Sedimentary, my dear Watson
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Thought this was a football forum?
Blackpool do a particularly fine one
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Blackpool sign another GK…looks like Franco will be a number 2 again ! cant catch a break
He’s already thrown a few in his net. Strange approach from Blackpool to go for two keepers struggling for confidence. Goalkeepers have always fared best when they’re confident/arrogant.
I don’t know. You are saying it like you know something that I don’t know. As far as I can see, they are in the squad so are very much part of our plans as it stands.
Can you “hand on heart” tell me that you thought Kone would be POTS at this time last year?
You could sign anyone, but what if the unappointed manager then arrives a week or so later and doesn’t even get on at a personal level with them? That’s what’s ridiculous.
Maybe if we weren’t pissing about so much with the next head coach appointment it would not have been such an issue, but didn’t we take about 3 and a half weeks just to bring in a guy who was a coach at another club and not even the main guy? Great succession planning lads.
I’m not keen on what’s going on at the club, and I’m not keen on some of the staff we had on site at Harlington when I visited and interacted with them. It felt very amateurish and rushed to me and I expect a high turnover of staffing in our more development phase in the next 18 months. Why I was there is private. I also don’t like the feel of so many leaving our club who bled blue blood for so long.
I’m also not buying all this ‘season ticket numbers’ crap. We’ll see 6 home games in where I home attendees are in terms of numbers, and I’m sure it’ll be a drop off from last season.
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I think the latest interview from the “gang of three” probably answers the first part well enough. It seems the club policy when it comes to recruitment - across the board from players to admin staff - is that they will be making club appointments. I believe the head coach (if in post) will be a voice during that process but players will be signed on a basis of them being right for the club and, therefore, less likely to want to leave (or even come) because of a change in manager.
I don’t think any of that is particularly ridiculous. Different from what we have ever don’t before yes, but I still don’t see it being particularly ridiculous when it has been the approach across Europe and the premier league for a while.
Is it a going to work for us? Who knows, proof will be in the pudding.
Regarding the amateurish thing - I suspect some of it is. They have been doing the job for 14 Months after having zero experience in running a club in the past. I don’t expect them to get everything - or even the majority - of things right first time. I, however, do expect them to improve when mistakes are made, and I do see evidence (Tom whatshisface being one in coming in to take over the lead in transfers) when mistakes are made
I 100% do buy the season ticket sales numbers thing. But I don’t expect it to affect the number of people in the crowd. £25 and a free shirt is a good enough deal to get a ticket and a shirt for £25 and never come to a game.
Edit: oh, and to add to that last bit, if it does result in higher numbers and an increased number of kids, I expect the complaints about there being kids in the crowd and it ruining the atmosphere/sat in “your/your mates seat of the past 27 years” to increase massively.
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I totally agree with the “club tyle of play” thing. Look at clubs like Brighton and you can swap in a new head coach and they can take on the players as the style is similar.
Where this concerns me is that Dodds’ style is horrific to watch. And if that’s the club style they want to implement then many fans that travel in from London (like me) or wherever just won’t bother.
I’m not spending an entire Saturday at great expense to rip my eyes out with boredom and frustration every other week waiting for us to maybe try and attack come minute 85 against a side in the bottom half with a fraction of our budget.
It doesn’t concern me as much as it should concern/be a constant reminder to Dodds that if he doesn’t perform they will get someone else in pretty quick.
I mean, the big takeaway from the “new Gang of 3” for me was it being made abundantly clear that the clubs being set up so they can lose/fire a head coach with as little disruption to the players.
This in itself puts huge power in the players hands if they “decide” (but surely no professional player would do that?!?) to not play for the head coach anymore….
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That’s exactly my concern. If getting rid of Dodds just brings in another person to play negative, soul destroying football - as that’s the “club style” - then I just won’t be attending.
I don’t care if we win every single game 1-0 next season olaying as we did against Stevenage, Lincoln, Wigan, Huddersfield etc. If there’s no entertainment I’m not spending a whole day just to sit frustrated for 95 mins tearing my hair and/or eyes out.
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The thing that makes me think they’ll fire Dodds pretty quickly this season is precisely because the club style seems to be to bring in quick, agile, skillful players who want to receive the ball on the ground and run with it. If anything seems to be the house style, it is that. If Dodds gets them playing grindball and the results are middling and or the crowds fail to come, and the players then have a quiet word with Dan or Tom that they’re not particularly happy with the way things are progressing, it will be very easy to sack Dodds and bring someone in who’ll play the way the bosses want.
I’m sure Dodds knows this - so the onus is on him to change his style of play from the off.
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He didn’t do that at Sunderland, he didn’t last season and given how he’s hidden behind results gained in shocking performances and claimed he was happy with how we played in those games I have my doubts.
But I’d love to be wrong!
Money talks though - and if the club’s aim is to bring undervalued skilled players in, put them in the shop window and then sell them on for profit, they’ll need a head coach who’ll be able to deliver that by getting those players playing sexy football.
Kone may become a case in point - valued at £7m+ when Bloomfield was boss then failed to score under Dodds and looked a shadow of himself. If the club have to accept a lower bid for Kone than could’ve been achieved in Jan then that will reflect pretty badly on Dodds.
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Can only imagine what bids we’d be fielding now if he hadn’t dipped, and if he was already a championship player because of promotion. Would also have made him less likely to want to go and us less likely to need to sell. Certainly would be asking £10m+.
Not at all saying it’s all Dodds fault but if player development is your selling point you need to deliver. Incidentally that doesn’t always coincide with great results, clubs often need to prioritise blooding and then resting talents over playing the steady older player with a lower ceiling. However he’ll get the chop if he can’t deliver one, if not both outcomes.
To be fair, and I am giving him a fairly large amount of leeway here, at both Sunderland and the first half of a season he was with us, I don’t think it could be regarded as him having “his” players to play “his” way.
That excuse and leeway will disappear fairly quickly this season however if we continue in the same way. I am still (slightly) buoyed that it seems he isn’t happy with the way we have been playing either. If he was, I’d be really concerned.
We must also remember that I don’t think Ainsworth did that great when he was caretaker at QPR before he ever came to us (and didn’t set the world alight the second time there, or at Shrewsbury). Sometimes it does take time to get a team playing how you want them and successful.
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But he said he was happy with that run of three horrible performances that ended in three narrow wins.
Zero ambition shown in any of them but got lucky from set pieces, where had the first set piece gone against us we’d have lost.
He only said he wasn’t happy post-Charlton. As I say, that’s my concern.
Equally, neither Sunderland or us were playing dour grindball before he took over. He actively chose to switch to that style. It doesn’t make sense that that’s not at least in part how he wants to play.
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If (and hopefully soon) they get rid of Dodds and his soul destroying football style, I think it’s highly unlikely he will be replaced by a coach with similar ultra negative ideas.
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If they weren’t happy with his style of football then considering he cratered the value of our two biggest assets in Low and Kone and saw results go into free fall it begs the question why did they keep him?
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It’s obviously great to hear that you are giving Mike Dodds a fairly large amount of leeway and I’m sure the man himself will be fully appreciative but I doubt whether I’m alone in wishing there was some way these unendingly tedious and pointless discussions between two or three Gasroomers could be conducted in private.
Oh, and for future reference, Tom Whatshisface is more usually known as Tom Stockwell.
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Connell not in Barnsley squad for thier match today
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