rubberman

Fair enough - different interpretations of MSOI I guess... Mine is relative to where we are now, though as you say it would be astonishing if either were to come to us now. I would definitely see them taking us most of way to where we want to be in 3-5 years. If we need another manager to get us from Europa League to the Champions League, I'm fine with that!

Well, they are currently 12th and 13th so close enough to top 10. We are 19th in the championship so persuading someone to step down from that level to us would be, for me, a massive statement of intent. Given what they are producing with much smaller clubs they should be able to take us comfortably into the top 10 (theoretically!)

I agree that Bruce's time is coming to an end - one of the old school managers. How would he work with Round - who knows? He would be a very uninspiring choice for me, but I doubt it would be disastrous. Wagner - potentially big upside, but possibly just a flavour of the month appointment. I'd be concerned that he needs more time than the fans will potentially give him coming in now. Our squad isn't naturally built for a gegenpressing game. But I'd certainly be more excited by the prospect longterm. If there is any glimmer of chance of getting Dyche or Howe, they both fall in the middle and offer the best balance. Would be delighted with either and would be a massive statement of intent.

I'm having naan of this

Have I got this right? Of our last failed permanent managers, there are people who would like Lambert, Sherwood and Garde back. I suppose we are unanimous about McLeish thankfully, but really...move on people.

Sherwood: 250 days, P28 W10 D2 L16 MacDonald: 9 days, P2, W0, L2 Garde: 148 days, P23, W3, D7, L13 Black: 65 days, P7 W0, D1, L6 Di Matteo: 124 days, P12, W1, D7, L4 Horrific.

I think given the set up with Steve Round and that fact we didn't choose a 'Pot 1' (tm Richard) manager last time out, we'll go for a Pot 2/3 manager and I 'd be happy with that. Wagner first for me, would be happy with Warburton too. Can't see us being able to get Howe or Dyche where we are now. I'd really like to be excited by whoever it is though.

Was never that excited by him to start with and after a pretty good rebuilding job in the summer never got the team to gel. There's still enough talent in this squad - let's hope we can finally get it right this time.

I wish our players would bet on themselves to win.

Hepburn-Murphy for Richards?

Top 6 is still easily doable. I still wouldn't fancy our chances much in the playoffs because, well, Villa. But as evidenced in the predictions thread - pretty much anything can happen week to week in this division

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Fulham 1 0 QPR Fulham Birmingham 2 0 Blackburn Birmingham Brentford 2 0 Wigan Brentford Bristol City 2 1 Forest Bristol City Burton 1 0 Cardiff Burton Ipswich 1 1 Huddersfield Draw Leeds 1 1 Barnsley Draw Preston 1 2 Villa Villa Reading 1 0 Derby Reading Rotherham 0 4 Newcastle Newcastle Wednesday 2 2 Brighton Draw Wolves 1 2 Norwich Norwich rubberman

You know what, I think he might be tempted this time. The FA would offer him anything, so he could finish this season at Arsenal and then takeover from Southgate. It would make England a lot more interesting.

I agree with all of that. It's been fine, fine margins this season between winning (sadly not) and drawing (sadly). In 85 minute football , RDM is doing pretty well. I still hope it'll start to work out for a few minutes longer - starting this weekend.

Oh dear. Bacuna suspended...so Hutton, Richards or Back 3. Terrible, terrible or terrible.

We need another 4 before we break the consecutive draws record. Plenty more fun to come!

If it was Sam I'd give up Villa completely. Thankfully he is the antithesis of what Tony has said he wants for this club. I truly can't believe, however low we go, that people are even considering him - might as well sign up Adam Johnson at the same time. If/when RDM does go I also think we need to be very careful who is next as there will be more to come from the Telegraph expose - I'd steer well clear of some of the older 'traditional' british lot - Warnock, Perason, Bruce. Ideally I'd still like to poach Warburton, but Rowett or Dean Smith would be OK.

I'm seriously conflicted. I really don't want to be Leeds / Palermo and changing manager every 10 games - I'd love to see some stability and for a team ethos to be built. I was never a massive fan of RDM in the first place and clearly what's happening is pretty disastrous, (though we still have 4 more draws to go before breaking the record.) However, we aren't losing and we are getting in winning positions but the 'everything clicking' seems ever further away. I'll give him Saturday at least but it has to be some turnaround.

Strong line up, strong bench...over to the players now. Let's do it.

Whilst I broadly agree with you that performances would have come if we'd continued aggressively, I think that it was understandable (if not effective) to be more defensive against Newcastle in particular. If he'd gone 4-2-4 from the outset we would have thought he was going mad. There were plenty on here wanting to try 3 at the back. It didn't work and as long as we don't see it again, I'm OK with him trying it out. In contrast to Sherwood's wild changes of formation weekly, it does feel RDM is doing it in a considered way, even if it hasn't worked out. I hope and expect to see a 4-3-3 / 4-2-4 tonight as we have players back and that seems to be most effective. (If it's a back 3 tonight I reserve the right to take that all back and agree he doesn't know what he's doing!)

Well, it seems to have worked out OK missing out on Fat Sam and Pearson...

“Derby County can confirm that manager Nigel Pearson will not be carrying out his duties at tonight’s game at the request of the club. “Assistant manager Chris Powell will take charge of the team for this evening’s Sky Bet Championship match at Cardiff City. The club will make no further comment at this time.” from their OS - http://www.dcfc.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/club-statement-3332077.aspx

I think that's extremely unlikely.

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Barnsley 1 3 Villa Villa Birmingham 1 0 Preston Birmingham Blackburn 0 2 Wednesday Wednesday Brentford 1 1 Reading Draw Bristol City 1 1 Leeds Draw Burton 1 1 QPR Draw Cardiff 1 0 Derby Cardiff Huddersfield 2 0 Rotherham Huddersfield Ipswich 0 1 Brighton Brighton Forest 2 1 Fulham Forest Wigan 0 2 Wolves Wolves Newcastle 0 1 Norwich Norwich rubberman

Barnsley haven't drawn yet. They've scored loads, but also shipped a few. Attack hard - this has to be a win. If McScore is back on the bench at least and Jack's back in the good books, this might finally be the game where we see the first choice team and need to see a performance as a result. 1-3 please. And at least a 2 goal cushion to make the last 20 mins bearable.