0Amarillo<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM>  º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM>  º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>True

Jas, I hope your ''2000 supporters'' thing was with tongue in cheek, but it makes me laugh that we all take the mickey out of Ipswich for only getting 22k supporters, then say ''but our supporters will all go if we don''t have success''. Are they more loyal than Norwich fans then...?

"Blind" faith? I''m not blind. I can see what''s happening. But as I have aged I have learned that things are never as good, nor as bad, as they seem. And patience counts. It''s like dumping a girlfriend when things start to go wrong. If you always do that you''ll be worse off in the long run. Eventually you find someone who you think could last and you work through the tough times when they come. I''m not yet prepared to dump someone who we''ve had such good times with. Not while he''s still willing to work through it, the players are still willing to work through it and the Board are too. I''m not denying that these are pretty cr*p times. But I still think we have a good manager going through a bad patch, rather than a bad manager. And I''m worried that if we change simply because we crave instant success, we could easily end up with a bad manager.

The Board stuck with him after we ''only'' finished 8th in the season after Cardiff. They even gave him more funds at the start of the following season.Don''t forget they know more than us, and they work with the guy too.

Well, what do you think: there are people criticising Mourihno''s style of play for goodness sake. Worthy could win every competition we''re in this season and some would still call for him to go (''Promotion just disguised the shortcomings'')....

Link - please don''t speak for me when you say that the Board won''t do the right thing and sack Worthy. It''s what you think is right, but it is not unanimous. Perhaps the Board ARE doing the right thing!Just suppose another manager came in, and played the same team because of our injuries. Where would that leave these arguments?I say again as I have before - why do people assume that changing managers is the answer to all our problems? On what evidence (from the history of our own and other clubs) is that based? Because I just don''t see clubs usually having success (promotion) on the back of a manager change. I think it happens less than 50% of the time, which means it''s more likely not to happen. So why blow a million quid just to see?The amusing thing for me would be this: we have to sell Deano to finance changing manager. Because we''ve lost our best striker we don''t get promotion. People can then claim that that''s all part of the mess created by Worthy....

I''m going to stick my two penn''th in again I''m afraid. I support the current management. I''m not calling for change... although I know quite a few are. This is because I think Worthy HAS taken the club a long way forward from where it was in the late 90s. We''re not world-beaters, and Worthy makes some decisions that I find strange. But I do think that over the past few seasons he''s generally got the most from the players and we have achieved what several predecessors did not. For example you can argue that Flem was not up to Prem standard, fine. Worthy never claimed he was, and I would argue that he got as much out of him as he could. Should he have made other, better signings? Possibly, but we don''t know who they tried to sign, and we do know that plenty of other good managers have been relegated from the Prem. I temper people''s comments about Worthy''s mistakes by reading other fans'' message boards too - and they universally make the same complaints about their manager, so it''s unlikely that changing manager will change the fact that people often don''t agree with substitutions, formations, signings, tactics. Even Mourihno is getting criticised for his style of play! As for ambition, it all rather depends on whether you think we are basically a Prem club that is below where we should be, or are we a Championship club that aspires to be in the Prem again? We''d all like to think that we''re the former, but I suspect we''re the latter. If we can shed this ''we should be walking this league'' attitude then we might get somewhere. We weren''t good enough to stay in the Prem, so we''re currently where we should be, trying to improve.

Loyalty? what loyalty? He''s lost a few games, so he''s got to go. (Apparently.) Interesting to see who out of us, Everton, and Palace fans are the more loyal. We''ve all got good managers who have done good things for us but are going through a rough patch. Some fans though seem to want to push the ''change manager'' button without knowing what it does, or what it costs, simply out of frustration with the current season.I''ve got news: that button isn''t connected to anything. Pushing it does nothing. Campaigning for certain players to be played, making more noise at home games... that could work though.

Another classic: "Francis would probably have been useless but we are in need of a player like that"Have you thought about applying for manager?

Classic line Tumbleweed: "Exactly Fatman- Amarillo''s knee must take a long time to jerk as these issues have been around for 18 months now, and perhaps longer when disguised by promotion" Pretty good disguise don''t you think?!! You''ll be saying next that Chelsea''s Prem success last season only served to disguise their shortcomings. My point is that ''change the manager'' is an obvious but flawed plan. And some arguments on here are flawed. If Worthy failed last season by not keeping us up, then Dowie also failed, and he probably had more money. Some advocates of change point to Palace''s change to Dowie part way through their promotion season. But, he then went on to fail. So by that logic, we would need to attract a manager better than Dowie to come here now and do what he did for Palace and more. If we only matched that, the new manager would have to go because he would have failed. And so the cycle goes on. Every year loads of managers get sacked. The clubs mostly don''t go on to promotion. Every year the media, pundits and fans and everyone talk about how Chairmen are too quick to sack managers - and how the likes of Charlton and Crewe are punching above their weight because of consistency in management. But lods of clubs just nod in agreement, and then sack their manager. The managers all move round one and the story repeats. And guess what, the only time we didn''t sack a manager for a few years, in the past decade or more, we got promotion. But really that ''just disguised our shortcomings''. So now we want to change managers and start re-building the club all over again. Sure, we''re not perfect. So far this season we''re not even very good. But there isn''t a manager on this planet who is going to make us a ''massive'' club with a record like Chelsea''s. ANY manager you can name would have some failure, as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow. And the fans will then moan and call for his head. And anyone who thinks Worthy hasn''t taken us forward, just look at the last team under Hamilton, or Rioch, and the attendances back then. We''re a long way from that.

But Kerr''s record at 1st Div/Championship level is what? And his recent successes?Surely that would just be a huge gamble. Whereas letting the current team work it out (even if not this season) is a relatively small gamble.

Rick Waghorn set it all out in his column of 17 September: http://new.pinkun.com/content/columns/RickWaghorn.aspx?brand=PINKUNOnline&category=RickWaghorn&tBrand=PINKUNOnline&tCategory=RickWaghorn&itemid=NOED17%20Sep%202005%2014%3A28%3A59%3A743

Zipper: I think your points are justified, but not quite what I was driving at. My argument was that, looking back at other clubs experiences, you have more chance of success by letting the current management team work it out than by changing the management, however frustrating that may be for us fans.Your points are around whether Worthy''s style satisfies the fans, which I think is another matter. Interestingly, half of all fans'' message boards that I look at have fans on them complaining that their manager plays players out of position, play too many young players, don''t give youth a chance, have made poor signings. So much so that I end up thinking whatever manager we get we''ll have something perfectly valid to complain about or seriously challenge. But on balance I believe Worthy is better than some, or most, and just as likely to get us promoted as almost any other manager we could attract.It''s the old ''better the devil you know'' I guess....

And besides besides, would anyone really want a manager who has just proven he can''t cut it in the Prem? And that he didn''t make the right signings in the summer? And that he refuses to play the right players or formation? Aren''t they the complaints levelled at Worthy?

Based on the experiences of other clubs, I''d say give Worthy the money. Another Hux, Ashton, Safri, ... or Davenport would do nicely. But no Emblens please.

Personally I doubt we''d even get 15,000. (We''re not as loyal as Ipswich fans, I guess).

Please, only managers who haven''t failed previously. (show me a manager who hasn''t failed previously and I''ll show you a manager who hasn''t won anything either).

All true, but he was an exceptional manager. I''m sure about 50 clubs would want a Clough-type manager now.

Re Kennyfoggs''s points. All fair enough, but I could argue the other way too: "Sorry to say worthington had all last season to learn.. while losing to likes of chelski Arsenal ..and to put those lessons into practice this season against the likes of Reading, Luton Hull Coventry Crewe..etc." Learn what? Learn that Safri and Francis were our best midfielders? I think he knows/knew that... but how does that help now? "And clearly it can be seen that this isn''t happening.. I wonder if the WBA fans were defending Megson like this last season, After he did exactly what worthington is hoping to do... WBA board had the bottle to change skipper and it paid off ..we didn''t and look at us now, looking squarely at the trap door." True, but that was after giving him the chance to take the team back up, and not doing any better the second time around. And now Robson isn''t doing much better either. "And don''t say we can''t be relegated.. Man City..Sheff Wed.. Bradford Swindon and Notts Forest fans all thought that." Again true, but I could counter that endless clubs have changed manager to no positive effect. Nothing is guaranteed. If it were, others would be doing it too. You''re right on all counts, but there is always another side to the story.

Firstly Yankee, we fans were pretty quiet against Milwall on Sat. Some fans of theirs I bumped into on Saturday evening commented as much and they were right. We matched our team for passion and endeavour I''m afraid to say. The funny thing about this thread though, is that people assume ''the board see the same things we do'' so surely they should act. They do - they go to the games - but maybe they don''t draw the same conclusions as some on here do. Personally I''d give Worthy all season and some of next. If we don''t go up then that''s a big disappointment... but about as predictable as coming down last season - if you read your Prem history books. After Cardiff we finished 8th. People called for Worthy to go (''taken us as far as he can etc etc). We then went on to get promoted. I doubt anybody disagrees that things need to change, it''s just that there are different views on how to go about achieving it. And changing the manager is only one option... and in my view not a very good option, albeit the easiest for fans to see.

Judging by this on the 606 message board: "Hoddle talks a good game but we havent sufficiently strenghtened especially in midfield, with out Ince we are toothless, it takes a 38 yrd YES A 38 YR OLD WARHORSE to wake up the team, i am soo fed up and well cheesed off at the mo. Hoddle should wake up and smell the coffee. we are not banging in the goals, conceding at the back far to often for my likin, stick to a winnin side and enough of his cockney flannel about formations!!! Money from the Camara sale £5.8M where is it?? we cocked up big time with the rasiak and indo transfer saga which ran on for months!! Not learnt our lesson..... AGAIN!!" I guess we wouldn''t want Hoddle then. Nor would they want Worthy!

You should add: "Would barely make most League Two sides*." *But is good enough for England.

I think those are fair questions. Worthy did explain the thinking behind the diamond in yesterday''s Pink -Un, and admitted it hadn''t worked. So Worhty please, leave the diamond alone - you try it every autumn and it doesn''t work. I agree about the midfield though, I''d have thought the other way around would have worked better. Didn''t think Charlton looked very good in that position on Sat either. Jarrett isn''t looking great either, but give him a run of games at least. (Don''t some say'' play him into form'').

This is all so tedious and predictable. I say let''s cut the messing around and if we''re really ambitious go for Morinho. He''s a proven manager. Delia - dig deep and get him here quick! OK, so you''ve sacked Worthy. Look around the manager market for someone: - proven to be able to get promotion - knows the club and players - can work within and with the board - won''t cost astonomical wages - is available. You''d probably re-employ Worthy. or if you add: - proven to take a team up and keep them there - doesn''t lose games or get players injured - etc. You''d probably find nobody.

All 3 lost last night, all 3 teams are ''under-performing''. All 3 have a track record of promotion, but all 3 failed to keep their team in the Prem last season. Presumably all 3 are under fire from their fans for presumably ''dragging their team down''. Who''ll go first? Will they all go? Would you have one of the other two come in here (they could just swap around)? It''s more than a slightly curious coincidence that all 3 teams are in the same position... why is that?

I''m pretty disappointed about last night, and the fact that this season is turning into a very ordinary one after promising so much. I can understand that some fans want someone to blame, and since they can''t call for all the players to be sacked, are calling for the manager to be sacked. But people must ask whether the action they are calling for will lead to the outcome they want. Of all the relegated teams over the past few years, most have not gone back up. Most have had a poor following season and sacked their manager. For most, changing manager has not worked. Town got rid of Burley after a poor start after relegation. Well, that didn''t get them promoted did it? Now they just have Royle to moan about instead. Ditto Derby, Coventry, Wolves, Leicester. It may feel like the answer, but it rarely is. So although people may feel that he should go, they should acknowledge that it probably wouldn''t make any difference. And (see Megson, Royle etc.) has as much chance of seeing us worse off not better.