How do you know we were " held to ransom"? Of course structures in football should bend, just like any other business. Unless that is, by a heaven sent miracle, one man has got every single thing right at one go when the sacred text of the structure was carved in stone tablets.
I’m sorry like but posts like this absolutely baffle me. You don’t have to have played football to be able to do a good job in it. There are stacks of people in the game with the DoF/TD title who have never been involved in playing or coaching.
I don't know that, it's speculation based on the rumours that he wasn't happy with the transfer policy. Of course structures have to be flexible but the point of a structure like this is that one man isn't all important. Look at how we lurched from one approach to another when Short was in charge. This is designed to prevent that. If a coach isn't prepared to work within it, he has to go or all the ground work that has been put in is for nothing.
I’m gonna go get ready for the game and prepare myself for a ****ing raucous applause for the lads coming out. I suggest we all do the same. Our club. Our team. **** anyone that thinks they can do better elsewhere.
Yes. There are. But the one we have seems, at every public utterance, full of cliche, meaningless gabble and full of himself. If he were at another club we'd be laughing at him and the mess he is making. He has all the power, he might as well run the team and have some responsibility.
But that's Neil's fault. He knew what he was getting in to. And the club knows that it will continue on the same track when the new coach is appointed. The blueprint isn't going to be torn up.
I don't get the criticism of Speakman. He's maybe not the type of bloke I'd want to go for a pint with and the Defoe and Keane situations were big mistakes but overall the recruitment has been really good and the club is on an upward trajectory.
My dads just drove past the academy and reckons he saw someone who ‘looked like Neil’ could just be a generic bald fella like but thought I’d pass it on anyway
He has no interest in 'doing better' with Stoke ... ... what are they ever likely to achieve? His interest is 100% financial. Like most managers he's not satisfied with bonuses for achievements, he wants the money up front.
You just don't know that. There are some who say he was promised a contract that was not forthcoming. Maybe. But just because it's our club, we shouldn't be blind to it's failings. Blueprint, project, process, ad infinitum. They are terms which allow those who spout them to evade responsibility, as they are vague and elastic in their meaning. Unless they absolutely serve the needs of the first team, today and tomorrow, then they serve themselves instead.
Nowt wrong with wanting money though. We all work for it, and so do all managers. As for achievements, I very much doubt indeed if we would have went up if AN had not turned up. He had merited a contract IMO, and the club obviously thought not. I wonder how many other teams have managers who have achieved something, on rolling contracts with a full freedom to go whenever he wants. They clearly didn't value him. They probably won't value his replacement either.
But the structure does serve the needs of the first team today and tomorrow, thats the whole point. We have a team which is pretty good now and has potential to be a really good one because of the structure
I'm not blind to its failings though. As I said in another post the Defoe and Keane situations were a big mistake. The club have established a structure which is common on the continent and allows for continuity in approach, as opposed to putting all of the power in terms of football in the hands of one man which then changes when the manager changes. The same approach was famously implemented in this country, albeit in a less formal way, in the shape of the Liverpool 'boot room'. This isn't some airy-fairy nonsense, this is hard-nosed pragmatism.
I nominated De Zerbi yesterday mate. He has left Shakhtar recently. Would be a massive statement getting someone like him. Might be a bit beyond us, but if you dont ask you dont get.
