I said I'm not adding to this anymore, and I'm not, but I find the posts and differing viewpoints interesting. At least it is not some grey 'agree-all' thread where there is little point in reading a new post.
About 16-17000 crowd expected I heard today, enough to make a lot of noise! Let’s hope it’s the right noise.
Im sorry too for my language. But I also disagree with this. We weren’t a totally busted flush. We could have stayed up. If we had changed ralph sooner and brought in a better coach, that squad could have stayed up imo. Many were saying it was time for him to go in the summer. SR are the ones that messed up the sacking of Ralph, then appointed jones and the rest is history. (To be honest, with hindsight even Ralph might have kept us up. We were **** but still winning some games. Although I wouldn’t die on that hill.) P I expect saints to be a lower/mid table club in the PL, that doesn’t embarrass us every weekend. I don’t consider that a particularly high bar for a club of our size. It annoys me when people tell me to be happy with where we are. We are only ever a handful of good decisions away from being top half (and a handful away from being relegated.). The question is; are SR & Martin learning any lessons. I guess we will find out in the next 3 games
Djenepo is/was better than BBD Salisu is/was better than THB Diallo is/was better than Shea Charles Not forgetting other Sports Republic mega signings such as Ross Stewart, Edozie and Orsic. Gao was a ****ing ****e owner, and yet somehow we've managed to lurch from bad to worse. Yes relegation under him would have been a disaster but do you not see it being exactly the same if we don't go up 25/26? I honestly don't think it's high expectations to see ourselves as a bigger club than Bournemouth Edit, forgot to add I appreciate I am banging on about SR a lot so probably will drop it, I'm just very surprised that our fans are so blasé about it. They're angry at the wrong person/people
I don't really agree, Lincs. Everyone makes **** signings, even Brighton. During our most recent "glory" years, we were the old Brighton, but we also made some ropey signings even then when we were everyone's favourite well run club. I think they've made a lot of mistakes, but they're learning, and they're also doing the best they can to rectify a club that was in a **** state when they took over. They've definitely got a lot wrong - not denying that (and I don't think they would either) - and for me the main negative has been that because my favourite ever Dane had seen some success doing things his way, his arrogance led him to bluster onwards (and he was allowed to do so) until after appointing Jones they clearly put some reins on him. What I don't see with them is a sense of this purely being a vanity project - they genuinely do care (trust me, I was keeping an eye on them v closely in that City game), and they do have the best intentions at heart. I mean people like Ineos have all the money in the world, and experience of running clubs, but they're struggling to turn around the mess of Manchester United right now, and have made far worse signings than we have in the short time they've been there. It's just really not that easy a gig. You may not think it's high expectations to see ourselves as a bigger club than Bournemouth, but then supporters of Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton, Preston etc would say it's not high expectations to see themselves as bigger than us. These things are largely cyclical outside of the mega-clubs. We should all want to get back to how we were run early-Liebherr, and we have an ownership team that I don't doubt would like that too. There's a will in that direction, and they are definitely trying. We have to forgive the cock-ups on the way, largely. People like Gao would have liked that too, but there wasn't a coherent move in terms of how to go about doing that with him, and frankly SR are far more inclined to spend money to get there.
I don't think they're perfect owners (who is, other than Tony Bloom right now, and Markus back then) but they're good owners, with good intentions, and they're a hell of a lot better than what we could have had.
Remember our glory years with Poch and Koeman. Great owners, great signings such as: Juanmi Gardos Caulker Taider Djuricic Forren Elia Cuco Clasie See even when it's going really well, these things do happen...
In what way? Not being sarcastic at all, I genuinely don't see how they're good owners. In a few months they'll have overseen 2 completely self inflicted relegations. They seem happy to constantly make the same mistakes and their comms with the fans are poor.
How has the communication been poor? They've been very clear about the changes they've made, whether it's on the pitch or the stadium.
Because they care and they're trying to do the right thing in sporting terms/ambition. They've made some bad errors of judgement by trying to be a bit too clever (largely the Ralph-Jones-Selles nightmare run), but as I say, that can happen and has happened to other clubs too. Brighton wanted to be us, we now want to be Brighton. What we could have is an owner that doesn't give a toss, only cares about the bottom line, and wants a quick buck by flogging the Crown Jewels and buggering off, leaving us in League One. We absolutely don't have that now. We could have a morally dubious owner, we could have Marinakis, who will spend money and who has landed on a formula currently with Forest (thanks to appointing Nuno, which was a smart move - take note, Rasmus), but who goes around gobbing on people. EDIT - they've also largely sorted out our wobbly finances, which is no small thing.
This. The hardest part to get right was always going to be on the pitch. And while some of their signings this summer have so far flopped in the PL (sorry BBD), in the likely event we do go down, we will have the squad to fire us straight back up again and this time without the stress of the play offs (as fun as it was to win them).
I think this is a very optimistic view. The few players that are good enough to get us out of the Champ won't be staying and we'll be left with a squad of players like BBD and Arma. So best case scenario we end up repeating the issues of this summer in 26/27. The more likely option is this time we don't go straight back up.
BBD and Adarma have proved they are excellent Championship players. Those two and Archer will score a bucketload. We would lose some players but I still think we'd be left with probably the strongest squad in the division.
All valid points but ultimately their decision making around managerial appointments has, and continues to be very poor. RM's here to stay, so how do you square the circle of them caring and trying to do the right thing in terms of sporting ambition with the fact that we're going to go down with the lowest points in PL history? Coupled with thrm appearing to be absolutely fine with that?
That may be the case, but as we're seeing this year, the hardest thing in the world (which is getting harder and harder with the ridiculous PSR) is establishing yourself in that first year after going up.
You mean Arma who was one of the top scorers in the Champ? And BBD who scores goals for fun at that level? Much like some were over estimating how some players who did well last year would do in the PL, people also under estimate how good our players would be over a 46 game season in the Championship. If we have a front 3 of Diaz, Archer and Armstrong they would score a lot of goals to have us in the playoffs minumum
Yeah, I can't disagree that their decision making re managers hasn't been good, but I wouldn't say that the RM appointment has been bad. That one is still playing out. I also wouldn't make the assumption that "RM is here to stay....coupled with them appearing to be absolutely fine with that". I really wouldn't.
The key questions they have right now are - are we likely to go down, and do we accept that already. If no, when does a change get made. If yes, is there enough about RM and his potential to suggest that he's right to bring us back up again, and to have learned enough through that process to make a better fist of things the next time we come up. If the answer there is no, who is available to bring in who would be able, long term, to do that. The impression I get is that they think there is potential with RM to create what they want to, but they're not ready to give up on this season yet, so if we lose the next two, I suspect they'll make that change. If we manage to win one or both of the next two, they'll stick and see it through, in the belief that RM is talented enough to grow the club over the next couple of seasons.
