New Head Coach

[Iain]

The thing I like about Still after watching some stuff about him is how much variation he has.
He uses about 4 different systems, one of his main aims is to move the ball as quickly as possible. He can change his system mid game if things aren't going to plan.
What I like the look of him most is how well he prepares, for the opposition. You hear coaches says things like we'll play our own game and let the opposition worry about us.
Still is different, he sets the system to nullify the opposition when they have the ball and exploit them when we have it.
That to me is what we are crying out for a coach that set a team up to beat the team in that game

 

[Disco down under]

For me both Dodds and Proctor just need to get back into the AOL and help with player development. The link to the new man and his team. The new man needs to be able to bring a couple at least and from a new team. Seems they want Still. Hopefully it happens.

Would love to know what people inside the club think of Proctor. Know absolutely nowt about him as a coach.

 

[Disco down under]

I agree with some of your post. The problem is he lost a lot of good will from the fans because of the total screw up with the Head Coach position which completely derailed our season from December onwards.

TBH, I'm still stunned that KLD signed off on the idea of MD as caretaker until the end of the season, when there was still plenty of games left to play.

This decision left the fans paying for sub standard, low quality 'entertainment' for the last 5 months of the season.

Scandalous

I assume, I could well be wrong, they felt the right man was available in the summer. Someone who the club can be built around if we can bring them in.

A bit of short term pain for long term gain waffle waffle etc etc.

If it works out they will look like they made a good decision at the expense of an already failing season.

 

[Smug in Boots]

For a few reasons I think the club have missed the boat by leaving Dodds in charge till the end of the season. For one...Any new coach coming in would have a good look at what he had to work with, almost a free hit, a rare commodity for an incoming coach. Also. he would would have time to suggest potential players we would need. as we have found out over the years, negotiations for players takes forever. I also think it would have progressed the sales of season tickets.
The way this season has petered out is bad, the place is flat and in need of a spark.
I'm sure there will be those who say the guy we want is already in a club and we have to wait until the end of the season to secure his services,, but if, for any reason that went tits up, then we are back to square one. I don't think the club have handled this very well at all. I can't believe that there isn't a quality qualified manager out there somewhere who would be ready to go right now.

This is the first time, in a long time, that we've had the opportunity to take time over this appointment ...

... I'm happy for us to be taking care as it's vitally important and there's a lot to take into account.

 

[Coastal Dolphins]

Would love to know what people inside the club think of Proctor. Know absolutely nowt about him as a coach.

He's probably a great Own Goals coach.
In all seriousness him and Dodds shouldn't be 1st team level - literally no other championship club would see a Dodds/Proctor managerial combo as an upgrade - not 1.

 

[Disco down under]

He's probably a great Own Goals coach.
In all seriousness him and Dodds shouldn't be 1st team level - literally no other championship club would see a Dodds/Proctor managerial combo as an upgrade - not 1.

I just don't have whatever information you have to make an assessment.

Dodds seems well regarded as a coach but I know little about his coaching other than he clearly isn't a head coach. Proctor I know even less.

 

[FellTop]

Also it's been mentioned so many times how inexperienced the squad is.
This is very true, however we will still finish mid table, how good will they be in 2 years with the experience people are crying out for.
We will have a team of players who's value is more than we could afford to buy.
Problem is people want the rewards now.
Yes its frustrating watching how bad we have been this season.
If the likes of AA, Ba , Jobe, Rigg and others develop the way we hope how much talent will we have on the pitch.
People want us to be signing them at that stage now, we couldn't afford them.
We have to start somewhere, we will continue to sign raw talent every window, not to play in the first team but to develop.
That's how it works, problem is when KLD came in we didn't have any raw talent that was there to develop, this is the hardest part of the process, the start.
We need that balance of bringing that bit of experience in till all the cogs are in place.
There has to be patience from the fans, we over achieved last season and under achieved this season. Some think it's the end of the world.
Look at Arteta for instance, in his first 2 seasons Arsena theyl were **** but the club believed they were doing the right thing and stuck with it.
Is KS the right man for the job, I don't know but what ever happens they need to stick to the plan if they think its right.
Unfortunately for some fans this isn't how they want the club to do things and will not accept there will be set backs especially in the first few seasons, this is only the first one.

I dont think we should be buying the likes of what AA will be in 2 years time. I think, like Alonso did at Leverkusen, we should be adding to the AA of now with a Xhaka type (championhip level of course). These young players are great, but wont be able to do it without help on ths pitch. There is no leader on there to drive them forward, to set standards, to gee them up when it is tough. Nobody who has both the quality and experience. I sometimes think people assume experience means a reduction in quality. It doesnt have to at all. And it doesnt have to mean 30+ year olds. There are any amount of players in this division, who have 3 or 4 years experience and have real quality too. We just need to be prepared to invest in them. We should be seeing investing in more experienced lads as an investment in the development of the younger players. The amount of times players credit the older players they learned from should tell anyone trying to construct a team how important it is. Maybe the fact we have nobody with any real football experience, being part of a squad, is why we dont seem to understand it.

 

[Scout73]

Also it's been mentioned so many times how inexperienced the squad is.
This is very true, however we will still finish mid table, how good will they be in 2 years with the experience people are crying out for.
We will have a team of players who's value is more than we could afford to buy.
Problem is people want the rewards now.
Yes its frustrating watching how bad we have been this season.
If the likes of AA, Ba , Jobe, Rigg and others develop the way we hope how much talent will we have on the pitch.
People want us to be signing them at that stage now, we couldn't afford them.
We have to start somewhere, we will continue to sign raw talent every window, not to play in the first team but to develop.
That's how it works, problem is when KLD came in we didn't have any raw talent that was there to develop, this is the hardest part of the process, the start.
We need that balance of bringing that bit of experience in till all the cogs are in place.
There has to be patience from the fans, we over achieved last season and under achieved this season. Some think it's the end of the world.
Look at Arteta for instance, in his first 2 seasons Arsena theyl were **** but the club believed they were doing the right thing and stuck with it.
Is KS the right man for the job, I don't know but what ever happens they need to stick to the plan if they think its right.
Unfortunately for some fans this isn't how they want the club to do things and will not accept there will be set backs especially in the first few seasons, this is only the first one.

Good post mate

If we had performed like this last season and finished mid table we all would have taken it - we set the bar so high last season by not only finishing 6th but the football we played

I reckon at the start of last season if you had said to all of us we would finish mid table n 6th in our 1st 2 seasons back we all would have taken it

It feels doom n gloom at the min as its a fall from last season, we havent kicked on, recruitment in the summer was poor for the short term success and the managerial situation has been a total joke

All fixable tho with the right appointment, and as a few have said - he must be able to bring in his own staff

 

[Disco down under]

I dont think we should be buying the likes of what AA will be in 2 years time. I think, like Alonso did at Leverkusen, we should be adding to the AA of now with a Xhaka type (championhip level of course). These young players are great, but wont be able to do it without help on ths pitch. There is no leader on there to drive them forward, to set standards, to gee them up when it is tough. Nobody who has both the quality and experience. I sometimes think people assume experience means a reduction in quality. It doesnt have to at all. And it doesnt have to mean 30+ year olds. There are any amount of players in this division, who have 3 or 4 years experience and have real quality too. We just need to be prepared to invest in them. We should be seeing investing in more experienced lads as an investment in the development of the younger players. The amount of times players credit the older players they learned from should tell anyone trying to construct a team how important it is. Maybe the fact we have nobody with any real football experience, being part of a squad, is why we dont seem to understand it.

Funny thing with signing that experienced midfield general... means we probably get rid of Corry Evans who has what, 300 or 400 games at championship level?

Suggests to me it's quality (and health) we are craving and not experience.

We have a lot of experience in a few incredibly underwhelming players who are probably at the top end of our wage bill.

 

[FellTop]

Speakman made that call and KLD pays him to make them. However, I do think it's another large bit of evidence that Speakman isn't doing a good enough job and why he may be away in the post season.

KLD won't want this relegation form to go into next season. Needs to be big chances and new desire to head up the table.

I will be very surprised if he is here next season. His performance this season has been very poor for me, and despite the good before this season I think the judgement over the most recent year should go against him. Having said that he is here now and I assume is having influence or control over this new coach search. I personally think if he is to go he shouldnt be involved in anything for next season.

 

[FellTop]

Funny thing with signing that experienced midfield general... means we probably get rid of Corry Evans who has what, 300 or 400 games at championship level?

Suggests to me it's quality (and health) we are craving and not experience.

We have a lot of experience in a few incredibly underwhelming players who are probably at the top end of our wage bill.

My point is we knew Evans was missing at least half the season back in the summer. We didnt get someone in to replace his quality or influence or experience. Same with Stewart, which is the bigger issue. Seems a real deliberate approach to have very little experience or older players to me. I dont think many will make the approach work.

 

[WorkyTicketFTM]

I dont think we should be buying the likes of what AA will be in 2 years time. I think, like Alonso did at Leverkusen, we should be adding to the AA of now with a Xhaka type (championhip level of course). These young players are great, but wont be able to do it without help on ths pitch. There is no leader on there to drive them forward, to set standards, to gee them up when it is tough. Nobody who has both the quality and experience. I sometimes think people assume experience means a reduction in quality. It doesnt have to at all. And it doesnt have to mean 30+ year olds. There are any amount of players in this division, who have 3 or 4 years experience and have real quality too. We just need to be prepared to invest in them. We should be seeing investing in more experienced lads as an investment in the development of the younger players. The amount of times players credit the older players they learned from should tell anyone trying to construct a team how important it is. Maybe the fact we have nobody with any real football experience, being part of a squad, is why we dont seem to understand it.

Great post mate, couldn’t agree more.

 

[Ozzymac]

My point is we knew Evans was missing at least half the season back in the summer. We didnt get someone in to replace his quality or influence or experience. Same with Stewart, which is the bigger issue. Seems a real deliberate approach to have very little experience or older players to me. I dont think many will make the approach work.

Not fussed about Stewart as it seems it was a damn good bit of business. As far as replacing him goes we don't know who they tried to get, who may have turned us down or who may have chosen elsewhere.

One thing that is for certain is that keeping Stewart wouldn't have helped us 1 iota

 

[Coastal Dolphins]

I will be very surprised if he is here next season. His performance this season has been very poor for me, and despite the good before this season I think the judgement over the most recent year should go against him. Having said that he is here now and I assume is having influence or control over this new coach search. I personally think if he is to go he shouldnt be involved in anything for next season.

The good performance is largely based on our league 1 promotion season which was derailing badly until Neil came in. Don't forget sunderlands resources at that level would absolutely dwarf all the other clubs - I don't see that as anything amazing TBF. He got lucky with Amad last season and have written off this season with shocking appointments post Tony Mowbray imo.

 

[Coastal Dolphins]

Not fussed about Stewart as it seems it was a damn good bit of business. As far as replacing him goes we don't know who they tried to get, who may have turned us down or who may have chosen elsewhere.

One thing that is for certain is that keeping Stewart wouldn't have helped us 1 iota

Fair points

 

[FellTop]

Not fussed about Stewart as it seems it was a damn good bit of business. As far as replacing him goes we don't know who they tried to get, who may have turned us down or who may have chosen elsewhere.

One thing that is for certain is that keeping Stewart wouldn't have helped us 1 iota

Absolutely. I am not saying we should have kept him. But the players we brought into play up front have been very poor in my opinion. Had we been prepared to look in a different pool of players I dare say we could have found a striker to come in and make us a very different looking side.

 

[Ozzymac]

Absolutely. I am not saying we should have kept him. But the players we brought into play up front have been very poor in my opinion. Had we been prepared to look in a different pool of players I dare say we could have found a striker to come in and make us a very different looking side.

My issue with some of the comments regarding replacing him are similar to what you've just said FellTop.

We don't know what pool they looked at and what the outcomes were. The only thiong we know for certain is that we didn't sign a championship ready player.

Now, whether that was wage demands, availability, transfer fee or they didn't want to come we'll never know. But for anyone to say we didn't cst the net is purely speculation

 

[nomad cat]

For me both Dodds and Proctor just need to get back into the AOL and help with player development. The link to the new man and his team. The new man needs to be able to bring a couple at least and from a new team. Seems they want Still. Hopefully it happens.

If it is to be Still I would imagine/hope that he had a strong hand in any negotiation and would get at least this

 

[FellTop]

The good performance is largely based on our league 1 promotion season which was derailing badly until Neil came in. Don't forget sunderlands resources at that level would absolutely dwarf all the other clubs - I don't see that as anything amazing TBF. He got lucky with Amad last season and have written off this season with shocking appointments post Tony Mowbray imo.

More than that for me. We had Parky style football when he landed. He gave us Lee Johnson and between them they got us players like Stewart, Pritchard and others. We became a front foot attack minded team. He also has credit in the bank as I still think some of these young lads will be cracking players in time (Pembele, Mundle, Adil). Our academy is back on track, big time, and Murty has been an incredible coup. We have seen the emergence of Neil, Rigg, Patto from our own backyard. We are 1 league better off on the face of it, but we have far better foundations beneath that. Sadly, this season has seen some major mistakes that have cost the club and I dont see a world where the only one accountable for that is 2 head coaches.

 

[DELETED ACCOUNT 1234]

I agree with some of your post. The problem is he lost a lot of good will from the fans because of the total screw up with the Head Coach position which completely derailed our season from December onwards.

TBH, I'm still stunned that KLD signed off on the idea of MD as caretaker until the end of the season, when there was still plenty of games left to play.

This decision left the fans paying for sub standard, low quality 'entertainment' for the last 5 months of the season.

Scandalous

I think the club have been absolutely certain Will Still is the man they want. They wanted him in December and I think Reims played hard ball and demanded a crazy amount of compo (which we thought would have been lower/negotiable due to his summer clause). We then had to move onto a different plan which failed terribly. So rather than move on to Plan C, the club (in the knowledge that the season wasn't going to be anything but mediocre) decided to revert back to Plan A and wait until the summer where it is possible to implement it.

I could be wrong of course, but the appointment of Still will be a big positive in my opinion, because it allays some of the fears about the clubs decision making and thought process.