S-Clarke

Man City's success is a strange one, pundits and the like being mesmerised by them, but don't they realise that there is a huge asterisk against everything they've won? I'm sure the authorities will allow that to drag on for another decade though.

I'm of the opinion that he simply hasn't had a chance, I find it hard to be overly critical or overly positive about him - I have no idea how he plays, and neither did we as a squad I don't think. I'm sure he'll do well at a club where he can play again, as he's always scored goals.

That was always going to be the case though. Moussa, Diallo, Lyanco, Armstrong, Aribo - those sorts will be very, very hard to shift given their low-ability, yet crazy wage. It'll be loans if anything for that lot.

I think this was always going to be the case, we have a lot of talented young players who will be of interest to top flight teams. We made a right old mess of the squad mix up which means we never got the best out of those young players ourselves, so we'll now have to endure seeing them tear it up in a team with a better mix.

There were links not so long ago of Chelsea looking at Bazunu as well, like you say it's almost certainly above board and nothing to do with Joe Shields at all.

A young player going to Chelsea is as close to early retirement as you can get, pointless move for him. Hope he sees sense and holds out for a genuine move. Liverpool, as much as it pains me to say, would be a much better move for him. Even Utd would be a good shout, learning next to Casimero.

Yeah, this is a totally odd take. How can our best players be the problem with our 'style?' Surely the problems, if we're talking player personal, were with the likes of Elyounoussi, Adam Armstrong, Moussa etc. To call out KWP as a 'problem' is pretty far fetched to say the least. JWP I give you in that he's immobile, but Lavia? have you watched him?

This is how I feel, the comment Semmens made that I can never let go of is - ''For us, it's not about where we finish in the league - it's about how many players we develop'' ''We know we cannot compete in this league, we are fortune to be here'' etc etc. That narrative was doing my head in, it's all well and good toing that line when there is minimal investment, but there needs to be a shift in those views when there is investment. I don't think the incumbent club and the new guys at SR ever meshed correctly when they were under the same roof, you can't tell these things until you've worked together for a while. It's all about alignment and that starts from the top.

The latest statement from our owners paints a different picture, where they rather candidly (maybe somewhat naively) proclaim we will be the best resourced team in this league, somewhat supplemented by player income, but not all.

Can't disagree with any of what they say really, have to get behind that. The ambition is clearly there. Part of me wonders if it was a bit daft saying we will have more resources than other clubs (it may push the price up when we try to buy players), but it's certainly an indication that financially - this season and next at least - we are fine, but there is also an acceptance in that statement that this will be contributed to by player income.

Leicester is a strange story really, I've looked at them over the last few years as a pretty classy club - getting recruitment right and with an attractive style to go with it. I don't think anyone could have envisaged the drop off from Soyuncu and Ndidi though - they were quality on their day, but both have seemingly forgotten how to play football this year. They tried to replace Vardy but didn't really give those Vardy replacements the time to learn the league, they just had the odd appearances here and there. I know Leicester fans are very, very frustrated iheanacho didn't get more game time - and Daka, in my opinion, is class - but he never got the game time and they stuck with a tiring Vardy until it was too late.

I don't think we should be demanding news already, the season only finished a couple of days ago. We are much further down the road then the other relegated clubs, and Ditto swansea as they'll need to replace Martin. I don't really have a problem with not hearing anything yet, it seems fairly obvious it will happen and him being in Staplewood today or the 30th June is neither here nor there really. He's not going to be missing out on any crucial training time as there isn't anyone to train. As long as he is behind his desk at Staplewood for the start of pre-season then all is good, and I'm sure that will be done. Nothing is stopping him learning our squad now, making suggestions and giving recommendations - that can all happen in the background without him being behind a desk at Staplewood, and I'm sure those conversations have been happening.

If he wants CL football etc, then this is probably his last opportunity to get that move I'd say. If he sticks with us this window and brings us back up, he'd back in the PL with us but pushing on 30 - we're not going to make Europe in our first season back, and he'd have less suitors in Europe looking at him at that point. I think he's got to take the chance and I'm fairly sure there is a Premier League CL club sniffing.

Yeah, they do - the likes of Pereira, Castange, Ndidi and Daka are on big money. They signed those guys when they were either a CL team, or competing to be a CL team - so you'd have to question if they even have relegation clauses. They'll have to get rid of a lot of those on the cheap otherwise FFP in this league will bite them very hard. It feels like the appropriate time to say.....''Leicester were on course to become a Champions League club, but obviously their priorities have changed''

Thank you for keeping this thread going, it's been an interesting insight - I don't think anyone foresaw the drop off we've had though, -15 less!! Minsk will appreciate it for sure, but like you said...at least he didn't have to witness such a downturn!

That sounds as if Swansea, as expected, are being absolute noddies when it comes to small prints etc. At the time of the request, yes, technically we are still a PL club - but we were relegated when we made the request, so we won't stay at PL club. This is apparently what Swansea's ownership is like, which is why they missed out on players in the January window and came to a disagreement over any extension for Martin.

If you read back to his appointment at Swansea, he did request that Swansea signed the Flynn Downes bloke - which they did, and Swansea subsequently made a tidy profit on that one only a year later. It's probably not a case of him jumping up and down and demanding the world as such, I think we've had obvious conversations around players who he feels could fit us and help us - and I imagine the likes of Grimes, Piroe etc feature quite highly on that list. I think it's pretty likely he's joining us, so as long as other bits are happening in the background then it'll be done when it's done. He's clearly already advising us on some capacity, but prior to pre-season starting there isn't a huge amount he can influence at Staplewood anyway.

That's how I see it, I think Leicester are in the position where they have to sell - they can't just keep players for the sake of it. With us I think it's more of a case of us not standing in the way of a player if a good offer comes in, but we aren't under the same pressures to ensure a sale happens. This is why I'd be surprised to see us letting Sullemana or Alcaraz go in this window, they're 6 months into pretty long contracts and they're not going to be avaliable for under £25m - and I can't see many clubs, on the basis of 6 months inconsistent PL football, being prepared to pay what we want - therefore they stay. It's not unheard of either. You'd have put money on Sheffield United having to sell Berge, Watford having to sell Pedro and Sarr etc - but they stayed and performed at this level. In respect of Berge it benefited him massively and I think he's a much better player for it, hopefully Alcaraz and Sullemana can see the same path.

We are not very good at scouting goalkeepers, that's for sure. We've spent a mini fortune on crap in such a short space of time, whereas Fulham, Villa and even Everton have spent a fraction of that on players who are miles better than we obtained, and have set them up for years to go. We just go round on this circle of failing. We seemed to have a total blind spot on good experienced GK's for the level we're at, even Kelvin when he first came here was pretty ridiculed given the season he had just endured at Sunderland.

Key takeaways from me: - They accept responsibility. They admit mistakes in the recruitment makeup and they admit they weren't as involved as they should have been, all very honest and candid and holding their hands up. - They are engaged, they're doing the opposite of what I think a lot of fans thought they'd do - committing and reinforcing their intentions for us, they're not stepping back and regretting the purchase and looking to flog us. Far from it - The ambition is there, seeing the words ''want to win'' is something I haven't seen a director of this club say for many years. That's the sort of narrative the club needs to feed off of. I haven't heard that since Cortese was here. - As I've said all along, these guys (especially Dragan) have the right intentions, they're not doing this to destroy us and they're not as silly as this season has made them out to be in my opinion. - The statement about this situation brewing for years was correct, we've circled the drain for years with minimal investment. It was inevitable that it would happen eventually without the correct decisions. You cannot deny we had the investment, but the decisions and execution of that was all wrong - which they've openly accepted the blame for. - Dragan having a big say in Jones and trying to stick up for him. He does admit his press conferences didn't help the situation, but I do struggle to understand what on earth they saw in him via an interview which would have suggested he could handle the pressure he was about to endure. So far nothing hugely ground-breaking, a lot of ''yep, well we know that'' mixed into it - but they've not hid away from the mistakes and they've held their hands up. Dragan for example could have totally distanced himself from the Jones debacle, but he seemed to own that decision in the interview which is refreshing. I think they're an honest bunch and as I said they have the right intentions. I've never agreed with all the vitriol throw their way, as this situation has been brewing for quite some time. Now we have a clean slate and their closer involvement I hope everything aligns a bit better, I get the impression that there was a lot of infighting and clashing behind the scenes last year - but this club will now be full of their people on their terms. Success in football comes from alignment, from the top right down to the playing squad - hopefully we get that now.

He'd be a great addition in this league, would be a terrific start to the rebuild if that happens. He's PL quality as well, so could easily transfer into the PL if we go up. It's all about timing with players, we just had Bertrand, an English international, in the prime of his career whilst he was here - so he had to go away to develop, much in the same way as Harrison Reed did when he had Morgan/Wanyama in front of him.

But what style do we have today? To me we've got a right old confused mix of players in the squad, some who are bought with high press in mind, some who aren't bought with that in mind. So for whoever comes in there immediately needs to be a decision on where the hell we're going strategy wise, as we haven't really had that for a while now. If anything that will help us recruit 'new' correctly, we may not be able to weed out all of what we want to get rid of, but I just don't think the players we have here at the moment are really wedded to any particular style - it's a mish mash of everything, and a load of rubbish on top of that. It's a positive to me that the club have at least recognised that we need this joined up at all levels again, which will bring clarity in everything else we do.

Why? The bloke hasn't played for over a year, bar 20 mins. Who in their right mind is going to pay us any money for him until they know he's back to normal? Plus I think it would be incredibly bad taste for him to have made use of our medical facilities for the best part of a year, and then run away as soon as he gets a chance. He won't be going anywhere.

In most cases you'd be right, if a new manager was working with the existing group of players then he'd have to tailor his needs. But this situation is different, there is a large expectation that we will lose AT LEAST 10 players, that will create the space to bring in players that fit his specific style from day one. It's not often a manager gets an opportunity like this, but we need to make sure we get it right and having an alignment on the playing style approach is priority number 1 I'd say.

It's different when it's a one off game though isn't it, you know what you need to do, you know what you need others to do - no other games to fall back on, do or die. Fans will always rouse up an extra atmosphere for that, as you saw at Leicester and Leeds up until 1 min into the game. Sadly we never got ourselves in the position to create that sort of scenario, so whilst we had lots of 'must win's, they weren't in the same context as a final day show down.