What you are quite clearly doing here, is interpreting unsubstantiated speculation as evidence to support your existing prejudice, then adding further unsubstantiated speculation of your own. That’s no way to reach a reasonable conclusion about anything at all. A fair few people seem to have made their minds up about Jones pretty much the day he arrived at St Marys, and I sincerely hope he goes on to prove you all wrong. But I suspect that if we do stay up this season, he’ll get no credit at all from those individuals who were never prepared to give the guy a moment’s grace. We’ll see though, eh?
Some of it doesn’t really add up as the one signing who definitely has Jones’ prints all over it is a right back who is 5’8, so Payne being a right back at 5’10 doesn’t seem too small
I see you've gotten your best dudgeon back from the dry cleaner. If you look at the thread when we hired him, I was one of the people most vocally arguing to give him a chance. The problem is that he's incredibly inept, and his public comments show very little self-reflection. He's remarkably arrogant when talking with the media. And yet I hope I'm wrong, as well. Because that would mean that we remain up. But I've seen nothing to date to suggest that he's someone I want near the club, and that wasn't my opinion on the day he was hired.
True. I still think a strategy of buying the likes of Edozie, Lavia, Mara etc makes it harder to bring Academy players into the team. But that doesn't really bother me in itself. If we keep signing players like Edozie and Lavia then it's all good.
This. You've saved me the bother of responding because it sums up my thoughts well. I was initially keen to see what he could do because a lot of what he said when he was appointed I agreed with. But it's all gone sour for me. His interviews with the press are now horrendous, he can't keep away from a formation that clearly doesn't work with our squad and his style of football is simply hideous to watch.
Yeah I’ve never really got the obsession with bringing through players from the academy. If we do then great but if they aren’t deemed good enough and want to try elsewhere then so be it. It appears we have money to spend on higher quality players so I’m fine with bringing them in and the academy players not getting a chance if the club think they aren’t as good. The only player I can think of off the top of my head who we let go who has gone on to have a solid top flight career is Reed, and we had other options at the time.
That athletic comment seemed reasonable until you get to the part about Jimmy Jay. 12k a week at his age is the reason he went. Game time would have had nothing to do with it. Nathan Jones will probably have been sacked by us before he plays a meaningful game for Chelsea (if that ever even happens). If he is not big enough for us then given he doesn’t seem to offset that by rapid pace then he won’t be starting for any premier league side. And certainly not Chelsea Also I thought Ballard had already signed? If true that person revels that he or his source doesn’t have any real info And haven’t people on here already brought up the “draw of the manager” when noting that we signed players everton were targeting with their established, respected, experienced PL manager ? Just more axes being ground . Surely they are down to the handle now ?
All we need now is to see all that cash turned into a decent end of season for us. I would imagine SR have a similar view.
I can't see how a 16/17 year old would make a decision to leave us based on Nathan Jones being the manager. By the time they are realistically ready for first team opportunities it is likely he won't be here anymore. On average, managers must last no more than around 2 years nowadays. The lad went because he was offered ~£12k per week, probably on a long deal that will ultimately see him earning into the low millions without having had done anything (yet) to warrant it. That's the kind of money that can set you up for life. If we weren't prepared to get close to that then I can see why he took it. We all look at football as this dream job because we think about it with emotion and through rose-tinted specs. In the real world, that kid has to think about earning the best he can from it just like the rest of us do from our 'run of the mill' jobs.
It is a calculated gamble. £12k a week is **** all if he goes on to be a top player, but it also sets a precedent that you can demand the world and get it. We held firm with Dibling and he came back. I do wish we had kept JJM (although he seems a bit of a prick - see below video celebrating and giving it large against his employer) and think that we probably should have paid the £££ as we are likely paying Larios/Lavia/Edozie more than that and they had never played senior football when they got those contracts and we actually had to pay for them.
Jones is the face of the first team, though. If he's unenthused about your talent, and a much bigger club is very enthused, that's likely to have an effect.
Some on their forum believed that singing Ayew, as the Ghanaian captain would swing the Sulemana signing their way. Funny Hilarious how these things work out