Jimbo

I've lost interest. Not entirely all the clubs fault, I just don't think I'm that interested in the sport anymore, certainly not at "elite" levels. My lack of interest in the club these days - I'm not sure what that boils down to. Don't know if it's because we've been incredibly spoilt the last 10 or so years and I had become more accustomed to "better" or if it's because there is a distinct lack of connection between the club and it's fans. This is our natural level, it's what I grew up with but through all of the dross we witnessed from around 2004-2009 I never felt like I didn't want to go to the football, I never felt disconnected from the club. Right now I genuinely couldn't be any less interested. On the sport as a whole it just isn't the same anymore. With TV coverage at the levels it's at (and that will only get worse) the new champions league format which is just a backdoor way in to the European super league everyone was so against, the big 6 and financial regulations put in place to "make it fair for everyone" etc etc etc football has lost its soul. If we had managed to kick on and stay successful I'm not going to lie, I probably still would be more interested, it's human nature. If we had become one of the bigger boys it's easier to look down on those below than it is to accept always looking up. But for those of us feeling the same way, I genuinely think it's more to do with how the sport has progressed over the last 30 years to the point we're at now more than how the club is performing. I was having a conversation not too long ago about football Vs American football. I'm quite a big fan of American football and it is just so much better in a number of ways. My main argument during this conversation was that in the Premier league, they will still harp on how it's about the fans, it's for the fans and it's not about money at all - we all know it is, but they will never admit it. In America, they make no secret that it's all about money, they own that fact and even kinda gloat about it. We moan about ticket prices here, they're ridiculous over there. They flaunt their financial power and people don't mind it because they're not trying to hide it. The league is as fair as they can make it, bar a few owners of teams who don't really care about the success because they get paid either way, teams can come from no where and make a stab at being successful in any given season. I know some things would never work due to the differing natures of the 2 sports but football could actually learn a lot from the NFL - the salary cap, the no big money contracts (relatively speaking) until the 5th year of being professional, the draft and how players are transferred between teams.

This is more like Apollo Creed in rocky 4, dead before the towel even goes in

"So we're excited to have you on board, but we've got the contract to sign, what are your salary expectations?" "I'm excited to be here, can't wait to get going, I was thinking about thir..." "Let me stop you there, I'm not having any back and forth on this, the lowest highest we're going to is £100k a week!" "That's great, but I was thinking I'd be happy and comfortable with thirty..." "Oh, look here boys, we've got some sort of wise guy" "Who are you talking to? There's only me and you in the office" "Don't play smart with me boy! I've been doing this for years. You've got to get up early to fool me!" "But sir, I genuinely would be happy with around thirt..." "Listen here lad, don't play the mind games with me! I taught Obi Wan all he knows about these jedi mind tricks you're trying now." "But sir, I just want to sign the contract and get out on the training pitch" "Oh some sort of wise guy are we? Playing a bit of hardball?" "No, just happy to sign with you guys and want to get going?" "Oh I get ya!" Gives a cheeky wink "right £110k!? Final offer, I want go a penny over!" "List sir, if you insist, I'll take thirty fi..." "Alright, your drive a hard bargain! £120k and that's that!" "Ok, where's the pen?" "£135k?"

Well...........

F**k!!! Did not see that coming

Not like foxestalk to go in to panic mode because an announcement hadn't been made within 24 hours.......

He has worked as assistant at international level too, worked with Koeman and Hiddink, worked at youth levels and has experience, albeit 1 season as a head coach at senior level. Apparently has spent time studying with Real and in South America too. He's not an experienced coach by any means at senior level, but neither was Arteta or Maresca, or even Pep.

Does seem to be a bit ironic that we could be announcing Ruud as our new manager exactly 9 years ago to the day that Vardy broke his record

If it's not a video of the Vardy celebration "all f**king mine" and then cutting to him looking a bit sheepish and hiding behind a book shelf or something with Ruud being shown around the training ground then I'm gonna be disappointed

If/when we go down, I just want to see us trying and making an effort to avoid it. The year before we won the league, the great escape season, I'd accepted that we were going down on boxing day. We lost to Spurs, it took me about 3 hours to get home because of the snow and all the way home I couldn't help thinking that we were going down. We played so well, and had been playing decent all season long, but just couldn't get a win. We deserved at least a point from that game, we probably deserved the win, but we kept losing while playing well, and I was fine with it, because we were giving a decent account of ourselves. Of course, expectations have changed since the, but that's all I want, play decent and make an effort. If we go down while doing that then we just have to accept that our best wasn't good enough. But that's all I want and I saw hardly any of that from us under Cooper. It's like he set us up to draw 0-0 every game and hope for a lucky bounce during a set piece. If Ruud can get something out of this team, some effort, some "pashun", some grit then I'll be happy enough. I do genuinely believe that this squad of players is well capable of finishing 12th-14th but we've not seen anything from them to suggest that we're up for it. He needs to unlock whatever it was holding them back under Cooper, it's quite apparent that at least the majority never bought in to Cooper, seeing how he set us up makes it hard to argue against them (player power is another argument for another day) but hopefully the aura around someone like Ruud makes them instantly sit up and listen. It's a risk, but out of the names that have been mentioned the only one I'd have probably had over him is Moyes.

It just makes me feel really old knowing I was there

Not so much a conspiracy or match fixing but if you think refs do or don't make decisions based on circumstance rather than what should be, then you're blind (not necessarily you personally by the way) Clattenburg all but confirmed it the other week in the Milan v Liverpool game. Corruption of the highest order. One or 2 little fouls can directly impact the result of a match, the old butterfly effect. For this that haven't seen what he said “I think the first one is definitely a free-kick. I just think he needs to calm the crowd down; the crowd are against him. “They have been putting pressure on him; we saw that with the penalty shout before that. I think the ref just needs to give one or two small fouls to get the judgement back.”

The other solution would be to have a salary cap too. But that would have to be worldwide. Raheem Sterling on 325k a week in the premier league is ridiculous. Ivan Toney on a reported 400k tax free in Saudi.....!! The clear and obvious flaw in the PSR rules is that they're still geared towards the "big 6" moving forward while the rest compete for scraps. The one thing that continually grinds my gears about any financial rules is the state of Man United. They have a historical debt of around £800million! Yet it's not included in anything, because it's always been there. Like it or not, regardless of their current ability on the pitch, they are one of the biggest teams in the world and because of this can continually spend what they like, compared to us for example or even the likes of Newcastle (one of the richest sports clubs in the entire world) because of the revenue they bring in, completely discounting the fact that none of their "profit" is ever used to pay off any of their historical debts. Chelsea, who found a loop hole (or not if you listen to Simon Jordan) and sold none related assets to stay in line with financial rules don't really get a mention. Us, Brentford, Palace etc etc etc are never going to be able to compete year on year because our hands are always tied.

One way this gets worse for the premier league is if we stay up this season in 17th, a point or 2 above Everton. The rules around all of this are completely broken and so easy to mock We went down at the expense of Everton, who were then punished the following season for breaking rules in the previous seasons (if the rules are applied to when the "offence" has occurred we would have stayed up. Then, because of our relegation, and us being a bit savvy foreseeing the future consequences and testing our luck with it, we now can't be punished in the same way as Everton. If we stay up this year and Everton get relegated (and going off a bit here on some sort of fairytale, but the potential is always there) Everton fall into a state similar to that of Bolton, or Portsmouth etc, we build, as we have done in the past, and we start to see that return of challenging for European spots etc (not saying in will happen, certainly not with Cooper in charge!) then Everton and the poor rules saved us All that is happening at the moment is the premier league are making it more and more obvious that all they care about is revenue and the clubs that provide the most to them. While I'm not exactly proud that my team finds itself in this situation and that we've been responsible in the past for rule changes because of financial misdemeanors, I'm certainly glad that we're the ones sticking it to them