chuz

Looks like even more teams with something to play for from next season. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4g00mr00zdo

Not sure why SR cannot see the risks associated with younger players, as well as the upsides... The youngsters we've bough have been valued way too highly and we've typically paid way too much for them... Bazunu, £12 million/Larios £6 million/Edozie £10 million/Charles up to £15 million - and that's just Man City... Wasn't Charles one of the highest transfer fees ever paid by a Championship side when we signed him? With a career total appearances of ONE. (And of course it's true that we got all that back from the sale of Lavia. But in the last three seasons he's played 30 games for Chelsea. Imagine if he'd not gone when he did, and was still here now with an injury record to rival Ross Stewart.....) The other risk that occurs to me (I don't know for sure but I'm sure someone will) is that I suspect youth football places far more emphasis on skill than physicality. Younger buys may be talented but can be out-muscled really easily. Then there's the issue that - assuming they sign 4 year contracts and take a year or two to settle - which is not surprising at that age and potentially living away from home for the first time - then contracts are running down just at the point they might be able to add some value (Shea Charles being the latest example). It's not like we've not made these mistakes before, with the likes of Angus Gunn and others...

This was mentioned in the Sky commentary today, but first time it’s been referenced to my knowledge. Perhaps the commentators was speculating…

Anthony Pulis

And one he is used to by now. I hadn't realised until a few months ago that he's basically been second choice pretty much everywhere he's been as a keeper. In 7 years at Reading he played 70 games. On his various loan spells as a Reading player he only had one season (at Yeovil) as first choice. He's played pretty much as many games for us since 2016 than he has for the rest of his entire career. He's a serial backup...until us Apparently he wasn't on the bench during the last championship season because he was paid a huge weekly bonus for being in the matchday squad. He came in when Bazunu was injured because he was so much better than Lumley..

So I got 2 x tickets for this and these were supposed to be delivered to the ticketing app...nothing so far. Anyone else not got theirs yet...? Or is this another glorious moment for the ticketing department??

Alan McLoughlin - record signing, absolutely crap, went to the Skates - suddenly turned into a footballer.

Like many others met Matty at various times in an around Southampton: bookies on Bedford Place before a game at the Dell (he was injured); M3 Services petrol station (Southbound); outside the Dell before the last home game before 1988 World Cup... Mrs C is a big Newcastle fan and we were once in Malmaison Newcastle when Shearer, Given and Rob Lee walked in for a pint...Mrs C too nervous to speak to them... Lawrie Mac last summer in the back garden of the Three Cups pub in Stockbridge Sorry to take this threat a little off piste but two of my former colleagues bumped repeatedly into two footballers with Saints connections. The first met Kevin Davies in Ibiza and apparently had a wonderful evening's entertainment with him...The second was regularly dating our old friend Nathan Jones when he was right back at Yeovil (circa 2006-7). This was before he was born again as a Christian I'm led to believe. She popped into work one morning with a £10K IWC watch on that he'd lent her...

Clubs usually continue to pay managers as if they were still employed (ie monthly) until a settlement is reached, which is usually a lump sum to terminate enabling the past manager to seek new roles… In the case of Juric I’m led to believe that, on relegation, there was a break clause that either party could invoke…and we did. So he’ll be paid till 30th June, unless Atalanta want him before that… With Martin I’m pretty sure a settlement must have been agreed early March. That’s when he started appearing on Linekar’s podcast/MNF. Before that he’d have been contracted not to do media without the club’s permission, so when the settlement was done, that would have lifted…

Don't disagree with any of what you are saying, but I'm aware that most if not all Championship Managers will have a similar clause in their contract. It would have been inserted when he first signed and said something along the lines of "In the event of promotion the club has to offer him a contract on a minimum of XX percent more for a minimum of the same length as the first contract" I'd actually say the fact the second contract was not longer than three years shows doubts at board level about him. Had we marched to the Championship title with more than 100 points I suspect the second contract might have been longer. Not saying the situation is the same as Ipswich at all and clearly McKenna did a brilliant job at Ipswich and thoroughly deserved the new contract - but these clauses are pretty standard...

To be fair (and personally I'm not a fan) to SR, it's a pretty standard clause which - if it happens rewards the manager with a (nearer to) Premier League salary. If promotion happens it rewards the manager with a new deal. Ipswich did the same https://www.itfc.co.uk/news/2024/may/30/kieran-mckenna-signs-new-four-year-deal/ There's a few other myths about sacked manager's contracts: it's very rare for someone to get "paid off" the entire contract in one go when sacked (unless you were a Chelsea manager during the Abramovic era) - instead managers continue to get paid until they get another job - when the payment stops. Most clubs are used to paying two (or more) managers at any one time (due to still paying a sacked one).

This is exactly what I was told....it was a clause in the first contract that promotion automatically triggered a second contract.

As I understand it, the new contract was guaranteed if promotion was achieved…ie in the old contract it stated a new one would be offered on promotion…

I'd heard he fell out with Ralph after Ralph dropped him for the FA Cup game v West Ham and then claimed he'd been dropped because he was distracted by an up and coming Poland game. All of this without speaking to Bednarek directly about it. I was told it wound up several other players that Bednarek had been singled out for criticism in this way (partly because Bednarek was fairly popular in the dressing room and partly because the players thought any one of them could be subject to similar). We then went on a terrible run of form. There's usually more than one side to any story and I've probably only been told one side, but I was led to believe the players didn't like the fact that Ralph increasingly singled out players in public for criticism towards the end of his tenure...

I think these "cross club" philosophies are conjured up whenever anyone feels like a change. As you mentioned Ralph apparently spent the whole of Covid writing a "playbook" for the whole club to be deployed at every level. Yet after he was sacked the club chose a manager with a completely different philosophy (in Jones), before going back to the Ralph way again (in Selles) before ditching that for possession football. I suspect they simply looked at Burnley getting promoted from the Championship and decided to get a manager that played that way. When Martin moves on I guess the new manager will be either a clone of his (if he's successful and poached by another club) or a different style (if the possession football gets found out in the Premier League.