deep blue

11 hours ago, Sampson said:

I don't think greens are a protest vote either. I think they're a clear voice that a certain proportion of the voters are a bit sick of the right wing economic system we've had pretty much unabated in the UK since 1979. While we of course don't know Burnham's policy the fact he's actually talking about more state intervention and you've got Tony Blair calling him far-left because he talked about inequality makes me think he's going to actually offer a more social democrat economic policy more akin to both Labour and the Tories largely believed in 1945-1979 and win back those Labour voters.

 

I'm Portsmouth South and here we have a LibDem run council and usually have LibDem MPs and they're generally very popular here and many like what the LibDems do here on a local level. They swept up here at the locals, we did go Labour for a few years, but I think it'd be hard to shift the LibDems in many of these parts of the country.

 

The Greens and LibDems actually have a 25-30% between them in all the polling. If Labour could win some of those votes back they could still win 2029 but i also dont think its as simple as them being protest votes either. LibDems especially are very popular in certain parts of the country because of their councils and local mps.

 

What would be more interesting would be if Greens and LibDems formed some kind of voter pact either between them or with Labour. I mean there's definitely the votes there to easily beat Reform if they're distributed right. But I think it'd probably mean Labour and LibDems both giving up of the economic policy of Thatcher and Blair and re-finding their social democratic roots.

Good and interesting post, but I find your view that the LibDems ever had economic policies that were anywhere near to Thatcher's rather weird.

3 minutes ago, chuck'em said:

Not sure I agree with this. I think the councils elections were a bit of an eye opener for a lot of people with regards to the support reform has. The split in the left vote allowed Reform to make gains in a lot of areas. My local seat was won by reform by 12 votes from the Labour incumbent, and Greens had a decent vote share. People weren't voting greens as a protest, but if you asked the majority the following day if they'd have switched their vote to Labour they'd say yes. The left have realised that a split plays right into Reforms hands and unity is required now. 

 

Incidentally our new Reform councillor has since been in court charged with weapons offences, so hopefully we will get a chance to see how the vote plays out with with a bit of hindsight.

Interesting.  What area of Manchester are you?  I'm with the LibDems in Stockport where we did a good job of holding off the Reform challenge in the recent local elections.

10 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

We will still have a squad and wage bill bigger then the rest of league 1.

We probably came close to having that in the Champ last year.  Look where that got us.

We don't have a bigger wage bill because we have better quality players ... it's precisely the poor recruitment that has hamstrung us with an overpaid, lazy and uncommmitted squad.

What makes you think any of that is going to change in div1?

4 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

3 year deal is quite astonishing 

I suppose he wouldn't have signed without that.

8 hours ago, It'sblueupnorth said:

In fairness I don't think a club should consider fans view for managers or players

That should be the case, but that presupposes that the board have an ounce of football and financial nous, and use their position to consider all the stats available before making a decision.

With KP we know that isn't the case and, sadly, many of the supporters have more relevant knowledge and acumen that those responsible for making the key decisions.

Here's just one example ... the decision makers have shown over the last few seasons that they think it a better strategy to pay peanuts for managers and then spend a fortune on garbage players rather than believing that getting the best manager in is the most important starting-off point.

1 minute ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

I'm sure Rudkin would have thought about ...

You can stop right there.

20 minutes ago, jimsmallman said:

I don’t think it’s possible to find a more smug picture in the entire universe

Him or Farage ... it's a hard call to make. 

44 minutes ago, CrazyKopCorner said:

Gawd help us. 3 year deal as well !!! 

 

Just when you think surely they have to make a right decision eventually they bring in this dip stick. 

 

The only positive is that if we're not at least in the play off positions by December surely even this board will sack him. 

 

 

Will they be able to afford to do that?

5 hours ago, oxford blue said:

.....

The City squad should be better than most in League 1 so may work, but it is not a long term blueprint for success.

...

I'm intrigued with this statement as I see no justification at all for making that assumption.

There will be a limited number of players left from last season, most of whom were well below par last season.  The rest will be made up of players from our development teams (however promising they may be it's expecting a lot that they will immediately be able to slot into div 1 action) and new signings/loanees (our record on those over the last couple of seasons has been abysmal).

So what do you base your assumption on?

A travesty he never played for England.  Even though he was  competing with several good midfielders for a place I would put him as arguably th most complete midfielder in the English league in his prime.

28 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

No. The brother of the killer (Digwa) called 999, alleging that a white man (Nowak) had committed a racist assault on them.

Apparently, he added that Nowak now needed medical attention, but said that no weapons had been involved.

 

When the police arrived, Digwa was standing and articulate, Nowak was lying on the ground.

Digwa repeated the racist assault allegations, also accusing Nowak of having been drunk (subsequent blood tests showed Nowak was under the drink-drive limit).

 

The police should not have just accepted whatever they were told by the people reporting the fictional "racist assault" - otherwise anyone could just accuse someone they don't like of crimes and have the police arrest them. It's understandable that, on arrival, the officers would've expected the aftermath of an assault, perhaps a bit of a scrap - with Digwa as the initial victim, as his brother had reported it. I presume Nowak was handcuffed because a cursory glance didn't reveal signs of a stabbing (the examination should've been more thorough), because an accusation had been made - and because they assumed he was on the ground due to drunkenness and/or getting knocked down in the scrap following an assault.

 

To my mind, these facts suggest inflexible thinking and a grossly inadequate police response, not two-tier policing. 

 

I don't think it's a two tier approach either, nor do I think you can be too harsh on the police as it was a very confusing situation with so many conflicting allegations being spouted.

But the one thing I do find inexplicable, and indefensible, is why the police felt the need to handcuff someone who was on the ground and showing no indication of being a threat.

6 hours ago, Foxdiamond said:

The club must be mad as a box of frogs. Totally stuck on this idle possession until we give the ball away and concede idea. 

This the most concise (at the same time accurate and damning) description of possession football I have seen. 

I think it's Davie Gibson, Ian King (or Tony Knapp), Gordon Banks and Frank McLintock.

9 hours ago, Nolucklcfc said:

Thrown under the bus for a role he wasn’t ready for with a bunch of players who let multiple managers down but yeah let’s kick one of our greatest legends out the door … 

A few here are taking that view, but nobody has pointed out that he didn't have to accept that responsibility and would have shown better judgement (and more concern for the good of the club) if he'd said "no".

5 hours ago, filbertway said:

Can just picture players begging the club to sign them because Kasper is our gaffer. Clever Fox is on a mad one

 

May be satire, so if so. Fair play you got me. If not. That list of key points is bloody hilarious haha

It would be more progressive on your part if you actually gave your critique of the key points he made rather than just a throwaway dismissive comment which is meaningless.

3 hours ago, les-tah said:

Genuine question as am clueless - why do we want/need him? Whats he offering to us?

Is your real name "Top"?

31 minutes ago, Sankey93 said:

I’m unsure if challinor might be a one club man I know he’s had promotions with other team lower leagues I believe, Smells a bit like Chris Wilder.

 

its either going to be imo 

 

Russell Martin

Will Still

Or Some foreign unknown.

Why don't you look up Challinor's managerial history first ... to see how wrong you are.

46 minutes ago, Sly said:

No local consortium is buying us.

 

Even if Leicestershires richest families purchased us, we wouldn’t be anywhere near the wealth the required to run a top tier football club.

 

 

But we're not a top tier football club any more!

2 hours ago, dmayne7 said:

Think you missed the point though. A bit morbid but the likelihood that he might die soon and hand over it to an incompetent child is pretty likely. Back to square 1

If it's a consortium then maybe the other members of it have the nous to be able to continue it successfully.

2 hours ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Doesn’t have to have deep pockets, would happily take a good sound business person making good decisions and creating a good environment, culture and environment. 

Stockport's owner is a good example of this, but you're talking lower levels of investment ... but that's maybe the level we're at now.

15 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

I think this is nonsense. 

Rodgers did a fantastic job for 2/3 years, then when he wasn't allowed to refresh the squad he threw his toys out the pram which ended in disaster. 

But I'm not a fan of pretending he didn't do a phenomenal job for a couple of years. 

I disagree and I think Finnegan's take is spot on,

It's true that Rodgers gave us some fantastic football for a couple of years but with the squad that Puel had built I think we were poised for that level of performance with any less cautious manager in respect of on-field style, and I'm sure there were quite a few managers who could have done as well ... without ruining the club strategy in the process.

As for not supporting Rodgers in the later years, our dismal failure to achieve Euro champs league qualification for 2 successive years probably made extra funding out of the question. 

39 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

About time Restore stood a candidate in one of these - would be very interesting how many votes they cream off of Reform when they contest seats.

 

That's about all I'm clinging to as far as the next General Election goes: it would be very funny if we're spared PM Farage because the right does what the left normally does and tears itself apart over ideological purity. Bonus points if the wolves are kept at the door long enough to implement voting system change to kill off the chances of them ever getting a parliamentary majority.

 

Back to Burnham - he's popular in Manchester because he communicates the things his administration does. That alone would be night and day if he takes the PM's job and actually has a comms strategy, rather than just letting Labour take a battering from all corners and being ignored when they do something right.

I've been similarly waiting for Restore to get their act together and split the mad populist vote, but they seem to  have gone very quiet.  Do you have any idea whether they're in a state that enables them to make a significant challenge in elections?

18 hours ago, winteriscoming said:

I’d rather we stay clear of ex players. 
King and Rowett are prime examples as to ex players not working. 
My preference if you want experience in league 1 would be Michael Duff at Wycombe or Tom Cleverly at Plymouth. 
I realize Cleverly has played for us previously but he has more experience than Fuchs. 
Dave Challinor at Stockport as well but I think they’ll go up. 
Going for the cheapest option has been our downfall the last few summers. 
We should have got Corberan in the summer Enzo went and last summer should have got Rohl. 
I’m hopeful that we will also look abroad having been linked with Schreuder. 
Fuchs wouldn’t even be under consideration if it wasn’t for him being an ex player. 

Your last sentence is nonsense.  It's because he's played for us in the past that we have good insight into his character and can be fairly sure that he has the strength to be his own man that our recent managers have all lacked (Enzo excepted), and we need that almost more than anything else in our next manager.