Badger

I detect sarcasm in your comment. Quite how Ferdinand gets to host it is beyond me. Good playing record at club level, and plenty of England caps. But outside the Peoples Republic of Manchester has done or won fuck all. At international level his involvement seems barrel scraping. As for the Co-hosts ! This is the biggest football tournament going, but to appeal to the US audience it has to bring in Tom Brady and those from other sports (barely played out of the US). Says it all really.

And don't forget Nick Leeson's more historic tenuous link with Saints. I'm sure I read that Rupert Lowe first employed him in his banking career.

Would have been my choice in the summer, it seemed the most likely outcome. But perhaps that in itself drove Spors to find someone else, not to do the obvious thing and make an appointment of his choice. Should have gone for him in September though. Looking at a Rangers forum and they’re not completely sold on Rohl, although widely regarded as an upgrade on Martin. It did read a bit like this place with complaints re manager, recruitment and players at his disposal. Some already saying he’ll be on his way at the end of the season with agreement already in place for Gerrard to return.

Hadn’t previously considered the situation re work permit. But raises a thought that anybdelay in this might be a WP for another option rather than TE. (Probably not, but just a thought)

The club should tell her it’s a private matter. And to fuck off. Presumably he wasn’t on club business at the time he was driving. Realising he was a shit footballer perhaps they asked him to collect and deliver a consignment of cones to Staplewood. Although seems unlikely they’d ask him to do that without training him to manage a sheep dog. Just in case one of the cones decided to give him the slip and make a run for it.

Think you have to give him credit for utilising the player in a way that Still didn’t manage to for a number of weeks.

I can see that, but in the interview he said he took 13 as it’s his birthday and the day his father died, so he may not want that number no matter what it means to supporters.

Comes across really well. Interesting story and journey to reach Saints. Told witn great enthusiasm, really hope he succeeds with us ( and that Shalke don’t get back to Bundesliga before we reach the EFL). He does mention God, and his faith twice. Hope that doesn’t become a target of ridicule from some as it did for a previous manager.

They were indeed true, but from our perspective totally meaningless and haven’t borne any fruit. I know past performance is no guarantee of future results etc but this stat was frequently used to support the view that our strikers were sufficient for the level we’re playing at, and to dismiss many’s view that the player is crap. What do you think of Archer now, and the other strikers we have ?

Is Downes available or still suspended ?

Also worth bearing in mind whoever takes the job on will have to contend with the squad and some of its shirkers for a while. To this end Eckert has done well until yesterday. It seems that no matter who we appoint as the ‘attendant’ some of the turds aren’t going to flush easily.

Fair point, to some degree, if you are confident they won’t make the same mistakes again. Strachan for example probably came to us a better manager for his experience at Coventry. You’d like to think Carrick might be more ‘battle hardened’ by his time at Middlesbrough. Then you have Lego who as we saw at Rangers just sticks to the same blueprint irrespective of it going tits up.

Found it. Thought I’d post this in case MLG is having a day off

Remind us again MLG, how many goals he once scored in the Championship ? And how our strikers are more than sufficient for this level.

Couldn’t disagree more. Isn’t coaching and man-management part of the managers role ? The manager, or ‘head coach’ is a critical appointment, and should shape things on the pitch and motivate the squad. But his impact will always be tempered by the player recruitment. For me, the managers input in recruitment should be high on the list of criteria in player recruitment, but seems it isn’t. The reason we go through so many is that we keep making the wrong appointments. Will Still ffs….

But are they realistically likely to be interested? Rose aside - and he won’t be interested I’m sure - I don’t see many that I’d be keen on. Carrick was a name mentioned at the outset that appealed but reading the comments from his time at Middlesbrough it seemed a bit ‘Lego-esque’ in how it ended up.

Some good points. Can’t disagree on the last point either. Our Gk is very experienced in not blocking fairly tame headers (and shots).

Not such a bad achievement given we were looking at the other end of the table under Still.

What you describe is a need for a Robbins or similar. Say it quickly and often enough and that stacks up. In practice the difficulty is identifying and attracting one who is either available, and/or willing to come to us. Yes, you’re right but without repeating the same debate from this and the manager thread there doesn’t seem to be any immediate candidates meeting the above requirements. In which case we end up recycling a manager from the same stagnant pool.

And if that real choice was Gary O’Neil ?

Don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but it doesn’t address whether we’d find someone up to quickly changing things from the touchline.

I was surprised that his and Edozies squad numbers weren’t reallocated in the summer as both seemed on their way out. Neither contributed anything of note since.

Isn’t that true of many if not most managers, including experienced ? The only manager of ours I recall being renowned for tweaking things mid-match was Hoddle. Although that deserted him one night at Tranmere

Critical thing for me is if he learns from it. If Aribo is cast aside and not called upon again then that’s a good sign. If he keeps bringing him on then worrying. Agree that he doesn’t come with the ready made stature or aura, but of those who might - Gerard or Carrick perhaps - I’m not sure they’d provide a better option. And we’d have to go through another painful process of them finding out about their squads. Sadly the managers (or ‘head coaches’) who might meet the ‘stature’ criterion are unlikely to be persuaded to come to us. But it also goes to underline the poor squad depth any manager has to work with (GK’s, CB’s, Manning, Aribo … CF).

Was it Damion Downs level ?