Quote Originally Posted by City123 View Post
Let's be honest, everyone knew he was going at that point

I'm not defending his actions regarding the texts ect, but we were pretty solid before our dirty laundry started being washed in a very public and humiliating way, yes he didn't play an expansive brand of football but it was seen as the most efficient way of getting to 40 points and staying up
Well, you could well argue that the players certainly didn't show up for him.

I don't believe we'd have stayed up. We lacked goals, lacked pace - the squad simply wasn't setup for the way he wanted them to play. Hoilett, Zohore, NML - capable of breaking with pace, hold ball up. Then? Bellamy whose legs were gone, Campbell a hard worker, Mason/Smith?

The only chance we had staying up that season was to keep the opposition to at most one goal.

I'd also disagree that that style was the best way of staying up. Plenty of other teams coming up play more expansively - not gung ho balls to the wall stupidity - and stay up. For me, our squad just wasn't good enough - wasn't diverse enough to allow tactical flexibility, lacked pace. That is down to the recruitment in the summer window. Around £25m on Caulker, Medal and Cornelius imo could have been better utilised by being far cuter in the signings we made - more players for lower fees to fit the garing gaps we had.