I am still more bothered about not securing Broadhead to be honest. I obviously can’t knock Neil’s record with us but I never warmed to him after he belittled O’Nien’s comments re mental health struggles whilst out injured.
He was offered what the club think he’s worth, he accepted it, he then wanted more, we’ve been here before, bye Alex.
No that is true, if Neill insisted on it being in. That should not have been accepted by Speakman though. We have behaved very small time if we just allowed that to happen.
So Neil signed a contract in February which had uplifts based on promotion which he got. We then wanted to reward him so he got another slight uplift 4 weeks ago (which appears to be not as much as he wanted). Then we've made a counter offer when Stoke have approached and he's not interested. What I don't understand is why those criticising Speakman are talking about "promises" made to Neil. Why didn't he get the pay rise he wanted put in his initial contract contingent on promotion? He's taken what we were offering and then tried to leverage us to pay more. Fair enough, that's his prerogative, but it doesn't mean we should break a whole structure to keep him either. Neil has done well with us, but given that nothing but promotion was acceptable from League One, is his performance significantly beyond what our expectations are?
Catch 22 then, the club can't win, take the clause out and he doesn't sign it, leave the clause in and we are exposed
Speakman should just have said he wanted more commitment. But then he would have had to show it himself. It's his job, the most important part of it. If it couldn't be resolved, then he should have made it clear, publicly if necessary, that the club had to protect itself from what was bound to happen with such a clause. Maybe they are common, but I've never heard of it before. It suggests that a manager would come to a little club until he got a better offer.
How have we not shown commitment? Look at the players we have brought in and are being linked to. What more commitment does the coach need?
A contract. And money. They all do, as they all know they are a bad spell from the sack Player recruitment has been fine by me, though we are still short IMO.
But he was offered a contract and had 2 pay rises, players are being brought in yet he still ****ed off to Stoke as soon as they offered more money. Can't see how that's the clubs fault
Good point mate but we've all seen what contracts are really worth if a manager or player wants to leave. There's a Dutch player just gone 'on strike' to force a move to Man Utd ... ... and who can forget this Newcastle news: Former Crystal Palace chief Simon Jordan recalls when Steve Bruce walked out on the Eagles. The former Palace chairman took Bruce to court in 2001 after he tried to quit and join Birmingham three months into his contract with the Eagles. "Bruce looks set to quit Sheffield Wednesday after just three months in charge – and he pulled a similar stunt back in 2001."
Bit odd if he signed a new deal only 4 weeks ago, and then he’s still buggering off elsewhere. Greedy little toad. ‘**** Alex Neil’ chants were agreed by Danny Baath mind. Anyone else notice him enthusiastically clapping it at full time near the Roker End? Seems some of the players are really ****ed off at Neil.
We had a really well structured contract for when he [Neil] moved into the Championship," explained Speakman "It had the appropriate up-lifts, etc. We had a discussion in the summer because we wanted to reward him and almost provide a well done. That contract was redrawn up and was only signed four weeks ago. "And then obviously on yesterday's news, naturally for us wanting to retain that coach and retaining that person within our football club, we made a further move to offer another set of terms and unfortunately that doesn't look like it's going to be enough for him to stay. "In the background, we've always been running a process of identifying and tracking coaches like you would do with players. I think that's certainly reasonable for a club of our stature. Once this matter concludes with Alex, then we will embark on that interview process and we will try to do that in the quickest possible time. "We've spent a lot of time in the last vacancy period on doing some due diligence so I don't feel like we'll need quite as much time to turn that around. Naturally, we need to make the right decision and we need to get the right person in post." To me that reads like he's had his pay increased along with maybe some other bonuses. There's no mention of a long term contract. If they had increased his length of service it would have been all over the news.
Bob, I have a lot of time for you and the other people who try to keep us informed, because I know what you hear is second, third or fourth hand and subject to change, but I believe that you are wrong on this one. At the beginning of a legal process that may become acrimonious and end up in a court of law, there is no way that Speakman would come out on video in an interview and state that Neil signed a contract four weeks ago if he hadn’t. If Speakman is subsequently proven to have lied about Neil signing the contract 4 weeks ago, of course I will apologise to you and never doubt your word again
We've heard suggestions that the players are fuming at Speakman and gutted about Neil, but there was no signs of their heads dropping yesterday. We've either got some brilliant professional and resilient young players or they felt like proving they were up to the challenge without Neil. Either way, I was happy with the response.
Totally agree mate. He did one hell of a job here, but it will forever be tainted by his departure now.
