He should have left after the 6-0 at Fulham.

If he wasn't able to get the players motivated for prem survival then I'm not sure why he or the board thought that he could motivate the players through another championship slog to be honest.

Regardless, he wasn't completely terrible in the prem season. Man U at home, the come back against Boro (amazing atmosphere), Ashton's signing, Doc's equalizer at St James' Park, the late run of games that nearly kept us up. There were good times.

You know, I often think that people have forgetten how limited that side was outside of Green, Hucks, Ashton (half a season), Safri and Francis. The defence was poor (should have kept Malky tbf), we had no real wingers and we didn't have a proper goal scorer until January 2005. The board didn't gave Nigel any real 'prem money' either, hence the signings of Charlton and Doherty for peanuts.

He did get a lot wrong, but he wasn't completely bad for a first time prem manager. We probably should have stayed up, but I don't think that it was as clear cut as some people think.

Posted By: Common Sense Police, Apr 20, 22:40:14