deep blue

Apparently, Rohl has been working well with a shoe string, and worse with more difficult owners.

And it's still true ... mate.

👍👍

Or maybe he can turn it round with a manager who puts his faith in him and gives him a solid run.

I just don't see any evidence from what we saw last season for your last sentence to be true. From what we saw, Ruud giving a ludicrously short few appearances to youngsters after it was too late to have any effect (I.e. after relegation confirmed) gives completely the opposite expectation were he allowed to carry on.

If we have a promising CB in the dev squad then he could be added to the squad and we hope he only needs to be called up in rare moments. But all our most-mentioned youngsters appear to be anything but CBs. Does anyone know if any of our developing CBs look promising enough to be included as the last option for that position in the first team squad next year?

I'm with you too. Agree completely.

Can't understand such importance being attached to a few points deducted under PSR. It is much more important to concentrate on appointing the right manager. An able manager who can extract the best from the squad can accrue many more points than a poor manager, surely more than enough to compensate for the PSR deduction; and then for the following season you still have the good manager in charge instead of having to get rid of the bad one, with all the upset that entails.

On the contrary, Ruud took over a team who were 16th. Survival was far from easy with our squad, but it was also far from impossible with a decent manager.

Whilst what you say sounds reasonable, I think that those who refuse to pay another penny to the owners at the moment recognise that the owners treat the fans with no respect at all and will never take their negative comments on board. I believe that the only indicators that would induce the owners to think of changing course would be (a) a dramatic reduction of income and/or (b) an embarrassingly sparsely filled stadium which would make them lose face.

The quality of the manager is more important than a few points deduction. Just look at how many points Cooper and Nistelroy won over a whole season, and compare it with the number we could have accrued with a half-decent manager. The difference is almost certainly significantly more than a points deduction, and moreover you then have a decent manager and vibe going into the next season (unless he does a Marescaa disappearing act, but that's always a risk).

No evidence at all that they'd play the youth. Canrsley had no choice in the matter when he was in charge of England youth. Also, neither have recent experience of managing a club, which is a much more demanding job than managing an international squad.

If Man City are relegated to div 2 then we might end up still in the Prem.

This is exactly what they should be doing, and big Nige is the obvious person to turn to. However, the likelihood of such an "innovative" thought crossing their minds is low, and even were it to do so, if rumours of past friction between Nige & Rudkin are true then that makes it even less likely.

We'd be better off taking the points deductions, resetting our financial (mis)management, bringing in a progressive manager (at whatever cost) who is going to assimilate our academy stars into the squad, treat next season as a reset in the Championship, and the season after go for promotion. That way, if we got promoted in the 2nd season we would be in a better place as a club to put up a better fight in the Prem with a club structure and squad much better prepared for it.

Just the last line doesn't scan. How about ")just release a f***ing statement, shift the blame".

Yes, but for DOF rather than manager. Oops, sorry, just seen Bilo got in before me.

I agree. I think he came over as a person overly concerned about himself because he was a very driven person who forced himself to the top of his profession by setting himself very high standard throughout his development. This must have made him appear strict, unrelaxed with some of his teammates at times, especially as he expected them to adhere to his high standards too. Just look at our squad's decline over the last few years. How we could have done with a strong character like Kasper to whip some of them into shape. As he is also a very intelligent, thinking person who expresses himself well, I could well imagine him becoming a great asset to a club in some sort of managerial role.

Absolutely. I'm convinced that had he embraced "remain" with enthusiasm, as I believe a majority of Labour Party members wanted him to do, then it would have more than tipped the balance by persuading more Labour voters to follow his lead. His weak, conceited and unprincipled leadership enable Brexit to prevail and opened the way for the likes of Boris and Truss to lead us into the current mess.

Perhaps we could bag Nuno if Forest sack him?

I seem to remember Liverpool were sniffing at the time so it's not surprising many of us thought it as a coup.

But that's exactly the sort of mistake we keep making. We'd cash in for a few mill and then find we'd have to pay significantly more for a replacement who would turn out to be not at that level. Best to go with Thomas for next season in the Championship, and bear in mind that we look to have a super young LB prospect in the development squad that we could introduce gradually too.

I've consistently supported Thomas on here against the doubters because, in my view, his progress and confidence were shattered during, and by, the later Rodgers years. I always thought there was still a decent player in there. He may lack speed but he gives clever support to his winger and is solid defensively (a bit of bulking up wouldn't go amiss, though). I'm pleased he's come through that, though, and hope he can build on that next season.

Chocolate oaties for me. Oops, are we back to managers?

I think there's a flaw suggesting that Russell Martin would be good to get us promoted but no good once we're back in the Prem at the first attempt. What would we do with him at that stage? Knowing our owners we'd have him on a 5 or 6 year contract and our PSR situaton would never allow us to sack him.