coalman

4!

Oh my lord

This is rather good. Am I still dreaming?

Here's hoping Sky offer a picture in picture Nathan Jones cam.

Look at that spine. Bazunu, Stephens, Bragg, Armstrong. *sigh* COYR - I still want to believe in you.

I sincerely hope so. But it's Sport Republic so :shrug:

He needs to make sure he carries out Rasmus's tactics and formation as instructed and keep our superstars like Stephens, Manning and Armstrong happy. It's a balancing act few are going to be capable of as witnessed by Will Still recklessly dropping his captain and star 'keeper and losing his job despite playing regulation Southampton-ball.

I can totally see Sport Republic Board Meetings being like this.

The club has shown, with Lallana, that bringing back a former player who has played at the highest level can completely revolutionise the first team irrespective of whether they're fit enough to pull on the shirt. I really hope Romeu isn't the same but it's Sport Republic - their recruitment has been an omnishambles.

Apparently he's a great guy to have around the place. He'll be sorely missed. We're down to our last 10 or 11 guys who are great to have around the place. Lose too many more and we might have to recruit actual footballers and coaches.

"Jack Stephens has to be captain" is perhaps the most inadvertently brilliant sick burn of our playing squad I can imagine.

What stuff? Playing wall passes about the defence until we give the ball away? Hopeful balls up to a pint sized striker? Ball watching when players cross into our box? Throwing your hands in the air when we concede? Pointing at team mates when we concede? Are we really training that?

Is Romeu the new Lallana?

He didn't try to hit the ground running though. He lost me when he squandered the time off for the World Cup and didn't set himself up for the winnable run of games after. By which point the writing was on the wall. He had the potential to be magnificently crazy a la Mourinho but he wound up doing a Sturrock (who, if memory serves, asked someone else to take training first thing so he could have a bacon sarnie).

Tell that to Erasmus.

It's symptomatic of the culture of the club. Nothing is ever anyone's fault. Responsibility is a form of performative art. And this culture starts at the top - as a former boss used to say "a fish rots from the head".

To be fair Tonda is a very ambitious appointment. It's just that, as with all things Sport Republic, ambition isn't matched by capability. "Bravery" isn't just for the football pitch.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ckgzg0z6ngdo Manning just wanted to come out and say the players aren't to blame. Showing a passion for defending himself he has failed to replicate in defending his own goal. Luckily he's just in the team to swan about and take the odd free kick instead of taking any responsibility.

Tonda's had two weeks to work with them now. Gone are the chaotic tactics of QPR and Sheff Wed and instead we'll see the slick, high intensity football that is the hallmark of a Sport Republic club.

At this point I think it's fair to say that Sport Republic don't have any kind of master plan other than doing random things and hoping that, eventually, it all turns out for the best. Even if they have identified someone (and by all appearances it looks like their preference is for Tonda) it's highly unlikely that that someone is going to be able to turn this particular ship around. Even if, by some fluke they did, that person is unlikely to have the space to make the changes that are necessary.

Sport Republic have always been about the pathway from the U21s to the first team. It's about making sure we don't lose our brightest talents to other teams. Or some such genius.

Any manager that has the hubris to do a YouTube "masterclass" is probably more interested in promoting themselves than managing a football club.

The Jones celebration if they win will be a frothing masterpiece for the ages.

The great thing about our players is that they seem to be just as good without any coaching