indierich06

Because we had a squad, on paper, that should have been alright for the Championship. If senior pros carry on leaving, we are going to have a squad of youth team players left over.

I do feel quite sorry the England players because, due to the fact the tournaments only come once every two years, expectation is so high. If a Premier League club had a run of getting to the semi-finals of the FA Cup or the finals or the quarter-finals a few seasons in a row, or were challenging for the league most seasons, I think most fans would be reasonably happy with that to be honest. But because we have to wait so long for each tournament and all the games are compressed into a very short space of time, the pressure is infinitely higher than in club football. A third-place finish is more than we could have dreamed of even ten years ago, probably even under the "golden generation" - but because we haven't won it, it's automatically put down as a failure. On the other hand I can see why fans are disappointed given the nature of Tuchel's tactics during the Argentina match - I think England fans will always support the team as long as they're seen to be giving 100% and playing football the "right" way. Throwing on defenders instead of going down swinging was probably the fatal error this time round. I think Tuchel is probably the wrong man for the job - he's been all too willing to seemingly throw players under the bus to cover for his own deficiencies in this tournament - the prime example of him refusing to accept that his defensive tactics were what led to the Argentina resurgence in the semi-final match, and instead blaming the English mentality. The FA has invested so much money over the past few years in improving the standard of academies and young player development and coaching throughout the country but one thing I feel they don't invest enough in is the improvement of English coaches. I feel like we should have a pipeline of young English candidates ready to come through and manage the national team. Instead it feels that we're scrabbling around for options. The English managers that we have available to us don't seem to be that suited to the role (i.e. Gareth Southgate) and the international coaches we tend to go for are never that impressive. If you look at Tuchel and Southgate, you can't really say that either of these coaches have a winning mentality. It does seem like Pep Guardiola was the first choice ahead of Tuchel after Southgate left the role. If the FA are serious about challenging for trophies in the short term, I would really go all out to try and tempt Guardiola into the role again. In the long term, I would love to see a proper coaching programme designed at creating elite English managers - what that looks like, I don't know.

Kinell. Pattern looks like something you'd see on a can of Relentless!

Sorry how does that stop us from offloading players? We either can't afford to keep most of them, or we need to sell to sign new players. Getting these players out of the door isn't manager-dependent. Also, I thought the whole point of us hiring continuity budget Pep-ball coaches is that we could sign players to play in a system, not for a specific coach - so again, why does that need a manager in place?

Very concerning how little seems to be going on, given the scale of the task we have this summer.

Surely someone will take a punt on him for 3-5m?

Think this has shown up in another thread, but there is NO WAY we should be loaning-out-with-a-view-to-maybe-buying any of our dead wood this summer, sell them and get them gone. We don't need this loser hanging around the club like a bad smell, he's already made those comments about 'not signing for Leicester to play in League One' - well he can go as soon as he likes far as I'm concerned.

I bought a 4k projector for the garden and a 120" screen - quality is crazy. Will be having some good garden parties for the England matches over the next few weeks!

They owe us a player that's not a total binfire tbf.

Well he's here now, so may as well get behind him. There needs to be some serious incomings and outgoings now, we've got the manager situation sorted, we literally can't afford to hang around. Need to give him a squad that can get us out of this league, and if he truly wants a cultural reset then there are about 5-10 players who need to be bombed out before the players return for pre-season.

Would prefer Dom Ballard if we can get him, sounds like we're still very interested in Lorent Tolaj as well.

It's got his wife on it so it will defo be shit anyway, but the main problem with Vardy is that he's v funny when he's not trying to be, but when he's trying to get a laugh in front of the camera he's just cringey. Like when he just happened to get his giant cock shaped bottle opener out on the Netflix doc - sidesplitting stuff.

Sorry but Scott Parker isn't dropping down to League 1.

No way Challinor is even on our radar unfortunately. I reckon he will be pitching up at Blackburn or Sheff Weds in due course. If it's Wednesday then it makes our job that much harder next season too.

Frankly, if the alternative is employing another Enzo/Pep-ball fanatic who is obsessed with passing around the back and buying a squad of players who fit that brief, probably at exorbitant cost & wages, then I think actually I would rather we just take a gamble on Christian Fuchs. League One is not the place for this bullshit. Much more important we get a motivator and someone who can reset standards at the club IMO, Fuchs appears to have done that in spades at Newport.