I'm grateful to Brown for the good times he gave us, he achieved something with us that no manager had done before and did this on the back of keeping a relegation doomed team up the season before. We had the fantastic results and days out at The Emirates, St James' Park, White Hart Lane, Old Trafford, Anfield and Stamford Bridge and those achievements should never be forgotten or dicredited. We battled against the odds that season and surpassed all expectations by staying up. Some may say we were lucky, but luck and good fortune don't stretch out over 38 games and in the end we did enough on merit to stay in the top flight.
However, for all the good times, there were the bad times and for me I remember Brownie for both the good and the bad. We were always fighting against the odds to stay up, but what I found unacceptable was the complete lack of fight and ambition in matches were we had a realistic chance of winning. Middlesbrough, West Ham, Sunderland, Birmingham, Wolves, Blackburn and Fulham were just some of the games were we just didn't turn up. Our great performances against the big boys were put to waste over our lack of being able to pick up points from teams around us. Added to this the media circus Brownie created and it is easy to see why Brown's time here holds both good and bad memories. This should in no way devalue his achievements but it doesn't absolve him from criticism over things that went wrong. Sacking him was an overdue decision given our form and performances in the crunch games, but the timing was wrong and he should have taken us down or on the back of that Arsenal game, do a 'Wigan' with us and create a late season surge to stay up. I doubt this would have been the case given our form over the season, but the Arsenal game showed the effort that was missing in the previous games against Everton, West Ham and Blackburn.
I hope he finds another job and can repeat the same kind of success he had here. Despite his success he made mistakes here and from how he conducts himself at times it appears he still hasn't learnt from them. His success shouldn't overshadow his mistakes, in the same way that his mistakes shouldn't overshadow his success. The man is rightfully a club legend and will always be remembered for those fantastic days we had in 2008. However, the darker days of 2009 and 2010 will remain just as pertinent.