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awbb

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Everything posted by awbb

  1. 404: Entertaining football not found.
  2. Most fans never wanted to get rid of Pearson and could well imagine the absolute shambles we see unfolding before us, as it’s not that far in to the past that we did something similar, only slightly less egregious. Removing Manning is very unlikely to happen, but if it was, the cheapest and quickest option is to appoint someone internally and because of the idiotic cull of Pearson and his staff, King is the only creditable option. Also, bear in mind that the title of the thread is to ask King to take the reins until the end of the season, not give him a 4 year contract.
  3. I was trying to stop myself from getting in to that and limit myself to where we were when NP took over and my understanding of cultural impact he had. But, yeah, LJ didn’t (and likely still doesn’t) have the chops to do it the way he wanted to but, god knows, the recruitment did him no favours!
  4. Regarding Culture. For me, Pearson altered the way our players thought and acted on the pitch. After several years under LJ who was tactically obsessive where he appeared to coach that every phase in a match should trigger a specific action or reaction from each player in the team. This caused issues in that, due to that and other coaching factors, the players seemed to lose the ability to take responsibility for themselves and their team mates on the pitch and as seeing now, players became scared of making mistakes and ironically made more of them because of it. Pearson changed this. He wanted our players to ‘all be leaders’ as the cliche says and made attempts to empower them to do that his focus was on general responsibility (rather than tactical responsibilities). This was coupled with his desire to sort out the playing squad where there were a several players with attitudes that did not meet his standard (commonly accepted: Bakinson generally, Watkins not fancying training and Wells needing to remind himself how to be a good squad member are examples). This drove professionalism and team ethics. Lastly he made it clear that the disparity in wages was a hinderance to team dynamics and needed to be resolved. Pearson also made the point that the whole club needed to be united and made more attempts to link the women’s team to the men’s. The last time a manger changed our culture so drastically, he’d just taken over the mess left by our, now, Technical Director. Make of that what you will. Manning is similar to Lee Johnson only his fixation is process as opposed to tactics. Ultimately the outcome, at this point, is the same. It’s a legitimate argument to say that Pearson had achieved his remit and was therefore disposable, but his successor should have been far more attuned to the way our players had been coached to think and act.
  5. I've not really seen it mentioned here, but, in my opinion, all of the stupid moves this season were down to the Scott sale. I'm not ITK by any means (and fully expect to be put right) but the departure of Alexander and the news that SL stepped in to do the negotiations, suggested to me, at least, that Alexander was put in an untenable position over it and felt he had to resign. Partly, this may stem from SL's repeated statement that we don't stand in a players way when the PL comes sniffing (or any "bigger" club for that matter) so I can fully imagine a situation where PA played hard ball with Bournemouth (remember the initial bids were reported as being outright rejected with no apparent negotaition at all), using his many years of experience at Palace to determine what was the right deal for City and someone went over his head to SL (someone from Bournemouth, possibly, or Scott's agent, who knows). SL felt obliged to sell (because, you know, ego) and re-issued his decree (probably also referencing that we've been saying for months he's worth £25 million, we can't change now). PA stuck to his guns and that was that. My point being is that if Alexander remained in the role. 1, we'd almost certainly have got more for Scott (or, because of the injury, kept him) and 2, No way Pearson would have got the boot, not for the nonsense spouted out at the time, anyway. Ergo: Tins remains in a role he's eminently suited to. SL's ego is in check & JL has no real influence on football operations.
  6. Fair play to Cresswell, what a chin he has! I’ve not seen a footballer take a hook like that and not crumple to the floor in years!
  7. Something to be said for being lucky rather than good I suppose! Keep it up, Max.
  8. It's great to get 3 wins on the bounce. I don't think we'd have seen what we saw yesterday had we not grabbed those 6 points at home from games in which, on other days, we might not have been able to get over the line. Confidence helps so much. The near impossibility in The Championship is to be able to do that game in and game out. It needs your Manager/Head Coach to get their plan right and have the players execute it. Most of the time, you need the opposition to help you by doing the opposite. So, it's fair to say, I'm not expecting us to tear teams apart, yet, as much as I would like it! If we put Birmingham in our pocket and give Milwall a kicking at AG on New Year's Day, I might... just might start to get excited. I'm not ******* bouncing until we've done something, after all.
  9. Best overhead kick is this marvellous effort.
  10. As others have said, my pulse is not exactly racing for later on. LM is on a hiding to nothing as I don’t believe the squad will be able to get results playing the brand of football that he has been brought into implement in a time frame that gives us any hope of hitting the extremely tough targets that Pearson was removed for allegedly not meeting. Indeed, I suspect we’re going to be in for constipated slogfests as we labour our way, trying to play a style of possession based football similar to that which failed so spectacularly under O’Driscoll. What I would caveat that with, a lot of the football played under Pearson wasn’t exactly edge of your seat stuff, so really, if I’m being fair, it’s purely about results and results alone. The aesthetics can come later. So, of course I’ll support the team and hope he’s a success, not much would bring me greater happiness to be proven wrong with my initial, downbeat, assessment.
  11. I still can't believe Keegan missed that header.
  12. I get your point... but I think you need to re-evaluate how we should view ourselves. The expectation from on high is that we should be out-performing our top 10 budget, after all...
  13. Another issue is that I get the feeling that Tinnion, in particular, overrates the academy products. Many interviews over the last few years where he mentions ‘got even better ones coming through’ and we may well do, but the idea that we can just throw teenagers in and be successful seems fanciful, since only 1 player has ever really done it in the second tier in the last 30 years. Obviously, for him, the development of these players was the be all and end all of he role at City. Now it’s just a part of it and it’s understandable that he might have a bias towards those players, even if it’s not really correct, and may pass that bias up the chain and give those people the impression we are better than we really are. The classic is the question of whether Idehen or Araoye are better than Andy King as a Championship centreback? Possibly, but if you’re lacking nous, experience and leadership elsewhere on the pitch as it is, then possibly not.
  14. As far as Lampard goes... It's a legitmate opinion to say he underachieved at Derby, bearing in mind the players that he had and the fact that Derby were living well beyond their FFP means, but as a rookie manager he made the crapshoot that is the play off final and lost to Aston Villa, who were an absolute basket case for much of their time in the 2nd tier but were just about getting it together and with the advantages they had, couldn't have been a complete shock. His first season at Chelsea was largely a success, I would say, as a fairly disinterested observer. Given no money, I think they may have been under embargo, so was forced to use the Chelsea academy prospects. The start of the second season, with some fairly hefty spending, I am pretty sure he had them top after the first couple of months but then the wheels well and truly fell off and it's fair to say, he didn't appear to have the skill/gravitas or whatever you want to call it, to turn it around, including reports of rifts over transfer policy and falling out with players. Everton were a mess and had been for years, they over spent with Ancelotti and were paying the price. I don't really hold his failure there against him. He went back to Chelsea where he achieved 1 win in 11 games as caretaker. Chelsea had an overrated, unbalanced and mercenary squad (still do, IMO) and I suspect the issues that he left the club with just a couple of years before were still relevant. I suppose, what I'm saying is I suspect he could be a success in the right place. I suspect it won't be here, but then I would say that about anyone coming here now.
  15. awbb

    My Club

    I don’t believe for a minute believe he’s been relieved because of results. And I don’t believe that any incoming manager will be held to those impossible standards. So long as the forelock is tugged and required access granted, considerably more rope will be granted.
  16. It’s fairly obvious PPs should be ditched for payments to assist with player wages only, with caveats regarding player ages, contract lengths, any refused transfer offers, whether they are Club grown and so on. It would still be free money and a huge advantage, but ultimately the original rationale of PPs was to ensure your club doesn’t immediately hit the wall because the owner can’t afford or loses interest on relegation. Now they are already an advantage too great to have a competitive league and the new rules would just end English club football as any sort of meritocracy at all.
  17. If you can bear it, Waze is a phenomenal app for avoiding traffic (where possible). It’s sent me on some wild chases through the lanes on occasion! Always got me to where it said it would on time though.
  18. Apart from the fact that he said that he ‘Isn’t some kind of dinosaur’ in one of his first interviews for us, I don’t think I’ve disagreed with anything he’s said said since. He IS a dinosaur but it has nothing to do with his persona, training or tactical acumen. It’s purely down to the fact that he was a bit of a cult hero of mine when he played for Middlesbrough as I had several friends who were Boro fans and they referred to him as ‘Dino’ Pearson. Why? I couldn’t tell you, though I do recall that there was a picture of him looking menacing with his arms bent and wrists broken. Far from the usual and tiresome ‘camp’ cliche, he looked like a ******* T-Rex!
  19. Looks like they are doing a new podcast called "The Rest is Football", pretty sure it's Lineker's company "Goalhanger" that is producing it. Richards and Shearer are still the main guys with Lineker on it, so presumably MoTD Top 10s won't be making a return. Seems like they are pumping out a couple of episodes a week, one where they talk about the football and one where they answer listener questions.
  20. There is a nice symmetry between the multiple efforts to build Swamp Castle and the Sags effort to build a new ground.
  21. He’s always wanted that, despite the losses, cut-backs and then allowing the wage bill to balloon again. I remember vividly a picture of SL standing in front of a projected image of Concorde with the caption ‘Passion versus Finance’ on it at a talk on how he envisioned the club should be run. This was probably in the very early 2000s and before he became a billionaire. The desire for the club to be self-sufficient has always been there. However, he’s a realist, after all he let GJ increase the wage budget after he got us within a gnats whisker of promotion. If you’re going to back someone, they would seem the obvious person, but as we all know GJ couldn’t forge anything with that investment and we couldn’t sustain those losses. The second time he did it was with Ashton who brought a lot of money into the football club while we generally improved our league position as the wage bill increased. Obviously he allowed it as the transfer fees were covering it. Then we ran out of valuable players to liquidate and COVID happened. Unsustainable losses again, regardless of our FFP position. You’d know better than me, but FFP can allow clubs to go for it, having 2 years without too much loss allows significant investment in the 3rd year. Managing that years afterwards is hard but not impossible and I got the feeling that was his indication.
  22. Saudi to the rescue! Again!
  23. I'm more worried about that mug. The destruction that could be wraught on that would be something to behold.
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