After the signing of Alfie the otherday and with Kader Mangane on his way to undertake his medical before completing him loan move to the Stadium of Light there has been a feel good factor around the place over the last 6 or 7days and things got even better today with the convincing 3-0 win over West Ham to kick off our 2013 campaign at the SoL. Today was the best we have played all season and we seen for the first time really this season how good the front 4 of Fletcher, Sessegnon, McClean and Johnson can play. Sess IMO was outstanding but the big difference was David Vaughan in the middle of the park. Vaughan must think he has been unlucky not to start more games and after todays show he could well have a point, it just shows that if you look up and get the ball played into the creative players early then we can cause anyone problems and Vaughan was the architect today. With the run of games we now have.... Wigan (A) Swansea (H) Reading (A) Arsenal (H) West Brom (A) Fulham (H) QPR (A) Norwich (H) we have a very good chance to pick up points, all the home games we should be looking to take 3points from and we should be looking to come away with at least a point from the away games. IMO the hardest game in there is WBA, the Hawthorns seems to be a ground we struggle at but I am confident we can get 12points at least from those games. With rumours growing that we are after Moussa Sissikho then he would be the star signing for us this transfer window the lad is outstanding, get him to the club along with a striker and we can easily get a top 10 finish Ha'Way the Lads
Agree with all that. Much more in the way of grounds for optimism at the minute. The mags have Reading at home then the Villa away, which will be massive.
Depends where you were coming from to start with though? I have at no point ever thought otherwise regarding Mon. He needed time and patience having only been here 13 months and he has a plan which we are starting to see unfold. This is no knee jerk reaction manager we have, lurching from one signing to another. This is a manager with a fantastic pedigree who has NEVER failed in management and has a glittering playing career as well. We were blessed as a club to eventually get him and by the time he leaves us (in quite a few years yet I hope) we will for the first time in my life be a proper top flight club. Here's to the rest of this campaign and to seeing Martin's team building programme unfold. FTM
Got to admit I was wavering with MON during our **** run Cest but, decided he needed more time than a year (or less was it) than some others were giving him. If we manage to get our home form back to where it should be then there is only the Arsenal game which should pose any problems depending on which Arsenal turn up that is. The away games are in my opinion winnable games but, I'll be more than happy with an away point from each of those as the teams we are playing will be fighting for their lives. It's the old cliche again there are no easy games and that is true no matter how good our run in looks.
When some of the posts for him to be sacked were airing in November, he'd been here 10 months. 1 proper transfer window as he had only been in the job 4 weeks when the first one hit. Rather than adopt the scatter gun approach to recruitment, he chose to take stock and have a look at his stock. The summer started the improvement and this month sees it improved again. Top class manager and a top class man. We are so lucky to have him mate and as a club we will only grow and develop for the better. Mon's red and white army.
