Tonda Eckert - Official: Contract until 2027

[Zorba]

Deleted

Edited 3 hours ago by Zorba
Shit song

[Chris cooper]

4 hours ago, Verbal said:

Are you suggesting people sing this while throwing shapes? 

The northam wall shape shifter 🕺🏾

[Wade Garrett]

SR just gone for another manager they can push around.

If he goes 4 at the back and drops Bazunu and Stephens I’ll admit i was wrong on that.

[CB Fry]

Win today and we probably go top half and we'll never ever look back.

If we win today.

[coalman]

It will be interesting to see how the team reacts now they've got what they want.

All the best to him. I'm hoping he's going to put together a promotion run.

[ally_uk]

It's Tonda Time! 

3 points today, 3-0 saints 

[Scoobysaint]

After the turnaround in our play in the past few games, I think he deserves a go at the job. Some of the football in his first few games has been scintillating, a pleasure to watch, especially after the recent Russball dross.  I just hope the fans give him a chance and don’t use him to try and beat SR over the head. 

[Miltonaggro]

They now have to go all out for a really inexperienced number two. Hoping the Deutch direct recruitment continues, perhaps an ambitious young manager at Aldi or Lidl on none of our radars. Herr Apparent.

Good luck Tonda. 

[SWLondon Saint]

Good luck to him - just have to hope he's learned from the Millwall mess up. He got absolutely schooled there, they knew exactly what we wanted to do and were all over us, and then he compounded it with shit subs. We'll have a better idea if he's figured it out today I guess.

[Sheaf Saint]

Underwhelming.

Nothing personal against TE, but we only played well in two of those five games while he was interim boss, and that's largely because the opposition played right into our hands on both occasions. The way he was so easily sussed out by Millwall was a massive red flag to me.

I want him to succeed, I really do. But I also can't help feeling like I'm being gaslit by SR, like an abusive partner saying "I promise I've changed and things will be different this time babe. Please give me one more chance"

Well this is absolutely last chance saloon now for SR. Once again they've gambled on someone with no proven track record for the level we're at, and they keep on failing to learn from their mistakes. If this appointment goes the same way as the last five then they need to be driven out of the club by any means necessary.

Time will tell.

[Turkish]

7 hours ago, Colinjb said:

Ah, Gamblers fallacy.

Listen to Rasmus Ted talk it’s all about gambling 

[West end Saints]

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

SR just gone for another manager they can push around.

If he goes 4 at the back and drops Bazunu and Stephens I’ll admit i was wrong on that.

So if he plays tactics you, with your probably much more limited knowledge want, and pics the players you want, then he is ok?

Nothing to do with he came in, picked those players, played that formation and we start winning? 😂

He picks the players he wants, if you listen to his interviews he often explains he rationale, eg Bazunu to beat Charlton's press, Quashie back in as needed pace that game.

I think this belief that managers are told who to pick is a silly easy conspiracy theory.

[Convict Colony]

the best I've seen us play 2 games in a row (Charlton Leicester) in over 2 yrs earns him the right. There was no one out there who is a guarantee so maybe best to continue and give both parties to reevaluate in the summer either reward or payoff.

This season is a freebie one now, after our start one expected much but he has the chance to do something special.

[Wade Garrett]

26 minutes ago, West end Saints said:

So if he plays tactics you, with your probably much more limited knowledge want, and pics the players you want, then he is ok?

Nothing to do with he came in, picked those players, played that formation and we start winning? 😂

He picks the players he wants, if you listen to his interviews he often explains he rationale, eg Bazunu to beat Charlton's press, Quashie back in as needed pace that game.

I think this belief that managers are told who to pick is a silly easy conspiracy theory.

Bazunu can’t stop shots.  Millwall were taking pot shots because they know this.  Watch Birmingham do the same today.Might as well play Cam Bragg in goal if it’s that important for a keeper to beat the press rather than stop shots.

5 at the back leaves us short in the middle of the park.

We started winning because the players decided to start trying.  Adam Armstrong told us in an interview with the Echo.

He’s ok if we play well and can counter the opposition when, like Millwall, inferior players beat us with better tactics.  Personally, I would prefer 4-2-3-1, but what do I know.

That said, good luck to the guy.  I obviously want him to succeed.

Edited 4 hours ago by Wade Garrett

[Charlie Wayman]

10 hours ago, Saint Pete said:

Problem is we've been here before a few times over the years with promoted coaches with little or no management experience and it's never resulted in anything good. The ones that spring to mind are Stuart Gray, Steve Wigley, Reuben Selles. All sold as being up and coming managerial superstars, popular with the players etc, all hopelessly inexperienced and unproven and spectacularly unsuccessful and shortlived in the job. 

That said, I have nothing against him and as a Saints fan, I really hope he proves to be the real deal and much better than the above 3. One more thing I would say is if you appoint a 32 year old manager, it is very unlikely they will get everything right straight away so I think we will all need to show some patience and give him a chance to learn on the job if this is going to work. 

Brighton's manager is 32 so a good benchmark for Eckert in a higher division.

[ant]

Last night felt like odd timing.

On reflection today, I wonder whether SR feared that if we fail to recover from Millwall, they'll lose the (evidently fragile) fan support RE: Tonda? 

They do seem extremely reactive and insecure about criticism from the stands.

If that's wide of the mark, then why act on the eve of the match rather than at any other point of the week?

[Convict Colony]

For me today Leo is key to unlocking our style. 

They like to counter and cede possession and hit teams. 

So expect low block counters v our press.

Need Leo's pace on both press and runs and cause chaos. 

Midfield only worry for me as who partners Jander but good news at least brum have been average away from home.

Time to send the Zulus home crying.

 

[Badger]

23 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Brighton's manager is 32 so a good benchmark for Eckert in a higher division.

He had managed a promotion at his previous club. 

[beatlesaint]

2 hours ago, coalman said:

It will be interesting to see how the team reacts now they've got what they want.

my thoughts exactly. It's not like we haven't been down this road before.

[CB Fry]

8 minutes ago, Badger said:

He had managed a promotion at his previous club. 

I suppose you could look at his appointment from an assistant position to the front line manager as being comparable to the situation that Tonda is now in. And he got promotion (second season).

From Sport Republic's favourite division, Bundesliga 2.

 

[RedArmy]

11/1 I got on that. Thanks for being so predictable SR. 

[Badger]

Have been weighing this up. This wasn’t the appointment most expected or wanted when we eventually got rid of Ginger (a few weeks too late in my book).

Having got shot of a hapless inexperienced and young manager with little credibility in the English game we appoint someone even younger. Very Spor(t)s Republic. Act of lunacy or inspired choice ? 

From what I’ve seen from Tonda, I’m more confident of him than Still. Just a gut feeling. He comes across as focused and hope this translates into a drive on the training ground. Whether the useless cunts in our squad can respond is a different matter.

Tonda has so far interviewed well - better than Still ever managed - although talking Aribo up wasn’t good. I’m cautiously optimistic and in the absence of any outstanding other names, don’t mind the appointment (although timing of announcement seems strange).

Hope it works out for us, and him. Can only hope Sports Republic haven’t put him in a position for his career to crash and burn before it’s really started.

Over to you, Tonda.
 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Badger

[Badger]

24 minutes ago, Convict Colony said:

 

Time to send the Zulus home crying.

 

Hope it’s not a re-enactment  of Rorkes Drift with Bazunu the last man standing to repel them. 

[Toadhall Saint]

10 minutes ago, Badger said:

Hope it’s not a re-enactment  of Rorkes Drift with Bazunu the last man standing to repel them. 

Christ the British empire wouldn’t have existed if Baz was the last man standing anywhere.

[Toadhall Saint]

50 minutes ago, ant said:

Last night felt like odd timing.

On reflection today, I wonder whether SR feared that if we fail to recover from Millwall, they'll lose the (evidently fragile) fan support RE: Tonda? 

They do seem extremely reactive and insecure about criticism from the stands.

If that's wide of the mark, then why act on the eve of the match rather than at any other point of the week?

Give the players an extra lift?

[VectisSaint]

11 hours ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

When are we ever going to learn that promoting from within never works

That McMenemy chap didn't do too badly, eventually.

I do wonder whether it was actually Tonda that pushed back a little, I suspect SR would have appointed him permanently soon after Still was sacked, but Tonda wanted to hold on and maybe get some things agreed (transfer strategy etc) before agreeing. Just a thought, no evidence or inside knowledge.

Edited 2 hours ago by VectisSaint
Added para

[musesaint]

Really not sure what to think about this appointment. On the one hand you can’t argue that the team are playing vastly better football under Eckert but he’s not the experienced Championship campaigner many were calling for.

This is either going to be an inspired appointment or a crash and burn disaster. It won’t be anything in between. On balance I think it’s the former. We’ll know by Christmas what way it’s going.  

[sadoldgit]

5 minutes ago, musesaint said:

Really not sure what to think about this appointment. On the one hand you can’t argue that the team are playing vastly better football under Eckert but he’s not the experienced Championship campaigner many were calling for.

This is either going to be an inspired appointment or a crash and burn disaster. It won’t be anything in between. On balance I think it’s the former. We’ll know by Christmas what way it’s going.  

Why not anything in between? Surely the rest of the season is going to be either good, bad or indifferent?

[musesaint]

2 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Why not anything in between? Surely the rest of the season is going to be either good, bad or indifferent?

He’s either a genius with scary eyes who will inspire the players to soar into the top six en route to the promised land of the Premier League or another SR catastrophe. Can’t see it being in between. 

[S-Clarke]

18 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

Oh no the manager hasn't won all the games so we should replace him with a 6th guy in 365 days. Good normal stuff.

It would be amazing if you had the ability to have a debate and articulate your points or views clearly with people, but I don't think you have the brain cells for it. 

You purposely miss the point with most posts, to justify throwing your voice around at the fans of the club you supposedly support.

You spend more time attacking the clubs fans than you actually do talking about 'football'.

Edited 2 hours ago by S-Clarke

[Lighthouse]

Seems a reasonable enough appointment to me, you can't really argue with four wins out of five and the one we lost was missing some key players. It's obviously a risk but then so would anyone else be. There was never really a stand out 'you be mad not to appoint him' candidate, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

[Sheaf Saint]

6 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Seems a reasonable enough appointment to me, you can't really argue with four wins out of five and the one we lost was missing some key players. It's obviously a risk but then so would anyone else be. There was never really a stand out 'you be mad not to appoint him' candidate, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

So were Millwall. But they still comprehensively outplayed us because their manager is much more experienced than ours.

Edited 1 hour ago by Sheaf Saint

[Jack]

1 hour ago, ant said:

Last night felt like odd timing.

On reflection today, I wonder whether SR feared that if we fail to recover from Millwall, they'll lose the (evidently fragile) fan support RE: Tonda? 

They do seem extremely reactive and insecure about criticism from the stands.

If that's wide of the mark, then why act on the eve of the match rather than at any other point of the week?

100% this. If we’d lost to Birmingham today (entirely feasible) then their chance to appoint him full time with the majority of the fanbase either onside or at least neutral, is lost. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

Tonda Eckhart as an appointment is underwhelming. But you can’t fault twelve points from fifteen being picked up, so clearly something had clicked between him and the players.

I think we’re still extremely reliant on certain players and there is a lot of work to do, but I have more confidence with him than I did with Will Still.

Sport Republic have taken the cheaper option which is beneficial for both parties. In terms of appointing him I’m sure if he had won against Millwall he would’ve been announced on Monday, waiting until later in the week the dust has settled.

He was always SR’s man. The irony now is that if he loses three or four games the pressure is firmly on SR and Johannes Spors. There is no one to hide behind anymore.

Despite what others may think, I think we will get promoted this season. Big claim but I think we will.

[sadoldgit]

20 minutes ago, musesaint said:

He’s either a genius with scary eyes who will inspire the players to soar into the top six en route to the promised land of the Premier League or another SR catastrophe. Can’t see it being in between. 

Couldn’t he be a genius with scary eyes who leads us into mid table mediocrity this season?

The way I see it the squad is still short of a few key players. A lot depends on what SR does in the forthcoming transfer window and the next.

 

 

[Lighthouse]

21 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

So were Millwall. But they still comprehensively outplayed us because their manager is much more experienced than ours.

Millwall are a decent team, who've been very strong at home and are 3rd in the table. That was always going to be a tough game, we could have lost that under Adkins, Martin, Burley or any other Championship manager you'd care to mention. Them also having injuries doesn't negate the fact that we're clearly not the same without Leo, Downes and Charles.

[Wade Garrett]

Just now, Lighthouse said:

Millwall are a decent team, who've been very strong at home and are 3rd in the table. That was always going to be a tough game, we could have lost that under Adkins, Martin, Burley or any other Championship manager you'd care to mention. Them also having injuries doesn't negate the fact that we're clearly not the same without Leo, Downes and Charles.

They didn’t do a lot to win it though.  Tactically negated us, and that’s my fear with the new manager.  He had no answer last week and made some Still-esque subs.

Put it down to inexperience, that’s fair enough.  But he needs to be a quick learner.  He’s obviously intelligent, so hopefully he’ll know what to do going forward.

[Lighthouse]

10 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

They didn’t do a lot to win it though.  Tactically negated us, and that’s my fear with the new manager.  He had no answer last week and made some Still-esque subs.

Put it down to inexperience, that’s fair enough.  But he needs to be a quick learner.  He’s obviously intelligent, so hopefully he’ll know what to do going forward.

We lost away to the team in 3rd in the last minute of injury time. It's football, it happens, there's no manager out there who was guaranteed to win all five games. If we were playing someone crap and been 3-0 down at half time, then I'd have been more concerned.

[Turkish]

Luckily Tonde is a world class manager who was always our first choice and someone I said back in 2022 was going to be a top manager one day. Given there was not a single other manager in the world that could do the job it just highlights how great Sports Republic are that the best man for the job was already employed by us. 

[rallyboy]

He's clearly earned his chance, but I think I'd have waited to see how today and West Brom went before committing to him.

Let's hope it's a new era, in a good way.

 

[Sheaf Saint]

35 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Millwall are a decent team, who've been very strong at home and are 3rd in the table. That was always going to be a tough game, we could have lost that under Adkins, Martin, Burley or any other Championship manager you'd care to mention. Them also having injuries doesn't negate the fact that we're clearly not the same without Leo, Downes and Charles.

Millwall are a decent team and are 3rd in the table because they have an experienced manager and are well organised, not because they have a lot of quality stuff n their squad. Despite the players we had missing, we should still be giving them a much better game than what we did. The fact that we didn't and were outplayed is reflective of a naive tactical approach against a well drilled side.

There is a huge gulf between us and Millwall in terms of resources. With an even half-decent manager we should still be going there confident of getting a result, not making shit excuses about missing players.

[Lighthouse]

7 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Millwall are a decent team and are 3rd in the table because they have an experienced manager and are well organised, not because they have a lot of quality stuff n their squad. Despite the players we had missing, we should still be giving them a much better game than what we did. The fact that we didn't and were outplayed is reflective of a naive tactical approach against a well drilled side.

There is a huge gulf between us and Millwall in terms of resources. With an even half-decent manager we should still be going there confident of getting a result, not making shit excuses about missing players.

Okay, so losing away to the team in third is not acceptable. If we 'should still be going there and getting a result' who are we allowed to lose to in this league?

[CB Fry]

Just now, Lighthouse said:

Okay, so losing away to the team in third is not acceptable. If we 'should still be going there and getting a result' who are we allowed to lose to in this league?

We did spend fifty odd million on new players and have one of (if not the) highest wages bills in the league.

So we shouldn't be losing to many in this league including the all conquering football colossus that is Millwall.

[Sheaf Saint]

1 minute ago, Lighthouse said:

Okay, so losing away to the team in third is not acceptable. If we 'should still be going there and getting a result' who are we allowed to lose to in this league?

OK so you clearly haven't actually read and understood my point then, and have resorted to a pathetic straw man argument instead.

I wouldn't have minded losing so much if we had put in a good performance and been unlucky. But that's not what happened is it. It was men v boys as we got schooled all over the pitch by a technically limited but well organised team.

The scoreline and the fact that we only lost in the dying moments don't tell the whole story. We were incredibly lucky to take the lead from that penalty because up until that point Millwall had completely nullified our attack and we had created nothing.

That's why I have my doubts that Eckert will bring us anything better than mid-table this season. With the resources we have, there is no way we should be settling for that.

[sfc4prem]

2 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

OK so you clearly haven't actually read and understood my point then, and have resorted to a pathetic straw man argument instead.

I wouldn't have minded losing so much if we had put in a good performance and been unlucky. But that's not what happened is it. It was men v boys as we got schooled all over the pitch by a technically limited but well organised team.

The scoreline and the fact that we only lost in the dying moments don't tell the whole story. We were incredibly lucky to take the lead from that penalty because up until that point Millwall had completely nullified our attack and we had created nothing.

That's why I have my doubts that Eckert will bring us anything better than mid-table this season. With the resources we have, there is no way we should be settling for that.

Pretty insightful post, pal. You think SR have jumped the gun with Eckert?

Did we have that many options when it comes to managerial talent available?

As we know, the fish rots from the head, and SR are like a chocolate fucking teapot most of the time.

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

3 hours ago, Convict Colony said:

This season is a freebie one now, after our start one expected much but he has the chance to do something special.

Maybe I'm an optimist but I'm looking at those play-off places and thinking that's our target and easily reachable...so still all to play for.

And Convict, I'm missing your pre-match stream advice. Hopefully you can give a pointer or two just prior to today's match.

[Toussaint]

He’s a likeable guy who inspires confidence, he has taken his opportunity very well, he could go on to be something special, he has that air.

[Lighthouse]

9 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

I wouldn't have minded losing so much if we had put in a good performance and been unlucky. But that's not what happened is it. It was men v boys as we got schooled all over the pitch by a technically limited but well organised team.

That's very obviously not true though is it. How many times have we played well, only to fail to take our chances, lose and end up saying, "FFS! Same story every time, out play them and lose FFS!" It's one of the longest stanging cliches in football, so don't pretend you wouldn't have minded.

Tonda won four games out of five. The one he lost was to a 97th minute goal, when we were missing key players away to the team in third. It's as solid an audition as you can ask for and 12 points in 5 games would be 110 played out over a full season.