ExiledAjax

Done

He's been involved with the club informally. Both as a counsellor/confidant of Gould and in establishing the new Heritage Trust company (which is going to be incredible). That's not the "sharp end" of football business though, and my understanding is that he's seen even that as being too much of a demand on his time. He loves the club and works hard, but I'll be incredibly surprised if he replaces Gould in any capacity.

I just hope that whoever takes over, in whatever shape the role is, keeps the phone line to Gould open. Richard is an absolute gent and would be an invaluable source of informal advice for his successor.

More to the point we've gone from a team who's average shot registered about 0.14 xG to one that averages about 0.09 xG. Turning point was the QPR game by that metric. @Davefevs any interesting personnel changes between that game and the preceding one - Burnley? That gap was the international break right? Weimann injury is all I can recall changing. By which I mean he was clearly playing through pain in those first few games after the break. Strapped up and not at his normal full on self. It's a huge drop. Our average shot after the break has been only 60% as good as prior to it. It's what explains the drop in scoring, we're not just taking fewer shots, but the ones we are taking are much lower quality.

Yeh of course. My point is that those doubts were also there in August. If you looked at our squad in the summer (and the summer prior) then it was glaringly obvious that we lacked players in their prime.

No idea. Probably not, but who knows. Also, I was wrong about the directorships. All companies would still have 2.

Quite. Scudamore's a no go. He's already as involved with the club - on an informal basis - as he wants to be from what I hear. Scott Davidson would be another option, but he's got his hands full on other projects and I suspect doesn't want to take on such a role at this stage in life. Any replacement for Gould is likely to be a bit of a curve ball, a slight unknown. One name from the inside could be Dave Barton. He's currently Gould's right hand man and could go for a promotion if he angled for it.

Have spoken about this over the last few seasons. We have very few in that late 20's age point. There's valid reasons for it, financial mainly, but yeh it's absolutely a weakness in our squad. Not a terminal weakness that guarantees relegation, but certainly enough to make promotion more of a doubt.

Yes. Only weeknight games are on RobinsTV in the UK. I think we've got a good chance of a win today. Reading aren't particularly creative and I think we'll be able to handle their attack. We will score so then it's on them to do the same, which isn't a given.

Our loss would undoubtedly be cricket's gain.

Wasn't he unequivocally anti-The Hundred? Does that not rule him out of the ECB role given that The Hundred is the ECB's spoilt brat of a child. Anyway I'd be royally pissed off if he was to leave.

True. He is Czech after all.

I also wondered if he meant it as you read. It is ambiguous. Suspect it's clearer if heard. One of those quotes where tone of voice and choice of emphasis makes all the difference.

Ha fun turn of phrase but from what I see and hear Kalas does come across as a bit of an unusual personality. His stints as a commentator on RobinsTV in particular have exposed his sense of humour as being drier than the driest Somerset natch you can ever find. I suspect he's got some pretty niche interests (no not that sort). Then on the pitch he's a a physical mad man who throws his body and head at all sorts of shots and kicks. He's a bit mad.

Only 6 been in their job more than a year!

Watching the highlights I thought maybe Semenyo's ball into Wells was looking like it might curl in. I reckon Wells has robbed Semenyo of a worldie there!

Think I heard that Mick Beale (currently) at QPR is the 10th longest serving. He was appointed in June.

I presume you're referring to me. Ok so I went and had a think and after multiple Google searches it seems you're probably referring to an ITV TV show from the late 80's where Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves talked about football. I well know who Greaves is, but have never heard him referred to as simply "g". I had no idea they were broadcasting, around the time I was born, a football chat show. I apologise for not having an encyclopaedic knowledge of 1980's terrestrial television shows and I apologise for not being able to interpret your posts. I hope you enjoy your VHS box set.

People might need to know who they are before giving an opinion.

Can't recall which pod it was but one of them theorised that COVID impacted the last couple of seasons by limiting the number of talented players leaving the championship. Less transfer expenditure in football meant that teams coming down from the Prem were less susceptible to losing the good players. Good players in the Champ were also more likely to stay. That meant you had teams in the Championship that genuinely had a decent spread of Prem level talent. That meant they could run away. Now in a post-Covid world we've supposedly seen that change. I'm not sure how much I agree with it as a theory. The Prem didn't spend much on Championship players this summer for example, so I don't think it's the sole reason for the unpredictable nature of the league. But it's one explanation that might help to shed light on the thing.

If you have a squad that is broad enough, with enough talent across the board then this is an option. Naturally if you want to be capable of playing two different styles of a football to a high standard then you either need two sets of players, each attuned to a different system, or you need a squad of multi-talented footballing demi-gods armed with both the technical ability and the tactical knowledge to execute multiple systems. At our level and on our budget achieving this is, in my humble opinion, a pipe dream. It's a lovely day dream, and as you say it is an attractive idea, but I think if we are honest about where this club is right now, it's not there. Very few clubs can even start to try and achieve this kind of true flexibility. I agree. My point in my first post though was that Pearson (and Gould, Fleming etc) have pruned off the excess and sanded us into a single style. Rather than a jumbled squad bursting at the seams with very diverse talents (Palmer and Kalas for example are two players different in their very soul) we are focussed on one system. Under Johnson say you have a bad game. You're hooked, and simultaneously he has to change the system because you were key to it. You then sit on the bench thinking not only "I should be in the XI" but also "why are we playing system X, which I am no good at". Then injuries bite and you end up back in the XI but in a different role. Your a square peg in a round hole. You hate it and you play badly. It all becomes messy because the manager tried to do what you describe in the first quoted line above. The sensible alternative - sensible for a club with our limitations - is to pick a system, recruit for it, and then rotate players through it as they come in and out of fitness and form. Doing that means that on occasion you'll get hammered by a team that is set up to dismantle you. However those players on the bench can understand that. Also, when their opportunity comes they know what they're going to be asked to do, and they've seen what not to do, and so they can predict what they need to do. It's a style of management that acknowledges the organisation's weaknesses and sets up the team to cope with those.

Pearson changes players. Johnson changed systems. Pearson has a smaller squad with fewer options. He's simplified things. Sometimes, when the 352 doesn't work or is let down by individual performances, he changes a player or 3 to compensate. Johnson had so many clubs in his bag that when his busy bees lacked that little bit of quality he was able to switch to a 4222 magic box and back again. Both are reactive, both make changes, but the one we have now allows for consistency of system despite inconsistency of personnel. It's far superior as it actually allows an individual's failure to be a positive. They come out of the team, watch someone else play the same role and if that new player does better than there's a role model created. Retaining the same system allows the group as a whole to grow and develop within a known framework. It's much better than lurching from formation to formation with no player knowing where they stand - literally and figuratively.

The only shame was that everything happened at the other end of the pitch from where we away fans were! I'd not even twigged that the second goal was a header. Thought it went straight in to be honest. First half was a lesson in control. Despite all the fans around me yelling "forward" the players showed great composure as they probed, went left, went right, then came back to Klose or O'Leary to recycle and restart. My gut feeling is that this came from James/Williams/Scott being a little less frantic and a little more calm in the middle. I've not seen much of that confidence in a City side for a long while. Ultimately that measured and very adult performance paid off with a couple of good goals. I'm pretty sure WBA went to 4 at the back in the second half and that plus some better intensity meant we weren't as able to control the pitch. The first 3 subs also definitely took us down a level or two. Not to the point of making us bad, and perhaps Martin's nous was preferable at that stage to Semenyo's buzzing energy, but we lost that little spark we'd had. Regardless, the game was won by that late stage and WBA's heads were gone. Our defending was very solid - I'd go Klose MOTM over Vyner personally - and O'Leary dealt well with anything the defence missed. An incredibly professional and mature performance. This was great to see. Much, much more of this sort of canny play is needed if we're ever going to challenge at the top. As good as a goal in many ways.

First half was great. Second half has been just about good enough.

James was great but I'm going with Klose as "man of the half". Done really well under a big press from Asante. Performed the Naismith role of starting attacks pretty well and jus generally looked composed.