cityfanlee23

I think realistically we have to look at the long term, we are coming up with a much weaker squad than we went down with last season, we don't have much to spend, we are facing a points deduction that could be up to 10 points or something ridiculous, If Potter came in, firstly he would command a bigger wage, secondly he would want to bring in his staff who would likely command a bigger wage having worked at Chelsea etc (remember we don't know what the ongoing situation is with Chelsea and the staff) and they could easily be still getting a paycheck from Chelsea that may end if they take another job. Then say Potter comes in, I'd be happy with it, but then we get slapped with -10 and go down, will he want to stick around? I think realistically he would leave at the first chance putting us back to square one, a new manager coming in and wanting a revamp. With Cooper, providing he shows the fans he is building something that we can clearly identify and we support (as for example Pearson was with the great escape), even if we go down we have a manager that will likely come down with us. THIS, is the attitude we need from our manager. Forget his Forest ties, if he comes in and takes this approach, I'll back him fully.

My gut instinct is that he will keep us up and do okay here, maybe bring us stability and hopefully put us into the mid table again.

Most Forest fans seemingly didn’t want him sacked and were of the opinion that he would have kept them up. Seems to me the fans fully blamed the board for signing so many players and felt Steve Cooper was doing a good job trying to tame the circus upstairs.

Same here. Meh is the only real emotion at this point. But I think he's an honest guy and he's likeable, he seems to fully involve himself in clubs, and at least we might get some game time for the likes of Alves etc.

Right time to go off on a youtube echo chamber binge finding people that love him to convince myself Leicester are going to win the world cup

I would say for all of Rudkins flaws, managers typically have been one of his stronger points, they haven't always been inspiring but we've done well with managers. Nige, Ranieri, Shakey got the job on the back of a massive response when Ranieri went, Puel left the club in a far better position than he inherited in terms of players and the fact we were a far more dynamic team when he left, Rodgers was fantastic until he wasn't, and it's Tops decision to keep him on that spoiled it, Maresca got us up. Rudkin has many faults in his role but IMO his management appointments have been solid. He's probably going to spend 40m on non league players but I hope he's got it right with cooper

I've put yes, albeit begrudgingly. He's proven to give younger players a chance which is something we are going to have to focus on both in the Academy and in our transfer approach, I think his record at the premier league leaves something to be desired, but he was out of the relegation zone at a Forest team that really scatter gunned the transfers and rumours suggest he was effectively removed from a lot of the transfer process. This does leave me with concerns over his ability to find a player capable of this level. The football wasn't especially exciting but our options are limited. If given the choice I'd prefer Corberan or Potter over Cooper, but if it saves us 5-6m (larger wages for potter + his team, or having to buy out Corberan and his team) that could be the money needed to bring someone like Cags back on loan with an option to buy, so maybe signing someone out of work could benefit us if we are clever. I'd have taken him during our mini crisis towards the end of last season, but having been given a month to properly think about it and look at our options, I'd back him but would prefer other candidates. He seems a likeable guy and seems honest, hopefully he can get the players onside because we need them running through brick walls for us.

Cags would be a very good signing. Was a massive improvement to the squad under Dean Smith, knows the club, I think he likes it, makes sense for both parties.

Please put the pitchforks away as you read this, it's not a "suggestion" as such. But what do people think of Deli Alli but only if he signed a pay-as-you-play deal like Owen did at United? He's obviously had issues and it's been very publicly covered, but he seems to have turned a corner, he sounds very honest when talking about his desire to get back to his best. Free agent, 28 years old so has time ahead of him.

But also yes I completely agree. There’s been many times over the years where I’ve seen us falter and thought “Jose would have got us over the line” or Ancelotti or whoever it may be.

I wonder whether we also need to come up with some sort of way to align the premier league with the national team as Germany did a few years ago where the Bundesliga were typically playing a style of football that suited the national team as a whole and led to a good few years of them being on top. We have the most competitive league in the world with the best talents, and it doesn’t seem to align with the way the national team plays, perhaps the FA can work with premier league teams to come up with a long term plan to try to bring England trophies. What’s the point in having all of these internationals, often playing front footed football only to get to the England training camp and play cautiously. Whenever we let the leash off we look so much better, we need a semi unified approach with English clubs to get the most out of players nationally.

Yeah you make a fair point I haven’t really looked at past runs of other nations, I guess it’s just the typical tournament feeling we get where it feels like we go into a tournament thinking we can win, then falter at the first challenge. I think over the next few tournaments the hype will increase because we have got some real generational talents coming through now and we need to find a way to really utilise them.

Good point I had forgotten about that, thanks for the reminder.

So had a quick jot down of our tournaments under Southgate. WC 2018 Group was Belgium, Panama and Tunisia, knockouts Colombia, Sweden and lost to Croatia Euro 2021* was Croatia, Czechia and Scotland, knockouts Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and then lost the final to Italy WC 2022 was USA, Iran, Wales, knockouts Senegal then lost to France Euro 2024 we have Denmark, Slovenia and Serbia.

Is Southgate one of the luckiest tournament managers in the world in terms of groups/routes to later stages? Trying to think of a tournament where we didn't have a relatively easy route to the latter stages. We beat Germany in one of them but they were hardly the Germany of the early 10's.

I like bowen he's an honest player and works hard. Reminds me a bit of Marc Albrighton, not the best in the squad but he's as honest as they come.

Annoyingly it should be easier to score now, there are huge gaps all over the field and precisely zero white shirts occupying them.

Yep, we are at one of those moments in time where we genuinely have a new golden generation, at a time where most international teams such as Germany/France/Spain are also going through a transition to loads of young talents, and you could look at Bellingham/Foden/Saka/Rice/Kane and say yeah we have just as much top-class talent as our nearest rivals, then you watch us play and it just doesn't flow at all. Take the leash off and we bury this game in 10 minutes, but Southgate refuses.

Love Southgate as an ambassador for the country, he's a great guy, a proud Englishman and cares so much for our national team. But I've felt since day 1 that he just doesn't suit the national team given it's full of players who play quite aggressive, attacking football. Southgate's football is just too cautious, we are wasting real-world-class talent at the moment, we are winning, but this should be way more comfortable.

Bellingham is seriously special. His ceiling genuinely could be one of the greatest players in our history, as long as fans like me and the media don't hype him up too much

You could put us against Serbia under 15s and we would still play cautiously.

England have often suffered with the same issue Maresca ball had vs lower opposition. We switch the play so slowly the opponents have a lifetime to get into position. Can see this being 1-0 or 4-0.

The temptation to make a duplicate of this thread is so strong right now

The way he is currently misleading tens of millions of voters on the NHS reminds me of 2015/16 when on hundreds of occasions he celebrated the Norwegian model, telling us "how awful it would be to be rich and free like the Norwegians", there are so many clips of him planting the Norway deal seed in peoples minds, within days of Leave winning, he claimed he never wanted it, and that he wanted to force the government to take no deal because "no deal is better than a bad deal" (Norway) Frustratingly, he's a good orator, and he knows his voters won't research his claims.

One thing that is annoying me at the moment is the sheer amount of mistruths Nigel Farage is getting away with. He needs someone walking behind him at all times fact checking him. His latest being about the cost of the NHS vs French healthcare. Farage conveniently fails to tell gullible voters, that although it sounds somewhat sensible that we need to change the way we run the NHS because "we spend the same amount as France but get worse results" He fails to tell people that when you compare French Healthcare vs the NHS and adjust the costs for PPP (Purchase power parity) we would actually need to increase our healthcare spending by 20% or about £60bn to match French healthcare spending. On the one hand he's telling everyone you can't just keep throwing money at it, whilst on the other pushing for a system that is 20% more expensive than ours. He knows his voters won't fact-check him, so he's purposely not comparing us to France in relative terms because it's an easy way to convince people they are getting a raw deal to try to shoehorn more privatisation into it.