Spudulike

Nail on the head there. Us doing this almost feels inevitable. I hope, pray, that Hodgson is recognising what's staring him on the face: we need pace and to play an English style.

What an amazing video - Gazza was brilliant. That nutmeg of Hendry is my favourite as he was no slouch. The FA cup semi final screamer against the Gooners is up there too. It broke Seaman's confidence for about a season.

They may do ok. There's 0 pressure on them and they can play cautiously and look to score on the break. That said, they had a poor run of form in their last few qualifying games. Good luck! :-)

The other concern re JW is that other managers and players will know he is injury prone. He will be targeted for heavy challenges as he is a known potential weakness.

Fair play, it shows the lad has grit. Some players are off for two months with a sprained ankle. It's not ideal however.

Agreed. It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't play due to injury. My big worry is that, if our attacking pace drops off, our defence will not be up to the task.

It could also be due to a fading memory of how bad it was, and the consequences (banned from European football, for example)

Great. Let's pick injury prone players.

I will be enthusiastic by the time of our first game. After that first game, and confronted with players being played out of position, the players being nervous, and our usual snail's pace passing, my enthusiasm will subside. I feel a bit ashamed of feeling so bad about our chances.

'Brendanbau'... I kid you not.

The 'Jose intentionally gets sacked' theory is false because a key dependency (how well LVG might do last season) was wholly out of Jose's control. Jose didn't know that LVG would under-perform, lose the dressing room, etc. And funnily enough, he was worse than LVG on both counts.

It's interesting how few people think Leicester will do well (I agree with that by the way). Could they do ok?

RDM did lead CFC to a FA Cup and CL trophy. Pretty impressive by my books.

He's got no common sense. His quote makes it seem he feels he's doing THEM a favour.

Football authorities cracking down heavily on poor conduct by LFC fans. A huge fine. We might need to have a whip round for them: http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36391328

Agreed 100%. That's the FA for you. I love Clough's quote: "I'm not saying I'm the best manager but I'm in the top one"

Apparently, he doesn't own his name??

Something is wrong when a MANAGER'S image rights are an issue. At all.

I like Jose. Can't help it to be honest as the bloke has charisma in buckets. However, whatever's happened he's now gunning for CFC, City, us, etc and I think he'll do so single-mindedly. I think he'll put sentiment about CFC behind him except, tbh, where he can use it to sow doubt before matches, etc. I get the connection that Shedenders have with JM but, respectfully, he has set out for himself and is now at the helm of a side that a lot of us dislike a lot. He'll commit to Utd fully and, in that sense, what's done is done and a new situation, and JM as an adversary, faces us all.

I think we may have gotten third place this season partly on the back of other teams under-performing. CFC ought to have been top four, and arguably Utd. I think next season may be more typical and we are still losing games we ought to win - defence is an area of occasional weakness. I considered putting us in the top 4 but could not justify excluding any of the teams I listed.

Too early to guess as a lot will depend on summer transfer news, but... Man Utd Man City Chelsea Arsenal (Wenger keeps getting a top 4 finish) I will revisit this in August :-) In another thread I picked LFC as top four contenders but that was before their dreadful second half against Seville.

This is almost as shoddy. No time for LVG and Utd to enjoy the victory, just a shoddy and probably ego driven leak. I'm pretty neutral about LVG but this whole thing stinks. In other news, there's a thread on Redcafe about whether Jose will keep Giggs!

Good post SP. He's now working against CFC and all other PL teams. He'll be up to all his tricks come August, directed against CFC when it comes to your joint fixtures.

I agree - eff United. Something went wrong with JM at the start of this season. The United players (present and future) know that and, imo, some of his aura of success/genius has worn off. How wary of him will the players be and, more importantly imo, what style of play will United fans expect? You often hear LVG criticised for boring play. JM can do the same thing.

I agree Luckywethers. Re. Jose, a lot of pundits, journos seem to be assuming that Jose will turn up at Utd and all will be well there. I'm less sure. We still don't know what happened to make the players at CFC appear to lack motivation at the start of the season.