As you all know I am not at all cynical and in no way find conspiracy theories at all believable...........however I shall be watching the news over Xmas to see what the actual story is here.
I'm with all you sceptics here. The 'bad back' is akin to Redkrapp's 'bad knee' when he left QPR to me.
Oh Dear ......The rumours are rife.........For goodness sake, the man has gone for what ever reason. It doesn't matter if its a cover up or whatever you want to call it. Just think...nobody puts themselves on the dole if they can avoid it. Either way I say the best of luck for the future to the guy...............
His record prior to joining is terrible, but nobody has a clue how much influence he has had here. Hopefully it was all down to him so now he has gone we will see an improvement but I am not holding my breath.
People are treating him like a Jonah....he is a coach not a manager. He was popular enough to keep on so presumably he had a positive effect on morale at least. I'm taking it as it stands.....he has not been able to take part fully because of a long term injury and he has decided not to limp on. It can be exhausting to be in pain and keep trying and failing to return to work. He may just want time to review his options....presumably he is well enough off to take time off. Perhaps Saints offered an incentive to move him on so they could get another coach in. Good luck to him.
As you say he was popular enough to stay after Puel left, but I would argue that coaches have a huge impact. I've always been of the opinion that the manager is just the front man, the one good with the media. His philosophy will feed through through the coaches he chooses to work with but the coaches are far more responsible for the day to day coaching and football side of things.
He was a first team coach/assistant manager of a first team that declined in quality after he joined. That combined with his abysmal record everywhere else he has been indicates that the coaching work he does is actually just crap. I don't care if the players liked him, I'd like my boss if he gave me an easy time and told me how great I am at my job when I'm under performing. As a side note, it's very telling that he is resigning with a 'bad back', but Les hopes to see him back out coaching 'soon'. If he was genuinely valued by the club then surely we would give him a leave of absence with the opportunity to come back when he's ready. But no, he's 'resigned' with no indication he's coming back here. People are scared to call a spade a spade on here sometimes if it means criticising anything related to the club.
There's still a good share in denial and think he's in no way related to our poor performance since he joined. Like the person I quoted. I wouldn't expect you to have anything to add to the conversation as your stance is usually "I'll wait to see how things pan out" and then just pick on people who have an opinion. Edit - Yes I did see your post on the first page, you're so wonderfully insightful.
