Case for the defence? Guilty

Southbank, nothing needs saying that hasnt been said and observed 100 times over. No premier quality defenders = no clean sheets = rock bottom finish

Nice to see that my false dawn article is still chugging along, even if it has transformed itself into an expression of shock over the dismissal of the Newcastle manager. From our point of view it gives us an opportunity to view the consequences of such an action, especially as Hughton has done a better job than ours. Should Newcastle improve their position as a result of their action- and we decide to go down the same route- should we bid for Hughton. I thought that he was doing a good job up there.

Would you really back the sacking of McCarthy if you knew Hughton was coming in as his replacement??

Well, the sacking was bound to stir the emotions considering he is the first to go, and the predicament we find ourselves in. It just brings to the fore the stark reality that not many managers would still be in charge having spent 17 million and having won 3 from 16 games. I don't think our board are about to sack Mick but how many of those hours were spent discussing his position? There has to be some kind of blue print lay down- in all walks of life, if you are not doing well at work, you get a warning, and if you keep getting it wrong you're on your bike. We may get bored of saying or hearing this but Steve Morgan is a very successful businessman- he didn't build his empire on poor standards. I don't like it when he gets stick- thankfully I haven't seen any on here, mainly on the E&S message board where half strung together sentences seem to be the order of the day. He has invested in this club and remember the excitement when the stadium plans were announced. The future looked exciting again- he has proven he wants to develop this club from top to bottom and has pledged the money- its not a pipe dream- we saw the drawings. If there was a statement following that meeting I would love to read it. Mick says the result was money to spend in January. I would say that Morgan and Jez WILL make money available to try and save our season, regardless of who is in charge. I am not jumping on the sack McCarthy train but surely he has been told how many points he is expected to take from the next however many games. Remember that if we were in a good position in January they would have pressed the green button for the stadium plans- we can scrap that idea- the only thing that matters now this season is survival and that in itself is demoralizing. Two wins and results going our way could see us outside the bottom three. Two more defeats and we are in big trouble. It's gonna be a long two weeks.