For how long

do we keep saying 'It's OK. We're making progress. We played well' etc etc?
As far as I'm concerned we're just the same as we were last year in that we just desperately hope to pick up enough points at home (mainly against bottom half teams) in order to scrape survival. That surely isn't progress.

I know we're always going to struggle to compete with the top few sides but I have always considered that we are as big as WBA, Southampton, Villa, Fulham etc and with the money we spent in the summer I reckon we ought to be if not above them then certainly not in the bottom three.

Conclusion? Of course you look at the players but we all know that in football the buck stops with the manager. Like most I think highly of Chris Hughton as a man but he chooses his assistants, he has the final say on coaching, tactics, selection and transfers and therefore he has to be the focus of any discontent.

We played really well today seems to be the general view. And lost 4-1. And we played really well against Chelsea but lost 3-1. Well if playing well results in defeat then we must make some sort of change. Simple.

Like it or not we have bought the two most expensive strikers in our club's history and scored 6 goals in 8 games.

So once again the next home game becomes a 'must win'; it seems the same every home game. If we beat Cardiff the situation will ease then we'll go and get hammered by Man City and everybody will make the next home game crucial.

Things will not change until we start going away (even to the big teams) and playing without fear. Daryl Sutch today said the best City side he was in feared nobody and believed they could win any game whoever the opposition were. We hear members of the current regime saying exactly that but the evidence we see every week tells a different story.

Listen to Hughton's post-match comments today; at least three times he says 'with the quality they've got' when referring to Arsenal. His entire philosophy is based on fear and the players simply must pick up on that.

Calderwood and Trollope have achieved very little as coaches/managers and appear to offer little; we need change and we need it now.

OK. So now everyone says so who do you replace him with? Well isn't that sort of decision what our Chief Exec earns so much money for? Some say Neil Lennon is his choice should a change be made. Possibly a good shout or possibly just a rumour based on the fact that NcNally used to work at Celtic. I would guess that he is the sort of man who is already making plans and may well be looking abroad.

Posted By: BillySteele, Oct 19, 18:58:33