To say we have always been supported by the owners in any way is laughable.

If we would lose 99 times out of 100 to any teams in the league in your opinion, whats the difference to being in the Prem, bar that we are getting beat by average players instead of world class? Surely you would prefer us to get relegated so we wont be playing against anyone who we wont be competitive with? I get why anyone would be pessimistic about our prospects, we havent won a game yet under Eustace, our record over the last few months is embarassing. So talk of people needing to lose a defeatist mentality and believe in them blindly is naive in the extreme. But I cannot fathom why anyonrle would say they would be happy to lose as long as we dont get tonked. Nor can I understand your reluctance for us to be a Premier League team.

Its a very specific theory you have conjured up. More likely, there isnt (even prior to restrictions) an open chequebook to spend as much as is possible.

Havent you always been disturbed by a potential season in the Prem due to a potential lack of competitiveness? Yet in the Championship you are happy to lose to Southampton and Ipswich at home (2 of only 8 games left and of only 4 at home) as long as we dont get hammered.

Them being committed to investing the maximum they can under FFP is an absolute myth. Example, their repeated refusal to relay the pitch fully and to adequately maintain the ground, neither of which falls under FFP.

Tomasson now being criticised for poor results against lower teams? The king is dead, long live the king.

Those seasons sometimes included teams with points deductions.

They do deserve and they do get plenty of criticism. But they are not THE problem nor are any of the incompetent staff hired in the last 13 years. Its bizarre that anyone would continiously want to specifically focus away from the owners.

Nixon doing his usual trick. Spending every week outside a transfer window adding a new supposedly interested team in a player we know will likely be sold, an easy article for any idiots who pay their hard earned money to have access to his weekly nonsense. Come the summer, he will go to one of the then considerable list of supposedly interested clubs, then he will pat himself on the back and his disciples will point out how he broke the story first.

We certainly would be worse off with Telalovic in the team. Gallagher did pretty well yesterday, some good work getting other players into good positions, Szmodics had one shot saved from his hold up and got in on 2 or 3 other occassions through Gallagher only to dither and fail to take full advantage on a rare off day for him. Gallagher also had a powerful shot well saved in the second half. Had we sold him, none of the money would have been made available to do this straight swap, if £22m of Wharton money couldn't be touched due to the owners, a couple of extra million in the owners back pocket wouldn't have been either. A functional set of owners might have allowed a Gallagher sale and then a few million to be spent on a couple of strikers, but here we are.

Did we thrive against the big teams who liked to attack us? Against the top 4, we lost all 4 and conceded 14. "We might avoid defeat." Not an ideal mindset considering we finished 7th last season, Ipswich were in League 1, shows how far in opposite directions both sides have gone. We are at home and we need wins but as it is, it seems a small chance.

For 200k, I think hes been a shrewd addition overall at that price. Youll more often than not get far worse for that amount.

The only good one really.

Eustace said we were "outstanding on and off the ball" post match. Obviously a pinch of salt needed as its obviously partly aimed to motivate but whilst we were well set up off the ball, on the ball we certainly weren't outstanding. We gave the ball away quite a lot and didn't create much in the way of clear cut opportunities.

Im pretty sure that even Haaland wouldn't "likely" score from a ball curled up high in the air 25-30 yards from goal, slightly wide and with a defender not too far away. Hardly on a plate, was a good pass but to bring that down, run on and finish is low percentage stuff for anyone.

Ive written off Rotherham outside that mini league so 3rd botton would leave us 21st. Not that such a season would warrant any praise.

Another drab watch, in isolation a decent point but yet another failure to win for Eustace. We have a good chance of survival purely because of the number of teams down there, in a mini league of 8 you just have to avoid being in the bottom 2 and we already have a buffer even though its been cut since Eustace came in. But it shouldn't be heralded as an achievement. The team looked far more balanced with a back 4 and I just hope that Eustace doesnt revert back and put in McFadzean who we looked much better without. Scott Wharton would probably go down as our man of the match and did very well. Hyam wasn't quite as solid but still the pair did very well all the same. Brittain was also good and slightly better than Pickering who uncharacteristically gave the ball away once or twice. But overall the back 4 did well. Tronstad was a huge bonus and is our only convincing midfielder, Buckley was tenacious but is not good enough on the ball and conceded possession too often. The attacking players dont play as if they are well coached as to what to do, that was an area that Tomasson clearly coached them well at. Under Eustace it is a regular occurence to see players playing on different wavelengths and passes not made at the right time. Gallagher was far more effective as an out and out striker even allowing for his usual clumsiness. Some of his link play got Szmodics in particular in a few times although he was well off his usual levels. Hedges tired badly and his end product can flatter to deceive but we are better with him playing. Sigurdsson again was pointless.

I think you are clutching at straws perhaps due to a dislike of Tomasson. I dont doubt that Eustace came into far from ideal circumstances. I also think that Tomasson's time came to an end. But we have seen zero new manager bounce and displayed relegation form in a run of games which has been favourable. It wouldnt be a remarkablr achievement to keep us up considering where we were when he came in.