As protests go, surely this had to be one of the most pointless ones ever?? What did it achieve? I'm sure Bates knew how much he was disliked by a percentage of the fan base anyway, and I'm doubly sure that it didn't bother him in the slightest beforehand, and won't do now either. Secondly, as he says, he's going nowhere, and all the protests in the world aren't going to change that. Who's going to get rid of him?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly pro Bates, but I'm not vehemently against him either. I'm not sure how accurate his "I saved your club in 2005 and 2007 when nobody else would" rant is, but there's no guarantees whatsoever that we'd be in a better position now had someone else took over (if indeed there ever really was a possibility that anyone else might?)
Financially we are in the best position we've been in for years, and I'm still confident we can get out of the Championship (in an upwards direction!) at some point over the next few years. It probably won't be this year, but I'm ok with that - the best things in life are worth waiting for after all
Squad wise, we're not that far off despite all the moaning about lack of signings. Losing both Becchio and Somma, having players away on International duty, and having players suspended has caused a lot of unfortunate disruption to the start of the season, but when all's said and done we're only 1 point worse off than we were at this stage last year. We lost to 3 quality goals against a red hot Southampton team who are 3 for 3 so far, and destroyed Ipswich last night, and we played much better and were unlucky to lose against a good Middlesbrough team on Saturday. Lonergan looks like he's going to do a good job for us in goal, I'm really pleased Tom Lees is getting a chance in defence as I've heard a lot of good things about him, Adam Clayton is looking excellent so far in Midfield, and McCormack is showing a bit of form up front now that he's getting a decent run of games. With Gradel and Howson to come back in on Sunday we're starting to get a little bit of shape. I'm still concerned about left and right back, but we're getting there..... A point at West Ham on Sunday would do me.
