Holmes_and_Watson

Thanks very much, as always, for the articles @ChristopheVAFC I can't argue with the views of the fans. They are rightly exasperated with those running their club. I do think that the budget restrictions have focused the club to have a different recruitment strategy. One that does give them the required squad depth. However, if that's a squad with the second highest budget, I'd be asking some serious questions on where the money has been spent. It simply doesn't have the quality on paper for people to think it's a team that will easily compete for a title. And that's what the second highest budget should have. Perhaps a lot of that is on contracts for players signed before this season. Godin's fire, commitment and long hours ultimately means little. The many people he's dispensed with, gave all of those. He can dismiss the noise all he likes. His employers may have different ideas. Having watched Blois' games in charge last season, I wasn't convinced. The recruitment this summer, could have ended up anywhere, and you always like to have hope. But it certainly asked a lot, and wasn't giving Blois any immediate favours. I could see it stabilise this season, before pushing next. It's a squad geared for work over a longer period, not a title push with a top budget. VA made such a song and dance about finally getting it right, and having a plan for the future. I doubt Blois' has changed that much. So what is it in the 90% behind the results, that they see now, that they had no clue about last season? I think they just hoped Blois was another Tonda, and were trying to convince themselves, and SR.

Thanks. I'm not sure "less toxic than x" is much of a bar though. The world's combined radioactive reactor sludge is less toxic than x, but I'd not want to sit in a room and have a chat with that either. 🙂

SR have often said that they'd been tracking managers for a while. Often, as they've gone through quite a few. 🙂 Tonda was brought into the under 21s with an eye on him taking over at some point. So, there's planning there. I couldn't say about Lallana. No doubt he dreams of doing well at it, and going onto bigger things, as he tucks himself into his Liverpool duvet every night. Spygate will have certainly focused their attention on succession planning. Remember, the FA wanted an initial 6 month ban, before common sense/mitigation steps began to reduce it. "It's nearly Swansea again," said Russell Martin, taking the Swan Arms through their possession drills. 🙂 But it's all in the timing, as I say in my award winning Comedy Workshop posts. As you'd not give a funeral plan as a birthday gift to a 6 year old, you'd not pop the highly emotional bubble of joy when things are going well at a football club.

Role

At least the last line was upbeat, gio. 🙂 It's going well at the moment. While the scenarios are plausible enough, I'll just focus on the here and now and let it play out. Besides, I've got posts to write for any of our stand out players, who will all inevitably leave at some point. Even if it's through retirement. 🙂

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ck0j3z1q6pwgt Some doubts about her qualifications. Whether that's from claims made during the process of her getting the post, the tango toddler presenting her as something she wasn't or her going along with him, and getting caught out, is not known at this time.

"Oh no m'lady" as Parker's personal folders are leaked to the press.

Ouch for Pierre Blois: having to go into his coaching course, knowing that the club putting him through it have lost faith in his ability to be a coach. Still, the club will be paying him to get his badges. Although the decision makers found the approach that no longer works, worked very well for them last season. Almost as if the problems were not just at the coaching level.

I DEMAND that the FAB receive Super Rocket Thruster Flying Cars!

Emote

I worry about the thrusters being able to cope, if they take their benefits home in cash. All that extra weight. Rocket safely everyone!

It's been a while since I've seen anything about bluesky. My thoughts at the time were it had plenty of toxicity itself. Possibly starting from a different viewpoint, but still containing loads of horrible folk spouting their extremism. Was that inaccurate, or has it changed?

Give it a few days. Osvaldo will be posting a "9 out of 10 cars sold in the UK,are Musk rocket cars on the Motability scheme" article. 🙂

It's possible the looks up and down are related to working out Osvaldo's weight, for Elon's plan to put a person into orbit in under a second. 🙂

If he's representing the Beeb, then there's a balanced view to be presented. Sports, in practice, works a bit differently. Reporting is often an editorial taking a view in order to increase clicks and opinion. They are often written by people who have little, or no, understanding, of how a club, or any organisation, is run, coached or managed. It doesn't get much beyond winning = great while defeat=disaster, resulting in hyper-fawning or hyper-criticism on a weekly cycle. For me, his importance is stopping Jo Tessem drift into incomprehensible points that take a half to express. Beyond that, he's easily replaceable, as he goes off on plenty of tangents himself. I'd quickly get over any changes in the lineup. Blackmore lost any semblance of balance on Spygate. Generally his lines of questioning have that standard fawn/sports-critique cycle. A lot of managers are just so used to having to put up with it, they just offer a line and move on. When the questioners are called on a point, they show themselves to be ill informed, brittle and unable to show any kind of response. Blackmore is far from the first in the Beeb. Nigel Pearson broke one of their regional reporters with a single pushback, after a similar swell of opinion to get him sacked. The Beeb sent down someone more senior, who was just as useless. But Leicester's media team, and the club didn't want to rock any boats, and Pearson trotted out a few bland replies until it went away. Blackmore got called on his question, stumbled, tried fawning but then couldn't get away from all his other questions being tied to the first one. Why he did that, only he can say. In isolation, they were "he did well". But all phrased in a way that undermined Tonda's squad management. They all had "despite not playing for X amount of time" before Tonda shut that down, citing Black ore not getting his facts right. There was a nice pause after Blackmore stumbled over a "I guess that's why you're the manager." Was Tonda thinking of replying "No thanks to you." or "and that's why you're a hack without a clue." I guess his manager media training kicked in.