HarvSFC

Contrasting with the way Shields left, who was told to stay away from the club following Chelsea's approach and then leaving us with a January window led by Ankersen. Although, Chelsea's January wasn't much better, either. Shields has had a good two windows in senior football with us last summer and Chelsea in January. Hopefully anyone Aberdeen can't afford gets sent our way.

Played in the league with Dennis Wise too, who is now 56. He's good for the football 'who am I' game, is Walcott.

Steffen and Muric did well in the Championship after City sold them last summer. Surely we didn't sign a worse goalkeeper than Middlesbrough and Burnley got from the same club.

Smallbone's a number 10, the same as Alcaraz and Stuart Armstrong. We're going to need at least 3 new central midfielders for next season, unfortunately. Just need to hope the scouting department's improved. Hamer from Coventry, who's a Premier League player would be a coup to start.

Hamer and Gyokeres are the two standouts in the Coventry team who I doubt will be there next season, probably go to the Premier League themselves, so rules us out. Luton more of a team, rather than star individuals and the mad narcissist that is Nathan Jones will absolutely claim he has got a team promoted this season.

To be fair, they've also had/have Weghorst and Ighalo in recent years and both would struggle to get into our current team.

JWP would have/will be perfect for the new possession ethos we're moving forwards with. It'll be a shame if he does go to a West Ham who I've seen linked tonight as he'd never have gone there if we hadn't have been relegated. I reckon only the traditional top six clubs and Newcastle now could have tempted him if we stayed up. Now it's a bit more unpredictable.

Had a look at Swansea's coaching staff to see who might follow Martin, as haven't seen any rumours on the new coaches coming. Positively, it looks like a lot of/all but one of Martin's coaches at Swansea also worked with him at MK Dons. So, if we're to bring the team over, which we need to do rather than the half hearted attempts of revitalising the coaching team that we've attempted over the years, then he has a longstanding relationship with these coaches: https://www.swanseacity.com/first-team-staff-0 It's almost as if every other club allows a manager to pick their coaches, rather than forcing Craig Fleming, Kelvin Davis, Carl Martin, etc.... upon them. Another positive is that it's the fat bald one from the above link who probably won't be following Martin.

They spent £35m on Fabio Silva, £38m on Matheus Nunes, £27.5m on Goncalo Guedes and £37m on Nelson Semedo. Only Nunes isn't a Jorge Mendes client. While he's brought a few unbelievable players to Wolves (Patricio, Moutinho and Neves), he's also saddled them with a lot of shit to boost his own wealth.

Hasn't happened since Koeman, and we did really well under Koeman, so might be a bit too obvious for the decision makers.

It's a real shame that Semmens won't be able to oversee the women's team growing bigger than the men's, but at least he won't have to be paid to watch the club anymore. I guess league positions did matter at the end of the day. On that note, did we all catch what the Norwich sporting director said about their women's team: 😂

The Athletic said in an article last week that the players were pretty much getting away with too much, not just under Selles, but for the entire season. Remember they were rewarded with a two week holiday instead of training during the six week World Cup break, while every other club barring Bournemouth was playing friendlies. Martin didn't accept Obafemi's attitude in the same way Hasenhuttl didn't and called it out in public, so it will at least be nice to have someone actually in charge of the players at the club again. In his playing career, Martin became Peterborough's youngest ever captain and Norwich's captain for five years. So, you'd expect he has some of that much needed and desired leadership quality.

Burnley spent around £30m across both windows to run away with the league. Balanced out by the sales of Pope, Collins, McNeil and Cornet for around £70m. They also made use of the loan market, bringing in six players.

Dean Henderson or Keylor Navas would have done.

Don't worry guys, much like this season we rectified the summer errors of 2005 by signing Ostlund, Bialkowski, Miller, Brennan, Potter, Chaplow (Good), Rasiak (Good), Madsen and Wright in the winter window.

At least it looks like it's done early. Not my top choice, but like with Jones I'll now support him until he gives me a reason not to. Wasn't my last choice either, would've preferred Martin to the Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard, Vieira's who are living off their playing careers. Swansea have a few gems we could realistically poach too. Piroe, Manning and Darling, while Grimes would be alright too given the expected midfielder exodus this summer.

Cost United £37m. Pretty nuts that a £37m player is playing on loan in the Championship. Why the loan market will be key next season.

He's not popular with the ladies, but as a football manager for a Championship club there isn't many better realistic options on paper. Potter left Swansea after a 10th placed finish. Cooper was his summer replacement, taking them to 6th and a play-offs defeat against Brentford in his first season in charge and then 4th and a play-off final defeat against his nemesis, Brentford in his second season in charge. He then walked out on them in the summer and the two years without him they've dropped to 15th and 10th. He then took over Nottingham Forest in September 2021. Forest had won one of their first eight under Chris Hughton and were bottom of the league with 4 points. Those in the play-offs had a 9 point head start. But, they only lost 6 more games across the rest of the season, he took them to 4th and won through the play-offs. Did well in the FA Cup too, reaching the quarter finals after knocking out Arsenal and beating Leicester 4-1, losing 1-0 to Liverpool. As said, it hasn't gone completely to plan for him this season, as his owners like ours and the Chelsea owners started playing Football Manager in real life without any real plan. But, yeah, he's got a winning track record in the Championship, sorted out the mess at Forest who were recycling through managers like Watford (14 in 8 years prior to him), so he has that going for him too, hasn't just walked into good, stable clubs.

Selles is wondering why the Luton lot are so happy, they lost the possession stat 38% to 62%.

Not many YouTube compilations on him. Welcome back to the Championship.

Appears like another spreadsheet guy to me. Good underlying stats (possession), where he can talk a good game, but at the end of the day he's achieved nothing as a manager. Taken MK Dons to 13th and replaced Cooper, who finished 4th with Swansea to a 15th and 10th placed finish in his two seasons in charge. We've all also watched us play a blunt possession game all season. I don't want to see us continue to pass it around Bazunu and our centre-backs next season. It's boring, too passive and at the end of the day doesn't get most teams who try to emulate Barcelona/Man City the same success. You need a mix between direct and possession based football to be winners at our level. One positive is we'd be stupid not to bring Joel Piroe with him if Martin was appointed. Only 23 and a 22 and 19 goal Championship striker.

Les Reed got complacent and believed his own hype, that was our downfall. Two things Brighton are doing to show they're not getting complacent/resting on their success is that they're signing players before selling their stars. They've already got Joao Pedro in and James Milner is all but confirmed with a handful of games left in the season. That would've been unthinkable under our previous lot. Boufal, for example, Mane's replacement was signed on 29th August 2016. Two days before the window closed, wasn't given a pre-season and we sold Mane two months prior on 28th June 2016. Then there was the Van Dijk replacement debacle. Sold him before the January window opened, so a complete reverse to what Brighton are doing and then didn't "replace" him until the following summer with a complete flop in Wesley Hoedt for £15m. That then brings the next point. Brighton are obviously going to sell some players this summer. We sold Van Dijk for a then record fee for a centre-back. But, we continued to shop in the £10m-£20m market, when prices had inflated following our previous success. So, we signed Hoedt for £15m, when probably about two years prior he would have been worth £10m and a fairer reflection on his poor quality. We saw the same when we "replaced" Ings, who was sold for £30m with Adam Armstrong for £15m. Even Leeds have two £30m+ forwards. They're both rubbish, but it's surely got to be easier to find quality for £30m than us looking for "bargains" below £20m. Joao Pedro cost Brighton £30m, so they're investing their predicted income into their transfer fees, while we were always told that the other half of our transfer income had to go towards agent fees and what not. They were the two mistakes we made, so it will obviously take time, but Brighton could sustain this for a bit longer. It also helps that they have an invested owner, a fan of the club.

Paddy McNair would be a good start should Middlesbrough stay down. Pocketed Gyokeres today.

You'd imagine the young players who are turning up late to training/on their phones are Edozie, Mara and Bazunu considering they've all been dropped, not getting much of a look in and their general demeanour which we see, although for an admittedly short period of time. You also wouldn't be too surprised if AMN and Aribo were just as poor professionally off the pitch, although AMN does get in the team every week, so he may be doing something right like the other lesser talents who get played every week. Overall, what a mess of a situation. I don't know why Crocker wasn't just put in charge of recruitment in January and why it had to be the under qualified Ankersen. Even tonight's statement is coming weeks/months too late. Why wait until we're confirmed relegated to release something you'd hope is meaningful and not when relegation was staring us in the face.

Onuachu this week’s tombola pick.