Hodgey

And yet he amazingly still has many of his own fans who will never rate him, despite him being pretty much the only reason we still have half a chance of staying up, on top of keeping us up last year, and utterly betraying real world stats like ground covered, interceptions and err goals actually scored. too much of a son in law who can’t captain, only good for a few set pieces (and even then gets criticised for them) and is one of the reasons we are shit apparently…..

no I haven’t, but do you think our board and fans will ultimately be happy with ‘OK’ ?. I think he will be better than Jones as he isn’t mad and seems considered and intelligent, but it’ll be a miracle if we’ve suddenly found a premier or even championship ready manager lurking within our club. I think he’ll be OK, as stated, in that he’ll take us down but with slight improvement in style / results. Point I was trying to make (badly probably) is that I see us losing Selles, a good coach, due to the situation we have found ourselves in. Saying he’ll be better than our last clown, whilst probably true, doesn’t really help his case when the board want an instant Prem return.

This is such a messy situation, very high chance Selles will fail at this level (much as I hope he doesn’t). Then what ? how will the new manager feel about a coach who has been part of two failed projects - wouldn’t they want a completely clean slate ?, if he’s still close to the players will he feel undermined, equally will Selles be happy being relegated back to a coach after this ? I can’t really see any other result here than Selles leaving the club. The only positive is that expectations, are extremely low - if Selles takes us down but we play ok I think most will not see that as failure.

As I said in an earlier post, this whole thing smelt like we didn’t really want him and had other targets for the summer. Think JM realised that too and rightly didn’t fancy it. After that fiasco assume it’s Selles until whomever it is becomes available. Just hoping he’s competent enough not to cause any more damage. But of a two fingered salute to the fans though - ‘we’ve given up on this season but still want your support’. Also puts even more pressure on securing this new target quickly in the summer for the championship. Feels like another unnecessary mess to me

Must have misheard length, still far too long for a novice. Still think this is a forced appointment and everyone knows it, I’m almost certain we’ll see a new manager in the summer. Hoping Marsch can prove everyone wrong as we could do with stability.

Problem is availability - I’ve no doubt that Ankerson has preferences who quite simply would not come now but may end of season. appointing Selles until end of season would be waving the white flag, and whilst Marsch chance of keeping us up is minimal, stranger things have happened. Unless this is Marsch decision (which I doubt), I don’t really like this - giving him a year and a half would show more commitment and low compensation. He’ll be under so much pressure as it is - we’re hardly endorsing his appointment, don’t forget we gave Jones 6 years l, this feels like we’re now going too far the other way. We need some stability - changing managers every 3 months won’t work for us and I think showing even if we go down we think you can lead us back up would install more confidence / long term planning. If I was Marsch I’d have no problem in freezing out players / ignoring young players / pissing off coaches if I think I’m only there for 3 months no matter what.

So I’m going to say what we’re probably all thinking. We’ve ended up with a slightly worse version of Hassenhutl, in a slightly worse position, after dragging our name through the mud and spunking probably the best part of £10m on compensation. it is what it is, and for what it’s worth I think is the best result given our position. He’s not keeping us up, BUT if SR continue to back us, he seemed to do a very good job with Saltzberg when they were the big dogs in a poorer league - which should be the situation we find ourselves in the champs. And of course he isn’t Nathan Jones. I’m hoping everyone gets behind him and gives him time (ie until Dec, not until April), lots to turn around.

Just looked at Marsch record, 37 games with a pretty average Leeds side with some key injuries - I’d say similar squad to what we currently have so record of 11 wins and 10 draws = 43 points. Not brilliant but we’ve seen worse..

Marsch is the obvious choice to stay up and beyond even if we don’t , for a manager available now. Plays a system the club get, has Prem experience, got Leeds out of trouble last year, also will probably stick around for a rebuilding job. Plus no compo and immediately available. Nunes being the other choice, but his system I don’t think will suit. Gerrard / Lampard / Rooney not for me, even in the league below. The rest I just don’t see wanting it - and Allardyce would be panic. I do get the reservations on Marsch but given our situation I think he’s the best we’re likely to get. Please no 6 year deal though (how insane was that decision on Jones) - big bonus for staying up and 1 1/2 yr deal with option to extend both sides. amused to see Ralf on that list, but it’s not the maddest idea I’ve seen in football. He can have a very fast start with zero bedding in period and given a ‘end of season deal to see if you can finish what you started with new players’. Let’s be honest he’s probably got as good a chance of keeping us up, and better CV, then anyone else realistically mentioned. it won’t happen given the quotes from Semmens saying the players fell out with him. But you know what - those players are largely shit and I’m tired of pandering to them, the squad is big enough with new players that Ralf can simply freeze out those he dislikes. Obviously he’d have to go in the summer but that would be understood - Ralf gets the chance to go out on a high, if we go down we have new available managers to chose from. And it’s so left field it’s something I’m sure would appeal to Rasmus’s ‘I’m smarter than everyone and have spotted something you haven’t’ nature. so in summary Marsch, but he’s got less chance of keeping us up then Ralf. So not ideal but I think he’ll Mount a decent promotion push.

We’ve now got a squad that is far too big. Still got Tella (assume if Burnley go up they’ll buy him), Stephens, Smallbone, Simeu and a couple of others to return. Agree with those mentioned and the £100m. The issue will be those on big wages nobody else wants - ie Stephens, McCarthy, Bednerak, Diallo, Aribo, Djenepo, Armstrong (A) etc. Can see the usual issue of finding them all a loan move each year until contracts run out. If we want to go up automatically ironically we’ll probably still have the same issues we did start of this year - defensive midfielder, commanding centre back, experienced goalkeeper, competent striker, manager. As I’ve said before though even with the cream sold there are a lot of good championship players here, and with money to spend we should have top quality managers at that level knocking on our door.

One thing I’m noting now from several sources. The players hated Ralf at the end and our results/performances were awful. Now the players love playing for Jones and our results/performances are awful. I’m spotting a theme……

So if it is Jonesball I would expect this side Baz Bree ABK Bednerak Salisu KWP Lavia JWP Solly Alcatraz Big Paul I’d also expect a 0-2 defeat

Blinded by the City tag, I’d understand if we thought he’d had amazing coaching at city, but the fact is he hadn’t really been at city for 2 years spending the first at Shrewsbury then Portsmouth. Even going by the logic that in a year he’d stepped up from league 2 to league 1 successfully, championship is the next step. let me put it this way - would we have thought a rookie Pompey owned keeper who’d had one previous year at Shrewsbury was ready for 1st team Prem ? As that is what we did. Shocking decision in a critical area, and one that may still cost the owners millions. I will say though that I thought he played ok against Toon (with terrible distribution), it’s the other games I’ve seen that have worried me in terms of saving goals.

So yes people were underwhelmed and a fair few immediately suggested he won’t be good enough. Now to date they were spot on - his job is to keep us up / do better than Ralf. Factually he’s done neither - even with tailwinds of a full month with most of the squad and favourable fixtures. He’s now been further boosted by another 5 ‘first team ready’ players, including the height, power and pace he has gone on about. There can be no more excuses. Should fans get behind him more in matches ? Of course, but that goes 2 ways, if Jones has any sense he needs to ensure we start fast and positively at home, the fans have had almost 2 years of utter tripe served up to them (inc under Jones) so patience is wafer thin, his sniping in post match is also completely unhelpful. Do I think he’ll keep us up ?, I think it’ll be close but just have a feeling we will fall short. That said the irony is I think we need to keep Jones if we go down, and replace him if we stay up - when we all know the reverse will happen.

Wierd delayed youth player swap given we picked up their left back Meghoma last window….this was always on the cards as you can’t have 3 young left backs at the same time (Larios). Whether we’ve picked the right 2 is another question. We’ve been here before with Gazzaniga who actually was ok for them.

I got 30 I think - but here’s the thing, can’t spot Kelvin here at all (and looked about 10 times)

My understanding is that Bree has played in a 3 - I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Bree and KWP full backs with Bree making the 3 when needed. It’s unlikely Jones isn’t going to use someone regularly who knows his system inside and out and who he alone wanted to buy, I genuinely don’t think he’s been bought for back up only purpose

This is the thing, if we do this right we should be in a good position. JWP / KWP / ABK / Lavia / Salisu will all have suitors - £120m min for that lot or we’ve had a shocker. Let’s say we pocket £80m to pay off loans that leaves £40m to re-invest - big budget for that level. Also assume we’re not mad enough to give Walcott/Willy/AMN a contract. That’s 8 high earners off the wage bill Then the squad: Gk: Bazuna, McCarthy, other bloke we bought RB: Livramento, Bree, Paine LB: Perraud, Larios, Small CB: Stephens, Bednerak, Lyanco, CC, Simeu Mid: Diallo, Smallbone, Alvarez, Moi (new contract), Finegan A Mid: S Armstrong, Edozie, Aribo, Djenepo, Osric, Tella, Dibbling, Pearce FW: Adams, Armstrong, Mara, Ballard Thats a squad of 30 I would argue should be minimum play offs - you have 3 players who have scored a decent amount in that division, a few who have shined in the SPL which is equivalent, and a fair few youngsters who have already done ok in the Prem, a right back many are saying is one of the best in that division and of course a manager proven at that level. it’s missing a bit of muscle and nastiness at cb and dm which you need in that division, but with £40m he could easily raid Luton to get that with change. Momentum would be the key and getting over the losing habit. But I’m not seeing a team that would struggle there.

This - nothing has changed under Jones, same issues in defence and upfront, he’s just injected a bit more aggression and lost a bit more possession. He can’t get a tune out of those players anymore than Ralf could, but he’s been given a few more players to play with. They fixed the wrong problem…unless they wanted a manager who knew the championship as mitigation for next season

So I get the cb at full back - Jones is right, if you are going to be more aggressive, you’ll give more free kicks away so you need height. Plus Arsenal and City regularly play cbs at full back so we know it can work. Ironically though we’ve still conceded a load from set pieces. As an aside buying so many small players is another scouting issue. What struck me was his post match. He talked about silly mistakes at the back and needed more quality up top - does that sound familiar ?. Maybe it wasn’t Ralf that was the issue, Jones has not improved us at all - his style is slightly different, but we are still on the wrong side of narrow defeats. As I think deep down we all knew, it’s a player quality issue in key areas, and whilst I do get that finding a centre forward is very difficult, why is it we have about 10 wingers who are all sub-standard ?. Let’s hope Osric just had a bad game.

This might just be me, or the quality of our team overall that half, but I actually thought Diallo was one of our better players, much worse than him on the pitch.

It is easier to stay up in this position, than go up from the championship. SR must realise that (they even bang on about it being the 6th best league in the world). So even if they have to pay over the odds for players to improve our team, it’s something they should do. Window not over yet, and I’m not that bothered about Jackson but Rasmussen needs to pull something out of the bag, and if a striker is impossible / how about a top class keeper. It’s not just scoring goals that makes the differentials

The key question is how we are strengthening versus our rivals, not just are we strengthening . So Wolves have just got Dawson in, we are going for Bednerak. Now there is a half decent player somewhere in Bednerak but he is painfully slow and not great in the air. If Jones could make him more aggressive that might work, but I just don’t see that ever being part of Bednerak game. It’s not like when he was playing he would head out all and sundry - I recall an equal amount of free headers as now.

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

Ings will get the goals to keep West Ham up , whether he would suit what Jones wants to play is a fair question. Wood probably does - Jones keeps talking how small a side we are and has favoured a big striker to play off, plus last year he landed at a relegation threatened side and helped pull them out of it, so him going to Forest, who I suspect we need to finish above to stay up is a concern. Wolves will be fine as they have a strong squad and class manager, Leicester similar so I’m looking at Bompey, Leeds, Everton, Forest as the teams we need to finish above. We need them all to have bad windows !!