Fabrice29

Viera's tenures at Nice and Palace both went the same way and ended with him reverting to quite defensive football, disillusioning fans and still not getting results. Most manager appointments end in the sack but lets not employ someone who has a clear pattern in his last two jobs.

Anymore clarity on who this was at all?

Oh okay.

Well I just think the criticism of the guy for treating games as a friendly is a bit rich considering you said yourself 2 months ago the season was finished.

Aren't you the one who was telling everyone in February that we were already down? They've all been friendlies since then. Anyway, I'm not sure this place would have reacted very well if Selles hadn't made any changes at all. We were hanging on from minute 1 of the 2nd half. Changes had to be made because the result was only going one way. Our issue, as I've explained a few times on here, is the squad is very similar in terms of quality and there aren't many game changing changes that can be made. I find it very amusing that we're a few games from the end of the season, the team changes almost every single week, we've tried different combinations, formations and players throughout the whole season and we've struggled pretty much every game yet there is still a group of people on here who seem to think team selection is the issue. If we're having a pop at Selles I'd much rather we focus on his complete inability to coach any attacking plans into the team. The same can be very much said about all 3 managers we've had this season too.

Paying to get into a match so you can give some verbal to the directors you're paying will never not make me laugh. Only protests that have any merit involve not going to the games, the rest just look silly even if they do make you feel better about yourself.

Wouldn't have shocked me that much if you told me at the start of the season. The pattern of results against the better teams in the league and gradual decline of results against the rest, especially at home, has been set for a while now and was really evident towards the end of last season under Ralph.

Nobody needs to be told this. His contract literally expires at the end of the season.

Not on English TV.

It's Ralph's playbook he's sticking too. Ralph and Crocker. Rasmus attempted to get away from playbooks by appointing Jones and that went terribly so they went back to what they knew before and got a manager who has insisted from day one that the way Ralph played is the best way forward. Even if he was sacked for doing so.

At fault for the goal yesterday fwiw. Obviously not at fault for everything else.

Quite the opposite I suspect but naturally board members will have to sign off on everything. However on the basis that SR have employed Wilcox, I'd be pretty surprised if their ideas didn't align.

And yet we're still playing the same way. Same formation, same playbook, same mindset. I would expect the creators of the playbook to have noticed it's flaws and implemented some evolution at some stage, that hasn't happened and is the fault of those before SR came and SR. We'll have to agree to disagree I think because all I see if the complete opposite narrative. The idea that Ankerson is at fault for everything and that's even if you've been quite literally the DOF both before SR came and after.

I don't doubt he's done some very good stuff at the club, evidently the youth and womens teams have improved massively in his time here. However I do find it amusing that he's basically taken a back seat in terms of publicity throughout his time here and let others be the face of things who then in turn have taken all the slack for what has clearly been a regression on the mens football side. Now, I would argue others are more fundamentally at fault for that (Ralph is the main culprit IMO) but I don't think someone who has been basically running the club for a few years now should just get a free pass while others who have been working alongside him take a shed load of stick. He's just as culpable as Semmens, SR, Ankerson and whoever else people want to blame, but it seems to me that mainly because he's not done any (or many) public interviews, fans forums etc then he's been forgotten about and has come out of it all squeaky clean.

Yeah, club is a mess and has been regressing for a few years now but we definitely shouldn't be having a second look at what our DOF has been responsible for because the narrative that he's a good one and SR and Ankerson are the nasty ones is set and that is final.

True, so would I, but it's not a simple Alcaraz stays on we hold out all half calculation is it?

Oh okay, that's that concluded.

You're writing off Mara and Edozie. If you swapped those for Ballard and Doyle and those two had performed like Mara and Edozie you would be writing off those two and wanting more minutes for Mara and Edozie who would been performing in the B team. It's not fair sticking kids in this situation, especially ones who are 2 and 3 years younger than kids that are being written off.

And it’s posts like this that sums up exactly why throwing Ballard and Doyle into the first team would have only done damage to them. Couple of poor performances in a shit season and that’s it, you’re written off.

Definitely Ankersons fault that 3 managers haven't thrown them into a relegation battle. Definitely. They'll both be better off being part of a fresh start next season and both be better off for focusing on getting promotion with the B team. No good could have come from throwing them into the first team at any stage this year.

There's no way Lavia will play in the Championship next season when he's got a Belgium Euro 24 squad to get into.

They're not. But there is a lesson here about how Sky/TV can control the sound and you should remember that next time you're told to believe Anfield is a wonderful atmosphere.

I get that people have a different opinion on the half time change and I had the same "wtf" moment when it came up on the screen but do people understand the reasoning behind it? Would much rather he was available for Thursday than the 2nd half of Friday.

He's 19. He's putting his body through an intensity it's not been through before at a complex and delicate age. He's lasted 90 minutes at times but bearing in mind his importance to the squad, the least the club could do is manage him properly and not force him to do it every few days. He's also had one serious injury this season already. Just wondering how many 19 year old's are currently delivering the physical output he is?

Apart from one decent spell each in America, I'm not really sure the appeal of these two? Viera's last two jobs have ended with him resorting to dull defensive football in an attempt to stop losing runs and both times he failed. Both these were in his second season. That's a trait, not a one off. Henry just has nothing he could point to in his managerial career that is good enough to demand a job like ours. At best it's a punt based on playing careers really isn't it? (and expensive if you really wanted both). Words like "galvanise, stardust, power to attract players, status" are all just buzz words and will evaporate very quickly when the season starts if we don't play well or get results. The evidence underneath those words on their CV's doesn't suggest much substance over a extended period. If you're going for a punt, I'd rather go for a punt like Carrick who hasn't proven himself to be out of ideas when times get difficult like Viera has.