Claudio Fannieri

This has been awful, can’t defend, can’t pass and offer little to no attacking threat. Cannot wait for this horrible season to end

Great shout and would love this to happen

The biggest problem is if you are going to persist with playing out from the back like we do then you have to pick a deep lying playmaker who can collect the ball from the goalkeeper or defenders and be able to break lines with their passing unfortunately when you are picking the likes of Ndidi, Skipp and Soumare you get players who predominantly want to pass it backwards or sideways.

We are so one paced, predictable and poor, awful and it’s been the case since pre season.

Have that you tree sniffing feckers 👊🏼😂

Yet another nod to the future with players like Faes and Ayew in the starting XI what is the actual fecking point. I really do despair at this club.

Makes me smile when people say hire Dyche then get rid; what is the point of that , our recruitment will be more scattergun and we will lurch from one style to another. simple action is set a strategy of playing fast attacking and exciting football, focus on our academy prospects with new singings being young ambitious players and the odd more experienced pro. That then provides a blue print for the future and we can then go and attract a manager and have a long term sustainable plan rather than lurching from pillar to post to achieve a short term goal which is actually not providing sustainable results.

I would love for someone to provide a list of the players other than Dwight McNeill he promoted from the academy and gave meaningful game time to, because there isn’t any others I am aware of that have played a significant number of games. he has some qualities and attributes sadly lacking at the club but for me he is so far away from where we are as a club that i genuinely fear what direction of travel we heading in. We build a new training facility designed to help develop and retain our own young talent then potentially employ a manager who has a proven track record of barely ever using or trusting academy players. Top and Rudkin please make it make sense

In his 13 years at Burnley and Everton you can literally count on one hand the number of academy players he has promoted to the 1st team …let alone give them a significant number of appearances, only McNeil has really developed into an established player. so bring him in and you can pretty much forget seeing a team/squad brimming with the likes of Nelson, Aluko, Braybrooke, Cartwright, Alves, Monga, Evans et al. The lack of clarity and consistency in the decision making at our club truly beggars belief

Nixon was right about Cooper and a few stories about us so could be some truth in it or Dyche’s agent is planting the story to push other clubs to act as there are a few teams looking for new managers in the championship, with Southampton, Watford and possibly Hull having vacancies.

Dyche’s achievements with Burnley were a good few years ago and I would argue that whilst he kept Everton up, Moyes has shown there is way more talent in that squad than what Dyche could extract. His methods, tactics and style are outdated, he would have been an ok short term appointment when we sacked Cooper but that is it. His shelf life at top level football has expired in my opinion, similar to Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes etc etc he will probably go on to become a bit of a fire fighter or end up at smaller unfashionable clubs who want a bit of his grit to make a difference. This would be another stale, abject appointment that fails to harness the squad, facilities and academy players at our disposal

I would be happy to see us go back to Puma, some of their kit designs are really good.

And this absolutely sums up our board, everything they do is about the here and now, there is no proactive long term planning it’s all now about short term sticking plasters, this would be another ill thought out decision and yet again show a complete lack of joined up strategic thinking. if this happens our most recent managerial hires would have gone from Maresca to Cooper to RVN to Dyche, absolutely zero continuity in the 3 following Enzo, all just scattergun appointments with zero thought about playing style. current squad and most importantly how to maximise the academy talent at our disposal. Everything about this club now is pretty desperate and these short term decisions will continue to bite us and I have no doubt we will end up with a lengthy stay in the EFL if we do not make a progressive appointment and bring in a innovative young upcoming manager and give them the chance to work in an environment where the structure and culture of the club is overhauled.

Or Ruud earns the extra £3m in prize money to cover his pay off 😂😂

I am no fan of Cov but I think some of the reaction to last night is a little premature, whilst they have made it a tad more difficult for themselves, they are no way out of the tie and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if they got a result and got to Wembley.

I like a lot of what you are saying, however I would class Ruud as a big name and yet he hasn’t really been able to get a tune out of this lot, I think the issue is not reputation but how you sell your vision, Enzo wasn’t a household name but he managed to get everyone to buy into his idea at run start. With Ruud it strikes me more that he has seen what an utter shit show it has been how shit the standards and culture has become spoke a few home truths and a few have pretty much downed tools, alongside a few injuries to key players like Abdul, Riccy, Mads etc and the very dubious summer recruitment and the whole thing has been an utter disaster, hence the need for a complete overhaul in the summer.

I do wonder if Ruud will leave on the day of the Premier League AGM as this is the day we officially become a Championship club. Now if this is the case a proactive club and board would already been drawing up shortlists, speaking with prospective replacements and be in a position to announce the new man within days ……..however this is Top, Rudkin and Leicester City we are talking about so no doubt we will be scrambling around the week before pre season still trying to bring in Graham Potter 😂

I think it’s the compensation due to Ruud that is stopping that happening

Read my full post ……I actually give them credit for that appointment, whilst adding I think a big sway was his connections to Man City and Pep particularly when you have an obsession with emulating the Man City style of play. The board tend to have a safety first policy when appointing managers so go for experience or reputation over being brave and plumping for a young and upcoming manager I honestly believe our shortlist will comprise of the following - Russell Martin Sean Dyche Gary O’Neil Steven Gerrard Rafa Benitez when I would hope it would be more like - Miron Muslic Danny Rohl Liam Manning Ritchie Wellens John Mousinho Tom Cleverley

All 3 would be exciting, progressive appointments but you have to look beyond final league positions, do a bit of bit of research to appreciate what a good job all 3 have done. And here lies the problem, as I really don’t think our decision makers have that in their locker, the remit is usually out of work and previous premier league experience or a big name/reputation. Look at the managerial appointments since KP took over - Sousa, Sven, Ranieri, Ruud - all strange appointments at the time, given our circumstances and very much based on reputation, aura rather than recent track record. Only Ranieri can really be deemed to be successful. Puel, Cooper, Dean Smith - all out of work and fit the criteria of having previous premier league experience, not really exciting or out of the box thinking, in fact quite lazy recruitment as all 3 had been deemed not good enough at similar sized clubs in the premier league. Pearson - reappointed following intervention by the Birch after he had been pushed out of his job to move to Hull as deemed not high profile enough. Again poor initial judgement but at least had the sense to swallow pride and bring him back. Rodgers - was a brilliant appointment and at the time felt like a real statement of intent, first couple of years was fantastic but then the club allowed him too much control and the rest is history Maresca - a bit of a Hail Mary appointment but one the club deserves a fair amount of credit for at least thinking outside the box a little however I think his connections to Man City and Pep help seal the deal, not sure Enzo would have been considered if he was manager of Watford, Pompey, Plymouth or a Leyton Orient This is why I think we will end up with yet another stale appointment like a Russell Martin or Sean Dyche based on previous experience I really can’t see a brave progressive appointment such as Rohl, Muslic, Cleverley, Mousinho or Wellens because I don’t think Top and Rudkin are that brave to go for a youngish manager who doesn’t have the experience or doesn’t have a big name reputation. It’s lazy recruitment and reeks of reactive management rather than proactive where we constantly tracking and monitoring young managers.

I haven’t seen that only thing I have read is that the contract could be cancelled

They are looking to cancel his deal, he will walk away and rip up his contract meaning he will be able to negotiate a healthy signing on fee which mitigates any reduced wages he may have to accept.

I wonder if this will be announced following the Premier league AGM when we officially become a Championship club.

Not if we have to contribute to his wages and pay any other contractual obligation payments, any shortfall would be liable to us and would then have to be included in our PSR calculation. Him leaving for free clears his wage with no negative PSR consequences.

Because it’s highly unlikely the new club would pay a decent enough fee and cover all his wages plus we would be liable for any contractual bonuses etc makes sense to let him go for free if we can rip up his contract, remove the liability and free up significant budget.