Farmer Saint

Could say the same about Martin tbh...but to me the fact that Kompany decided against signing him for Burnley, and the way he has started this season, it points towards him not being good enough. If he improves then great, but I'm not sure I see it myself.

That may be true, I agree - our central defenders are jank - but I am erring on the side of caution that he is just not that good, as we've only seen him be not that good in the PL.

We were an established Premier League team, with a decent(ish) quality squad. Hassenhuttl didn't come out of nowhere - he finished 2nd in the Bundesliga with a newly promoted Leipzig, played CL football and then finished 6th the following season. That calibre of Manager is not coming to us now.

It's to do with not wanting to ruin their reputation by taking us down (as OPTA and the betting markets outlined before the season we are judged to have the worst team in the League) as opposed to SR denoting a style of play - remember SR brought in Jones who certainly did not play that way.

Not sure anyone is going to buy THB - doesn't look PL quality tbh.

Irrelevant that we're 6th biggest spenders in a Summer where PSR has hit clubs hard - what was the investment profile of those players? Were they high value high wage older established players, or low value, low wage young players? How many players did we buy that look like players ready for getting relegated again (Wood, Edwards etc)? Ramsdale was mid value, high wage, but has a relegation release clause and we can recoup the money for him. As said it is only a theory, but the existence of a 10 year plan and is not being worried about getting relegated certainly makes me think this is the strategy.

All I took from those hashtags was titshow.

Moyes isn't interested - turned our enquiry down last week (as did Potter).

I don't think it's the plan per se, more that the investment profile means that it doesn't particularly matter which division we're doing it in if we are confident of getting out of the Championship within 3 years.

"Probably" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

3 years, but no as you're investment is far smaller - an extra £20m per player purchased and £50k PW per player is huge amounts.

The problem is there is far more risk - higher investment coupled with a risk that one poor year can absolutely fuck you. This way the risk is minimised.

Not many owners now own clubs as a vanity project (Tony Bloom seems to be one that does - but even he isn't balls deep), they do it to make money. That's what the PL and the money in it has enabled. PSR gives them even more of an excuse.

What they are not going to do is sack him without someone in place to take over - that is where we are struggling at the moment. We are also very wary of going for a Manager in a role after what happened with Martin when we took him on.

This is a theory as to what is happening - but no of course it isn't fair - and I would expect the Board would like entertaining football (TBF I think they lazily said "this is a Manager who's ethos is similar to Pep's, so if we bring him in we'll play like Man City" which of course isn't true). Therefore if we are losing in an entertaining way at least that would keep the fans engaged, so that could result in Russ getting sacked. The theory behind it is that it doesn't really matter which League you are in - one of the best teams in the Championship or one of the worst teams in the Prem - the up and down will keep the club making money and there will be constant drama, keeping the fans engaged.

And this is what happens when you enquire about available Managers and get turned down...

SR's aim for the next 10 years is to make money. Last year's relegation rid us of a number of high earners, which now means wage wise we are far more sustainable (in either the PL or the Championship). Our highest earner, Ramsdale, has a relegation release clause that means he will be sold with little loss and his wages removed. Buying young, talented, foreign players on low wages will enable us to compete in the Championship, and put them in the shop window without ever having to break the bank. Yes, we will probably need to be promoted once every 3 years to reload the parachute payments, but that is very achievable. As I said last Summer, the investment and management of the team points towards them wanting us to become a yo-yo club, and it makes sense - no huge investment and risk mitigating transfers by investing in youth.

Unless he makes a better fist of it he won't be here all season anyway, so not a likely scenario. Either we improve or he is gone (and if our talks go well with our preferred target(s) that may well be irrelevant anyway).

If he's sacked he will easily get another job in the Championship - he's young and rated quite highly outside of here (stubborn but rated).

Hassenhuttl shipped 9 twice to two much worse teams and survived...

For me it's more the Premier League - I cared more in the Championship.

Absolutely they would. Appointment will happen once we have someone that's happy and has accepted - this is where we'll have the issue 😬

TBF getting humped by Man City is not the straw that will break the camel's back.

I'm confused - do terrorists go to the bank just like you or I would - or would it tend to go through wire/online transfers? Genuinely got no idea - if I was to buy 100 drones from North Korea, do I pay cash or card? Or do Iran pay for them directly? Or is this to stop Hezbollah doing their weekly shop?

Don't disagree with anything you've written there.