As it stands today does anyone expect us to stay up..

[Itsonlyagame]

If fans don’t renew off the back of a goalkeeper being sold then the clubs better of without them imo.
Why don’t we let things pan out and see what happens.
Who knows, it may be as simple as Schteve being told money needs to be raised from player sales before he can spend. He’s looked at the squad and decided we have a back up keeper who can do a job. Maybe not on Smithies level but if it means strengthening elsewhere in the squad he may think that overall, the sale of Smithies will be for the overall good of the team due to the additions he feels we need.

Now I know that may seem incredibly far fetched but none of us will know what the overall effect of Smithies going will be until the team gets a fair few competitive matches under their belt.
Refusing to buy a season ticket before the transfer window is closed would be based on supposition and hearsay, which is strange bordering on irrational behaviour, imo of course.

[OldR]

Disgusting really. We should be a Premier league club. Not top notch, but there is no excuse for the fact that we have blown it so badly. Naivety is no crime, so I won't and can't be too hard on TF. But FFP is disgraceful, and shows the kind of people behind its design to be idiots or biased bigots at best. Having said all that,if we want to make English football fairer (so that Leicester winning the title is not a once in a century aberration) we need a radical overhaul of the way football is run. At the moment the big clubs have a huge advantage. We must fight hard to smash the system that entrenches that 'big club' love-in!!!

'We should be a Premier league club'. We have existed for 132 years and, during our existence, have played top flight football in 23 seasons. In 5 of those seasons we got relegated.

We, whether you, or I, want to accept this or not, are in our natural position.

We also need to stop blaming FPP. We knew the rules - even signed the agreement - and we broke them. Is the system flawed and arbiter y? Yes, it is, but we fell foul of rules we agreed to knowing what potential punishment there was coming our way. Where were all the protests when we were spending ridiculous money and going to away matches at Chelsea waving posters saying 'we're richer than you'? If we wanted to break the rules we should have employed top financial experts from successful City firms and great lawyers to help find us the way to bend the rules. Instead, we did our best and crudest impression of Harry Enfield's LOADSAMONEY and embarrassed the hitherto fine history of the club.

We need to move on.

As for the original question, we are clearly in for a tough season but have a manager who, though clearly not as respected in the game as he once was and could have been, has the potential to keep us up. It will be tough and there will be moments when it seems unlikely, but with the addition of a couple of signings we can do it.

[qprjeff1882]

Hang on a minute...... We ALL knew that Ned and Robinson were going. Since McClaren came in we've been upbeat even with the knowledge that the two defenders were gone and a lot saying top half to play offs. Now we accept a fee for our keeper and it's all doom and gloom and were in for a tough season. Incase any of you hadn't noticed he let in over 70 goals last season and similar the season before. Yes he is good but he's not a world beater, he's 29 and never played in the premiership so he's obviously NOT regarded as one of the best and all of a sudden you're all panicking and now a thread about getting relegated on the back of just him going. Get out of your pram and pick your toys up, grow a pair and stop crying.

[Shepherds Mush]

Fck me get a grip !

[Rebel R's]

Even a doom monger like me doesn't think we will go down next season BUT I fully expect us to be "mini league"material again next season finishing somewhere in the bottom 10.

[Itsonlyagame]

Mods, as well as poster of the year can we have an award this season for the biggest drama queen. Some are already well and truly off and running in that category so seems a shame not to reward their efforts.

[The General]

Its been a total shambles Billionaire owners that cant afford to pay our FFP fine ffs
Man City spend this on a substitute complete dicks buy some farking decent players for gods sake

[Itsonlyagame]

Its been a total shambles Billionaire owners that cant afford to pay our FFP fine ffs
Man City spend this on a substitute complete dicks buy some farking decent players for gods sake

You tell em tiger.

[acricketer]

We'll stay up and with better coaching and a system that suits our squad do better than last season.

[Rangers77]

Fck me get a grip !

This. It ain't over till it's over. And it hasn't even f acking started. LOL.

[OldR]

Hang on a minute...... We ALL knew that Ned and Robinson were going. Since McClaren came in we've been upbeat even with the knowledge that the two defenders were gone and a lot saying top half to play offs. Now we accept a fee for our keeper and it's all doom and gloom and were in for a tough season. Incase any of you hadn't noticed he let in over 70 goals last season and similar the season before. Yes he is good but he's not a world beater, he's 29 and never played in the premiership so he's obviously NOT regarded as one of the best and all of a sudden you're all panicking and now a thread about getting relegated on the back of just him going. Get out of your pram and pick your toys up, grow a pair and stop crying.

We've lost the spine of our defence and we haven't replaced 2 of them.

Add to that we hardly set the league on fire last season and were spoken about as genuine relegation candidates for over half of it, people have a reason to be fearful.

Football fans are unrealistic for the most part - a trait of being bias - and the optimism spouted in the aftermath of McClaren's arrival - despite the fact that we were losing our defence centre back pairing and we've been told there's no money to spend - was unfounded.

It isn't a overreaction to suggest that we might be relegated and the fact that people are being pulled up for stating that far more often and far more passionately than those who said we should have held out for a figure closer to £10m for Smithies is ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous.

[Greg1882]

#### me there are some precious little darlings on here. Get a grip ffs. How about giving the club some time to get a couple in. I know they’ve had three whole days of training now but maybe a little longer eh? Most contracts run to the end of June so expect us to do some business after that. It’s so boring having this #### fit every pre season. We weren’t even close to being relegated last year and that’s with an absolute clown in charge

[Ablockhoop]

I always try to look at things with a unbiased view. I try to imagine how many of our players would actually get in other teams starting 11.
truth be told, without Smithes, Robinson and Ned, who were 3 of our strongest performers last season, we are currently staring a relegation battle bang in the face.
however, On the basis they stay, Luongo, Freeman and hall could improve and be even better than previously shown and we still haven’t started recruiting yet.

A very broad prediction I know but I’d guess at the moment we would finish between 14th and 22nd

[acricketer]

Wasn't there a poll on this?

[Itsonlyagame]

It’s common knowledge we have a tin pot budget for buying players. With that in mind, we were always going to have to shift players to make way for others.
Some of the players that are leaving probably haven’t even cleared their lockers out yet and people are already jumping on the slate-the-club bandwagon because we don’t have replacements yet.

# more drama than an episode of love island
# get me an arsenic pill pronto
# throw the effing towel in, we are going down quicker than a Geordie bint after two Malibu and cokes.