Anyway, back to theme of the thread, a great thread by the way @Wayne the Punk (thanks again Snaggey for guiding me through my episodes of carelessness) I am currently enjoying the best football I have watched in years, the club appears to have it’s mojo back and for the most part, the fans are standing with the owners. In my opinion we have a business model that applies common sense where it has been sadly lacking, without really being detrimental to the playing side. We have a host of young and exciting footballers who will be worth considerably more on leaving than we paid for them, a recruitment team who currently can do little wrong and Tony Mowbray and his team who appear to be a perfect fit to get the best out of the young players. The change since the previous owners has been remarkable and KLD appears to have turned the ship around without any major issues (Commercial problems aside)
Jesus Snaggey that's twice you have had to pull me out of the ****e lately, thanks for that, and my apologies to @Wayne the Punk the onset of owldtimers is my excuse
Just got back after being baked on a boat for 6 hours, the only thing I killed was a pint of Stella in the harbour view
Dont worry, its still all good news, I woke at 2 in the morning and came to the conclusion that Jobe will score on Saturday due to the extra space being created by one of our new Strikers
I feel the same way about Clarke and/or Roberts. Playing with a striker will leave space somewhere on the pitch, I think it might be on our flanks. Fingers crossed we manage to exploit it wherever it is
Dack was managing to occupy the minds of two defenders on Saturday. Whether that gave Clarke and Ba more space I'm not sure, it takes me twenty minutes to suss what Mowbray's doing and who's playing where tbh. If we have a busy striker that could give a number 10 room to operate ... ... whatever the case it's quite a novelty to find yourself laughing out loud as I did on Saturday. Just when Southampton were totally tired and dejected they had to tolerate Bennette dancing around them and a 16yo scoring to make it 5-0
Agree 100% Smug, Mowbray makes a big thing of finding and exploiting space in his interviews and when I watch a recording of the game it’s obvious the players are listening to him. We’ve played that long without a striker it’s going to be interesting to see how he sets us up with one.
The club is getting a reputation as being a professional and well ran outfit (first time in a couple of decades?) We are getting a reputation with young players as being a club to come and develop, which in turn is getting us the young talent that is playing such exciting to watch football which in turn means they are worth more if/when they come to leave. Does anyone else think some are looking at Cirkin, Ekwah, Clarke, Roberts and thinking I'd love a peice of that **** sitting around the reserves of Chelsea etc...? I think the club will get agents contacting them to let them know their player is up for a move. Another loan similar to Amad clubs will be wanting to send their players for development. I know that reputation is well on the way already. It's all a far cry from the Short days where we struggled to sign plodders and the football was for the most part ****e!
Brilliant post mate, that gets to the heart of it. We're all daft kids, in reality, but at the age of 68 I've finally given up thinking I can ever play for Sunderland. Good young players, in the bottomless reserves of the top teams, can only fool themselves for so long. How long can they rely on their parents, families and mates, turning up at one miserable non-league ground after another. Yet, in a short leap of faith, they can be playing against Southampton in front of 40,000 with ten other ambitious players who want to succeed. We're all blessed to be a witness.
Mate I've supported these since I was 9, 1st game v Chelsea at home, we got beat that game but I was hooked. If we continue to keep going for the next 3 years, we will see massive changes not only on the stadium, but the AOL the staff, their new plans are now full tilt. So onward and upward.
i loved the PR years even though they did not last long enough, we went slowly but surely downhill after that with too many 'tried and tested' solutions that failed as they have done at many other clubs...some never to return. somehow, a lost division three club hovering around administration was seen as an attractive purchase for one young lad, at least he could see and aim for the potential that many of us had all but lost sight of, in an extrememly short amount of time the chancers were out-thought and kicked out to try again at other struggling clubs (good luck to them clubs, they need it) and suddenly we end up with a coach few would have chosen yet none would part with now, the club is attracting interest from all parts of the football world, it has a squad that loves to play and play good football, we no longer worry that if we go behind it means we are beaten. good recruitment has seen good players come on board, keeping the squad in the 'youngest' group but the potential is huge, yes there are and will be mistakes but they just keep plodding along unfazed, fans, players and management are all enjoying the ride...and for some reason i do not see it going as it did after those PR years.
You're the kind of supporter I'd choose to go to games with mate ... ... a realist, who can see things clearly, with a bit of blind faith and daft enthusiasm thrown just for 'why the hell not'. All of those who dismissed KLD as a hapless kid, a mummy's boy or just another shareholder, controlled by Donald, will hopefully drop their dreary routine and share your pride in what we have and hope for what we may have. Young supporters, just starting out, are blessed to watch us and should be surrounded by people like yourself, not the miserable whingers I sometimes hear at games. It's time they gave up and supported the team despite their faults ... ... there's been times when blind faith and hope were all we had.
One of the biggest things for me is only having 1 player on loan, not relying on 4 or 5 loan players like most clubs in the championship do. To keep that that shows real intent amd planning to build on solid foundations, might not be the quick fix some appear to be want, but for me it's 100% the right way to do it. The communication has been 100 times better this past couple of weeks as well, maybe the new lad having an influence? Get the off field stuff doing half as well as the on field stuff and we will be absolutely flying with safe secure finances. With a young sqaud there are bound to be ups and downs, but the astonishing highs of games like Southampton need remembering when there are low points. Bloody exciting isn't it
The 1 premier league loan says we want to develop our young players cause they good enough! The potential of this team is so exciting. The potential of where KLD's ownership could take the club is beyond anything else. As said in my previous post it's the first times things have been done professionally from top to bottom (any it's that weren't working is eventually going to be changed and replaced) don't think we have ever had that? The young players for me are the most exciting team we have had for over 20 years!
I think there has been a lot of investment off the pitch behind the scenes. There’s obviously been money put into the scouting, recruitment team and analytical side of things. The academy is being very fruitful as a lot of the age groups are doing really well at national level (none more so than Riggs age group who have been exceptional for the last 4 or 5 years all the way back to u12s). Even the SOL pitch is back to looking how it should - wasn’t long ago it was a bit of a disgrace when Donald was scraping the barrel. On the pitch it’s as good as I can remember (first game 1976) from an excited about what the next 10 years might bring point of view. The Reid good times were great for 3 and a half seasons with some class players like Schwarz, Phillips, Quinn, Bould and Hutchison-this could be as good but be sustained for longer. It’s great having a squad that are all putting a shift in and go to the end no matter if things have gone against them - prime example being Ipswich with 10 men and they were really going at them for all 10 minutes of extra time and had the 11 men hanging on desperately. I can handle a defeat like that. HTL.
