cityfanlee23

One thing I don’t miss about Enzo being here is the ego his football seemed to bring out in some fans, the idea that if you didn’t enjoy it, you simply lacked the intellect to understand it, and that with a bit more intelligence you’d inevitably come around. Sad to see that attitude still lingering among parts of his fanbase.

All of them are good enough to be fighting closer to the top than they are. Villa are performing at a far higher level relative to their squad.

Their squad is absolutely good enough to be doing better than they are doing. Reece James, Estevao, Palmer, Fernandez, Garnacho, Caicedo, Cucurella, Fofana, Pedro Neto, Jamie Gittens, Sanchez are all good enough to be fighting at this end of the table. I'm not suggesting they should be top, but they are 15 points off of top. Drew against: Bournemouth 2x Newcastle Brentford Palace Qarabag Lost against: Villa Atalanta Leeds Sunderland Brighton United who have been awful... Nobody is expecting them to be top of the league, but they should not be dropping most of these points in many of these games, he's not getting the most out of what he's got.

You are assuming that if Abramovic was there, Maresca would be successful. That is complete assumption. I’m one of the fans that openly said he would be more successful relatively at Chelsea than he would ever have been with us because of the quality of player at his disposal and the amount he would have needed to spend here to make it work. I know Chelsea are a mess, but to take all blame away from Maresca and place it solely on the board seems a bit disingenuous, he’s not getting the most out of the players at his disposal, as usual he is stubborn and refuses to deviate from his way. His style has evolved somewhat from when he left us, but it’s no coincidence that a huge portion of the fans are utterly bored of his tactical system and are constantly talking about his stubbornness and unwillingness to adapt when it isn’t working. It’s the exact same thing our fans were sick of towards the end of the season when we blew a 17 point lead and almost dropped out of the top 2 before a late run.

Your entire opinion is just as much an assumption as mine is.

Because I don’t rate Maresca anywhere near as highly as other fans do?

Huge difference between having Leicester in the Championship and Chelsea though. Cooper was good enough at Forest. Maresca is very much part of the problem at Chelsea, but the ownership/board are obviously making the job harder

And a manager who isn’t good enough.

On current form yes, but if we got an interim who could sort the mess out 10 points is still within reach. If we can string 5-6 good games together you suddenly find players back in form with confidence. Under Marti we have as much chance as a snowball in hell though.

Completely get your point here. It’s a double edged sword, staying in the champ for another season would mean shifting out the big earners and being forced to spend on more sustainable wages, but given the record of the club recently, I’d be more worried it would result in us spending another decade down here. With the prem money if we somehow scuffed the playoffs, I’d rather have that 150m extra come into the club and then get relegated again. Knowing this lot though we’d extend everyone’s contract and sign more guff on 80k a week though. There can be benefits to both approaches but personally I’d hope it would pay off if we got promoted even if it meant coming down, if we can get relegated in a similar way to Ipswich where they have a much more sustainable club now and players that they can afford to keep then I’d take it.

Players catching my eye at the moment that could do with game time or could be cheap: Josh Acheampong - CB - Chelsea, would be an ambitious loan, as he's surprisingly played 4 games in the champions league, but struggling for game time in the prem and we may be able to convince Enzo that consistent minutes would help develop him further, unused sub for 2 months in the league. Tawfik Bentayeb - ST - Troyes, 9 goals 1 assist in 12 appearances, 8 of those in the league with a goal every 88 mins and has played striker, right wing and attacking mid in those games, 23 years old and looks like a natural finisher in the making, would be £2-3m i'd guess. Jeremy Arevalo - ST - Racing Santander, 8 goals in 18, goal every 109 minutes. Rumoured to be monitored by much bigger clubs than us so would possibly be a fight, but we can offer him immediate minutes and a pathway to the premier league. 6"1, strong player who drifts into channels, makes runs into the box and is surprisingly good defensively too.

We are 4 points off of the playoffs because of how inconsistent this division is, next season will be MUCH harder imo. If we expect to get a 6 point deduction after any appeals, that currently leaves us 10 points off playoffs with half of the season still left to play, plenty of teams have made up those gaps in the past. Despite our best efforts to destroy ourselves, this season is still salvageable, imo that is still doable if we bring in an interim. We absolutely NEED loans in January.

We are in desperation territory. Now isn’t the time to find the “right man” to come in, that’s a summer project. Right now what this club needs is a firefighter with some common sense who can come in, tell the board how it is, and do the basics. I genuinely now want Neil Warnock until the end of the season. I’ve always liked him as a character but now I genuinely want him to come into the club and try to sort this lot out and stop us being in a relegation fight.

Also just to note, completely agree with others that promotion is a slim chance with the deduction, especially if we can't get it down to say 6 points with appeal. If we got the deduction right now and we ended up 10 points from playoffs, it's still achieveable though, providing we bring in an interim who can galvanise the club. I genuinely think Warnock could get us top 6 if we were 10 points from playoffs tomorrow. Under Marti however I don't think we have a snowballs chance in hell.

This. IMO we’re getting very close to “it’s now or never” territory. If we don’t go up this season, the reality is we’re not just running it back with the same squad. We’re likely to lose a huge chunk of it in one summer, we can argue that is a good thing, but only if we replace it adequately. Out of contract: Begovic, Ayew, Pereira, Winks, Soumare, Daka Likely to get better offers: Nelson, Jordan James, Fatawu, Monga Likely to push for a move: Faes, Okoli That potentially leaves us going into the summer with something like Stolarczyk, Skipp, Thomas, Souttar, Mavididi, Kristiansen, Golding, Vestergaard, BDCR, Hamza, Vietes. And while a lot of fans would be happy to see several of the current squad moved on, rebuilding that many positions as a Championship club with prem ambitions is far harder than doing it as a Prem club. Finding players like Philogene for £20m is far easier than finding him at £5m before he's done anything, the likes of JJ and Fatawu wouldn't touch us with a barge pole with where we are now, the only reason they are here is because when they signed we were expected to have a good shot at promotion. Promotion sooner rather than later matters financially, but it also matters structurally. Miss out this season and we’re not just trying again — we’re likely starting another full rebuild in a league that punishes instability. That’s why this season feels massive and currently we are blowing it.

Yep, Ipswich followed a similar path, they did spend a lot of money in the prem which we obviously can't do, but many of the players they signed were £10-20m players on contracts they could continue to facilitate should they go down, or recoup/profit from sales if those players got better opportunities. They made good profits on Hutchinson and Delap, but they kept the likes of Philogene, Greaves, Clarke, O'shea, Szmodics who all have plenty of years left, and will cost the club £5m each per season over the life of their contract there, and their wages are roughly £25-35k each, which is completely sustainable. This upcoming summer we can FINALLY get the dead wood off of the books, Winks, Soumare, Pereira, Ayew, Daka all leaving. That only really leaves us with Faes and Vestergaard on the books, Faes will 100% try to force a move imo. That gives us a perfect opportunity to have the proper reset we've all been craving for about 5 years, where we get back to the Pearson/Puel blueprint of buying young talent with a point to prove on affordable wages.

We will be far better off financially if we went up, didn’t spend much and then came back down, than if we stayed down this season, so yes I’d snap your hand off for promotion. Completely understand the logic of rebuilding, but it’s far easier to rebuild if you’re a premier league club than as a championship club.

I'd take him. We are already boring to watch, might aswell bring someone in with an affinity to the club who has a proven track record of leaving us in a better place than he inherited.

You don't need a TD in place to bring in an interim, but we absolutely should not be appointing a full-time manager on a 3 year deal now, especially this close to a transfer window imo. The technical director is responsible for the long-term football foundation, overseeing strategy, development, recruitment etc. The last thing we need is to bring in a manager now who we think is the right appointment, then getting a real quality TD in the door, only for him to say "yeah this manager isn't right for the club" because we immediately then have a manager and TD pulling in different directions. If we get the appointment wrong (and this lot have proven they have a knack for bad decisions across the club) it could cost us multiple millions to sack him, plus could cost us in January if a new man brings in more rubbish. Waiting for a TD is not an excuse not to sack a manager, but we should be replacing with an Interim if we do it now, someone who can use what we have as a safe pair of hands to tide us over and pick up some points before we bring in a Manager/TD who can work together. Sadly right now we need a back-to-basics interim type who can come in, solidify the defending, simplify the attacks and utilise the pace we have on the wings and will bring in a solid couple of loans in Jan. I'd genuinely rip Warnocks hand off to come in.

The worrying thing is that, while appointing a Technical Director is clearly the right decision, it’s created another problem. Realistically, we should be hiring the TD before appointing a new manager. But that process alone could take weeks. Then the new TD needs time to assess the squad, decide how we implement a long-term plan, identify managers who fit that philosophy, and properly vet them. That could easily turn into a 6–8 week process and that’s assuming everything moves smoothly, which we wouldn’t know because the club never communicates. By that point, Marti could have us closer to the bottom three than the top six, especially if the points deduction doesn’t go the way we’re all hoping. And let’s be honest: when those deductions land, there’s a real risk it crushes what little belief some of these players still have. That’s what makes it even more frustrating hearing about Top and his polo escapades. I’m not saying he needs chaining to his desk, everyone’s entitled to a hobby but it’s now been five weeks without a single update. Five weeks where a new TD could have been speaking to clubs across Europe to shift the dead wood. Five weeks where we could have been in active discussions with clubs to move on Faes and Winks and wages taken off the books. Five weeks where a TD could have been quietly assessing managerial options or lining up January loan targets. And yet, through sheer dumb luck, the rest of the league is almost as bad as we are, bar two teams. Somehow, we’re still within touching distance of the play-offs, despite declining even further under MC to levels we haven’t seen in well over a decade. All we really need right now is an interim appointment. Someone to steady the ship while the boardroom mess gets sorted and a proper reset happens. Someone who can reconnect with the fans. MON, Warnock, or even Pearson (health permitting for a short 5–10 game stint) would all be far better options than whatever it is we’re doing right now. I'm looking at this in worst case scenarios because pessimism is the only thing this club deserves, I can see us hanging on for another 4 weeks, blowing January because we have no plan, bringing in a TD who doesn't rate the manager, taking another 6 weeks to replace him, getting hit wiht a 9 point deduction and then losing the only players we actually want to keep.

He genuinely was right about everything, the problem is he wasn't showing the capacity to deliver the solutions, however I'd much prefer him over what we have now, at the very least Winks/Faes would have been long gone and he would be going to war with the players over their attitude.

I guess, but the question becomes, will we be financially better off if we sack him now, or wait until we finish 16th and get nothing, when a new manager could potentially squeak us into the playoffs? It's a bit of a gamble in the sense a new manager could even take us down, but we know for sure Marti isn't taking us up, and we are in a surprising position right now that even with how awful we have been that we are in touch with the playoff places on the sheer luck that the rest of the league are just as inconsistent as we are. A semi-decent manager with a track record for getting the most out of an average bunch would have us top 6. Neil Warnock would be a monumental upgrade at this point in time, MC is out of his depth.

I think with basic tactical tweaks we will perform better on the pitch, coupled with tactical tweaks what we need is the players confident and fighting for the badge, for that, they need the 12th man behind them. The 12th man comes from MON/NP walking out of that tunnel and giving the fans a massive boost. Bring MON in until the end of the season, let him properly help King, once we find a manager to come in long term we can use King as the assistant manager, from there we can start the process of developing coaches and managers from within the club.

Worth sending him on loan to Fuchs at Newport?

I only watch us for Phil these days