Fair enough. You seem very taken by titles. Call him a head coach then. But he'll still have to manage. It's about a lot more than picking a team and moving counters around on a tactics board. All sorts of things happen every week with twenty of so young men to handle, as well as the handling of pressure and taking it from players It might be ****e and a joke to regard an experienced head coach, if you need to call him that, as an imperative in this league, but most clubs will have one. And most clubs place a proper value on him Sorry if that's ****e and a joke.
I guess it depends how averse Neil was to clauses that tied him down (it’s been alluded to that he never saw the job here as long term). You’re limited in what you can make someone sign especially if they’re the one with leverage, negotiating from a position of strength. What about the rest of my post re Speakman being useless?
“I absolutely understand the sentiment of the question,” Speakman said. “Take Alex out of the equation for a second and talk about the principle of it. You see people all the time come out and say, it's a six-year contract or it's a four-year contract or however long. But there's a three-month pay off.... so it's a three-month contract! Edit. Wasn't supposed to reply to Bob's post.
I also think he was sketchy yesterday as I think that this is going to be involving lawyers etc for tapping up.
This is all laughable and just gets funnier. Neil and the people 'leaking' his contract details aren't really fooling people, it's quite pathetic. These claims about signings and bringing in the right players is absolute nonsense ... ... Stoke are facing FFP issues and possibly a transfer embargo like the one Derby had He's done a 'Benitez', plain and simple ... drop the act Neil man. It doesn't matter if Stoke fail to get to the PL, or win things, Neil has his salary and contract ... ... but I'm fully expecting him to do a 'Bruce' and whinge on for years about our club. Just f**k off to the Potteries
Interesting thread this and some interesting views. To me its quite simple, weather Speakman has ****ed up the contract / promises or not. I have never ever heard of a manager, turn up the day before a game, take training, pick the team, then **** off to talk to another club. I have also never heard of another manager ever sitting in the stand of the other team while the club he is employed by are playing a game. Dress it up how you want and blame the club all you want but Alex Neil pulled a ****s trick Friday and continued it yesterday. The bloke is a grade one ****er
I'm wary of this Speakman ,as too many negatives are coming out of the woodwork but its difficult to judge him if we don't know the facts. Time will sort him out as it always does. For now in the short term ,the main priority is the playing side not the AOL so he's got a get out of jail card. He's made a huge judgement on AN . I'm interested on the effect and response of the squad because AN not only jumped for money, I think he didn't believe he could succeed with this team and his judgment on them and the way he left is disgraceful and very unprofessional . He's finished after Stoke if he bombs there, he's made a huge decision in a high profile situation . People will be very wary of dealing with him from now.
I've just had another listen and he's been given more money on the same original deal. He doesn't say AN signed new a contract.
Just out of curiosity. Have there been any stories recently of how bad Speakman is at his job? Or the mess the playing side is? I must have missed them as all I have seen is praise for the players that we have brought in
KLD, and his family, no doubt employ the best suitable people throughout their business world. Speakman must be doing the job he's expected to do and, after the huge amounts wasted under Short, will be briefed not to be held to ransom. It seems Neil chose his moment to attempt that and backed himself into a corner. And now he's had to go to Stoke, every managers dream job
Are we listening to different things? I’ll see if I can find the clip I heard as I’m sure Speakman explicitly says he signed a deal four months ago. it’s here: ""
Speakman's strengths are clearly in recruitment, but he seems weak in getting on with coaches. However, it's also clear that there's been issues on Neil's side and he's been pushing. Managers want control of everything because they're always the first to be punted if things go wrong. This will have been rumbling for weeks or even months. I suppose the test will be in how quickly we replace the coach and what kind of quality we end up with. We might have to go foreign to get this to work.
I'm with you on this one. The part i cant understand is the "release clause" quoted on he website or contractually obliged to let him speak to Stoke - once the new agreement was reached 4 weeks ago (assuming it was still on a 12 month rolling basis) remember there's been no word on this until now, wouldn't you remove that to give you some extra protection to a scenario such as this - you have given him what he wants ultimately ?
