Slutsky wasn’t a bad manager at all. Won numerous league titles in Russia and got CSKA Moscow into a Champions League quarter-finals, losing against Mourinho’s Inter who won the thing. He just wasn’t experienced and cut-out for the Championship and was honest enough to admit it. I liked him. He made an effort to get to know the club and the city.
Would imagine those in charge now will already have a good idea of what’s needed in keepIng the club in the Championship. Managerial wise it’s a massive call on McCann. Rumours are already rife about who we are apparently after but personally I wouldn’t believe the local rag’s historical bollocks if it told me the time of day. Back to work on Monday. Thank F’ck...this place is nuthouse. UTT.
Terry needs to sort set plays out from opposition corners, 11 goals conceded from corners, the most in The Championship this season so far
That would improve with experience at the back. Regarding McCann - I'd leave him there for Saturday and get the changes made in the boardroom first. It's effectively a free hit at Bournemouth anyway. If I were to make a managerial change it would be in a week where we aren't playing wednesday/Saturday to allow players to adapt the new guy's methods a little before going straight into one of the most difficult games of the season. Ideally you'd make the change in an international break. If I was Kesler than frankly I'd be finding it a difficult decision to make given the players are certainly playing for him (Stoke excepted).
Another fact which surprised me last night was that we are also the most miserly defence during the last 15 mins of games, only conceded once !
Achieving something is different from being unproven. You don't need to have won promotion from the league to be 'proven'.
Equally one point off the play offs is not proven! His record is abysmal at this level which is not under dispute. Let's agree to disagree!
Equally when he's had squads capable of competing, he's won L1 by a pretty decent margin, huge amount of goals scored and low conceded and been knocking on the door of the championship playoffs....
My opinion is he won't stay here, equally i won't worry if he is retained the main thing is everyone got what they wanted a new owner.
Long term (past this season) I'm 99.9% sure he won't and if he does it means we are absolutely smashing it and flying so win win
He's proven in the sense he has managed in the league and shown with the right personnel he can win games.. that's all I'm saying. That's more than a foreign manager who has 'studied' the game, no matter how many chats he's had with a new owner beforehand. Nothing beats experience. Give Grant the chance with a proper squad and if he fluffs his lines at worst we'll still finish clear of the bottom 3 who look an absolute rabble, and make the change in the summer when we have a blank slate for a new season.
I guess part of it depends on how well Grant takes to having players bought for him, as I doubt he's had much input into the ones that people on the transfer thread are saying we've bought.
He's clearly still got an input as Slater looks to be the first signing of the new era. I mean I can't see him having a problem with Acun bringing in Allahyar and Pesic, he's hardly going to turn around and say, 'can't I sign some L1 players instead?' I hope we don't completely abandon the lower league approach though as we've got some terrific bargains from there over the last few seasons. Honeyman, Docherty, even Wilks (although bought from Barnsley) and you can throw in Baxter, Longman etc too. There's a lot of value for money down there and it also helps to keep the wage bill in check too.
Docherty was bought from Rangers.. Longman is on loan from Brighton and Baxter from Chelsea. Honeyman debuted for Sunderland in the PL and played most of his games for them in PL/Championship. We haven't signed a 'banger' from the lower leagues since Clucas IMO.
Honeyman played 77 of his 82 games for Sunderland in the Championship and League One, he only ever started two Premier League games (and one was against us).
Fair enough, thought it was a lot more than that. And thought we signed him after his first season of L1 football with them. Regardless, hardly any of those players mentioned were brought in from lower league clubs.