S-Clarke

Sorry, should have clarified - they haven't directly said that, no....but they're inferring it in all the leaks and bits they're putting out about how great he is, how he's always been considered an option etc. They might be right! We'll wait and see.

Pearson has been managing Bristol City for a while now, not achieving anything mind.

I'm not sure if the Adkins shouts are just joking, or serious? I don't know why people still think it's viable if they're being serious about it! Adkins was great for us, pulled us out of the mire and got us promoted with a great team and a major feelgood factor. Would we really want to tarnish that reputation and our history by having him in charge whilst we're relegated? No denying he's positive and all that, but he would be well over his head in this situation and it would tarnish the memory of someone who gave me the best years i've had supporting this club.

I think it's fair to say that anyone, absolutley anyone, could have judged the Jones situation better than the experts at the club did on this occasion. Appointing him was ridiculous in the first place, but taking so long to actually admit the mistake made it 10x worse.

I think we almost certainly needed investment, so on that point alone I’m happy it happened. One thing I've said all along is that they have put their money where their mouth is - they've invested and they've shown a willingness to make decisions, make changes and improve things. The absolute killer has been the decision making. You can have all the investment and best intentions in the world, but if your decision making is skewed then it's all rather pointless. The jury is well and truly out for me now. From where I sit on the outside all I can really say is that they've invested, but with that investment has come chaos with everything they've touched. I have no doubt the right intentions are there, but how they're executing everything is so, so wrong and has been incredibly damaging.

Has anyone seen the new Athletic spiel about the Marsch situation? Painting it as everything was agreed, but Marsch slept on it and decided the timing wasn't right. Nothing to do with the length etc as this was all verbally agreed on. I think it was both parties to be honest. The interesting bit is that it proclaims the club saw it as crucial to act swiftly and decisively to have a manager in place for Chelsea, which is why they went after Marsch so ‘aggressively’. That went well then. And now that urgent need for swift and decisiveness seems to be leading them back to ''Selles is great, he was always our choice anyway'’ – even though he wasn’t 4 days ago. I'm all a bit confused as to what our plan is right now!

I've seen worse suggestions, but I don't really see him coming back into management or coaching now. He doesn't need the stress of it all.

Thanks for keeping this thread going, but it's a stark illustration of how much we've gone backwards. Double figures worse on points and H2H records, and it's not like last season was amzing. This is only going one way sadly!

The lesson should have already been learned from his stoke experience though, it's nonsense that we thought it would be any different. For a club that prides it's self in due diligence and 'contacts' in the game to sound out decisions they decided to not bother with any of that on this one. It's a one person appointment, no matter what anyone else says. Ankerson liked him, ticked the stats boxes, anyone else who disagreed was shot down. If the majority of the fan base had the same questions when he was appointed you can almost gaurentee there were voices at the club sharing the same concerns, but they were ignored to fulfil someones ego.

I think it's hard to say what's gone on, to me it seems as if he has been side-lined massively in the last 10-6 months. I don’t think the rumours we’ve seen about him ‘on his way out’ are too far fetched either, I reckon things have changed in his mind compared to what he believed we’d signed up to. Rightly or wrongly he pretty much ran the club and all decisions before SR, but it seems as if Ankerson runs the show on most fronts now. In this context, with a more hands on owner, Martin is now nothing more than an employee to them, so he will have to toe the line of whatever Ankerson says. But to me the problems have started since his involvement has been reduced and other people have started making key footballing decisions.

Just to put it out there, other clubs are as chaotic as us it seems - Davide Nicola: Salernitana sack manager for second time in 31 days - BBC Sport

Losing games of football? Number 1 strength is probably throwing away leads though, I can't think of a better team in Europe at that. There are probably more strengths, but that's all that spring to mind right now.

Oh yes, that was the one. I'm sure he was animated against Chelsea as well. We'll find out if he's any good shortly.

Wasn't it the game against Chelsea where he had quite an animated chat with Ralph? And then we turned it around. Can't remember the details of what changed after that, but I'm sure it was that game and we were all lauding it at the time, as Ralph never had the people to challenge him before etc.

I think it's hard not to look at it like that, given all that's gone before. Not replacing Ralph in the summer, but instead undermining him. Bringing in a new coach who then leaves 2 weeks later. Bringing in Joe Shields as DoF who then leaves 2 months later. Sacking Ralph in Nov and the worst of all, hiring f**ing Nathan Jones. And to add insult to injury, giving him an entire 'pre season', winnable bunch of fixtures and a transfer window before sacking him, after publicly backing him 4 days prior. Everything is a right old cluster fuck!

That changed the tone totally, I agree. I think the whole club dipped when he mentioned he'd look to retire in 2 years or whatever it was, we lost all the momentum as soon as he said that. That should have been our cue to start succession planning a bit harder, but I guess that given we had Gao at that point it was probably harder to do that given we had no money. SR seem to have gone into everything like a crazy-arsed whirlwind though, everything they seem to touch turns to chaos.

To bring this back to suggestions again, is it worth knocking on Peter Bosz's door? Although again he may be slightly out of our reach these days, even though he's unattached after being sacked by Lyon. Attacking manager, good background in Holland. I don't know what project Rasmus is selling people so that could be a deciding factor.

exactly, like I said above it's got a whiff of Gray/Wigley and Wotte and Poortvliet to me. I hope I'm wrong but it all feels a total cluster f.

This is what we're about to find out I guess! Like someone else mentioned though, he doesn't have much support around him, apart from Carl Martin the former U18 coach. If we do decide to stick then he will need to be supported by experienced coaches, but it all feels a bit Wotte and Poortvliet to me if I'm honest.

I think the summer undermined Ralph a little bit, there was clearly some chatter about what direction to take and they decided to overhaul the coaching instead. There were also some 'ITK' comments from people which suggested he was walking the plank at the start of the season as he needed to improve dramatically etc, so he was a deadman walking from the summer really and I think he knew that and ditto the players, so it was a really odd scenario from the start. Given how rapidly we moved for Jones after he was sacked is suggestive to me that the wheels had been in the motion for some time before the Newcastle game, it's no wonder it's all gone to shit. I think SR (particularly Rasmus) have shown Ralph an enormous lack of respect.

The general theme coming out via all the club leaks (Jeremy Wilson/Jacob Tanswell etc) are that he's well liked and respected by the players, but if that's the case you have to wonder why they've not really listened to him a great deal this year. (if what he's telling them is actually working). When we grabbed him in the summer there were a few things dotted around on him, weirdly there was a thread on the FC Kobenhaven version of SaintsWeb and they were lauding him for overhauling their defensive solidity. Can't say I've seen much evidence of that here yet, but then we dont know how much input he has been allowed to have.

Dragging it out for 6 months for no reason at all, and then replacing him with a mad man. Disgusting is probably a polite way of putting it.

Shall we just have one great big 'high school reunion' for all our former players and managers or something? It seems that's all some people want, or is at least the only criteria they look at when deciding if they want a player or manager.

I don't think it's as black and white as that, as other's have said above I think there are other implications given his recent sacking and Leeds payoffs etc. I believe he was more than prepared to take a short-term deal, given he verbally agreed and travelled here to stay overnight. Today was the day the finer contract details and the discussion of the Leeds payoff would have been brought up, and I reckon that's become a big sticking point - the details of which were probably not entirely clear until they sat down in front of him and his agent to work out the financials.

He's already wandering around observing our training sessions, so don't speak too soon!