S-Clarke

Rasmus Ankersen.

Hopefully we get more and more of that in the coming weeks.

Eric Ramsay, heavily linked in the summer. A very hipster left field choice by clever fuckers., and we have clever fuckers in charge of us so we know how this goes. Totally the wrong sort as we all know, but I'm sure Will is offski imminently - another huge contract pay-out to cripple the club, and then the next left-field non-working choice will come through the door.

This thread is kinda pointless because they won't appoint an obvious choice, they never do. They will be clever again, so there's lots to look forward to.

It's so much easier said than done, I share and feel the pain of everyone though. They have and are continuing to totally rip the heart and soul out of this club, if we're not careful we're staring at L1/L2. They oversaw last season and that should have been bad enough, but they've gone even worse - again. This season for me was the last shot they had in my eyes, but they've totally fucked up. There's zero way back, their ownership is now untenable. I don't know how we do it though, I get the anger towards Will but I think more noise needs to be put towards the ownership. They are actively ripping our club apart in front of our eyes.

Never go back, that ship sailed. Getting rid of him at that point and replacing him with Nathan Jones was the first big call SR totally mucked up. And to be fair they're consistent, as every other big call since they've cocked up too. They haven't missed a beat.

I'm excited to see Sport Republics next pick, I can't wait.

He was part of one of, if not the worst ever PL recruitment efforts I've ever seen in my entire life. BBD, Taylor, Fraser, Archer, Wellington, Wood, Juan, Lallana, Gronbaek, Suguwara. I mean what the actual fuck.

You can believe that if you want, but in my eyes there's an underlying issue at this football club which is causing this turnover. The same underlying issue is causing us to lose every week, in whatever league we are in, and the same underlying issues keep making significant recruitment and scouting errors. The same mistakes are made across multiple Sport Directors and managers, there's something deeper at play which means nothing will change until that changes.

I don't believe that Sports Directors keep leaving us simply because other clubs come knocking, there is seemingly a will for them to explore other opportunities and open the door for these approaches quite quickly. It's usually a good 6 months > year and the cycle continues. They must see the chaos and they know they're better off running rather than committing long term, and let's not forget that if Rasmus still has his muddy hands all over everything, he could certainly be winding up any Sporting Directors once they've been in the room for a period of time. There is a consistent factor which pre-dates Sheilds, Wilcox and Sporrs - and he's called Rasmus.

Sell - Aribo Edozie Downes THB Bazunu Manning Archer Armstrong Downs Buy - 2x New Strikers - one powerful Awoyi type. 1x new CB to partner Edwards/Quarshie/Wood. A proper shithouse of a CB. 1x new shithouse CM, powerful, a unit. big, quick. Someone who'd complement the technical skills of Charles or Jander. 1x Goal Keeper who is experienced at this level and can improve us from day 1. Maybe 2 if we send George Long back. We have the wingers and creativity in Fellows/Leo/Azaz, and some decent full backs - but we neglected the spine of the team. We won't do any of that though, so it's a moot point really. But that needed to happen this summer really. I think we've wasted a summer and we'll struggle to regain competitiveness at the top end of this league now, certainly with Wolves/WHU coming down.

We have changed a lot, so you'd assume that Jander/Fellows/Azaz/Mads/Jelert/Downs/Quarshie etc would come with a new approach and wouldn't have the old crap hangiung over them. But when you look at what's left - THB, Downes, Fraser, Edozie, Aribo, Stephens, Bazunu, McCarthy, Archer, Armstrong, Manning etc - that lot right there is the problem in my eyes. We all know that Downes skulks around when he's not playing, so you can imagine he's being quite toxic in the background. I wouldn't imagine Edozie nor Aribo are responding too well to not even being in the squad either. THB/Fraser/Armstrong/Manning etc were team mates with these guys, they'll be talking to each other and probably moaning to each other. I'd sell the lot of them, they're finished here. We need to buy new ST's, new GK's, a new CM and CB. Park all those losers in the bin and move forward, because I don't think the new guys have a chance in an environment full of such toxicity. We didn't go far enough in the summer with the sales, that's evident now.

It does look like that, but I just think he times it all wrong. He plays like he's half asleep, he's two or 3 seconds behind everyone. I think he'll be shifted in January. He hasn't settled, he doesn't look comfortable here and our players don't seem to be particularly onboard with him either. £6m on this guy, with no other Centre Forward, is on par with the Carillo signing in terms of the damage it has done to our team. And we know for a fact that this signing is the 'statement' signing of our new recruitment setup in terms of their direct pick and recommendations, this is such a huge red flag.

I think we all had some hope, it was probably the only positive angle we could take. I know that I thought after some an almighty damaging season in the PL that we'd entirely restart and do a root and branch reset. We didn't go far enough and just started repeating the same. The entire 'fresh start' angle was removed as soon as Jack Stephens was given a new contract, and then we doubled down when we brought in George Long as our GK competition. Those two decisions proved to me that nothing was going to truly change, it set the tone and once again we accepted mediocrity - and when you do that, that's exactly where you end up. Everyone piping up and saying ''Baz is fine for the Champ'' 'Stephens is fine for the Champ'' is entirely missing the point. Someone is making these calls outside of Still/Sporrs etc - and until that element is removed, nothing will change.

Yeah these sorts of comments don't really hold truth anymore. It's like saying ''at least we're dying better than those guys''. It's the same process. The ownership is killing us in the same way the ownership at Blackburn or Wednesday is killing them.

We wouldn't win it though, we'd probably end up going down again under these morons.

There are a lot of similarities playing out to our season in 05/06 when we came down. The club gambles on a striker in Ricardo Fuller, never scored enough goals, drew shit loads of games, languished in the bottom half. A CM in Quarshie who didn't want to be here, and an exciting teenage winger making a breakthrough, sold in January. Changed manager in December, had a revival in the second half to build some momentum and go into the following season with some positivity. We then spent spent any remaining 'fortune' that following summer on our ill-fated playoff push - and then the house of cards came tumbling down. It all feels eerily similar. We need to be careful.

He seems to jump for the ball either too late, or too early. Look at the difference Sinclair Armstrong made, he's an absolute trash player by the way - nothing 'elite' at all, but he used pace/power and bullied us. Downs is incapable of doing anything like that, nor touching, nor controlling, nor scoring. As I said above, I cannot for the life of me tell you confidently that he is a footballer. I wonder if the real Downs is still at FC Koln?

Charles is clearly offski at some point in the next 6-10 months. He's had a contract offer on the table for a while now. He'll probably get us 15-20m - but that will be less as Man City will take a cut, so that's a nominal sale really. The cupboard is starting to look bare now for Sports Republic, their devalue and deterioration of the squad is continuing at pace. We'll have L1 quality players before you know it.

Bazunu is a club pick, the club pushes him on whoever manages. Same as Stephens. Those two decisions in the summer showed me that nothing had really changed. The Stephens new deal was truly a signal of intent for the season.

I think the squad is a mess. Quality, yes, not denying that - but it's totally unbalanced and bloated. We've got Edozie and Aribo not even making the squads, we've got 5 Centre backs, 3 horrific goal keepers and no centre forward. We have a good 10, and some good wingers for this level - but we already had Edozie and Aribo, so you've got to think if it was more prudent to spend that Fellows/Azaz money on a GK and a ST, and give Edozie and Aribo the game time.

The GK situation is another massive SR masterstroke. The guy Bristol City had was signed on loan from Man Utd, but pushed himself into contention which goes to prove that there are PL GK's out there who are happy to come in as backup, and then take their chance. But we decided to go and get Norwich's worst keeper on a loan. Truly mind boggling.

Blackburn are due a win, so we know what will happen here.

Should have sold him in the summer really, we don't need his type. We need a powerful CM who can come in and disrupt things, not another sideways man. Jander/Charles can do his role - we need power alongside those.

I gave 7/10, again too generous really. I think I assumed we'd still lose Edozie and Aribo which would balance the squad out a bit, but when you look at it you have to say it's a bloated mess right now - and it cannot be good for morale or mood when you've got ''professionals'' like Aribo and Edozie not even making the squads. With Downes on the bench all the time too, I think there are some genuine bad eggs floating around that training ground. If we weren't going to lose Edozie/Aribo, we could have saved the £15-16m we spent on Azaz and Fellows and spent it on a proper centre forward. But alas, here we are.