Who Could Be the Next Manager

The benefit of Tonda taking two games, is it gives Valencia a bit longer to sack Corberan...

 

They've got one more game before the break and it's Real Betis, who are currently 5th - vamos Betis!

 

Yes it is his job to a degree, but you’d think there needs to be a balance between saying what’s happening and really pissing people off who you presumably want to keep on the good side of to do your job effectively.

If you are there calling all players cowards and prima Donna’s as he was last night then want to speak to a player for some insight on a story at some point in the future, the player might tell you to **** off. Surely one of the big parts of a journos job is to maintain some “insider” connections so they get inside scoops?

Not saying he’s wrong or anything just thought it was pretty telling about the collective mentality of the group that someone in his position would be calling it out so publicly.

 

Yeah he is, he just turned up late (they all did) but he was extra late as the sacking news was just starting to come out unofficially just before 7pm when the pod goes live. He was a bit distracted in this one as he was working at the same time, but still got in a few good jibes at the players. He doesn't even support Saints but you wouldn't know that listening to him get passionate about it all.

 

Yeah, he joins after the opening 10/15 mins, wasn't able to join from the start as he was doing some work

 

Right now I'd take someone who plays pragmatic football, and most importantly is a bit of a tough/mean/grumpy bastard who will give the whole squad a good bollocking and accept that some of the soft ****es will down tools. Much prefer to have the 11 players on the pitch who will run through brick walls rather than those with a couple of rainbow flicks in their locker and no guts.

 

I wasn't. He looked awkward and mumbled.

 

I was trying to ignore some internal alarm bells when Saints put out that behind the scenes footage of the Wrexham win and he was sitting amongst the players, mumbling his way through apologising in the dressing room after the game and asking players not to be upset about being substituted

 

Yeah I don’t recall that MNF performance being anything other than a shambles. Could barely understand what he was saying and even if the tactical insight he was sharing was groundbreaking nobody had a clue what he actually was saying. Carragher was looking at him the way most people look at him when he goes full Scouse

I remember my WhatsApp group having some messages about it with people saying what idiot club would hire this guy. Step forward Saints!

 

Oh Dear God.

 

It's Ben Jacobs, you can take it as seriously as a cheque from Chansiri

 

On the basis that Spors wasn't the one that hired (or fired) Martin, I don't think he will be swayed by a few players saying "Yeah, he was alright he was". For me, if Spors and the club have any level of intelligence, they will read the fans and know NOT to rehire Martin.

Cue Martin in a press-conference saying "My heart has always been here" while still wearing a Rangers tracksuit.

 

Agree.

House is normally sit on the fence, voice of reason type fella, obviously because he's paid to be.

He really went into the players (good) on the podcast, in a way I've not heard a journo do before. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if Still walked into a toxic squad who just don't give a ****, and House has been given the full story. Didn't Juric have issues with players? Is Flynn's constant illnesses cover for something else?

I would genuinely rather keep Damion Downs then THB, Flynn, Wood and the rest of RMs besties. Changing a manager won't change **** all until we're rid of them.

 

Yeah I'll trust Alfie House more on this one.

It shows how little faith we have in the owners though that the tiniest of links is filling people with fear.

 

Yeah, this is why I was kind of open to keeping Juric into this season. I think the bad apples in the squad need to go before we can progress and I'm pretty sure Juric knew who they were.

The club really have to get this one right and stick with the next manager. The problem with the constant turnover of managers is that it must feed into the general atmosphere around the club. Even if they bring in a no-nonsense taskmaster (wasn't Juric meant to be that type?) he may struggle to impose himself because half the players will expect him to be gone by the end of the season anyway.

 

He has said in the TSP Patreon channel since that the counter is that Dragan Solak absolutely loves Russell and the two of them got on very well. So you'd need Dragan to overrule the board to bring RM back to St. Mary's - and presumably for Russ to get some assurances on certain people's influence

Whether he's likely to do that, who knows!

 

Oh **** off...

 

From what I saw of Carrick at a distance, I consider him to be Martin-lite. A similar style of play, for sure, but not at any cost (unlike Martin).

When Boro came down to SMS in our promotion season, it felt like Boro barely saw the ball. They were happy for us to have it. It was similar with Maresca - another possession-based manager, who decided to go it differently against us (although of course Leicester, with better players than Boro, had greater success accordingly). That sort of flexibility is something we rarely saw with Martin.

My view on whether we should appoint him is the same as what it was a few days - namely that the summer was the time to appoint him, and that I'd be a lot more concerned about appointing him now than I would have been then. I was very pro-Carrick back in May.

The circumstances are different now: we don't have a summer to build the squad and get to work on the training ground; we aren't in a position where we can risk wasting 10 to 20 games on seeing if a new manager is right for us or not; we have a fan base which is, rightly, totally disillusioned. And on top of that, we still have a squad which seems to be mentally weak and lacking leadership. As much as I like Carrick, I'm not convinced he's the guy we need at the moment. A case of right guy, wrong time?

The problem is that my own response to that view is "well if not Carrick, then who?". And that is where I keep on falling down.

 

You’d think from a professional pride/competence level Spors would be hugely against reappointing Martin. What does it say about his ability if his guy gets binned 13 games into the season and the solution you come up with is to hire the guy who got promoted previously with the squad, who you didn’t hire and then was a disaster so the majority of fans turned on him. Who then since has gone on to be a proper laughing stock in football with his efforts in his next job. Would make it look like you don’t have a clue.

If Solak steps in and demands he be re-appointed then Spors should resign immediately as it completely undermines his position