What absolutely bizarre comments from TM. Hypothetically, if we were to win the next five or six games then we would still have a sniff of the play offs but those comments sound like the green light for the players to take the rest of the season off. "We haven't done as well as we've liked but it doesn't matter, it's "where we're at" so we might as well give up for the rest of the season." Hardly going to have people flocking to the ground for the rest of the season or queueing round the block to renew their ST is it?

Similar at Sheffield United away in the first half. Came short for the ball and linked up very well with Travis, Reed and Palmer. He needs a goal or two desperately. Might work wonders for his confidence. For that though he needs minutes on the pitch and he probably won't get the chance the way he's been utilised so far this season

The lad needs a run of nine or ten games up front before we can decide if it's a complete waste of £7m or not. Not out of position on the wing. Not dropping him again either after one game as soon as he doesn't score or as soon as Danny Graham's aching bones recover sufficiently for him to turn out for an hour in the next match.

2 questions: First, What do you class as midtable? I'd call it 10th to 12th. Second, Our form since Preston reads W5 D2 L9. 17 points from 16 games. Does that not concern you? Bit more than a blip isn't it?

Good post. It doesn't bear thinking about if what money we do have has already been spent on the players who were given extensions.

Each to their own but Im astounded anyone could think that. The guy can hardly move or get off the ground.

"Player of the season?" You're on a wind up surely.

It was fairly forseeable we would be facing these kind of issues with Graham this season, the most ridiculous thing of all is that in the midst of all this we handed him a new contract!

I think there's every chance we could finish 18th which is roughly where I thought we'd finish before the start of the season. If that's what happens I guess we'll have to suck it up as we won't have gone down but it's not a state of affairs anyone should be happy with. More importantly for me I expected the restructuring of the squad to have started by now but TM has shown no interest whatsoever in that, he only seems interested in signing players to sit on the bench and play cameo bit part roles. As I said at the time when Waggott was appointed it's not a good idea to have TM virtually choosing his boss, it's a complete conflict of interest. I have no idea what is going to happen now but I fear that it could all go calamitously wrong very quickly.

So if we finish 18th it's been a good season?

Oh well. There goes the long term contract. Before that looked like we were picking up slightly. Why does he invariably get the starting line up wrong and we end up with the best players on the pitch trying to rescue it for the last 15-25 mins?

The Banks save is undoubtedly the most iconic of all time and I'm more than happy for it to be considered the greatest save ever but in the spirit of debate does anyone think Jim Montgomery's double save for Sunderland against Leeds in the '73 FA Cup Final was even better? (Sorry I'm not tech savvy enough to link to it) I think they were both equally extraordinary myself and neither have been bettered.

Yes, fair enough, was talking domestically really. At his peak I thought Buffon looked a bit like the great keepers of yesteryear. So good at narrowing his angles he looked bigger than he actually was and you wondered if there was any way you could actually squeeze the ball past him.

Really upset by this news, just as I was as a kid when he lost an eye in a car crash which prematurely ended his career.... hero to a generation. Rodney Marsh was on the radio today and said that when he was called up for England he was told he was sharing a room with Banks and he was terrified at the prospect of rooming with such a legend. Banks' first words to him: "Cup of tea?". Different gravy. As a side note I don't think there are any great keepers about these days. They're all expected to be Lionel Messi with the ball at their feet but they can barely stop a shot or catch the ball. To think Joe Hart wore the same shirt as Banks. The best of a bad bunch these days is De Gea but none of them are fit to lace the boots of Banks, Shilton, Jennings (or Sir Roger Jones). I'd say the last two great modern keepers were Schmeicel and Friedel. Rant over. RIP Gordon.

How did we exploit him? We rescued him off the managerial scrapheap, got him back on the managerial merry go round, and allowed him (extremely unusually) to insert a get out clause in his contract which he exercised. He didn't pull up any trees while he was here, didn't sort out the contracts of anyone who needed sorting out, signed a lot of rubbish on loan, and sold our most valuable player on the last day of the transfer window before walking out leaving us at the end of the season without a single senior striker on the books. You could possibly say he'd been unlucky and blame it on our owners if he'd been a raging success everywhere else he'd been since but if anything it's been more of the same or even worse.

I can't recall PL specifically saying he was disappointed with the summer budget but if you can find a link to the contrary fair enough. In fact I've got it in the back of my head that PL said somewhere that when he met with Pasha they never even got as far as discussing budgets etc. Edit: Also it appears PL was no fan of Rhodes at all and the money was made available for Coyle to make Graham permanent so there's nothing there to suggest he should walk out on our account.

There's no evidence whatsoever anyone lied to anyone else about the funding that might or might not have been available when Lambert was here is there? That was an assumption people seemed to make when he walked out. After he triggered his get out clause, (which we previously knew nothing about) he had nothing but good things to say about everyone at the Club.

Darren Bent was interviewed on Talksport last night (former Ipswich player) and was full square behind Lambert as well saying he needed to rebuild the side with players who had the same commitment as him. Lambert is either one of the biggest confidence tricksters the game has seen or the unluckiest man ever with his choice of Clubs. My money's on the former.

As others have said, fantastic picture of Fred and the old Riverside. I'd wager the original was snapped by Wally Talbot. What a fantastic strip that is as well. We could do a lot worse than that now as opposed to some of the monstrosities we've been subjected to including this season's version. Proper shade of blue that.

Wonder if Lambert will stick with them and attempt to see the job through when they go down or carefully stage manage his departure by placing strategically timed soundbites in the local press about "This Club has to decide where it wants to go" to curry favour with the fans before walking out?

Completely agree. Even at 75% fitness Dack is still arguably our best player and the one most likely to produce a moment of magic and change the course of a game. For that reason I would generally be loath to bring him off unless he has a limb hanging off. However whilst he is a thick set lad I've thought he's looked a little bit overweight and a little bit sub par since Preston away. I remember back to the start of last season in League 1 when we were struggling and Dack wasn't playing. Then he came in and even though results didn't pick up immediately he carried the team with his energy and enthusiasm. He was here there and everywhere, rattling into tackles and giving opposition players a dig. A right tenacious little bugger. He doesn't seem to quite have those levels of fitness and tenacity this season unless he's been told to modify his game for the higher division.

Yep, summer transfer window is massive. If we're unable to secure Reed and Rodwell permanently the squad will look a bit desperate and even if we are able arguably we'll still have to cram two windows worth of business into one.

Those were my thoughts as well jim. In the Henry Winter article TM went on about the demands of being a football manager and how he wished he could spend more time with his family but that he wanted to give his family a good standard of living and put his son through Uni etc. If he manages to lower expectations and convince everyone there is a slow burn long term plan etc then there is a better chance he will make it to the end of his contract or even beyond which would no doubt be mission accomplished as far as securing his family's future is concerned. If he starts setting ambitious targets and fails to meet them then there's a greater risk of his employment being terminated early.

Slightly before my time on the pitch but met him in relatively recent years and he was a lovely bloke. RIP Fred.

Yes. 2-3 proven performers should have come in last summer and the same again this summer. Mowbray has to get far more ruthless. In descending order Conway Williams Graham and Bennett need the chop and Evans and Smallwood aren't good enough if we want to be threatning the play off positions.