Steve Earle

51 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

The Cooper appointment was the worst I've ever felt in my personal or professional life

You have my sympathy. I’m afraid to say you can expect disappointment on a massive scale several times over a personal and professional life. Sorry to be the bearer, and all that.

1 hour ago, davieG said:

 

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These are the clubs with the most relegations in English football (out of the Top 4 divisions). The Imps are in there, along with a very surprising Premier League club!

I won’t be alone on here in having seen, I think, 10 of them, beginning in 1969.

Still, there’s a record there for the taking. Go on Top my son, you can do it. 18 here we come!

43 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Well, yes—hard to disagree with any of that. We can only hope that McCarron's appointment signals a shift away from being a manager club and towards being a club with a long-term strategy. I guess we won't know until the managerial appointment is made.

And of course we won’t necessarily know then either.

50 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

You'd be surprised at how often people seem to upgrade Gerrard's potential because of some vague sense that he might be able to replicate Lampard's achievements, despite there being no connection between them other than being England midfielders around the same time. I'm biased against him because I'm acquainted with two longstanding Villa fans who both describe him as the worst manager they've ever had.

 

Of the names mentioned, the only one I'd be ok with is Challinor—and as far as I'm aware we haven't even been linked with him. An inspired left field appointment seems our best hope.

But that’s where we are, isn’t it? Hoping for an ‘inspired’ appointment. They are bound to get one right eventually.

This is what I think Henry Winter meant when he described us as a ‘manager club’. In other words, absent anything resembling a club strategy, the buffoons in charge keep rolling the dice hoping to drop on the next Enzo or Nige.

But every passing year’s financial missteps make it less and less likely that any manager could succeed here. 

3 minutes ago, Lesta Legend said:

Same with any league we’re in. Many clubs are moving away from it. But like you’ve said, it will be even harder in a more much physical league. 
 

Don’t expect our strategy to change unless Rudkin or Top are gone. 

A strategy you say? That’d be a start.

2 hours ago, Blue ROI said:

We League 2 next season.

An optimist huh?

You think there'll be another season after next?

I think we need, among many others, a Steve Howard-style ST. Someone for wingers to cross to, someone decent at hold up play.

If we go the more likely route (4-2-3-1 with a rapid CF) then we could do a lot worse than Sidibeh from Stockport. Impressed watching him now.

4 hours ago, CarolinaFox said:

McCarron comes from city group, they use a slower, data-driven process . His job is to literally rebuild the club's playing philosophy from the ground up, identify who needs to stay, who goes, identifying recruitment profiles for league one players, thinking long term about club success and then appointing a manager who can get the job done. He won't be hiring a manager to impose a system on the club, he will be hiring a manager who fits the system he wants, with the player profiles he believes we need to make that system work. And that takes time to get right - to really unpack the data and make decisions. Clubs like Bournemouth have an identity, and a recruitment strategy that's been working, we don't. So its easier for them to make faster decisions and have replacement managers in place: they aren't reinventing their playing identity. McCarron won't be hiring a manager based on vibes or on name recognition. I actually think McCarron's the first real sensible person in our club to get us out of the mess we've been in the last few seasons: hiring on vibes (Ruud) or impulse (Cooper). I totally get the frustration: we don't have time to waste, sure. We also don't have the money to waste on a poor fit, and I'd rather the club take its time to get this right than us start off this season poorly. This is such a big season for us, we need to get this right. 

This is of course right. 👏

May I introduce you @CarolinaFox to paragraphs?
 

Shouldn’t the thread be called ‘League One - Who Cares?’

I don’t, for one, having given up my season ticket after 45 years, & given up completely on the incompetent buffoons that allegedly run this empty vessel.

I have something between admiration & respect for those of you who still have the ‘pashun’. I guess I might have sustained that if I were still in my 30s or 40s.

The manager next season? It’s maybe 10-15% of the problem.

5 hours ago, teblin said:

My gut tells me this will get a lot worse before it gets better.

It’s not your guts @teblin. It’s your brain.

With Top & Rudkin in charge it’s a certainty that things will get worse.

The thing that’s not clear is whether it’ll ever get better under these clowns 🤡 

1 minute ago, Ric Flair said:

Barnes gets in most UCL teams starting XI bar perhaps 6-8 teams.

He really doesn’t! Obviously IMO.

Here’s 10 teams he doesn’t get in, without any thought at all:

Arsenal

Man C

Man U

Liverpool

Villa

Chelsea

PSG

Bayern Munich

Atletico Madrid

Real Madrid

Barcelona (11th added in case you felt he’d start for Villa. Or Chelsea).

Remember, he’s not even the first choice LW at a Newcastle side in the bottom half of the league!

46 minutes ago, MrsJohnMurphy said:

Is that the same Harvey Barnes that has 6 goals and 3 assists in 12 Champions League matches?

We’re talking at cross purposes. 
 

Barnes isn’t, wasn’t & never will be an elite level player. I was responding to a post, initially, that suggested that as well as Ndidi, Tielemans & Maddison, our other ‘European level’ players from the recent past might have included Albrighton & Barnes.

I took ‘European level’ to have meaning more than ‘played in Europe’. Perhaps implying elite level.

Those Barnes stats are indeed impressive. But they don’t tell the whole story. I can’t think of many Champions League teams that would want him as a starter, for example 

5 hours ago, davieG said:

Muzzy, Lennon and Gibson were better, more consistent and for a longer time.

Pretty sure they never played together?!?

My claim, on behalf of Ndidi, Tielemans & Maddison, was that they were the best midfield trio we’ve ever put out, certainly in my time - 1965 onwards.

Jonathan Northcroft wrote that we had four world class players in 2015-16: Schmeichel, Kante, Mahrez and Vardy, who ‘was world class at what he did’

11 hours ago, Uncle Monty said:

Barnes played in the champs league this year! Sharky was absolute class in that champs league season. 

 

If they aren't European quality players, what is your definition?

I’m suggesting that you implied a certain standard, not just ‘played in Europe’. 
 

Sharky played at the absolute maximum of his potential for a handful of games in the Champions League, not all of them. I’ve never seen Barnes have a really dominant game in Europe.

13 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I mean Albrighton's output in Europe probably puts him up there with our most consistent players over that period.

 

Goals vs Bruges and Sevilla. Goals and assists vs Rennes, assist with the last kick of the game away at Braga. Barnes also had a decent return for us in Europe and has done well in such competitions for Newcastle.

He had his moments Ric, and I was there to see him score our first Champions League goal. 
 

But it can’t seriously be argued that he performed at the level of Ndidi Tielemans & Maddison - comfortably the best midfield we’ve ever put out (unless someone who saw the Ice Kings begs to differ). 
 

Let’s not forget that Sharky lost his place to Ayoze Perez either.

2 hours ago, shen said:

Yes, I know they were in the squad when we got relegated. But these players were also part of the most consistently good team that most of us have witnessed in our lifetime. All three of those were easily European standard midfielders - and I'd argue you could add Albrighton and Barnes to that list. 
 

The class they consistently showed, I would argue, hasn't been bettered by any in my lifetime, not even Izzet or Lennon.

 

Cartwright, Page and Braybrooke may turn out to be great prospects, but they're a far, far cry from what the fans have been treated to in very recent memory.

You were doing so well, and then I read ‘…and I’d argue you could add Albrigton & Barnes to that list’.

Never.

Good Premier League players both, but ‘easily European standard’? No.

Not unless by ‘European standard’ you meant, and I don’t think you did, could play for OH Leuven, or similar?

Agree with the rest 👏

6 hours ago, Long Eaton Fox said:

Did any of the younger players. Page, Aluko,Monga,Silko, Gray and Soutter returning do well?

Thought Aluko looked really good. Let’s hope he stays. He’s definitely ready for League One.

Page & Monga showed flashes. I wouldn’t be too disappointed if Monga left for big money. Page, however, we must keep, at least for a couple of seasons. 
Silko offered more (in a more open game, against tiring players) than either Monga or the execrable Mavididi.

Souttar, if we can keep him, is a potential captain.

I don’t know if it’s been mentioned elsewhere or if this is the right thread, but felt I had to mention the ‘It was what it was’ podcast on our title triumph, featuring Jonathan Northcroft. 
 

Excellent.

Reminds us of a time when we were ahead of the curve, not so far behind it we can’t even see it.

My first game at Filbo was home to Northampton Town in their only season in the First Division in 1965-66.

They lost just about every away game that season but if memory serves, held us to a 0-0 draw.

I’d been 8 or 9 times before I finally saw a home win - kind of set the tone for the next 50 years!

Surely he’s gone by now? Top? Top?!?

Have mine @LCFC2299

2 hours ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

I think this is something that should be framed and sent to Aiyawatt and Co to help finally land the message of what he and his cronies have done to our club and fanbase. 

They have too. I’ve seen multiple relegations. I’m used to the cyclical nature of being a Leicester fan. But this? Sheer bloody-minded incompetence for 5-6 years has taken us from what should have been a minimum of a decade in the top half of the Premier League to League 1. And we’ve not bottomed out yet.

I won’t be back while Top & Rudkin are there. Hopefully, relegation will hasten their departure.
 

The ties that bound me to this club (arranging weddings & holidays round fixture lists for example) are gone forever. I’m out of the habit of going now (Friday will be my 4th game of the season) and can’t see that returning under any circumstances.

But I have to go one more time. I’ve had some of the happiest moments of my life at that ground: Nalis, Steve Howard, Vardy (the volley against Liverpool), Mahrez (Chelsea at home), Andrea Bocelli, Sevilla, etc etc. 

Bastards.