Iwebema

We haven't even tried, which is disappointing. From what I've read/seen/heard weve approached this window with the handbrake on, we've barely lifted a finger other than a load of scouting. As a club it just feels like we've just given up. They've dropped a bollock with Cooper and RVN and I don't think they know what to do, so they are just doing nothing and hoping it magically sorts itself out

If they come back with 10m rising to 15, you just have to take that. He will be useful in the championship next year, but I just don't see a top level player there at all.

He may have been rubbish for us, but I don't think you can under estimate the impact of bringing back a club legend can do for you. He will be far more motivated than he was for us. They also play in a 3 which suits Coady more, always has done. That said getting a big earner off the books to probably the only team that would ever take him on close to what we were paying him, does make some sense.

It's a financial move, and one considering we are unlikely to do any business in this window is signalling our acceptance that we are very unlikely to stay up. Whilst coady has been a complete waste (add it to the list) to give him to Wolves where he's a club legend, who are our direct rivals and cant defend is beyond dumb even for us, which just makes it even more clear to me we are making plans for the championship.

In all the pre Tottenham leaks it was reported that we signed someone for the championship season on 70k a week who got a promotion pay rise to around 100k. I think it can only be coady or winks and with coady being on the fringes of England teams and offering that "leadership" we were lacking I would say its him. Either way I would bet he's not far off it with 2 more years left, and there's probably no subsequent relegation clause because we probably didn't plan that far ahead

It has to be PSR related. Maybe we are actually planning for the championship and we just need to get Coadys wages off the books now, considering he's rumoured to be on 100k a week. That's the only logical angle I can try and take.

Probably should of proof read that. At least you know I'm not an AI bot...or am I 🤖

We've probably got too much PTSD related to transfers with Sporting

It's been like this for years unfortunately, the whole operation is run by chancers who are out of their depth. There hasn't been a long term plan since Vichai died, I know Vichai wasn't perfect, but he had a dream and a plan and everything he did was to achieve that, even when he got it wrong he would course correct. Since then we have fumbled along season to season just about doing the bare minimum while clubs overtook us and we admired ourselves and slowly let standards slip every year, no real footballing plans, it's only been about increasing the brand, forgetting it's only as good as the team on the pitch.

If we treat this as the truth and there is some money but they don't think it can improve the squad, I have to question where the hell we are looking for players. You can't get much worse defensively, I refuse to believe there aren't better players out there than faes or vesty who aren't expensive, just reeks of an incompetent scouting and recruiting network looking in the wrong places.

This is a long post so brace yourselves....just having a look through all the premier league teams DOFs in recent years, just a mini snippet of each club. Not sure if it's useful! But I thought it was interesting 😅 The TLDR is quite simple good DOFs stay in for a long time or get head hunted to go elsewhere. Poor ones get moved on after a few years.... Bournemouth - Richard Hughes 8 years, after successfully establishing them in the premier league has now gone to Liverpool and Simon Francis has taken over from this season Arsenal - 2019 they appointed Edu in various roles, he's largely been attributed for helping them finally get to grips with the post Wenger years. Moving on to something with the dodgy forest owner now, this is his last season. Villa - Monchi, I think most know about his long term success with sevilla as sporting director, was there about 19 years? Been with villa for 2 years now and in most people opinions has taken the club to the next level. Brentford - Phil Giles couldn't find the exact date quickly, but in the region of a decade in the role and has been a key part of their rise up the football pyramid. Brighton - Currently David Weir but took over from Dan Ashworth who went to Newcastle after 4 years with brighton, ashworth was quite key in building on their "model" (buy young and cheap from lesser known teams and supplement with older experienced players, milner, lallana, welbeck etc) he was with brighton from 2018 after leaving a role in the FA national set up. On to Weir they've still largely been a success but there have been a few decisions recently that have put the spot light on him. Chelsea - David Barnard he's been with the club for over 20 years in various technical/sporting roles, was the only member of the back office to survive the takeover in 2022 and was appointed DoF, they also have paul winstanley since the takeover. Its difficult to judge pre 2022 performance given they had the ambramovich years pre heavy PSR etc. But certainly a bit chaotic since, but the ownership are very much that! Palace - Dougie Freedman has been in the role since 2017, quite up and down, I think he started poorly with managers like Vieira etc. But has since turned it around with Glasner. The one thing he is praised for is building a good scouting and player recruitment, if you look at the wingers they signed, either to compliment or replace zaha - olise, eze and now esse, it highlights a style, forward thinking strategy, they would be top of the list for someone like Poku at Peterborough Everton - Kevin Thewell only been in since 2022. Has had a very eclectic career I wouldn't say he fills you full of confidence, wolves to New York Red bull, previous academy director at wolves 👀 Previous to that the had Marcel Brand from 2018 who was terrible and they moved him on and our very famous Steve Walsh 2 years before that where he was sacked for recommending spending 150m on players and Everton were still in a relegation battle (it is noted that he did recommend other players like Andy Robertson and haaland but the board said no) Fulham - Tony Kahn the owners son, been in position since 2017, reading around alot of Fulham fans consider him to have been quite poor up until very recently, he made alot of bad decisions and was active on social media calling players out, his background is in American sports and wrestling so he was never going to be a quiet one...football wise hes heavily into data and analytics, I think in honesty he would of been sacked 3 years in if he wasn't the owners son, sky sports and BBC pundits said he should of been sacked for the poor job he's done. However the last couple of years it looks like he's learnt alot from his mistakes and got it together a bit more. Ipswich - Gary Probert took over in 2021 after 8 years as the Bristol city academy director, been a very pivitol figure in their rise with Mckenna. Before that it looks like they had Dave Bowman who has links to Mick Mccarthy, went from Ipswich to Cardiff with Mick safe to say he's not very good and has been moved on quickly everywhere he's been, at least in recent times anyway. Liverpool - as mentioned they took the Bournemouth DOF because of the great work he's done. Whilst we can appreciate they are a well run club in recent years, interesting to see all those contract issues.... Man city - txiki begiristain not much to be said, been there 13 years won it all, hard not to given the money! Man united - Jason Wilcox and previous Dan Ashworth, I mean they are just a basket case of a club, they are run very similar to us but they just have alot more money to throw away in mistake after mistake. Ashworth obviously well respected got out quickly. Good luck to wilcox. Newcastle - As we know took Ashworth from Brighton, was successful and got head hunted by man united and probably wishes he never left! They now have Paul Mitchell who has an interesting mixed bag of a career, was a key part of the recruiting team from southampton in 2012 (the potch lead one with mane etc) he then went with Potch to spurs and did a great job where they almost won a title, but finished 3rd in a two horse race. Spent the last few years at Monaco rebuilding them. Good track record essentially well respected and actively head hunted. Forest - Ross Wilson been there since 2023, quite a poor track record, was at Rangers before and was blamed for alot of the issues, poor recruitment poor management. You could argue his approach with forest has been similarly chaotic, but for now, this season at least it's worked. But they had to break PSR to get there and do alot of dodgy deals with Lyon...trying to not be bitter 😅 Spurs - Johan Lange since 2023 was credited with overall good recruitment at Villa but he had some expensive misses which ultimately led to villa thinking they could do better and bought in Monchi. Difficult to judge lange atm, especially given its levy and spurs....before him was paritici who again head hunted because he was good, had a successfulish 2 years with spurs, bought in Conte etc. But got banned for 3 years from football for a capital gains issue West ham - they just paid 1m to bring in potters guy...previously they had Tim Stedhein who joined in 2023 after a good run with leverkuesen and bremen so has a track record, but it hasn't worked out he had a falling out with lopetengui. The owners thought it best to move stedhein on and bring in the guy potter wanted especially given stedhein had overseen loptenguis disastrous appointment. Wolves - matt hobbs has been in since 2022, jury is still out on him I think, has been with wolves since 2015 in a number of roles, they definitely took a cheap easy option, previous to that was Scott sellars who was very poor and was removed after a few years of under performance and a bad transfer record....

I'm going to need someone to explain to me how faes got 1.8 and vestergaard got 2.1? Some of you are way too kind 😅

It all just sounds very messy, he's angry he's been lied to and wants out, Top is aware of the optics of sacking 2 managers in 20 odd games, especially one he hand picked.... as you can imagine there is no plan for what if ruud isn't very good, we are very much scrambling here, and who the hell is willingly going to a club that from the outside is operating like Watford ha I would imagine it must be on Ruuds mind walking out on 2 clubs in a row isn't a good look and as much as it would be great if he did and then took shots at Rudkin/Top etc. I can't imagine if he wants a management career taking shots at owners and DoFs after 2 walk outs is going to get your career on track...you become a bit of a marked man with nothing to back it up so teams will just stay well clear, plenty of other managers out there. It's honestly such a mess, I'm finding it really hard to have any positivity at all, it must be pushing even the happiest of happy clappers to the brink

It's all a bit Brendan now, wants out feels like he's been lied to, but is being convinced to stay on when his hearts not in it. Only difference is he's a complete novice and it's showing

The investment is unfortunately largely in our wages, we were paying players champions league level wages when we got relegated, and that's not really changed. When we went down, rather than looking at younger hungry players we bought in Coady and Winks who are both rumoured to be on between 70-100k a week. We renewed vestergaard on a 3 year 70k+ a week deal. It's not that king power don't have money, we just can't spend it because we have to operate under PSR restrictions that we've made an absolute pigs ear of. Look at Newcastle, they have Saudi money but had to sell almiron to balance the books and can't bring anyone in. Just to add it would not surprise me if Vardy, vesty, winks, soumare and coady earn the same as the entire Ipswich squad.

We didn't go for Moyes because we want to play an attractive brand of football. I think moyes just ruled himself out of managing a team in a relegation battle, but his relationship with Everton was the exception. Basically we didn't want him and he wouldn't of come anyway, but no actual talks happened.

Hes a good championship player, that's his level. As we've seen the gap between being a good championship midfielder and a bottom end Premier league midfielder is quite big!

Yep, as much as Winks etc think they are above Dyche ball, when your wingers are Ayew and Reid....the squad they've built is kind of designed for it...as gross as that is

Yep, I don't profess to understand the inner workings of it all, but the bits I have heard and then when you just watch it all unfold do tell lead you to believe it's all a bit scattergun and chaotic, no real strategy and logic, every decision is taken in isolation and there aren't any proper football people around the club giving people like rudkin/top/Susan a reality check. Blind leading the blind.

The problem is, we haven't learnt lessons from the relegation season (shocking I know) we have players on big wages who we won't be able to shift again, who don't want to play in the championship and Top etc. are only now recognising the prospect of relegation is actually real. I never rated Cooper but one thing I heard was he was far more realistic about this squads limitations than "the boards" who believed we could finish around 11th, which is partly why he got sacked (on top of the players hating him) we had unrealistic expectations on what could be achieved.

For what it's worth, I do have some contacts within football, unfortunately linked to forest....from what they've said, all the press releases before Tottenham about RVN wanting to walk were all true, he's fuming that he's not been backed and is having to do it with this squad. The complication is he was hand picked by Top so Top is heavily invested in this one. It all sounds like it's a bit of shit show behind closed doors and no one really knows what the right thing to do is, spend v consolidate etc. Just passing on what they have said, recognise its 3rd hand from people in the game at another club.

He was poor yesterday, but he's probably been our 2nd best midfielder behind Ndidi all season, he's been decent in a few games. Overall his problem is he just looks lost on the pitch, he has no awareness of what's going on around him, his athleticism gets him off the hook some times but like 90% of the team, not Premier league standard.

Yes Sack the board and we want Rudkin out got a good rendition most of the game. I didn't attend but some friends who did said there was less resistance by the clappers after Everton scored their 3rd. They couldn't really defend them any longer.

We will never know for sure, but given how Enzo was towards the end of the season and taking shots upstairs, we may (wishful thinking) of seen some change in approach, I doubt the people would be different, but I think he would of challenged them alot more. I am certain our recruitment would of been alot different in the summer. He would not of pushed for premier league experience at all costs. I think that's the thing that we've missed out on the most rather than his tactics, he was doing his best to improve the club not just the players.

Only ourselves to blame, the moment Enzo left has been a catalogue of mind bogglingly terrible decisions as we continue to scatter gun our way through modern football holding no one to account and just hoping we will get through on luck and vibes from 2016.