Incredible performance from Fury tonight. Outclassed Wladimir the entire way. His team knew as soon as the last round finished that they'd lost it.

Cesaro won't get pushed as long as Vince is around, unfortunately. Vince has made it clear he doesn't view Cesaro as main event talent - mainly because he's Swiss, apparently. There are rumours that Ambrose will turn heel and join the Authority in Seth's absence, leading to an Ambrose Vs Reigns match at WrestleMania. I can see merits in the idea, but think it's the wrong direction to go in. Ambrose is popular as it is, whilst Reigns is entering Cena territory of being both liked and disliked by certain sections of the audience. If they went with a heel Ambrose Vs a face Reigns at WM, I could easily see the crowd booing the supposed face and cheering the heel. Reigns would obviously be pencilled in to win that match, which would lead to a pretty weird ending to WM where the face has won the title but is getting booed. The most obvious route to take would be Reigns turning heel and having Ambrose (or Brock) facing him as a face at WM. However, WWE have put a lot of effort into trying to get Reigns over as a face, and I can see them being as stubborn with Reigns as they were with Cena.

I would say WWE is close to 1995 in terms of creative quality. It really is at an all time low, which is reflected in ratings dropping dangerously close to the 2.0 mark. Smackdown is now close to getting the same numbers TNA Impact was getting during its Spike TV run (roughly 1.3-1.5). The worst part is there is no sign of this changing. Seth's injury was a massive blow, but even he wasn't being presented particularly well as champion. Losing 3 times in a row to Cena was just pathetic. On the plus side, I recently watched all of the Nitro's from 1997 on the WWE Network. A great time to be a fan of the product.

Speaking of Eddie, I noticed WWE were again using a real, tragic death to enhance a storyline yesterday on Raw, with Paige bringing up Reid Flair's death. I really don't see why WWE feel the need to do this. Admittedly, I haven't watched Raw in months due to the overall poor quality of the product, but it's sad to see they still resort to this type of thing to get cheap heat.

Had no idea Cole was seriously ill. Hope he gets better soon.

Grella was similar in terms of injuries and wasted wages, but at least he scored in the shoot out when we beat Chelsea in the League Cup quarters.

Good post jbn, but in regards to Bowyer signing players better than Lowe and Williamson... not that difficult, surely? When you consider two free transfers from Reading have been an instant improvement I think that says it all. I also don't understand the extension for Williamson when we already have so many players in that position. Why not give one of the younger lads that spot? A bit harsh to say Olsson had a bad start to the campaign - how many games did he play before being dropped? And if that was criteria how in the world did Lowe and Hanley keep their places? Perhaps you can make an argument for Lowe based on fitness of the newer signings, but Kilgallon should surely have been in for Hanley if we're talking players being dropped for poor contributions in the first couple of games. Considering Olsson was our player of the season last term it would be an incredibly harsh decision from Bowyer to drop him so soon into this campaign imo. Generally agree with your third point, but we've played some really poor teams over the past three games and we gifted Charlton quite a few chances so not convinced about Hanley/Duffy just yet. I would agree that dropping Hanley now would be pointless - not that he would anyway. Beginning the season with Raya in goal was a strange one for me as well. Steele had been solid for us, and throwing a kid into the first team based on a couple of decent outings at the tail end of last season in dead rubber games was a poor call imo. Thank goodness Bowyer rectified that, though it's hard to say what effect that has had on Raya.

To be fair, that's only one post. The majority of Ipswich fans are realistic enough to know Mick's done a good job. I should know as I live here and am surrounded by Town fans. I wouldn't base your opinion of an entire fanbase on one post.

Not saying it's the only reason, but you cannot deny that results have picked up since Lowe and Spurr have been out of the team. It's there in black and white. Judging from the start of the season Akpan and Guthrie were competing with Evans for a spot, not Lowe. You saw that with the substitution in the Bolton game. Lowe had an absolute nightmare but it was Evans who came off. I'm certainly not reveling in any player getting injured, but why should that stop people from pointing out that Lowe is only dropped when he's injured, and we seem to improve when that happens? Nobody should be demonised for highlighting that, and it seems like an attempt to personally discredit the poster in question rather than discuss the issue.

He's right though, isn't he? Since Lowe and Spurr have been out of the team we seem to have markedly improved. It's fair to assume those changes would not have been made unless the players were injured. My stance on relegation remains the same as it was in pre-season - as long as Rhodes is fit and firing, we'll be OK. If he gets injured or is sold in January we are in big trouble. I think the past few weeks have reminded a fair few people just how important Jordan is to us. I believe he is worth more to us right now than being out of the embargo, as I don't trust the club to bring in somebody to replace the 25-30 goals he practically guarantees every season.

Fortunately I think there are at least 5 or 6 teams saying the same thing right now, but without the Jordan Rhodes bit. If Rhodes gets injured I think we are sunk though. I just don't know where the goals come from without him.

Didn't Dnipro get to the Europa League final last year? Not too bad for the supposed wilderness. I doubt he's regretting his decision to move, regardless.

Good lad. Was not an Allardyce type of striker and was never going to work out for him here, but 37 goals in 86 apps for Dnipro isn't a bad return, and started off well for Fiorentina.

Same with Holloway and Mackay. Both successful in this division previously but bombed last season. Then you have the likes of Neil and Karanka who come out of nowhere and succeed. Sometimes the risk pays off, sometimes it doesn't, but very rarely does a manager at the end of his shelf life turn things around.

Depends on Rhodes really. Without him we're as bad as anybody else, as we don't have any other players contributing to the goals for column.

Don't worry, we'll be there soon enough at this rate.

We used to. I think we all remember very fondly those ten minutes we spent in 6th last season.

Agree with most of this, but keeping Bowyer in any position would be a no-no imo. We need a fresh start, and having the ex-manager in the backroom could serve to undermine the current manager. Also selling Rhodes should only be an option if we can get out of the embargo for definite in the same window and we have realistic targets to replace him. Otherwise we'd be heading for the trap door as other than Hanley contributing a couple of headed goals from set pieces, no other player in our team can put the ball in the net. In fact a lot of them are noticeably bad at it.

This is a big part of it, and IMO it's what causes people to actively dislike Bowyer. He comes across as either dishonest or stupid when his assessment of games are at odds to what everybody else in the ground has seen. Nobody's asking him to lambast the players, but he should at the very least be honest about our failings. His inability to do so suggests his interviews are being directed towards Pune and not towards the fans, which further suggests the fans are an absolute irrelevence in the manager's eyes.

I thought Cairney was a useless, lazy sod with crap hair? can't keep up with general opinion on here these days.

This is probably the easiest a lot of the players have ever had it, so yeah, I imagine Bowyer does still have them. But that's suggestive of a squad with no ambition. The ones with ambition - Gestede, King, Rhodes, Marshall, to name a few - have either left or suggested they want to move on. The rest know this is as good/easy as it's going to get for them.

There were plenty on here who had a go at those of us who suggested we were in for a relegation fight this season. They are strangely quiet now.

Or bring in a better manager.

We seemed to play everybody everywhere in Souey's final few games. Personally I'm glad Souey left before he relegated us and/or resigned. We ended up getting a decent amount of compo for him and managed to upgrade with our next appointment. Meanwhile Souness left with the majority of his legacy in tact.

It was all over for Souey when he started playing Dominic bloody Matteo on the left wing.