cityfanlee23

Yet another player that can only play in a very limited setup and cannot function when expected to help the team as a unit, can only play when he has absolutely zero responsibility beyond getting the ball and moving it forward, reminds me of Winks in that regard, the moment they are asked to do anything more than a very limited role they lose interest. Has been absolutely atrocious for us overall, bar a couple of standout performances. get him gone. I'd rather take a small loss on him than hold out for profit. If we have £10m to replace him, i'd rather lose £3m to get rid and spend £7m on a replacement that actually cares about the club.

Slimani gets such an unfair rap in our fanbase tbh, he cost a lot of money, but his goals to minutes ratio were the best at the club for most of his time with us, and he was a strong physical striker who made his name as a "fox in the box" striker who could win headers. Every time he came on the pitch he was told to drop deep into the Okazaki role, and he more often than not came on as a sub for Albrighton. We literally played against the 2 strengths he had that made him such a potent striker in Portugal. If we kept Albrighton on and actually put balls into the box and told him to arrive, his goals to minutes would have been incredible imo. Bit harsh imo that so many think of his as bad value for money as a player, when in reality he was bad value for money because our managers didn't play to his strengths.

I'm not really sure what to feel, because I actually knew this. I read the post on the last page that he had signed for them about an hour after it was posted. I googled his name earlier again and saw that he had a verbal deal with West Ham (a few weeks before signing for RB) and somehow completely forgot it was a done deal to RB. This club is frying my brain.

So has Banzuzi actually signed anything with WH or is it just a verbal agreement? Don't get me wrong if West Ham go back in for him in the summer to complete the deal we don't have a snowballs chance in hell, but if it's just a verbal agreement and nothing official is signed as seems to be reported, we could potentially sort a deal out. I'd imagine he will have offers though.

If I had the sort of money KP have wasted on managers I’d be dead in 12 months tops

Andre Garcia could be a top defender in future, 17 from Reading, not sure how much he would cost though.

If Bilal wants to leave, we could potentially get Oscar Gloukh from Salzburg for about 15m, not being able to offer Champions League football is obviously the only stumbling block but a clear path to the premier league and a decent wage boost (he's reportedly on 15k a week) could be a decent pull. Fantastic player and is the last remaining player of the trio I wanted us to sign from them of Pavlovic (sold to milan) and Dedic (sold to Marseille)

France are still a talent factory in the lower leagues, Bastia have a strong CDM in Jocelyn Janneh that could potentially replace wilf, very rough around the edges though but would be cheap as chips.

One day closer lads and lasses, one day closer to getting atleast some of these players out of our club for good 🥳

Sums the season up that penalty sadly.

The more this goes on the more I think it will be Dyche, you just know he will bring up the culture and the lack of desire or fight for the badge in his interview. Right now I’d welcome him with open arms

Commentators absolutely ripping into Top and Rudkin talking about how they haven't communicated for years with fans, haven't invested properly and are ultimately the issue.

Nothing to worry about with that, its for the greater good. If anything is to change it needs to be an utter embarrassment every single week.

Ndidi needs someone around him to collect possession, he's very clearly a trigger for Wolves, multiple times Ndidi has got the ball and they have swarmed him, and he's dribbled into trouble because he has nobody offering themselves to him.

Yep, this is a mystery to me.

I won't for a moment try to justify Ayew starting over Buonanotte, Buonanotte is a far more exciting player with a massive ceiling if he finds consistency, however his stats are very close to that of Ayew, he's not miles ahead of him, they both offer different traits, Ayew tends to create less, but he also loses the ball less, and offers us physicality. Buonanotte is more exciting and produces slightly more chances than Ayew, but he loses the ball more and I can think of multiple errors from Buo that have led to a goal from him attempting a poor pass or a silly take on. The most surprising stat is Ayew takes on players more successfully than Buonanotte does with only marginally less attempts. The first 10 games of Buonanotte blew Ayew out of the water, the rest he's been bang average. Take it with a pinch of salt as stats are not everything, but I am quite surprised by how close they are statistically. (Stats per 90)

I agree he's been mismanaged in terms of playtime, but on the pitch he's been bang average for months, some of that is down to tactical approach, a lot of that is down to him not yet having the consistency he needs to live up to the early hype. Huge potential, but right now nowhere near as good as many claim him to be imo. Should definitely have been playing though!

This does unfortunately sum up RVN's time here, however I think Buonanotte is massively overrated by our fans. He's just the best of a very below average bunch.

I think it's just easier to get rid of a manager than it is to get rid of the board. If Ruud stays in summer we can get rid after 5-6 games without too much issue, if the board is unchanged, we have potentially years of mess to clean up with more overpaid dead wood being signed in summer that we can't shift, and potentially a new manager on a fresh contract that's even worse (don't put it past this lot to do it again)

Yep, as I've said to others this is NOT an endorsement to keep him, it's just a post of my gut feeling of "meh" if he stays and curiosity of seeing his rebuild based on his principles of having higher standards than most of the important players/people at the club (although his team selections do water those standards down ) There are far more reasons to end this chapter than continue to write it.

If ever there was a time for a player to leak what behind the scenes looks like it's now, they were happy to throw SC under the bus.

I didn't, that was the entire point of my post. It's a gut feeling, and an overriding view that if we continue with the board in place as they are, it won't matter who comes in, I completely agree with everything you've said, it would be a massive gamble, I'm completely biased because I like what he has said and like him as a player, but would replace him in a shot with a whole host of managers. I just won't be as angry as most if he stays (providing it results in upstairs being shifted)

I completely agree, the fanbase (atleast on here, which is very prominent) is completely toxic towards RVN and that's why it's untenable. As i say, I have very little substance to base an argument for him staying, and i'd swap him for a whole list of managers that I believe are attainable in a heartbeat. But bring Danny Rohl in and keep everything the same and it will catch up with him at some point as it's looking at Wednesday with their end of season fall off. Ruud came into a club with no coaches and hasn't been able for whatever reason to bring his people in, a club that lied about transfer budgets, full of a team of players who do not give a single shit about the club, fans or community, who actively disrespect the club on and off the pitch. He's made a lot of mistakes with this bunch of players no doubt, it's purely gut feeling that next season we could do well, not an endorsement by any stretch. But the pure animosity towards him makes it very unlikely he stays, then again, with how the club operate at the moment it wouldn't surprise me if he got a new contract

EDIT FOR CLARITY: This is NOT an endorsement or an argument for keeping RVN, just general thoughts rattling around I know the majority will disagree with me, but I've slowly warmed to the idea of him staying (I'm still overall against it, but I hold much less anger if he stays), I'm first to admit this is purely from a bias position of him being one of my favourite players as a kid, and there is not a huge amount to back him from in his time here. I like the way he speaks, I think his standards are generally far higher than the club and board, I think we improved transitionally, but defensively and on an attacking front we marginally declined (the statistics between Ruud and Cooper as pointed out from another poster who compared them a few days ago are not too dissimilar, Cooper was very lucky to have Hermansen saving his skin every week), that doesn't make Ruud good enough yet. However that doesn't mean with time he can't be, and I truly believe we have enough next season to be top 6 if we get rid of a few big earners and focus on our promising youth, I'm curious to know what Ruud's rebuild would look like. Ruud seems to get on with multiple players and they often go to him after the final whistle, his 45+ minute conversation with Jamie suggests they at least have a respect for each other otherwise he would have been in and out. The club have lied time and time again, they lied to Brendan, they lied to Enzo, they lied to Ruud, I wouldn't be surprised if they lied to Cooper but he is just too nice to go public with it, we have a clear misalignment across all areas of the club and we need someone with a firm view of the future to pull everyone together, and that's something Ruud has spoken about. Again, I fully know I'm in the minority, and I don't hold this warming to Ruud strongly, it's a gut feeling. If you offered me Rohl, Urs Fischer, Rydstrom, and multiple other managers I and others have put forward over the last few years I'd push him out of the door myself, but if we continue to keep the key people in position whether that be the DOF, the scouting department who keep putting forward this overpaid dross or even the complete lack of a coaching network that chops and changes, leaves and isn't replaced, very little will change. Ruud has been an issue, but the biggest issues are further up the chain of command, I fully understand what I've said is riddled with holes and inconsistencies, this is just a gut feeling. With all of that said, I just can't see how his position could be tenable at the most basic level, forget the tactics, forget the player antics, forget the DOF, this fanbase has become very toxic towards Ruud in a very short period of time, so It doesn't look possible to keep him unless the final games are a massive improvement and Ruud in the summer fully puts his plan forward to the fans publicly, which isn't likely to happen, every day that he's still here the fanbase is winding itself up more.