ScottishRed

You are 100% correct. You can have a philosophy as a manager to play out from the back and you can coach that every single day but there will always be times in a game when it is not the right thing to do - the goal was one of those times. We are talking about professional football players here who must know when the time is right and equally,when it isn’t. No way can this be layed at the coaching staffs door, it is utter incompetence from players who are paid to play football. If I was NP I would be losing with them.

You make a good point about dedication with younger and indeed older players. Things are very different now to years back when players, after a home win, would go out on the town with teammates and have a good night. Now, if camera phones and social media were not enough, the sport science guys at the club would have a field day with you on a Monday morning! Whilst your non footballer mates would be out you would be at home recovering and watching MOTD then bedtime - tough for a young man to accept 40+ weeks of the year. Nowadays, you are effectively a professional athlete and have to show the dedication required. I think it helps if you love football and not just love being a footballer.

Just watched the press conference. What he actually said was that HE would not accept £12m BUT it would not be his decision regarding an acceptable fee. I think it is a difficult one to gauge, for a number of reasons. I think the idea of a loan back would only come into play if a top 10 PL came in for him and were happy to secure his services from the summer onwards and had no intention or need to play this season.Alternatively, they might want to start working with him in training straight away. In any case I think it’s unlikely he will move this window and if I were advising him I would suggest the summer would be a better time .

I have often pondered on how much his dad influenced LJ’s footballing decisions, I know neither of them and therefore have no idea but I do wonder.

We always need to remember that if the players head is turned by playing in the PL and the big ££, it will be very difficult to keep him. I am sure if any of these ‘rumours’ are true you can be certain that the players agent will have been made aware what wages are on offer. Yes, the offer to the club has to be acceptable but I think any thoughts of £20m plus is fanciful, the club will have a figure in mind plus add-on’s and if that is met or close to being met the player will be gone.

Agreed. I also think,as a general point, particularly at home, LJ was way to concerned with countering the opposition rather than trying to impose his team on theirs. I watched his ‘exclusive’ interview on Sky last night, change the tracksuit he had on to a City one and he could have been talking about one of his losing runs here!

Personally if I made the decisions at Southampton I would haves stuck with what I had, Jones was a crazy decision and will not last long as panic sets in.

I firmly believe that LJ ‘stumbled’ across that formation when Fam was unavailable and it worked. The minute Fam was available he was straight back and we were way less effective. In my opinion one of his biggest mistakes.

According to this website Aden Fint is on £25k a week at Stoke ?

Agreed. Our biggest problem is that we are so sloppy defensively and have been for a year now. I wonder how many more points we would have if Kalas had been fit this season.

That was a dreadful goal to lose.

For goodness sake leaf it alone

I would agree with that. Those three utterly key roles are now filled with experienced football people finally. Results do need to improve and quickly, but I am optimistic that will happen and we can start to progress forward. The very last thing we need is to end up in the bottom three in the next few weeks and for SL to pull the trigger on NP. In that scenario I would understand why he would as relegation would be a disaster, but a new manager / head coach would want to do things differently, which I get, but it is not something that we need right now. I don’t believe - currently - that we will be in trouble but we need to start picking up points very soon.

And according to the BBC he has failed to pay the £5m back today, which was the extended deadline date......

The manager may have a reporting line to the CEO and in any normal business may have the power to hire and fire however, there is no way that the new CEO will have the power at this club to fire NP, or any other first team manager without the 100% agreement of SL. And that is simply the norm in football unless the CEO is also a majority shareholder. I may have misunderstood your post and if I have I apologize but to think that the CEO of BCFC has that power is simply incorrect.

Not a hope in hell he would be remotely interested. ( Not that I would want him in any case ).

Gould or the new CEO’s opinion on the manager don’t count for anything, the only persons opinion that counts is the owner.He will make the decision on NP when he feels he has to. We can moan on Internet forums and social media, we can boo at AG,makes no difference, it is SL’s train set and he makes all the big calls.

In addition to that, and it may have been covered previously, the majority shareholder took a loan of £5m from the club to support another of his businesses. He has already missed the initial repayment date which has since been rescheduled for this Saturday 31/12. Interesting.

Looks like a very good appointment. Shame Gould is leaving but I understand his decision.

That scenario reminds of something from the recent past........

Great

It was exactly the same in planes in Europe. The number of smoking seats - back of the plane - were gradually reduced, all this did was encourage the smokers who were not in those seats, to get up once the seatbelt sign went off, and head up the back to stand and smoke. Cabin crew, in the main, only got hacked off when they had to get the food and drink trolley out of the galley, which, usually then was also at the back of the cabin, and negotiate a load of passengers standing in the aisle having a fag!

100%. I suspect that nice Mr Ashton knew the risks for him, in an experienced manager being appointed, and had not quite sealed the Ipswich job therefore,he was Holdens biggest advocate during the ‘rigorous ‘ recruitment process.

@LondonBristolian just come back to this thread. Being someone who is currently going through this I have to report that my experience has been outstanding. Clearly there are lots of things that are currently going on in the NHS and they do need to be urgently resolved but, I can confirm that the staff at the RUH are magnificent, I have nothing to complain about at all. The care and compassion that they offer cancer suffers is above and beyond. There is also lots of additional- non-hospital related - support available too. Again, I send good wishes to this young lad for a full and speedy recovery.

I remember when my mum and dad got their first ever phone installed this was pre1970. To make a call you picked up the receiver and spoke to the operator giving them the number you wished to call and they connected you directly. The ones with the circular dial came in soon after and as my brother and I got older and more of our mates parents had phones my dad bought one of the locks,