Gone

Be interesting to see who does take the team tomorrow

Personally think if Neil has decided to go he should be gone at that point. For all hes done really well his head is no longer in it, so would he be giving the same thought and effort?? Its only natural that it doesn't happen

 

I'm not Speakman's biggest fan - I think he's terribly arrogant. But so many of these players we love....Pritchard, Stewart, Evans, Roberts etc. All of them were signed before Neil stepped foot in Sunderland. If Tom ****ing Barkhuizen was Alex Neil's calibre of transfer target then christ alive...Give Speakman credit where it's due: he's been one of the biggest parts of bringing in the personnel we have in this team, not Alex Neil.

 

Surely he has to run it past KLD at some point before he lets him walk away

 

Ancelotti in then on Mon

 

This. Everything was rosey on Thursday night so I wonder if this is just a case of Alex Neil getting his side of the story out their first (via the players etc) and before the club have a chance to defend themselves so as to deflect/detract from him pulling a fast one and acting pretty poorly.

It’s all on this next appointment for me. There’s two scenarios I reckon, the first is that the club is still a complete **** show, we completely lucked out in appointing AN by chance and he’s been the reason behind all subsequent success despite everything/everyone else at the club. He’s the sticking plaster that’s been holding it all together and now everything is about to unravel with his departure.

The second scenario is that a club process identified AN’s strengths, that was aligned with a recruitment strategy that has seen the squad and its worth completely transformed in just three windows, he was appointed and we’ve evolved and succeeded as a collective. The same process can be repeated or even improved upon in light of our better league position and we can continue the evolution.

For what it’s worth I think AN is the bees knees and a great fit for us as a club. I do think though that he’s quite the self promoter and self preservationist. He’s very good at getting his excuses in early to amplify his achievements and/or mitigate against any potential shortcomings or failures reflecting badly on him. I’ve gleaned that from reading absolutely loads on his time at Preston and Norwich as well as what we’ve seen here. He’s good at controlling the narrative.

My concern now is that even if the reality is closer to scenario 2 then AN may have jeopardised that with the nature of his departure and his communications with the players, throwing the club under the bus in a last act of self preservation. It may mean the new man is onto a hiding to nothing with the squad regardless of their pedigree.

****ing AN, I should be sound asleep and instead I’m up writing all that bollocks.

 

I’m up reading it

 

Yeah. Only learned about it yday. Up to that point I didn't hear.

 

Reading this, he was never planning on staying here long

https://theathletic.com/3541563/2022/08/27/alex-neil-sunderland-stoke/?source=user_shared_article

 

Not sure whether I’m angry at the club for allegedly failing to back him or angry an Neil for being a mercenary. Maybe both, but this brave new world under KLD suddenly has dark clouds on the horizon

 

He's done a decent job no more than that. You seem to be making a Martyr out of him here.

You say it isn't his fault that we didn't sort out his deal to which you are correct.

What is his fault however is that he has basically cut of his nose to spite his face and **** off at the first opportunity to what the whole footballing world knows is a complete backwards step into an even more backwards town.

He's done nothing of note in his career since leading Norwich to the Premiership about 10 years ago. We gave him a chance at a big club after he had spent years going nowhere with Preston and he cries off after 6 months. If he had been here years and done it for a long time then fair enough but imagine any of us going to our boss 6 months into a job and demanding a large pay rise you would be told to **** off and rightly so.

Footballers and managers really don't live in the real world and in probably 99% of cases are self entitled little ****s.

So **** off to Stoke Alex I would love you to still be here but you've made your mind up you desperately need more money. I mean Stoke City for ****s sake you really couldn't make this **** up.

PS your a small ugly baldy Scottish ****.

 

He'll probably be on the most money he's ever been on at Stoke. That and geography are the deciding factors.
Did well here, so have others. Won't be missed in the long term.

 

Just seeing it from a different lense really mate.

 

So it’s quite possible this is what Neil is throwing out there to deflect from his cûntness. Because if it’s true all his contracts are rolling then it’s his idea so he can **** off when he’s offered more money. And no way has he not negotiated before O’Neill was sacked.
This isn’t a go at you either mate just an opinion based on timescales and what I’m reading in general.

 

On the one hand I do think that he had everything to make a success of it here. However, at both Norwich and Preston he had peaked after a year or so. In fairness their were mitigating circumstances with both.

I suspect he will always be held up in the same esteem as Allardyce going forward. With both though they hadn’t done much more than others before them in having a good six months, the difference is they got out when at the top so that we never had to endure the inevitable downturns under them (Advocaat would have been held in a similar regard if we’d never got his wife those flowers). Probably applies more to Allardyce as Neil did at least get promotion which others failed to do.

 

Possible. I mean the conversations would have been interested. To be a fly on the wall and that.

 

That was the point I was trying to make. Definitely not a dig at Prehab or his info, more just that it could be a lot of self preservation and revisionism from Neil so as to control the narrative.

 

Don't worry. I didn't take it as a dig. And to be fair , everyone is entitled to a different opinion. It is clearly a sensitive and emotional issue and has come around really quick.

People will hear different things on this matter and make their own mind up. I have with mine.

 

I am entitled to my opinion as is everyone else but we have to be conscious that you’re privy to more info so yours will be better informed.
Equally, in getting info you’re always susceptible to a bit of, for want of a better word, spin from whoever is delivering it depending on their perspective. If someone’s source is Speakman then the version of events will be very different from someone whose source is a player who loved AN and has just been told by him that he’s off and it’s all because the club don’t value him (when that could be his own spin/excuse).

I think a lot of people are just concerned for what this all means is going on in the background and what it therefore means for the future and are therefore trying to find ways to console and reassure themselves. I know that’s what I’m doing. That’s why there’s so much on the next appointment and how it’s handled. The messaging is huge.

 

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Whatever the reasons for him leaving are to me, if he has told the players that he's leaving because he wasn't supported/ given waht he was promised then that is a **** act.

Problems with management? then as in any industry take it up with the ones above them. Trying to demoralise the troops is the lowest of the low in regards to professional conduct. Stoke are welscome to the ****. STID