dave_ragg1984

And for that reason, I think football fans as a whole should not be asked to have a minutes silence for her. If you want to mourn for her, there is a state funeral on Wednesday.

If you mean by most inconsistent that he is consistently the best Latics player on the pitch, I'd agree. But if you mean inconsistent in the same way as players like Robbie Simpson, Connor Brown, James Wesolowski, Lee Barnard, Dean Bouzanis and James Tarkowski, then I can't agree with that.

Instead we got the Jermaine Johnson who literally gave up mid game.

Who is guilty of the bigger over reaction here? The bloke who shouted "taxi for Johnson!" Or the people reacting to it?

I think there was a massive over reaction to the result. A 1-1 draw over there isn't a bad result at all, and we are still well positioned to win the group. However, the first 30-35 mins of the second half wasn't good enough. Every time we play a half decent team we seem to take the lead and have a spell where we get battered until we concede before we wake up. The players aren't good enough and comfortable enough on the ball to take the sting out of the game by keeping possession and keeping a good shape. We end up losing the ball often because we try to get forward too quickly and and up all over the place and out of possession. We will qualify for the World Cup and finish last 16/8 like usual. And the press will over react like that its a disgrace that we are roughly only one of the top 8 teams in the world.

The major stumbling block is that the big European clubs don't really want a European League outside of the Champions League. United, Madrid, Barca, Munich etc, are all happy being top dogs in their own country. Its more lucrative winning/challenging for domestic trophies every year and playing in the Champions League than it would be if they all only played in one European League in which only one of them can win. What they all want is to make sure the governing bodies always know that them breaking away is an option, so they can use that as leverage to gain more influence, and therefore more money. If you look at United, since the PL invented football they have won the league at a better rate than every other year. TV revenues increase with every deal, and they get the biggest share of that. And they are in the Champions League every year, so rake in the cash from that. Why would they want that to end?

Dickov put the team together, and at no point has it been a decent League One team. He didn't turn them into relegation fodder, they have been that since they have been together.

1998 was the best. But generally, when it comes to major tournaments, the Euro's are better.

Haha. Quality. Toy Story is quality, and Woody is a great leader. So we should be ok.

I don't think anyone has said appointing an experienced manager will guarantee our survival, because it wouldn't. But neither does appointing a young, hungry manager. I don't think appointing anyone would guarantee survival with these players. However, we've got to make an appointment which will give us the best chance of survival. And in this position, I think appointing someone with experience would give us the best chance of surviving. I obviously hope Johnson does the business. But I think we are taking an absolutely massive risk in appointing a rookie, at a time when we really shouldn't be risking it.

I'm 28 and I'd consider myself a grown man. It isn't the time to be experimenting though.

Money.

You're being very harsh on him. He once made up a story where he talked a woman down from jumping off the Humber Bridge. If he hadn't made that story up, that woman would be dead now.

An extra 5% of cock all is still cock all ;) Its a fair point though. If we want to bring an inexperienced manager in, the summer is the time to do it. Right now we need experience.

He was in centre mid with Wesolowski. Barnard and Iwelumo we're up top.

We beat 3 woefully out of form teams (one of them games he only played the last 15 minutes), who I think we would have beat with Baxter up front. But we've also lost against Walsall in a pretty dire display with Baxter in midfield. Lost against Sheffield United in a game where we lacked a cutting edge up front and couldn't score, and lost against Tranmere with another dire display where we lacked cutting edge up front and couldn't score. We we're all desperate to sign him because of his performances up front. As soon as we signed him, we've played him out of position and he hasn't been as effective. What would be best for the team would be to play the best player in his best position, and hopefully start scoring some goals again.

Baxter is our top scorer, and we look pretty toothless with him in midfield. And we need more of a physical presence in midfield. -

6ft? I've been saying for ages that our midfield is too small. Hopefully, with Smith in and Smith out injured, Baxter will be pushed back to his proper position.

Obviously Dowie likes you more than your friends do. -

I've just been reading a news article from before they announced how the playoffs would work. It said that potentially, playoffs would be divisional. And then once you have the 4 division winners, the semi finals would be seeded and national. So rather than the 2 eastern division winners playing each other, and the 2 west, it goes seeded 1-4, so both semis could be East v West. It was saying it opens up the chance of an all East or all West final (ie, NY and Boston playing for the Cup) which personally I think would have been damn good. But they haven't gone for that and they have chosen this crap new setup. Not seen Staal yet - I didn't get round to looking at that link you sent.

That realignment plan is rubbish. Uneven conferences of 16 in the East and 14 in the West. It makes it a lot harder for the teams in the East to qualify for the playoffs. It actually makes it harder to qualify anyway. Top 3 from each division and 2 wild cards in each conference. Whereas at the moment you just have to be one of the best 8 teams in the conference.

I don't really think people are overreacting about yesterday. It was dire. We got beaten of a poor team (ok, they might be up there, but they were poor yesterday) and the performance and the circumstances around it give a lot of cause for concern. And Wigan were brilliant yesterday. If they played like that against us we would have got battered!!

Quite recently Ibrahimovic and Mexes have scored spectacular overhead kicks, so I'd say no.

That could make it miles worse. A ref, knowing he would be interrogated live on telly after the game by the host broadcaster, might start being more biased so that he gets an easy ride.

Question the ref, and the ref says "he caught him in the chest with his studs showing, so I sent him off"... what would that achieve? And who gets to question him? Broadcasters/Journalists who have an agenda? Someone impartial? UEFA?