[Slick_Footwork]

I'm pretty ambivalent about Allardyce. If he stays, I'd be Ok about it although it would not fill me me with any great optimism or enthusiasm, although I concede the benefits of continuity and experience. If he doesn't, then I agree with Stairs that a young, ambitious manager would be my preference, someone who would take a different direction to how we've been managed these last twelve months. If that was the case, I think we should not expect an immediate return to the Premier League, which would likely upset many fans but which, I honestly think, might be for the better long term interests of the club.

I take issue with the description of Bilic as "clueless" and his squad as dreadful. He clearly made signing errors - although its less clear whose signings some of these were (Bilic or Dowling)  - particularly the failure to recognise the need for a strong, defensive midfielder. However, we were all very happy to see Pereira and Diangana sign permanently, and, in my view, Gallagher was the stand out midfielder for us in the first half of  the season. He also kept faith with Johnstone, when many - including some of us on this board - were castigating him as not being good enough. I think that faith has been vindicated. Bilic has achieved success in his profession, just as Pulis has, but these are not always reflected in trophies or glowing accolades from TV pundits. I think the only manager we've had in recent years who comes close to 'cluelessness' is Pardew, but that's a whole different discussion thread.

I'm not anti Allardyce because I do recognise the improvements he has made to the squad, most notably the signing of Yokuslu. But let's also not gloss over the crap by damning Bilic and laying Allardyce's failure at Slaven's door. Bilic was criticised for signing Grant, who has been completely underwhelming I'll fully admit, but let's get real on what is affordable for a team like West Brom when looking for a Premier League striker. That was the pool we were fishing. Allardyce's signing of Diagne, for me, confirms that.....he's a million miles away from being a Premier League level player but that was about all that was available to us. I have no idea why he signed Lonergan (but I'm happy to be enlightened on that) and I've absolutely no idea why he continued to not play Robinson (even ignored as a sub in favour of HRK) for many games, and why Diangana has been completely sidelined, particularly when we've been crying out for some creativity up front.

As I said, I'm OK about Allardyce staying but let's please not regard Bilic's time with us as some dismal failure because it certainly wasn't.

My description of Bilic as "clueless" is harsh in the grand scheme of things because he did some good things at the club. He clearly has a good eye for an attacking "footballer" by identifying Mattius and Grady, and our style of play in the Championship - at times - was very good. He brought Dmitri Payet to the Premier League, so to his credit, he knows a creative player.

I just felt it was so obvious that we needed a solid defensive midfielder in the summer that I can't get over his failure to see it.

For me, this mistake relegated us. I was so angry thinking about it when I posted, which is why I referred to him as clueless. I take the comment back, what I should've said was "naive".

I just feel it was a rookie error to go into a Premier League season without a sitting midfielder on the books and not one I'd expect Bilic - given his previous Premier League experience - to make.

I also thought spending big on Grant to be the main man up top was a huge risk, given he was deployed on left wing for Huddersfield. Personally I felt we needed was a like-for-like replacement for Austin, a big central striker but with more mobility. Someone to get on the end of crosses, as we had an abundance of tricky creating wingers-come-forward types. Pereira, Robinson and Grady were signed even before Grant.

What I don't take back is the comment about the squad...

I do think it was genuinely dreadful until January. It lacked pace, power, pride, bite, fight, character. Too many players without a 2nd gear...

We capitulated at the end of last season and the only added 'grit' was in the form of Ivanovic, which were more than offset with Hegazi and Ferguson sold.

When I watched the first game of the season with my old man he said "this is the worst West Brom squad in top flight history". I argued with him that they would come good, but after a few games and several embarrassing results later, I had to concede he was right. They looked like they didn't give a crap. A few individuals were decent, but the squad was a tackle-shy, slow, half arsed mess.

With Allardyce, I just feel that he has that know-how and will not make those naive mistakes, which is why we could do a lot worse.

As for Lonergan signing, I presume it was just so we replaced Bond as 3rd choice in case of injury to Johnstone or Button. The club probably felt it was fair to let Bond go as a goodwill gesture when the LA Galaxy opportunity cropped up, as he'd been a good servant. Very much doubt Allardyce had anything to do with it.

According to the TV when we played Wolves; Snodgrass, Yokuslu and Diagne were also on the radar in the summer, so must've been on Dowling's list. Just begs the question why Bilic didn't watch Yokulsu, at the very least, and say "that's what we need" rather than persisting with the Krovinovic chase. I think we would've stayed up if we signed Yokuslu in the summer. Just think how many games Sawyers and Jake gave away until January.

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I would pretty much go with the flow as long as we don't give SA to much credit, at the end of the day if the season had started when he took over we would only just be outside the relegation zone now with 3 still to play.  It also bothered me a little yesterday, that he did nothing about Furlong getting overloaded often 3 on 1 on that right hand side, with the same move over and over again, a three way triangle followed by a cutback to the third man, they cut through us numerous times with the same move and  nothing Furlong could do about it on his own.

I think he tried to, he switched Robbo who started on the right with Phillips who is more defensively minded.

I like Robbo, but he didn't do any defensive duties at all. Saka basically had a free lunch.

Unfortunately Phillips couldn't really live with Saka either. I guess it would've been an occasion for Snodgrass, had he been fit.

Sometimes though you just have to acknowledge the opposition are a bit too good and I think Saka was excellent marauding forward from left back.

Although, we've had some bad luck this season. In every other game where Tierney was out, Arteta selected Xhaka or Cedric at left back. Had he done that yesterday, we probably would've got a result. Sod's law that he finally realises how good Saka is in that position when they play against us.