GrahamC

Latham seemed pretty certain in the Podcast that James wanted to leave to spend more time in the week with his family & less time here on his own. Seemed a very specific answer which suggested he’d heard this from someone who would know.

As per above in a thread this would be based on the rumour that Williams is staying & Bird joins to effectively replace James. If we bring in a “10” then this current nonsense of playing Knight there ends & we also see him competing for a central midfielder slot. King surely can’t be expected to be involved as a player at 36. Squad would be broadly similar size but with Stokes & Palmer-Houlden as bench options.

Don’t think so for a minute. Before you factor in Conway staying or not, my hunch is we’re looking at a maximum spend of £7m, split exactly on a new striker & a number 10 (whether that’s Twine or not). Having brought in Bird my guess is that we will only make one other signing, a back up keeper with greater first team experience than Bajic, (probably someone out of contract). If Conway goes then £2.5m to £3m would be spent to replace him.

Me too, pretty sure lengthier footage after Neville’s goal would have shown me on the pitch.. Just brings it back what an absolute dump that place always was..

There could not be a greater example of the false equivalence that goes on in the local media than the fact that both City & Rovers’ women’s teams are at home today. City play Spurs, Rovers play Liskeard. Bet the chasm in standard doesn’t get pointed out once.

That brilliant picture encapsulates just what we have deliberately lost, doesn’t it? Experience & credibility at Championship level, to quote the great Terry-Thomas, what an absolute shower we have in charge of our club now.

With the greatest of respect to @headhunter this isn’t how football usually works anyway. Managers often tend to have their favoured assistant who follows them from club to club, Terry Connor & Mick McCarthy for instance, Chris Hogg (at MK & Oxford previously) is that man in Manning’s case, so he wouldn’t accept someone else instead, which also implies that they aren’t up to it. The John Ward example quoted in the podcast shows this, once he said that he needed help, his goose was cooked.

No idea if that latter bit is true but with Latham as much as saying that James will be off & King (whether he stays as a coach or not) certainly not going to be around as a player next season, then I wouldn’t be surprised. Otherwise we will need to bring in another central midfielder as well as Bird, because him, Knight & TGH is light both on experience as well as in number, with Benarous out for so long & Murphy apparently not even fit to play 21s football. Cornick needs to go, unlike some I’ll never knock his effort (or the often missed fact that unlike others he has been available for selection for every single game since he joined) but it hasn’t worked out & he needs to leave if we can come to an arrangement that suits all parties. Just my opinion but I thought the podcast speculation on the amount we’ll spend this summer was a far higher sum than I expect. I can’t see us spending more than £7m all told, maybe a couple of million more if Conway goes.

Scored for Austria today in a 2-0 friendly win in Slovakia. Absolutely rejuvenated since he joined West Brom & that’s only his second ever international goal.

I thought it was very good & your questions helped, though I’m not sure there was much support for your suggestion of an experienced assistant. Latham is a little dated with some of what he says, such as 2 wingers in a 4-4-2 & the tall bloke, fast bloke stuff & he never ever misses an opportunity to say John Ward got a poor deal, but he speaks with considerable credibility having followed the club for so long. There was also a lot of civility on display, no one talking over other contributors & others’ opinions being respected, see it can be done..

Like Latham a lot but he won’t accept any criticism whatsoever of Lansdown, however valid. Times have moved on & SL needs to sell up.

If she covers some of our games you would like to think she would notice Zak hasn’t played RB for over two years.

Making a managerial selection based on half a season in League One really worked out for us last time..

It’s dirt poor. One of the most deprived places in England, so hardly a surprise.

Plus those “2 promotions” & “2 cup wins” were only because we had been relegated back to the 3rd tier again. Basically on the pitch it is a playoff final & a League Cup semi final in 22 years. Some might say “okay” but I’d say for a reported £200m spend it is truly pitiful.

Clearly Gow, because as you say he included a second Scot in Cormack.. And what a player he was, by the way.

Actually it’s bollocks. Robins was 33 when he was on loan to us, Rotherham tried to get us to pay an increased fee & when we refused they recalled him. After his time with us he only scored 4 more goals in his whole playing career. I know there would have been loads saying at the time (probably you) why did we sign a player on the way down as a result. I really can’t believe we are debating a player we didn’t sign in 2003 again, FFS.

Plus with all the Scots that have played for us he’d be about 187th on my list..

Moller Hansen Kalas Hunter Brennan Gow Knight Testimitanu Weimann Goater Agostino Subs Basso Magnússon Klose Doherty Norn Iron Nagy Goodridge Semenyo Diedhiou Andersen

Yeah, but “be careful what you wish for”.. If we had a properly qualified chairman then we’d be in League Two..

I also read the comment when he resigned from his FA post over a personal matter that he was considered the best Chief Finance Officer the FA had ever had & was extremely popular. Almost identical in his skill set to us, isn’t it?

Have a look at Palios’ CV; Amongst his many roles have been Senior Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, plus he’s been Chief Executive at the FA. That’s what you call a Chairman, not someone who only got the role because his Dad was rich.

What a story. Bloody immigrants, coming over here & working for the NHS for 49 years, eh? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/67456164

I don’t think we should underestimate what getting 12 more points from here would actually mean. 59 points is exactly the number we managed last season, I mean they couldn’t possibly be that small minded, could they? As has already been said, it just seems like muddled thinking. What if we won 3 drew 2 & lost 3, but the defeats were all performances like the loss at Southampton? What if the 3 wins were all like Swansea? I was actually far more encouraged by the Ipswich loss than I was by the Swansea win. Either they think he’s the bloke to take us forward or not, obviously if we lost the lot (we won’t) that is different, but this alleged ultimatum strikes me as the antithesis of leadership.

Agree, 2 excellent pundits. Far higher calibre of conversation, shame the presenter was so so, felt Owers & Piercy sort of ignored him at times & had their own (excellent) chat. Love Owers, he’s basically an adopted Bristolian.