dubai_phil

Yeah and bloody Delldays let me down again. HMS Vanguard got stuck on a sandbank in the Solent - totally screwed my defensive capabilities

Never under estimate the role of Psychology in football. The fans at SMS are "edgy" The players feel under pressure at SMS This is a REALLY big issue for us this season, we have already dropped stupid points at home and if we are going to get promoted then SMS MUST become a fortress. To do THAT, the fans have to ease up on the players OR something else has to happen. That "something else" must stop the fans being edgy - hence why we express the feelings that we need a WOW factor (and mitigate that with the usual Saints fans "expect to be disappointed so it will be Adkins, or whoever) The Saints job needs a damn good manager BUT it needs that edgy feeling to be taken away IF we are really going to move up the League QUICKLY, the players mustn't feel under pressure at home, they must PERFORM.... So while a good guy like "an Adkins" will get us there eventually, I worry about the whelmed status levels we feel. I think there is as big a danger signing a "Young 'un" as there is in signing an old wise head.

In this era of Skype and free Video Conferencing.... Don't you love the fact every candidate has been trained flown or hotel'd in for the interviews.... Again - for the Business Culture observers. NC came from the Banking Sector. 1) Create a Job Specification 2) Advertise said Job with the Description inviting applications 3) Use an agent/minion to sort out the applications from TSW members and find the 50 real ones 4) Read the CV's and letters of Application 5) Determine a Short List of Candidates 6) Check with Legal/HR regarding any potential "not allowed to tap up other club's managers without doing XYZ" rules 7) Clear Diary and inform Short List of the Date for the Interview. Interview to be a two way meeting - selling the club and buying the applicant Review ALL the interviews determine a first and second choice 9) Contact First and Second Choice to start discussion of detailed Contracts/termination clauses/Severance issues 10) Sign New Manager and Announce to the World with speeches prepared by PR & Marketing Departments So we had 50 applicants, perhaps 5 or 10 of them any single one of us with an ounce of knowledge of football would want to talk to, not just to interview but also out of interest and to learn. All 5 or 10 are told at the start how the process will work, you have to llok at all the options or the fans will murder you even more than usual for "Not looking into every possible option" The whole thing takes TIME and the fact that you have so many quality applicants means that at least half of them are spotted jetting in and out of hotels etc.

It is only now, after seeing that clip I realise how low nickh really managed to stoop in his desire for revenge. No wonder the Away team were at 6's and 7's. My advice to the defenders - If in Doubt Kick it Out was totally screwed up by the fact that there were 4 sets of touchlines painted onto the fecking pitch. How much did THAT cost you nickie boy? To stoop Sooooooo Lowe

God I love how this forum has become Sooooooooooo Middle Easternised over the past years. First we had Friday's becoming Saturday's unless it it was a Sunday, and now we have seen a massive moment in evolution where tomorrow became Thursday This is made even more poignant because today, tomorrow really is Thursday, but when it was yesterday and the day before yesterday tomorrow became Thursday as well. For most people down here this is absolutely fantastic news. Thursday Night is our Friday night, which of course means that tomorrow is now forever FRIDAY NIGHT PARTY. For me it's even better as my GF has a weekend of Thursday and Friday so for me tomorrow the GF is always going to have the day off with me. This is just so ground breaking, I'm off for a lie down

Just a question Are we debating the Academy process or NI getting his facts slightly twisted? If you are a Gardener making things grow, you cannot afford to ignore your garden for a year, it gets full of weeds and the best plants blow seeds away to start growing somewhere else. The divisive days took a heavy toll. Keeping the gardening metaphor going, our last crop of youngsters had tons of sh1t thrown all over them in a desperate attempt to get them ready for market to save us from starving to death. That didn't work. So first of all the garden had to be dug up and prepared - the infrastructure, All the rubbish had to be taken down the dump - end of last season, and now this Autumn the new crop and those that survived can be nurtured. The problem with the Academy has NOT changed since Rupert (one thing he did right) noticed that Academies get Kids to the age of 16 but then STOP and there is NO structure in place to get them through the next two or three years as they stop being Schoolkids and become Young Men READY for first team or regular subs bench football. Now, this ain't (now) just a D_P bugbear or an "If Only SCW had been given time" rant, the FA are also conducting a programme to change the structure, with big changes possibly on the way in how sta\tus is awarded to Academies and from what ages. So, if NC had a big section on this in his business plan a year ago then it is pretty certain that ONE idea he will be looking for as he meets potential managers will be.... "How do you plan to develop young players between the Academy & First Team if I give you the resources and the best staff outside the PL?" How Adkins (and others) answers that MAY be the deciding factor. Soooooooooooo N.I. may actually have been pretty close to the truth. IF Adkins has a secret recipe for that which the others do not then bingo, NC has HIS man

Only name I've heard on the interview stakes is KK There was a bit more meat on the skype call that made it sound from a source totally nothing to do with the club or forum so I buy into that one as there was a logic to what had happened. I also heard that Slaven Bilic MAY have been in the frame - links back with NC's buddy agent chappie. That one I don't think so, and also he MAY be watching Count Greenback at West Ham. FA/FL rules are very clear though any manager has to have permission to talk so that MAY be why Adkins has now popped up - he's got an interview. Other more wafted and non forum interviews were simply the Howe one. One thought NC plays his cards VERY close to his chest. So he will not have leaked ANYTHING to the evil empire of media. So how the HELL have we managed to ASSUME "It would be a manager with WOW factor". "NC will show the fans he means business" Neither of those Solent/5Live leaks on Saturday seem any more accurate than the leak about an appointment today. Take the WOW factor as being BS then things make more sense

Ah now THAT is different angle. So we THINK we know that NC has interviewed about 4 people. Possibly all currently out of work. There is one name on the list that is employed so we have to ask for permission to even talk (ie interview) him. As NC came from "Business" no doubt he will be using the Topgrading Template (boring book BTW). So Adkins is allowed to at least TALK to us and NC is driving up with an excel sheet Phew. That was close

Well at least we know you don't work at Sky. We're simply whelmed at the moment (damn wish I had trademarked that word for the reaction) so hopefully it's rabbit hat

And not even close to just being Whelmed which is what many of the other names would do. Criticism over, if it is then full backing from here until the end of the season

Nope Allegedly

Ah that explains a lot Cheers. Must be annoying having adverts every 47 seconds for upcoming sports events on the channel that will have adverts ruining them for ... Well you know. Very worried about Bart now though. Perhaps we should break the mould and appoint the world's first female manager just for him - sort of a Footie Rachel Heyhoe Skint

Ah finally a post with some meat on it for us to chew over on here. Let's face it, with all these others dropping out, we're down to the bare bones now of available candidates. Are you Sirloin of your sauce?

Oi! This is the Reader's Wives thread. Sod off back to the Manager threads Oh and TT Jeez that Setanta commentator is a complete.............

:adore::adore:

Will take that...

Quality finish that from Bent

Shocking pass from SWP when we had 2 on none

Couple of cracking goals in a couple of minutes how good was that Shakira one

Nah just a Stlly & Cranberry only do Frogs for special occassions or Karaoke nights these days (8 quid a pint)

Yes it is UNLES YOU FECKING PAID FOR IT TO BE DELIVERED INTO YOUR SATELLITE RECEIVER Sorry rant over I'm watching Iraqgoals instead of my big screen HD thingy thanks to them jerks

And none of that was done while Les was under the Tutelage of another legend in Coaching Circles of course

Not quite. They may well have been "sounded out" by the Pinnacle Group, but then so were some others by the other bidders and also some others before NC gave AP the job. They didn't put their names to it, (OR in MLT's case naively allow their name to be abused) that was the difference

And Walcott looked REAL good until his injury - looked like Ankle Ligaments the Setanta bloke is Krap

Ah ha Saint Lard, the new fans' spokesperson. Nice to see the media caught on so fast after the stick poor old N.I. got last night