IIRC Dodds did the individual performance plans when he first arrived. Maybe he was staying within the frist team environment doing more of this.
Nor really. We still might get a decent manager in. Just need to wait and see. The Dodds stuff is just speculation at this point.
I have no idea as to why Still went to Lens. Most people are just guessing, its either the fact he had to have Proctor and Dodds, or he just went for the money. I dont care TBH, I know I now dont want him here. But what it shows is as a club, we are a joke, he should have been told to sign up or **** off a while ago. We (apparently) ****ed Maric off pretty quickly. I dont know who was handling negotiations, but they did a **** job. Just more **** from SAFC, I dont know why I am surprised, after the clusterfuck from last season they seem intent on continuing with the **** show.
Fair post. They need to sort it. Otherwise the narrative will be "difficult to appoint a new head coach when the euros are on". For me, it has to be done and dusted with a new , refreshed approach, to move forward. Has to be this week.
I also defend Dodds but equally he’ll not be the only good coach around and the new person needs commitment and they will be committed to others. We have to get the balance right and IF Speakmans loyalty to Dodds has made it difficult to get our number one target he needs removing from the decision. I haven’t seen anything mind to confirm or deny that Speakman was doing this negotiation but they do need to show they’ve changed things either way. The narrative is out that Speakman is hard work, a coach at Burnley I know said he’d heard that, he’s also done some good, but we can’t stubbornly plough on making ourselves less attractive to key targets out of loyalty.
Wonder who Bayern were insisting that the manager had to work with? Seems they are a little bit bigger then us and really struggled to get a manager right? And went for a guy who's just been relegated very comfortably. So much negativity and very few facts flying around, if Sunderland pissed me off as much as it seems to piss people off online I'd look for a different form of entertainment but hey that's just me.
Not sure what to believe re Still changing his mind.... Its probably money orientated but the if there is a hint that the clubs stance over Dodds and Proctor has any truth then this is a disaster. All that said..If Still doesn't want to be here then fair enough..for me the important thing is the club sort their s4it out and bring in a coach we can all get behind...this sideshow has gone on way too long
Agreed. I think if the coach doesn't come in with some time to spare before the window opening, and the coach doesn't look like the right fit then we have something to be deeply unhappy about. Couple of ifs in there that hopefully don't come about.
No we can't, and I'd quite happily see Speakman given the elbow. I just don't believe that keeping those two on is the issue with Still. There is so much more to suggest that the story that he was offered a contract and then Lens offered one is the truth. I'm afraid the constant foot stamping "it is Dodds and Proctor, it is Dodds and Proctor" just makes it seem like second or third hand personal animosity and its therefore less believable to me.
No idea whether it is or isn’t them but the facts are that Speakman brought Dodds, trusted him with a significant step up three times and has a personal commitment to him and for that reason alone the decisions about this need some ruthless objectivity or people will keep going on about it. Beale definitely had the cut of a lonely figure.
That's undoubtedly true. Sadly, I think there will always be an element who can't let it go, no matter what happens in the future.
It's got to be dawning on supporters now where the problem lies and why we are going backwards, surely?
Again. Wait and see who we appoint and who we sign. No reason at this point to think we can't go forwards this season. We set the bar pretty low this year. This summer will tell us much.
At this stage no-one does, even the lads and lasses paid to write about it are putting the pieces together as best they can. On one hand you have Speakman pretending to be all-powerful and all-knowing, on the other hand he's chased the same manager for over a year with all the style, grace and professionalism of Pepe Le Pew.
I think this is actually quite straightforward. Still was sought after at a certain level- fairly ambitious championship level or their equivalent in other countries. He had time having terminated his Reims contract to really examine offers. His new agent was probably hawking him around everywhere. He spoke to a few clubs including Norwich but our offer was the most attractive and any barriers like budget or staff were acceptable to him. He agreed to sign. His agent probably made any club of a certain standard aware he was about to commit so get your offers in if you want him and an unexpectedly good opportunity arose at a club that hadn’t even been in the market for a manager a week before. its **** but I honestly think the underlying ambition of getting a deal sorted is promising and we’ve been unlucky. The big worry is we burnt bridges with our other top targets like Maric. I won’t judge the club negatively on this outcome but they certainly need to find a good alternative.
Aye been waiting about 5 months since the last disastrous appointment. We have a sporting director promoted way above his capabilities. Simply miles out of his depth.
Woken up. Still grumpy. I’ve perhaps softened on my anger at the club. Craig Hope sticks it in whenever he can so for him to say it was agreed and we got gazumped feels believable. but that said, it should never have got to that point. We seem to take forever to make decisions and finalise deals. It’s a chronic repeating pattern. Even Beale, during the season, took 3 weeks. The theory we had that Still couldn’t sign a contract until 1st June has kinda been removed by the reports that we sent him a contract last weekend. If we sent it him then, we could send it 2 weeks previous as well. So even if there was nothing we could have done about Lens, we could have acted much more decisively. It just fills me with little confidence about the whole transfer window. I don’t trust Speakman to make decisions. I just don’t.
