Roy had totally lost the plot by the time he was sacked. Behaving strangely as well, to the point where players were openly mocking him. Can't come back from that realistically. Sacking him was the right call, but we made the wrong one in who we chose to appoint next. The first half of 97/98 was excellent and feels like what could have been, but the second half of that season was really poor and we never recovered. Between Jan 11th and May 10th 1997 we lost 10 of our 17 matches. Extremely poor purchases in the summer and the likes of Hendry leaving doomed any chance of returning to form the following season. With our budget we should never have been close to a relegation battle, let alone actually being relegated. One season's worth of poor decisions cost us dearly, in a time period where teams weren't afforded that luxury. Compare to today when multiple teams can make horrendous decisions year after year and survive (Everton especially) just because there are three teams who either can't bridge the gap between the Champ/Prem or are imploding at an even greater level. With that said, we came back strong in the end and I wouldn't trade the Souey/Hughes years for anything.

Replacing TM with Beale was so obviously a stupid move that it makes you wonder how Sunderland are 10th with decisions like that being made. Then you remember we've been just outside the playoffs a few times under Venky's, and realise the majority of the league has incompetents at the helm.

Considering how poor we are, and the fact Preston have been in decent form recently, I'll take a point for sure. Sad that Venky's have reduced us to this level though.

Must be nice to be at a club that isn't a total circus mind.

I don't think many people thought JDT's entire footballing philosophy needed to be thrown out, just that it needed some tweaking and a Plan B in the event Plan A wasn't working. We obviously needed to be more compact defensively. The whole "shackles are off" nonsense is a big red flag to me. Just feels like the players now have an excuse not to work or think as much anymore and can resort to hoofing and doing as they please. They aren't good enough to be allowed that kind of freedom. Stoke were expecting something different in the first half and are as bad as we are, so our attacking talent was enough to win that match. If they score that penalty I have no doubt our weak minded team folds and we get a draw at best. Against more organised teams we'll come unstuck repeatedly as we did last night. As I said in another thread, Eustace can't trust these players. He's got a job on his hands. He might get away with drilling some absolute basics into them over the next few weeks which may get us over the line, but looking at our fixture list it's going to be tough if we need to wait a few weeks to get going.

As is the case for pretty much all 'official' forums. Either heavily moderated to ensure no negative stuff posted, or ultimately shut down due to negative stuff posted.

Brittain probably not going to be as eager to pipe up tomorrow.

Have said this time after time when people talk about JRC having this spot in the team or that spot... he'll never be fit enough to consistently rely on. At best he's a bonus when he's fit.

The only thing I'll say in Rock and TKO's defence is that at least they immediately walked it back. Under Vince it would have taken a lot longer, if it happened at all. This probably doesn't do any lasting damage to Cody and does set up some really interesting possibilities going forward, so they've stumbled their way into something interesting in the end - they just went about it in a very backwards way. I did find it funny how at the press conference Cody basically pretended like he didn't make a decision on Smackdown and retconned that entire ending segment. That's exactly what they should have done - have Cody say he'd spoken to Rock and made a decision, then have Rock come out and engage in a staredown with Reigns without Cody saying anything else. Imply that Rock might be stealing the main event without outright saying so. Gauge the response and go from there. The press conference then makes a lot more sense. Nonetheless, what's done is done. They've done the right thing in the end, and I assume that going forward they'll just pretend Cody never actually said he was giving up his WM spot.

I think they had a fairly solid plan until Rock came in and forced his way into storylines. The Vince allegations obviously put things into a state of chaos as well. I actually think they have the opportunity now to make things more interesting than the original plans, but it depends where they go creatively. It's not ideal to have to retool a story that they likely had booked well in advance, and deal with the knock on affect of how that impacts other stories - particularly Seth's opponent at WM.

I know the Observer reported that it was part of Rock's contract when he signed to the TKO board that he would headline WM. How true that is, I don't know, but it would be baffling for them to go ahead with Cody winning the rumble if that was the case. With that said, everything about this has been baffling, so it's probably true. I'd like to see Rock/Seth on Night 1 and Cody/Roman on Night 2. Rock still gets his main event, but nothing to do with Cody and Reigns. Doesn't seem like that's the direction they're going in though.

Gally has been injured for significant amounts of time lately, so how could we build a style of play around him? Moreover the strikers that were foisted onto JDT by our DOF have by and large been completely useless. Fortunately Szmodics has stepped up otherwise we'd probably be in the bottom three. Too many players in this team who have shown their heads go down when things get tough. Easy to give it the big'un after beating a Stoke side who are struggling even more than we are. I don't trust many of the players out there and, imo, neither should Eustace.

I'm glad WWE did the right thing by backtracking (and the press conference confrontation was legitimately fantastic), but it's crazy that they misread their audience so badly. With Vince out of the picture I thought they'd be a little more sensible, but seems like TKO are just as dense. The one main difference seems to be that they're willing to change course rather than try to force the audience to accept what's given to them, which is obviously a positive.

Despite getting a goal today, Stoke fans aren't too impressed with Ennis: https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/311905/nail-ennis

Huge win after a week of absolute turmoil. Probably the best opponent we could have had in the circumstances, but you still have to beat what's put in front of you and we hadn't done that in 11 games previous. Breathing space between us and the relegation places now.

Guess we know why JDT was so reluctant to bring Telalovic on.

Wow, all change. A win here potentially becomes even more valuable.

Can't imagine Eustace has really had a chance to put his stamp on things yet. Probably just the players reverting to a style that's more comfortable for them.

Seems like Schumacher hasn't had a new manager bounce there. At this rate he could end up back in L1 with Stoke. I'm sure there are a few Plymouth fans looking at the current score with a wry smile.

2 wins in 16 I think I read on their forum. One point off the drop as it stands, with QPR winning. Will be a huge three points for us if we can secure it.

Have we dropped the tip-tapping it around the back routine?

Would have been nice to keep a clean sheet, but you just knew Ennis would net against us. Their only shot on target so far. With that said, we've had three and they've all gone in so I suppose it's just two rubbish defences - we've just had the better attackers thus far. Can't be too critical as we are still 3-1 up.

Yeah, I think there's a difference between losing the dressing room (which I think is pretty rare and usually ends with the manager leaving really soon afterwards) and the players losing confidence in the manager's style of play. It doesn't mean he's lost the dressing room in the sense they don't want to play for him, just that they start losing faith in the methods which has a direct impact on confidence and performance during matches.

High press can work well, but typically only for certain periods. Asking a team to high press for entire matches and in every match is going to lead to exhaustion fairly quickly even in the best conditioned teams. I believe it's part of the reason Klopp's teams tend to go strong for a season or two and then start to fade away. Even with elite athletes at elite levels of fitness it's difficult to sustain that indefinitely. Basically you need a plan around what your team is doing when not executing the high press, and I'm not sure we ever had a good plan for that.

Amidst the gloom of the past decade, that FA Cup match against Leicester will be one I'll always be fond of. We were electric for those first 70 minutes and looked like we belonged in the PL. If JDT takes the Sweden national job it's an odd one for me, as I'd have expected him to stay in club management, but I wish him well wherever he goes. For the first time in a very long time it felt like the manager was on our side, genuinely, and to me at least that means a lot. There were low points during his reign, of course, but I think with backing for the project he came in for he would have had us in a decent position.