Shark Sports thinks Slutsky's at fault for Hernández not hitting double figures by December 2017 despite his Achilles hanging on by a thread
"He'll have seen players he wanted" "he just wanted to sign players who did well against us". Make up your mind on which stick you're hitting Slutsky with. Sorry but your post is as much speculation as my suggestion it was the owners/DoF who wanted to sign players who did well against us. As you said we were in a panic at the end of the window and seemed to just throw cash around and hoped some of it stuck.
In his last game in charge, the XI consisted of Henriksen, Campbell, Dawson, McGregor, Larsson & the bench had on it Evandro, Grosicki & Meyler. That's quality we could only dream of now. I'm not saying LD shouldn't take a big part of the blame, but absolving Slutsky of wrongdoing is nonsense. Slutsky was woeful & he was poor in Holland too.
Haha that doesn't make it a strong side. Evandro was streaky, Dawson was on his last legs, Henriksen never did anything, and Meyler retired a year or so later. Of that lot only McGregor and Grosicki had strong seasons for us, with Larsson a good bit part player. Who's absolving Slutsky? You said Slutsky was in charge of recruitment which he never was. He was out of his depth enough as a manager, and I'd still rather him back than Grant. LD has improved his model and brought in better players recently (although even that's debatable as our bar has dropped progressively lower).
This whole debate started because I said Slutsky had the humility to hold his hands up and say "yeah, I'm out of my depth here". It took him 6 months to realise that and parted ways with the club. McCann's been at City for two whole seasons and now into his third. He should've been gone after his first.
Not sure I'd call Larsson a bit-part player, he made 40 championship appearances that season and 37 were starts. You can't say Slutsky wasn't in charge of recruitment at all because under the DOF model, Adkins was and Grant certainly is. Therefore, the most expensive manager out of the lot is highly likely to be in charge of recruitment too For what it's worth I'd never expect any manager to quit, it should never get to that. The club should fire him and stop being stingy. I'm hoping the takeover is relatively close because if it isn't we're going back to L1. We won't be able to hire a decent gaffer because they know they aren't given a chance budget-wise. We'll end up taking someone off the football scrapheap who doesn't have anything to lose e.g. Adkins and it might keep us up this year, but we'll go down eventually.
Bit part in the sense that he was in his last season in England and left to return home shortly after. He was hardly a superstar. He played so many games by virtue of how thin our squad was. Most expensive of the lot? We had just received relatively large fees and clearly panicked as the window drew to a close and just signed a bunch of players who did well against us. How can you say that was Slutsky's advice? You yourself said he would have looked at players in the league before coming here, are you suggesting they just happened to be the same set? If anything, the fact he would have spent that time scouting potential buys is even more evidence at how little hand he had in the signings that did eventuate.
Slutsky's major cock-up was waiting far too long for the Chelsea loanees. I remember Alan Nixon tweeting about it a fair bit at the time that he was just focussed on them solely and went tunnel vision. That caused the panic and by the time we switched targets, there was knack all left. We should have just loaned players and kept the money Ollie Watkins went for about £1.5m that summer, that's a deal we should have been all over and I feel we would have been if we'd have had either Adkins or Grant in at the time.
Which half-decent strikers did Adkins or McCann sign that make you think they would have demanded Watkins come in? We brought in three Chelsea loanees, it's not as if we missed out on all of them. That may have been the sum of Slutsky's involvement, but again that doesn't mean the rest of the signings were his decision. Seems you have a particular axe to grind with Slutsky and I'm not sure why.
There was never money for either Adkins or McCann to sign a decent striker. We didn't miss out on all but we wanted Kalas, Tammy & Boga. We got none of them, Tammy was always delusional. We waited an age for Boga especially, ended up with Toral as Chelsea had injuries and he played a bit for them including 1 start in the PL. I don't have an axe to grind with Slutsky, I remember that period well and remember reading lots from Alan Nixon especially. It was a complete mess & a very damaging one. Although, I don't agree that a foreign manager who's never managed in any of the top leagues should have been given such a big rebuild job.
I remember the carnage of the window far more. Although Abel's goals did get Slutsky 1 of his 4 wins. Didn't we also have a lot of muscle injuries under Slutsky?
All of three games, and yes he helped get a win against a Burton side who we would have likely beaten regardless. Just think you're looking for excuses to bash Slutsky when no one has claimed he was a particularly strong manager.
Not at all. Slutsky gets such an easy ride from City fans because he's a likeable guy. He took a squad that was should have been top 10/pushing top 6 even without Abel into the relegation spots. He wasn't just 'a bit poor', he was absolutely dreadful. He's got to be right up there with the worst managers we've had of the last decade. Even a guy like Adkins who's pretty much failed everywhere recently did a solid job, because it wasn't hard to get that group of players up the league. The stick McCann gets in comparison is mad. He should have been fired in his 1st season and he should be fired now, but at least he's got serious mitigating factors e.g. best 2 players sold and not given reasonable funds to replace & a tiny budget. Yes, he's stubborn and rigid but we aren't an attractive club at all for any decent manager under the Allams. You're set up to fail and it takes a minor miracle to just stay up. And when we do sell KLP/Greaves or both, there's going to be no money to reinvest. There's no chance of success, it's a constant struggle and always will be until they sell.
This conversation started with me taking issue with you blaming Slutsky for the recruitment, I haven't disagreed on his management at all.. As you noted, one of Slutsky's four wins came with Abel in the side.. perhaps if he'd stayed fit we would have done a bit better? We also sold 3/4ers of our defence so it's no surprise our leaky defence cost us a lot under Slutsky.
Good job we have someone with proof of funds, has paid a deposit and is conducting due diligence with a view to buying us then isn't it? Yes it can still go tits up, but the intent seems very much to cut and run, as unlike before, there's no financial benefit to the Allams in hanging on. And yeah, I do think the Turks are genuine.
I do blame Slutsky for recruitment, for example, it's a little difficult to say he didn't have a say in recruitment when he brought Dicko to the club, and then took him to Vitesse with him. Unless he didn't have a say in either, and it was just a massive coincidence
Or just thought he was a decent player he had a good relationship with here who he was happy to take to his next club?
Wasnt it a loan to vitesse? Judging by the fact that Ehab was in his birthday video then there's no suggestion that Slutsky and the Allams parted on bad terms. Maybe it was just an arrangement that suited all parties?
It is, but there's not much they can do till January, and that's a long way off. If we don't make signings till the end of January, then it's an awfully long way off. You'd hope it'd get done in the next few weeks, there are only 3 games till the next INT break. That'd be the perfect time to have new owners and a new gaffer in. Hopefully, we get that new manager bounce and it sees us through till Jan
