areNOTwhatTHEYseem

If things weren't already bad enough for United's players, imagine being subjected to the howling of that bunch of tw*ts in the run-up to kick-off.

He still comes across as arrogant and looks like he thinks he's untouchable, though.

This is the line of thinking I'm struggling with. We did draw and win games under Monk, and against teams currently 2nd and 3rd in the division. You might think that Pulis is a better manager - that's fair enough - but to state with certainty what would have happened in a reality which doesn't exist is really odd and does the argument you're trying to make no favours.

That's true, too. Brown was a huge part of our approach in those first few games. He was making more interceptions and tackles than many of our defenders. The difference being, of course, that he was doing this in the opponent's half more often than not, allowing us to quickly spring an attack. The defensive solidity certainly seemed to wobble a bit in Luongo's absence, still.

We already had the defensive foundations in place under Monk: only six teams had conceded fewer goals than us by the time he was sacked. It's no coincidence that our dreadful run of form started once Luongo got injured, either - with him in the team, we only conceded 3 goals in 5 games under Monk. Now that he's returned, we look a lot more solid again. Hopefully if he picks up another injury, Pulis is able to compensate for his absence more effectively than we did under Monk, as that run of games against Luton, Rotherham and Wycombe was criminal. By the time we figured out how to b

It's a bit like slapping the captain of the Titanic on the back and saying, 'Well done for bailing out those few bucketfuls of water. You might have smashed us into the iceberg in the first place, but at least you're trying to put things right, eh?' Anyway - Börner for me.

This. I suppose I fit into all three categories in some way... - I defend Monk against those who pin too much of our current plight on him, yes. - I'm certainly backing Pulis to succeed in so much as I really, really bloody hope he does. Whether or not he will remains to be seen, of course. - I can't say Pulis was my first thought of who I wanted as our manager, but he's here and he certainly brings a wealth of experience and know-how with him. He might turn out to be just what we need. But to return to the post to which I'm replying,

I'd say we need 4 or 5 strikers in the squad, yeah. That's fairly standard. When you consider how injury-prone players suddenly become once they step out onto the pitches at Middlewood, I'd err on the side of caution and say 5! Given the state the chairman had allowed us to get into, it was always likely to be quantity over quality in the last transfer window, wasn't it? Hopefully Pulis is able to pull of a coup or two, or the newfound financial certainty of knowing which year the ground sale counts towards might allow us to spend more than £500k on a striker this time

To torture the metaphor a little more, it's like you’re planning to have beans on toast for tea. So you nip to Aldi and the beans are on offer in packs of four but you don't have the money for them. So you buy a tin of cannellini beans and some ketchup in the hope that you can fashion a passable approximation of some actual baked beans and nobody will notice. Then on the way to the checkout, you realise you didn't get any bread and butter, but because your chairman earned your club a points deduction, the bread and butter refuse to get into your basket and would rather remain a fre

In the grand scheme of things, Monk didn't create this mess - Chansiri did. That we were unable to recruit the players we needed is mostly down to the circumstances Chansiri has created. Monk recruited for the system he wanted to play. If he wasn't planning on using full-backs, then it makes little sense to sign them just in case he loses his job and the club go in an entirely different direction. The fact that we allowed him to recruit for his system, then sacked him and brought in a manager who wants to use a system which requires players we don't have is

Surely nobody would do that to a Wednesday manager, would they?

The chairman's previous actions had created godawful circumstances for our recruitment team to try and operate within - we had to jettison proven quality in order to cut costs, and replace them with cheap signings who'd be willing to join a club starting on minus twelve. There's no way that Windass, Paterson, Marriott and Kachunga were all Monk's top choices - we were clearly after the likes of Leko and Zahore (among others, I'm sure), but they went elsewhere and our pool of options reduced further still. The notion that he was flicking through a catalogue of strikers and happily p

Whilst I agree, it does make it all the more 'interesting' seeing it happen to them, though.

I'm not sure who Bruce vetoed, but he signed Odubajo and Harris, neither of whom have proven to be good signings so far, and are both part of this mess of a squad we have, alongside signings from Luhukay, Carvalhal and Monk. There's a common denominator in the background driving all this, of course. If Monk had vetoed all the suggested signings we could both afford and convince to join in the summer, we'd have gone into the season with only Jordan Rhodes to select up front, not to mention being short of cover in midfield and defence as well. No manager would do that - they'd all ac