JRC

I always knew how bad Fergerson's record was at United during his first 2 and a half years at United. I watched a Brian Clough documentary recently and I'd forgotten how poor Clough initially did at both Derby and Forest. We got relegated in Rudge's first (part) season, followed by a very average mid table league 4 finish. It took Shankley 2 and a half years to get Liverpool promoted. A very different time when fans and chairmen were more prepared to give managers time.

You can certainly see why they are pushing for the playoffs. Clark was nowhere near fit. Lowe isn't mobile enough to play in a midfield 2. Wilson really struggled first half as the ball just isn't sticking.

Tom Pope is no longer a league 1 striker. He's not scoring regularly for Witton Albion. Smith should never have been made captain and I think that's been detrimental to his game. He's not a natural leader.

The problem with Sang is when he plays in midfield he looks like a rightback playing out of position.

Nowhere near. 79 - 81 were the worst years to support the club.

Towards the end of the match infront of the dugouts.

I'm confident this will be my 7th relegation. Not sure getting rid of Crosby was the right move as we have got worse if anything. Still a good finish from Baylee. Disappointing but the sun will rise again tomorrow.

No they are your words. What Shanahan actually said was after speaking for the first time with Moore she didn't want anyone else. As I remember it very few people on here wanted anyone else either. I personally want Derek Adams but I think I was in a minority of one.

Thought Gayle did well for the second. He dropped deeper having initially standing on the centrehalf and found himself half a yard.

Football does go in cycles. United looked invincible 10 years ago. Stoke were a solid Premiership outfit. Groups of players just outlive their usefulness. There's only really been Liverpool in the 70s/80s, United and arguably City recently who have successfully rotated a squad and achieved sustained success over a reasonable length of time. Football is just coronation street for a predominantly male audience where good times and bad times inevitably follow one another.

It's not a fact, we were in a relegation battle to drop out of the league when he was appointed. The youth set-up has started producing. The big failure has been not recruiting a decent striker in 18 months, post Harrison signing. 2 decent strikers, even one plus a fit Uche and we'd be a lower mid table side. The reality is we will probably go down as Uche isn't likely to be fit and we are relying on an inconsistent Wilson, Loft and a 17/18 year old.

He was but he was also a chairman from a different age when chairmen didn't throw 5 or 6 million a year into loss making lower league clubs. It was a time of crumbling stands where players were on a fraction of today's wages and players like Futcher, Brown and Greehoff carried on playing because they didn't have the money to retire. He ran a prudent ship and put his faith in Rudge.

You don't buy a small club for profit, so certainly right about the profit bit.

If we'd got someone running off the headers he wins it would be the right tool for the job. He might be OK with someone like Mighton playing off him. He does win a lot of headers, they just end up getting cleared by one of the 4 unopposed defenders around Loft.

Connor Wickham hasn't played a game for 9 months. By the time he's properly match fit we'll either be relegated or safe.

I think Newcastle only paid him for the one season he had remaining on his contract when he signed for Stoke. This season he's had to survive on his Stoke wage.

There's a podcast with Dave Flitcroft on Twitter and we are talking to a free agent. I would suspect it's Gayle.

You can't just have someone sitting in the next door room, just in case your first choice deal falls through. Once it's down to the last couple of hours either the deal works out or you do a Wrexham or Bristol Rovers.

It would appear the plan fell apart late on deadline day. If there was a plan B it was too late to follow it.

It's pretty clear the manager did have some say and the priority was a centreforward. The problem was we failed to get the deal over the line in the final hours of the window. If we'd signed a decent centreforward I think it would have been a good window. Sadly it seem we failed in the final hour.

Partly depends on what Gayle wants from his next club. If he wants more money he won't be at Vale Park. I've seen him linked to Wednesday and Derby, where he's more likely to get minutes from the bench. He might be looking for a big pay cheques in Saudi or The States for a season. He might just love playing football and want to spend as much time as possible on the pitch. It is odd he still hasn't gone somewhere. I was expecting him to sign for someone within 48 hours of leaving Stoke. Normally players get released with a club already lined up but too late to get the deal done on deadline day.

As the window panned out Gibbo would have been a good signing. However, given the choice of a good centreforward or Gibbo the former was clearly the spot to spend money on. Being optimistic if Moore really did his research before taking the job it's pretty clear we are desperate for a centreforward. That probably means there is some kind of plan to bring someone in which has a reasonable probability of happening. I really can't see him being here to add a relegation to his CV. The obvious one Dwight Gayle who probably had his best season playing under Moore.

Just a moment... WWW.THESTAR.CO.UK They can add any of the contracted players to their list until it's full whenever they want, no questions asked or admin hurdles. Thereafter they need to get approval to make a change. So if a striker gets injured they can add Gregory, a midfielder Jeff Hendrick. If they'd named all 25 players and the wrong ones got injured it's probable they would not get approval for a change. This way they can run with more flexibility. It's a loophole that probably should be closed as it's allowing bigger clubs to horde players and operate with much bigger squads. A lot of teams are doing it. You are only really limited by squad lists outside transfer windows anyway. Wednesday can operate with a squad of 28 players and pretty much have 100% flexibility over who they select for most of each 3/4 month periods outside transfer windows. If they decide they want Gregory on Saturday they just add him to the list and he can play. Unlikely we will ever have a big enough squad to worry about this I'd guess.

I'd think there may be a possibility. Not 100% sure but I think Gayle scored his goals at Albion when Moore was manager.

The squad list and registration are different. The squad list is selected from registered players over 21. Clubs can only select from the squad list; although They can request a change to the squad list in exceptional circumstances. Wednesday probably elected to keep Gregory in case one of their forwards gets an injury.