100% agree with this. We have been skating on thin ice all season. Lots of people crying and moaning about team selection and lack of subs but not one of them has come up with a better alternative.

Yeah, huge mistake by Parish sticking by a manager that kept us up against the odds in his first season, and has kept the club in the Premier League to date.

Quality players not used ? - Meyer hasn't set the world on fire and yet people like you seem to see a player that has so far failed to establish himself and lay the blame with the manager. Did you ever see Sorloth play ? - He was crap no two ways about it. Jairo I grant you looks decent but we already have plenty of similar players - what difference is he truly going to make ? Camarassa ? - dunno, that was a strange one.

Wickham - looked like a pub player. Getting his fitness back on loan and quite rightly so. He was never going to be the answer to our goalscoring problems.

The manager being involved in recruitment - do you seriously think that the manager '' avoids being involved '' ? - Jeez get a grip and start to understand how football works these days.

'' Relegation form at the moment '' - totally agree. Luckily just a couple of weeks ago our form suggested we could compete for a European spot.

Wage bill ? - Do you think Hodgson agrees players wages ??

Taking corners - well my preference is for the best strikers of a dead ball and I don't think Luka has a big reputation as a header of the ball. ( cue Harry Kane comments ! )

Hodgson isn't perfect and I can't defend the quality of play offered beyond the fact that it serves it's purpose.

But seriously, don't lay the blame for everything on him because it simply doesn't stack up.

So take Liverpool out of the equation, we are the second lowest spenders at about 5.5m. Its bloody miracle we are not down there with Norwich.

Another miserly transfer window and we most definately will be.

Is that not testament to how well Roy has done?

Those calling for him to resign or be sacked are batty.

That said, ask him to field the same team next season and even he won't be able to perform the miracle he has this season.

Slightly off topic but I just realised the transfer window is not open and a date has not yet been set.

So all these threads about why haven't we signed this player yet is because we can't. That doesn't mean though that a players contracts can't expire and he can leave the club he just has to wait before signing with his new one.

I’m afraid that the 100% stark reality is that the only way we can play attractive/attacking football AND stay in the Premier is to have new owners who will invest hundreds of millions into the squad. The sad fact is that the only type of manager/coach that could currently dream of getting enough points for us to stay up (let alone achieve our current miraculous tally) is a wily old head like Roy, Alladyce or Pulis who can grind out results however they have to and get an aging and tiny squad (many of which are Championship standard) to overachieve on regular basis.

DeBoer was perceived as the dream ticket and we’d have been relegated by Christmas unless Roy had come in.

Bournemouth spent a fortune this season on players and will be a Championship side next season. There is no way in the world our owners will take such a risk, so the only answer is for us to pray for a sugar daddy or to accept that what we have now is the absolute best we will ever get in the current set-up and try and enjoy it.

I don’t know how many times I’ve posted this on this thread: we have stayed up ourselves, numerous times over the past few years, playing infinitely better football than we do now. Every single season, the teams who finish 10th-17th have comparable budgets to us, and 90% of those play better football than we do now. Call that 6 or 7 teams a season, over 7 seasons, and you’re talking the best part of 50 teams.

This season we’ve turned out, by any statistical measure, is one of the dullest you would ever see at this level (assuming you see goals scored and chances created as entertaining).

Why is it unrealistic to think we could achieve something we, and countless others, already have done on a similar budget?

Those defending Hodgson seem to have invented this straw man argument that we want gun ho football and the only alternative to what we do now is to play suicide football. I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that.

On a separate point; judging spending based on a single transfer window (or even season) in isolation is pretty pointless - Liverpool spent nothing this year, but have racked up £300m in the 2 years prior, so the total spend across the last few years is still very high. You don’t just sign a player for one year.

Similarly, we might have spent little of late, but we had a few year spell where we were amongst the highest spenders outside of the top 8. This idea that our team is so much weaker than our competitors is pure fantasy, and only used to defend an illogical position that Hodgson is working miracles.

And I haven't seen any of those defending Hodgson claiming that '' suicide football '' is an alternative.

What I have seen is people pointing out that the previous attempts to play more expansive football - under Pardew and De Boer hasn't ended well.

Your point about our expenditure doesn't allow for the fact that most of that spend was pre Hodgson. So it would be true to say that he has been operating on a shoestring budget in comparison to the clubs around us.

I don't believe has has been working miracles but he has done a fine job under the circumstances.