As the dust settles…

[TRL]

So is it correct they are advertising for a headcoach? ripped out the whole head coach supporting structure, and are potentially putting in DOF who failed as a manager and previous role was a soccer school coach for kids in the South of Spain.

 

There is a reason I  have not set a foot in AG for nearly 12 years, giving the reason the "Lansdowns" as the reason why.

[Red-Robbo]

1 minute ago, steveybadger said:

Overall SL’s appointment record (and I’m referring to that not his working relationship with managers) is meh at best but….

- Johnson Snr

- Cotts. Raise your hand if you were pleased when we appointed him. I certainly wasn’t.

 

 

I think the Holden debacle is what sticks in many minds. 

[TRL]

I haven't even mentioned ripping out the health and fitness head in the middle of a injury crises.

 

*******cluelessfuckhole vanity project gone erong

[redkev]

38 minutes ago, Gillies Downs Leeds said:

A lot of sense there Dave, but I am pretty sure it won't be a manager it will be a head coach...

Who is a head coach and who is a manager out of the candidates out there

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 minute ago, prankerd said:

The problem is the next manager to come in is going to be so disliked if they dont hit the ground running.

Just imagine the scenes if they get a good transfer kitty in January? Alot of the fan base will be like where was this money in the summer.

Even 5 million of the scott money in the summer would of given us at least 2 or 3 good players that would of taken us up a level and probably be in the playoffs right now.

 

The money Nige has had to spend, has been spent wisely in my opinion. I'd have been fully confident that if he was given a few mil then those players would have been good signings too. 

The reality is that this now feels like a wasted opportunity. Come January, I'd not be surprised if we're in a relegation scrap. 

[Rocking Red Cyril]

8 minutes ago, Riaz said:

I look at the managers available and it depresses me.

Most have not achieved what Nige has acheived - if we appoint one of them, whats the point of sacking a manager who is much better?

For me Eustace, was unlucky to be sacked, while 6th in the league. Think he did a good job at brum - so he is one of the few, who i'd be happy with.

The other name is Roy Keane - He wants to get back into management and did really well at Sunderland.

Other than that, a young manager on the up.

But not one of these managers who are "proven failures" at this level, such as Rowett - as i said, we might as well stuck with Nige.

Interesting

But at the end of the day it's seems to come down to SL, it's his club. Seems the son is dealing with it currently. Will SL speak to press during this situation? Not sure he will, but might clear the air some what. I would assume contact/s have been made pre sacking and are on going. We cannot have a lengthy recruitment process. But strikes me there are alternatives currently available. How much comes down to SL wishes for a manager or head coach role? And does SL Really only want a yes man ? And surely any incoming manager/coach will want spending in Jan. window. Which makes a joke out of the lack of support for NP. I liked NP and wish him thanks for what he did and wish he had been given more support from above. So many ifs and maybes. 

I will still be there Saturday cheering on the boys cause I am a supporter and red till I dead. But think it going to be  a toxic atmosphere. Yes I want to show my feelings heard Saturday at the whole shit show from our owners. But it's not the players fault and they deserves our loud and unconditional support. Life carries on.

COYR

[Riaz]

9 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think we should be open-minded about Rowett, as it’s possible his style at Millwall is influenced by factors like budget.  His signings this summer seemed to indicate him trying to transition away from the style we’ve seen under him.

He had a big budget at Stoke and failed.

Looking at his record overall. He did really well at Brum - but hasnt done anything that impressive since.

I'd be disappointed if he's appointed. We had a better manager, who has done things in his career, which Rowett hasnt got near to achieving

[redkev]

32 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Let's be honest, it's going to be a LJ/Dean Holden type of appointment isn't it? Hence the head coach comments. 

Unfortunately it's going to be a poisoned chalice for the new head coach. The fans don't want him, the players don't want him, but we'll have to suck it up having him. 

He will always be compared to Pearson. If the board gives this guy money to spend then the talk is going to be about why wasn't Pearson given that money. 

Unfortunately for the new guy, Pearson is always going to be the elephant in the room. 

I'll try my hardest to back the new guy but it's not going to be easy as in the immediate future I'll feel as if he doesn't deserve to be here.

 

 

Win the first 3 or 4 , Nigel who!!

[TRL]

1 minute ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

I think the Holden debacle is what sticks in many minds. 

For me it goes back to around judge me on Tinnion Millen lies and stadium lies. I won't start on Coterill or Holden bullshit

 

It's been evident for over a decade, but people seem to have blown hot air up the lansdowns arse because of money put in.

 

Money is not everything, you need to read the signs to see if someone is good for your club or not, and it has been evident for a long time to me they are a useless bunch of lying *****

[BigTone]

1 minute ago, redkev said:

Win the first 3 or 4 , Nigel who!!

Exactly

[johnheadbcfc]

I'd be quite intrigued with lampard, the clubs he's "failed" at all the managers since haven't done well either. Poch under pressure potter( who is revered in England) dyche has been poor . Maybe this club could fit well with him.

[Riaz]

2 minutes ago, Rocking Red Cyril said:

Interesting

But at the end of the day it's seems to come down to SL, it's his club. Seems the son is dealing with it currently. Will SL speak to press during this situation? Not sure he will, but might clear the air some what. I would assume contact/s have been made pre sacking and are on going. We cannot have a lengthy recruitment process. But strikes me there are alternatives currently available. How much comes down to SL wishes for a manager or head coach role? And does SL Really only want a yes man ? And surely any incoming manager/coach will want spending in Jan. window. Which makes a joke out of the lack of support for NP. I liked NP and wish him thanks for what he did and wish he had been given more support from above. So many ifs and maybes. 

I will still be there Saturday cheering on the boys cause I am a supporter and red till I dead. But think it going to be  a toxic atmosphere. Yes I want to show my feelings heard Saturday at the whole shit show from our owners. But it's not the players fault and they deserves our loud and unconditional support. Life carries on.

COYR

I dont have much confidence in the "process" - the holden "process" was long and drawn out, only to appoint from within.

I've always been behind SL - think some use bristol sport and the rugby, as a stick to unfairly beat him with.

But with this situation, he has lost my support. I do think its time for change at the top, although, i realise thats risky.

Bit down about city. I was so positive with how NP had built a squad and wasnt afraid to use our academy. Now thats gone.

Someone give me a reason to be postive - because i always try to be.

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 minutes ago, redkev said:

Win the first 3 or 4 , Nigel who!!

The next two we should win regardless. 

So if he wins them, it will just be well we'd probably have won them with Nige anyways.

[Red-Robbo]

Just now, TRL said:

For me it goes back to around judge me on Tinnion Millen lies and stadium lies. I won't start on Coterill or Holden bullshit

 

It's been evident for over a decade, but people seem to have blown hot air up the lansdowns arse because of money put in.

 

Money is not everything, you need to read the signs to see if someone is good for your club or not, and it has been evident for a long time to me they are a useless bunch of lying *****

Improved the stadia but made nowhere near the impact an owner with his money should've done on the club's on-field progress.

That's my verdict on Steve Lansdown.

It wouldn't be impossible, with the wrong appointment,  for us to go down this season either. Undermining everything Pearson was building. I had no such fears before yesterday. Now, well there are worse clubs in this division, but a real doozy of an appontment could add us to their ranks. 

[Sir Geoff]

4 minutes ago, redkev said:

Win the first 3 or 4 , Nigel who!!

Not a chance. The antipathy towards the Lansdown has sunk to new depths and won't be forgotten until they are well shot of 'our' club. If ever.

[deadredfred]

I don't follow the intricacies of any other football club as closely as City, but I would be astounded if there is another club that continually makes the same mistakes time and time again and just never learns from it. It's the hopeless inevitability of it all that is so depressing. To quote Einstein so early on a Monday morning... the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Cotterill having the rug pulled out having built a team with so much momentum and unity. Weeks spent searching for the perfect manager amongst an 'unbelievable calibre of applicants', to end up with Holden. And now the classy and clearly caring Pearson, pushed out for whatever reason, with us now staring at a slim list of inferiority as his replacement. 

It hung over Nigel from the moment he arrived. He was evidently not going to mince his words or pull his punches when it came to communicating the work necessary to sort the shambles he inherited. That wouldn't have gone down well from the off. He was left to it, with deafening silence from the board at significant times in the clubs development. Too frank, and too honest in his assessments of all things City, he was never going to succeed long-term under the Lansdown's because they only want the plaudits. We only hear from them when its going well, and they vanish when its not. The great irony being that all the bad times stem from their own ineptitude at doing the basics, like having any kind of connection with the fans and backing a manager they chose.

So we move on. To a manager who will toe the line, and no doubt tear up everything Nigel has built over the last couple of years. And the cycle of bang average will run again, and we'll limp through another Championship season having just shot ourselves in the foot. Again.

 

[Silvio Dante]

18 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

That’s fine then, you’re someone who wants attractive football first and foremost by the sounds of it.

What I find is that many managers give it - I wanna play fast flowing, front foot, high press football, when they first come in.

But when results suffer, they change.

I think we should be open-minded about Rowett, as it’s possible his style at Millwall is influenced by factors like budget.  His signings this summer seemed to indicate him trying to transition away from the style we’ve seen under him.

Rowetts an odd one for me, and almost feels “Right man, wrong time”. He’s a decent manager at this level and one I’d have taken in the past. The nagging point is that I think he seems Pearson less 20% - I think he’d sort a situation out and work to a budget, but I’d have doubts over him being a man that kicks a team on. 
 

Put it this way - had he been in the frame post Holden I’d have probably been amenable. I’m just not sure how he moved us forward.

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, steveybadger said:

Overall SL’s appointment record (and I’m referring to that not his working relationship with managers) is meh at best but….

- Johnson Snr

- Cotts. Raise your hand if you were pleased when we appointed him. I certainly wasn’t.

 

Hand raised!

I wasn’t on OTIB though at that point.  I’d seen Cotts Cheltenham a few times and liked how they played, so I didn’t understand much of the moaning about long-ball Cotts.

5 minutes ago, italian dave said:

As @Red-Robbo has already said, the voice of reason Dave. However, that first bullet point seems crucial to me, and I fear that you may be wrong in the assumption you’re making.

A lot of last nights reading on here was pretty depressing. And none more so than where people seem to feel the need to demonstrate their support for NP by turning on everyone and anyone else in any way directly or indirectly associated with what’s happening. Including the new manager/head coach - before we even know who it is.

In several cases that was quite explicit. And one page, possibly even one post, managed to combine dislike of the unknown new person with some personal abuse directed at the last person (LJ) - apparently simply for coming either side of Pearson.

It’s happened before (for some, LJ was never forgiven for replacing SC) and I fear it will happen again. It already seems to be judging by comments even on this thread. 

Oh totally, I agree actually.  The new manager will of course have to deal with replacing Nige.  I was thinking more the baggage of LJ as a player, Nige recruiting Danny Simpson type baggage.  Those things divided the fan base.

Just now, W-S-M Seagull said:

The money Nige has had to spend, has been spent wisely in my opinion. I'd have been fully confident that if he was given a few mil then those players would have been good signings too. 

The reality is that this now feels like a wasted opportunity. Come January, I'd not be surprised if we're in a relegation scrap. 

I guess my challenge is that I don’t really get the “trust Nige to spend”.  Tinnion heads the recruitment team, Nige isn’t anywhere near involved as other managers would be.  That’s not to dismiss accountability / responsibility from Nige by any stretch.

So who doesn’t trust who to sign players?

[ExiledAjax]

39 minutes ago, italian dave said:

We’ll have a DoF and a Head Coach. That’s a pretty common structure nowadays, isn’t it?

I’ve got wider concerns about the direction we’re taking on and off the pitch but they’re probably for other threads. Not having someone called “manager” isn’t really the most worrying. 

Twas an attempt at a pithy line summarising the failure of our odd set up (assuming we announce a "head coach"). 

To expand: there's no standard set up I grant you, but not many clubs at our level or the level we supposedly want to be at operate without either a CEO or a manager. 

Many have a "head coach", but almost always there is then a CEO, plus other executives. If there's no CEO, then there's usually a wider team at board level, and a full "manager" at football level.

Certainly amongst recently successful and well administered clubs that we are purportedly seeking to emulate, you see at least one of these in place. Brighton and Brentford both have CEOs and then a head coach. Luton have both a CEO and a manager. Higher up and at more established clubs you often see the triumvirate of CEO, DoF, and COO (see Leicester, Man City etc). Newcastle, for all their misadventures, are also well run and have a CEO and head coach combo.

My concern is that we have a very thin board and "senior leadership team". Two formally appointed directors - Jon and Gavin. Then a Chief Operations Officer, a Technical Director, and an opaque group at Bristol Sport. People are wearing multiple hats and the possibility of a voice that challenges decisions or brings diversity of thought is all but nought. It's thin, and it's muddy, and in my opinion it's very poor and does not set us up for success.

Edited October 30, 2023 by ExiledAjax

[Mr Popodopolous]

17 minutes ago, prankerd said:

The problem is the next manager to come in is going to be so disliked if they dont hit the ground running.

Just imagine the scenes if they get a good transfer kitty in January? Alot of the fan base will be like where was this money in the summer.

Even 5 million of the scott money in the summer would of given us at least 2 or 3 good players that would of taken us up a level and probably be in the playoffs right now.

 

Injuries permitting for the last point but totally agree in general.

[Baba Yaga]

4 minutes ago, Galley is our king said:

I can see a similar situation to the Wayne Rooney and Birmingham debacle.

If the next manager starts with a few losses like Rooney has then I agree things will probably get quite toxic, it's a bit harsh because their owners should be taking the blame and not Rooney. However it's going to be extremely tough for most fans to not compare the new man to Pearson and make a quick judgment if things are looking worse. Completely the wrong environment for a young progressive coach if it's true that is who the Lansdown's want.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Baba Yaga

[TRL]

4 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Improved the stadia but made nowhere near the impact an owner with his money should've done on the club's on-field progress.

That's my verdict on Steve Lansdown.

It wouldn't be impossible, with the wrong appointment,  for us to go down this season either. Undermining everything Pearson was building. I had no such fears before yesterday. Now, well there are worse clubs in this division, but a real doozy of an appontment could add us to their ranks. 

I have never felt the guy had a clue other than being in it for his own vain agenda.

 

Got a stand named after him,job done.

 

Now **** off amd let some worthy of having a stand named after him.

 

Let's not forget the single ownership rules to stop financial melt down that he ripped up. So all this debt is squarely on him.

 

He is a complete arse in my book

[redkev]

7 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

The next two we should win regardless. 

So if he wins them, it will just be well we'd probably have won them with Nige anyways.

no results are a gimme in this division we should all know that especially a city fan

[Barrs Court Red]

Just now, Baba Yaga said:

If the new man starts with a few losses like Rooney has then I agree things will probably get quite toxic, it's a bit harsh because their owners should be taking the blame and not Rooney. However it's going to be extremely tough for most fans to not compare the new man to Pearson and make a quick judgment if things are looking worse. Completely the wrong environment for a young progressive coach if it's true that is who the Lansdown's want.

Without doubt a bad start will see things get volatile far quicker than you’d ordinarily expect. 

[Spud21]

My thoughts are as follows. 

I can entirely understand (though not necessarily agree with) the thought process to not offer Nige a new deal, I am not 100% convinced he's the man to kick on with a bit of backing and move us to the next level, but he damn sure earned the right to at least have another year or 2 where the backing matches the ambitions. 

To remove him now to me seems a monumentally risky decision, if they do have a plan in place and a new man is in he's already walking into a toxic mess, and it is entirely possible that we do not get good results out of the next 2 games with the injuries we have and how hard the players that are playing are having to work in the last 3/4 games, and then it descends into absolute chaos. 

If you must get rid let Pearson ride out the next few games where he can hopefully get results because the squad are running through brick walls for him and then make the change in Dec, or we still get crap results in the next couple of games and then you can bin him off and you might carry some of the fan base with you. 

If however they keep NP until the end of the season and let him go with a massive thanks for all his work and building the foundations and bring in a Schumacher or Williams or someone like I can at least see the thinking. 

This feels like a massive risk at the wrong time to me. 

 

 

[exAtyeoMax]

I've got no idea who we should get. In Lansdown we trust 

[Dr Balls]

In the past, it has been said that we have held on with managers far too long, when it’s clear that it isn’t working. If you just look at the results in the last few games, you could say we are on a bad run. However we have only lost 1-0 to the top 2 teams, who are currently running away with the division, plus we have a major injury crisis, and a wafer thin squad, now completely dependent on youngsters to fill the subs bench.

The difference to previous sackings is that it would seem to have happened because the manager wanted the autonomy to run the football side of the business as he thought best, within the financial limitations set by the owners, but that the owners could not accept that and wanted to have more say in the running of the football side. Owners whose lack of understanding about the game has been evident on so many previous occasions versus an extremely experienced professional manager. We are still only 5 points off the playoffs and 9 points above the relegation zone, just over a quarter of the way through the season, so there was no need to panic and ditch the manager, so it’s a political decision rather than even a good business one.

That this could easily backfire badly on the owners should be clear to everyone. Make the wrong appointment now (e.g. Birmingham appointing Rooney to replace Eustace immediately comes to mind) and things could go downhill very quickly, and we could see the same cycle that we saw in the early 2010s that resulted in relegation. I was optimistic that we could make some progress this season, even after the sale of Scott and no reinvestment, while Nige was in charge, but now even a mid-table finish would seem a good outcome from this completely unnecessary mess.

[Nogbad the Bad]

9 minutes ago, redkev said:

Win the first 3 or 4 , Nigel who!!

With our dire injury situation that's not going to happen.

I think it's only Nige's experience and calmness and the respect the players hold him in that has prevented a thrashing for our patchwork team in the last few games.

I don't think we should underestimate the effect Nige's sacking will have on the morale of the depleted squad - they were given confidence and were willing to run through brick walls for him, it's not going to be the same with a new manager, or indeed no manager.

Sheffield Wednesday may be bottom of the table but such is our disarray things could really fall apart on Saturday, new manager or not.

 

[GrahamC]

2 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

With our dire injury situation that's not going to happen.

I think it's only Nige's experience and calmness and the respect the players hold him in that has prevented a thrashing for our patchwork team in the last few games.

I don't think we should underestimate the effect Nige's sacking will have on the morale of the depleted squad - they were given confidence and were willing to run through brick walls for him, it's not going to be the same with a new manager, or indeed no manager.

Sheffield Wednesday may be bottom of the table but such is our disarray things could really fall apart on Saturday, new manager or not.

 

Spot on.

Wednesday will see a club in a mess as a winnable game, QPR (allegedly about to appoint Warnock) exactly the same.

I don’t understand those who have any faith in Lansdown & his son to appoint the right person, their track record (remember Cotts was Keith Dawe’s pick) is abysmal.

[Red Cloud]

Mark Robbins for me but doubt he'll come