Got to hand it to Sunderland though - 3 of the last 6 fixtures were the same as ours; in those games, they got 3 wins and we got 1 draw (0-0 of course). Still, for us it has been about the whole season - frittering away points, blunt attack, brittle defence, chronic underperformance away from home. We can all recall several games where we should have got more out of them but I cannot think of any game (although I'm sure someone will come up with one or two) where I walked away thinking "we got away with that one".
Well I hope all you Hughton 'inners' are happy, he's taken us down and I for one hope he never gets another ****ing job in football. Unfortunately some other naive chairman of a football club will probably get sucked in by his charm, after all he is a very nice man.
KIO mate, people such as Dangerous Marsupial will just say that if we had kept him he probably would have kept us up and putting Neil in charge was our undoing! I know it's crazy, but you just can't get through to some.
Without meaning to go over the whole debate again, I think that's a bit far. Yes he played poor football, yes he was in charge for the majority of a season in which we were relegated, but we weren't that far away were we? Had a couple of results gone differently in Jan-March, we could have been 6 points better off, survived, and Hughton left with his head held high this summer. Managers more often than not live or die by their results, and Hughton really only just fell short of keeping the 4th favourites for relegation afloat. His record in the championship with Newcastle and Birmingham is excellent, and if being a nice man means your manager isn't attacking fans verbally or physically, then great. I don't see his personality as a stick to beat him with. I've no doubt both the fans and the boards of several mid-championship clubs would be very happy with Hughton in charge, in the same way that many on this forum would have Malky in charge of us next season. Are the two really that different on paper? If you never want to see him get a job in football again I suspect you'll be severely disappointed.
Sorry guys. I know it's down to the team over the season but west brom never even gave us a game tonight. Hope you bounce straight back. You have some very good players. Will you hold on to them? Best of luck. Top fans should be in the prem.
If, if, if, every relegated club can say if this, if that, fact is he wasn't up to the job and the board are as much to blame for not giving him his P45 sooner. As a result we are now back down with the dead men. ANGRY
Looks grim, there are some top away outings on the agenda next season though, it'll be like visiting East Germany circa 1979 only with funny accents and deep fried lard.
The only Pro Hughton stance I agreed with was sticking with him for those final 4 games. I've absolutely lost interest in those continuing with any other pro-Hughton stance. Thankfully, they are now in the minority and I don't have to listen to the rubbish en masse.
Just come from the match (SAFC) supporter, WBA were not bad just that we were all over them in the first half, and hopefully this will be our last dog fight in the premier league, sorry about you being relegated, surely Villa are the 3rd worst team !. I have suffered 7 relegations since 1977 so know what you are going through, but you should get straight back up.
Cheers but it's a tough league and we gave got to reflect on the shambles this season has been and make some good decision starting with the manager. They'll give it to Adams though, you wait and see ( cheap option).
We're not the kind of bounce back club when it comes to the Championship, to stand a chance we'll need to keep most of our squad, our Chief executive and get a decent manager in.
Yep, I've said this more than once on this board, with respect to Neeyul he's a top bloke but also the cheapest option
The way Sunderland have played, I doubt even Ferguson could have kept us up with our last four games. In the end, it was all irrelevant the change of manager, though at least it meant we have gone down with a united club. We were not relegated based on the last four matches, we were relegated by losing to Fulham and Villa (twice each) and only managing one point off the likes of Swansea and Cardiff when they were in poor form
That'll cement our status as a Championship club then, the board need to have ambition and they need to invest.
