I see there’s more talk today of signing ‘a proven Championship goalscorer’. That’s never going to happen unless we spend £7-10m, maybe more. And we can’t do that. We have to take a chance - on a young loan player, an up and coming overseas/L1 player or an old head.
We tried to do it last summer, rightly or wrongly. There was £7m on the table for Tom Cannon, he just didn't fancy a permanent move, and several other strikers turned us down on non-financial grounds too. Maybe this year we won't be throwing around the money, but hopefully we're more of an attractive prospect than we were last year on the other hand.
Selles made some wrong decisions this season, but the benefit of a young, new manager (as opposed to one who is **** like Walter or too old to learn new things) is that they learn from the mistakes and improve the next season, as Rosenior is showing now. Getting rid of the manager and letting another club gain from this experience is the biggest mistake that Acun made.
Hull City managers from 1905. Before you look at the chart below, which manager lost the most games?..... https://www.bettingodds.com/thesackrace/teams/hull-city
Cannon eventaully went to Sheffield United for £10m where he slammed home an impressive, um, one goal. If that's what £10m gets you, how much for a 'proven Championship goalscorer'? Our best hope is Gelhardt, he'll get ten next season on current form. He will be north of £5m I suspect.
I don’t think you should count second terms separately. If you do, there is one clear winner. If you don’t, then the winner was the result of another shocking owner’s decision.
If City have a stable summer and proper pre-season, I think we will see how Selles can be judged. French football is more popular here than in the UK, so it's on the sports news more often and it looks like Rosenior learned a huge managerial lesson courtesy of City - Strasbourg have got the most points so far in 2025 in the league, even ahead of PSG and one of their players did an interview stating that Liam has a cult-like status with the players, giving them the belief to break their run of losses around Xmas and who are all willing to run through walls for him and regard him as a father figure, who has never raised his voice in anger..!
Reasonable point re. Selles. With Rosenior, it was said that he told Acun he wouldn't change, and that's also what we heard and saw from Rosenior himself (I won't change, trust the process, I believe in my philosophy, etc). That's not learning. It's a shame, as with a less dogmatic approach it could well have developed into something special given the existing bond with the fans, his early performance in the role, a supportive owner who was also doing great things off the pitch with the club, etc. I wonder if he then had to change & adapt when he took over at Strasbourg, as they are part of Chelsea. I might be wrong but I'd be surprised if he was given free rein in terms of just go ahead and implement 'his Rosieball philosophy'. I'd imagine he had to change to fit what the group there want to achieve, and also reflected hard on his time with us, using it as a really valuable period to learn from , and now reaping the benefit of. That probably wouldn't have happened had he stayed.
No idea I’m afraid. I think he deserves another crack personally. He had one remit when he came in and that was to keep us up.
I think when Strasbourg beat PSG they had 36% possession and far less shots than PSG. Seems not to have changed too much. Despite their good season only 19,000 in their 26,000 stadium which will have included a fair few PSG fans.
All is not well. A lot of their fans not happy with their Chelsea links and believe they're losing their identity, and LR, not being French, is probably seen as part of that.
Think I also read that PSG had rested 8 of their first team in readiness for the second leg of the Champions league against Arsenal
Yeah I was gonna bet for that game but then realized Strasbourg had 2.1 decimal odds vs. 2.7 of PSG so everyone was expecting it apparently.
