I'm all for building an academy, but there's no point focusing the energies on that if Newcastle will get relegated this season – at least at their current pace.

If not Roberto Martinez, who would you recommend for the Newcastle United managerial position?

Cheers,
The Gaffer

Your 'plan' for Newcastle is doomed to fail. It's reliant on spending big money in the transfer window and has nothing to do with building up the academy or the fans showing some patience with a manager. Newcastle has spent and spent and spent during transfer windows and that's gotten them nowhere. However, if you tell the fans that it's going to take a little while before the club is competitve in the top half of the league, they'll be calling for your head in no time. Allardyce, whether you agree with his football philosophy or not, was barely on the job for a cup of coffee before the fans were shouting that he didn't know what he was doing.

Here were quotes from Allardyce on taking the job. He said his ambition was to “win a trophy or qualify for Europe over the next few years”. “I hope I can bring the success that the fans are so desperate for. I'm not saying I can get it right at the flick of a switch. If there are some sticky times I hope we can get over them for the best of the supporters and me.”

Did he get the chance? No, he was gone by Christmas and King Kev was brought back.

I'm not even going to address the 'cockney mafia' comment, it seems a bit ridiculous to me. I'll just say that I think the players that Wise/Jimenez have brought in have shown some promise. Both Gutierrez and Xisco have looked like decent signings from what I've seen thus far.

From my outsider perspective, and Newcastle fans can feel free to correct me on this, but I don't know that there is a manager in the world that is going to come in and turn the club into one that plays free-flowing Barca/Arsenal style football in a short enough span of time for the fans to show some patience. Will they be content losing every 2 of 3 matches while playing in wide-open games? Even clubs in the 'Top 4' have to grind out a few 1-0 and 1-1 results from time to time.