New Head Coach

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

Good for him, at his age he should be ambitious.

I can't see it happening but it's exactly the right message for the players to see on a match day.

If he came out and said he didn't fancy the job people would still be moaning tbh.

And if he did to Leicester and Southampton, what he did to Leeds and West Brom, he might start to have a case ... let's hope so.
 
I see no issue with him saying this. Everyone involved in football should be constantly trying to prove themselves good enough whether thats the head coach, players or the kitchen staff at the training ground. I don't want none ambitious people at the club.

Now is he good enough to be the head coach long term? More than likely no but that shouldn't stop him striving to prove he can be.
 
I keep hearing this term penny pinching, yet surely this also applies to the likes of Clarke, Ballard, Roberts, Stewart etc.
I don't honestly think you can compare both sets of players. Only Stewart is comparable and he had first team experience.

Clarke and Roberts remind me of Newcastle's unknown French internationals as they were well known prospects before we signed them. Tottenham paid £10m for Clarke and Man City paid £12m for Roberts.

Roberts had 131 first team appearances and was capped at England U16, U17, U18, U19, U20 level

Ballard was Arsenal reserves, 57 first team appearances for Swindon, Blackpool and Millwall with 17 full caps for Northern Ireland

Players with that kind of pedigree cost more, be it higher sell-on fees, wages, or one off payments

They're going to be sold for big money and replaced with kids unless KLD buys more players
 
I don't honestly think you can compare both sets of players. Only Stewart is comparable and he had first team experience.

Clarke and Roberts remind me of Newcastle's unknown French internationals as they were well known prospects before we signed them. Tottenham paid £10m for Clarke and Man City paid £12m for Roberts.

Roberts had 131 first team appearances and was capped at England U16, U17, U18, U19, U20 level

Ballard was Arsenal reserves, 57 first team appearances for Swindon, Blackpool and Millwall with 17 full caps for Northern Ireland

Players with that kind of pedigree cost more, be it higher sell-on fees, wages, or one off payments

They're going to be sold for big money and replaced with kids unless KLD buys more players

What kind of price range are you thinking of for these new players mate?
 
What kind of price range are you thinking of for these new players mate?
They are hypothetical players tbh, I doubt Speakman brought in a load of younguns to sit about and be released when their contracts expire.

Seelt, Mundle, Hjelde, Ruslyn are the replacements and the kids (Bishop, Mayenda, Triantis, Semedo, Pembele etc) will make up the difference.

To me that's less than what they brought in 2-3 years ago
 
I see no issue with him saying this. Everyone involved in football should be constantly trying to prove themselves good enough whether thats the head coach, players or the kitchen staff at the training ground. I don't want none ambitious people at the club.

Now is he good enough to be the head coach long term? More than likely no but that shouldn't stop him striving to prove he can be.

Let him prove it elsewhere,
 
  • Like
Reactions: Comfy
Good for him, at his age he should be ambitious.

I can't see it happening but it's exactly the right message for the players to see on a match day.

If he came out and said he didn't fancy the job people would still be moaning tbh.

And if he did to Leicester and Southampton, what he did to Leeds and West Brom, he might start to have a case ... let's hope so.

I love your positivity Smug. Wish I could be like that at times. I can see where the club are coming from but it's so bloody frustrating to be so close but yet so far away
 
I love your positivity Smug. Wish I could be like that at times.

I can see where the club are coming from but it's so bloody frustrating to be so close but yet so far away

No less frustrating for me mate.

Just because I don't threaten to burn my season ticket and lucky underpants, when we have a setback, it doesn't mean I'm not desperate for success.

But look at this forum, the other forum, Twitter, Facebook and everything else.

Every supporter has a different masterplan, team selection, tactics, manager choice, etc, and all think they're right.

I just hope we beat Leicester tonight, by whatever means, and go to Southampton with some confidence. I don't get the torment some people put themselves through agonising about every decision. If football could be totally planned and everything worked out in advance it wouldn't be the exciting game it is.
I support my club no matter what because I'm not a 'pick n mix' supporter who's only a fan when the club are doing what I thinks' best.

It's alright basking in the atmosphere of the Wycombe Wembley final but means nothing if you threw the towel in after the Bolton 6-0.
 
Last edited:
Christ, not this **** again! How many times in the last 40 years have we paid compensation for a manager to take him from another club?

Does this supposed "cheap option" always result in failure? Does selecting the right man, who happens to be out of work mean it's the "cheap option"?

How much compensation did we pay for Peter Reid, Mick McCarthy, Roy Keane, Alex Neil or Tony Mowbray? Each one of them got us promoted, apart from Mowbray who massively over-achieved in his first season.

You could also add Gus Poyet, Sam Allardyce, Martin O'Neil & Dick Advocaat as supposed "cheap options" who kept us in the PL against the odds.

It's such a lazy narrative

From memory I can only think of us going to Preston to get Grayson.
 
I know we hate him, moyes. But in my opinion shows how footballe fans are now in general, they won trophy in Europe last year and are 8th in prem this year and some of their fans want him out. I guess I mean no matter where you are, some pp will never be happy.

West Ham are on another planet. I remember them moaning that Big Sam wasn't playing the , "West Ham way", his response in a press conference was "Whats the West ham way? Getting beat every week". lol
 
I think Speakman may have thrown his mate into the lions den. He needs taken out of the firing line before he is completely shot. It just isn’t right that he has to somehow guide these through a few more games, I actually feel for the bloke.

It's not great like. What's that now, 2 wins and 6 defeats whilst being the man. Awful record, either way it's span.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Confucius
I don't honestly think you can compare both sets of players. Only Stewart is comparable and he had first team experience.

Clarke and Roberts remind me of Newcastle's unknown French internationals as they were well known prospects before we signed them. Tottenham paid £10m for Clarke and Man City paid £12m for Roberts.

Roberts had 131 first team appearances and was capped at England U16, U17, U18, U19, U20 level

Ballard was Arsenal reserves, 57 first team appearances for Swindon, Blackpool and Millwall with 17 full caps for Northern Ireland

Players with that kind of pedigree cost more, be it higher sell-on fees, wages, or one off payments

They're going to be sold for big money and replaced with kids unless KLD buys more players
Alese had 0 appearances for West Ham
Cirkin had 0 appearances for Spurs
Huggins had 1 appearance for Leeds
Hume had 17 appearances in the Irish League
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sour Patch
It's not great like. What's that now, 2 wins and 6 defeats whilst being the man. Awful record, either way it's span.
Not sure you can include the League 1 games before Neil was appointed. By his own admission, he didn't even know most of that squad's names. Pathetic from the club (Speakman) to drop him in there when Neil was available immediately.

Agree with the wider point though, Dodds in charge for the rest of the season is a big ask - I get Ricky Sbragia vibes right now
 
Not sure you can include the League 1 games before Neil was appointed. By his own admission, he didn't even know most of that squad's names. Pathetic from the club (Speakman) to drop him in there when Neil was available immediately.

Agree with the wider point though, Dodds in charge for the rest of the season is a big ask - I get Ricky Sbragia vibes right now

Dodds seems to have a strange habit of seemingly knowing how we should be set up, because he switches to it after 20 minutes when we've started terribly and conceded in the setup he actually used.

Fair play to him for not sitting on his hands and waiting for half time but if he wants to win games he needs to get it right from the start. Picking the same side (apart from suspensions) as the second half against Leicester would make sense.