Ex Lion Tamer

Has this been posted?

Yes it can look stupid when it doesn't work but it's also the most effective way to pull the opposition out of position and create attacking space. That's literally why the top teams do it. And in this league, we are one of the top teams

???

Very interesting, helps me feel a bit more positive. A bit of Pochettino feel in terms of successful management despite player sales. Worth also saying that Koeman had bad runs with us but was a success overall

I'd go for Schumacher. Feels like we've decided a style of play and are now trying to fit a coach to it, rather than getting the best man for the job.

How many other players played under Fergie? Is Gary Neville a good manager? It's pretty much irrelevant compared to assessing their actual ability as a manager

I'm against Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney and Viera but think Carrick could be a decent shout

It's happening

I really don't think there's anything the captain can do if the manager isn't putting in place a strict framework of fines and punishments

We do need to transition from a counter pressing team to more of a dominant one that can break down a stubborn defence. As we're a big fish now, there will be more of these in the Championship

Except Nathan Jones had a track record of getting a team to vastly over perform. I'm not sure what this guy offers really

If the expertise that Wilcox is bringing to the club is to appoint someone because he used to work with them then we're in even more trouble than I thought

We also had people getting excited about Selles based on nothing at all

Sometimes they are successful and move to bigger clubs rather than getting sacked though

I would consider this a terrible appointment, though obviously hope to be proven wrong. He did well at New York City with Man City's owners behind him, then failed at Nice and Crystal Palace.

The thing is we can't just reject all managers with great records in lower leagues. The key is to interview them and work out whether they've got what it takes to step up. Taking Ralph as an example, he had a terrific record in lower leagues and it turned out that he could manage successfully at a much higher level.

Ralph definitely should have been let go in the summer but we probably would have just appointed Nathan Jones earlier 😂

Ah fair enough. I thought I read he was pretty hard on players when he took over, perhaps things slipped under him too. Pretty sure I read a story on here about Cedric getting bollocked for looking at his phone in the treatment room instead of talking to the physio

Ralph simply would never have allowed this: Not saying it wasn't time to move on but we need to get back to his level of discipline

Apparently all our players have seen their wages fall by 40% now we're in the Championship. Don't know if that means their wages are still high but not quite a Lemina, Hoedt, Carrillo situation

I could be wrong but Tella seems like a good lad and won't kick up a fuss if we don't get an acceptable bid

He was out of contract this summer so no way he'd be staying for the Champo

I thought the youth policy made sense in the Premier League but we're now a big fish in a small pond so perhaps the equation had changed a little

You weren't a fan of Emile Heskey then?

Yes. They've all had good spells but plenty of failures too and are living off their reputations as players