The Kraken

The same dance but it’s very funny every time. Poor old Ralph, so many potential savings and yet cant be specific about a single one of them. HS2!!!! Quangoes!!! Welfare!!! And not one specific reference of where the savings come from within those.

Fairly predictable. I wonder if he’s got ambitions of doing a Lallana. One or two more years playing, hang up his boots and go into a coaching role.

There are signs there that they want Eckert. - Club have nobody at all lined up to replace Still, in fact saying they want to take their time choosing who to install. - Lallana and Trollope retained so a coaching team is already in place. - Oriol Romeu signed right after we sacked our old manager. Could be wrong, could just be part of the transition process. But a few things are starting to stack up weirdly IMO. That Sheff Wed game is absolutely massive in determining what SR do, I reckon. QPR away, really not expecting much at all though the players could do us a favour by putting themselves in the shop window and busting a gut for once.

I just get the feeling that Eckert is who they really want.

I guess we’ll find out eventually, but I’m wondering a little why Oriol has had two months without a club. Various reasons why it could be, but a bit strange that at only 34 he was seemingly unable to find another side before now.

Definitely a good deal to be had if he’s a free agent. It remains to be seen whether we’ll get many 90 minutes out of him, I somehow doubt it. But with someone like Jander alongside him he could thrive.

I don’t see us getting someone who is in a job already. We’ve done it before but I can see us going for someone out of work, and accepting that the llama and Trollope ore part of the package.

Of course you did.

Yeah that’s how I recall it too. He had said he wanted to retire at a point. Also, he had a terrible, terrible finish to the previous season of results, really appalling results over a large period of time. The club then decided to forcibly appoint Ruben Selles as his number one, we know where that ended up. i will always treasure Ralph, I thought he was great. But his time was done, and then the club completely undermined him leading to an eventual dismissal. A fuck up that kind of defined SR really.

Yeah, not really true though. Ralph was great but he was cooked at the end of his time here. The fact that we appointed complete muppets to replace him don’t alter the fact that he needed to go. in any case, SR have shown repeatedly that they are largely incompetent when it comes to appointing managers. Expecting much of the same next.

Of course it would be welcomed, Flynn and Cpt Jack get their days off and don’t have to run around too much.

Excellently put. Clear as day 👍

You just know that SR want to give it to Eckert. Former SR/Spors history, and they kept on Trollope and Lallana as coaches to bed him in, I can see this dude getting given the gig if we actually pick up points at Loftus and against the utterly turgid Wendys.

Let’s not go overboard. Still was a risk. A lot of fans got behind it and hoped for the best. “Backed it” is doing some heavy lifting. Spors’ recruitment will be mostly judged on league position. He has little credit in the bank.

When you think you’ve hit rock bottom, this club have an unbelievable trait of reminding you that you haven’t yet.

It’s this, isn’t it? Perhaps one of the biggest transfer spends in this division ever, and we’re looking at relegation as a reasonable possibility. Like you I’ve gone beyond other emotions and it’s now just a dull ache and an expectation to not win any game we play in the league. Will Still has proven he is utterly useless for us but the next one through the door will be no better I’m sure. Absolutely scandalous running of a business.

We are so bad at appointing managers. The fact that Will Still makes Russell Martin look like a genius says a lot. Fuck off the lot of you. Pathetic from top to bottom.

Talk about spectacularly missing the point 🤣 But yeah, carry on living in the real world.

Worst thing...? People that call it Hallowe’en and not All Hallows Eve…

Or off it.

So basically he fell into the Bournemouth job from caretaker, just about kept them up but got fired anyway at the end of season 1. Got appointed Wolves boss, kept them up for a season, then got sacked before Christmas with the club in the relegation zone. Its not an overwhelmingly terrible start to a managerial career, but it’s not exactly inspiring.

So many things in that story are absolutely mental 😆

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Yep, all stats are flawed in some way and they need to be viewed in that regard. Possession percentage is another one, for ages I assumed it was calculated by some poor sod with a couple of stopwatches who would click over when one team regained the ball. Then I realised it is most often done on comparison of the total number of passes made. A major reason why Martinball is so heavily high on possession stats, the centre backs and Flynn Downes played a huge amount of small quick passes to each other throughout games.

Out of interest, who is putting too much faith in stats like xg? Genuine question. For me, I look at xg in the exact same way as I do any other statistic such as shots on target, shots off target, possession percentage etc. If anybody thinks or tries to tell you that stats analysis can replicate watching a game then they’re having you on. But stats can be somewhat useful when you haven’t watched a game and want to get a bit more of a picture of what the game was like other than the scoreline. Xg is by no means perfect (again, anyone who says it is shouldn’t be listened to) but what it tries to do is give a little bit more detail to the quality of goal opportunities being made. If I haven’t watched a saints game, the only way to catch up properly is to watch a recording of it. And that won’t give the same picture as having been there. Highlights will give some detail, but not the whole story. Match reports are reliant on the author, so could be subject to bias. And then you have the numbers. They may tell a story, they may be somewhat accurate, they may not. I don’t think anyone relies on them as being 100% accurate but they help to paint a picture of a game you’ve not been able to see. So I see them in the same way I see a newspaper match report, they’ll give me a summary overview of how the game went. personally I don’t see the problem with having a bit of faith in that. So long as you understand the limitations of the numbers you’re looking at, it’s all just extra background reading.