I think I'm down the middle road on this one. I am cautiously optimistic, but that's more down to the unknown quantity and doing something different hoping it works well than any info I have on Tomasson's managerial acumen. I think this is as much to do with the hope, perhaps silly of me, that this new structure and apparent continental setup is going to be more suitable for the Club and may work in our favour in this division. This is likely to hinge more on how clued up this Broughton bloke is, what power he has and what budget he has. This isn't an appointment that sets pulses racing or suggests we mean business as a Farke, Dyche, Bilic or Carvalhal would. But it isn't a depressing nightmare appointment as an Adkins, Woodgate or Ferguson would have been.

Yes, so if Rothwell goes there that tells us a story.

Whether you rate them or not the reality is that their departures were all dressed up as "no big loss" or "we can do better" yet the reality is all have gone on to better things, just like the trio will this summer whilst we are left scrimping around the loan market for replacements.

Where do you think they will go then? Latest rumours are Middlesbrough for Lenihan and West Brom / Forest for Rothwell. Want to have a bet we will finish above them 3 this season?

Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe will all be playing for teams either at a higher level or higher than us in the Championship next season. I'm pretty confident on that. Tells us all we need to know - higher clubs or clubs with high aspirations- want them. We won't get better than them. We've done all this before with Hanley, Cairney, Raya and co.

They (Waggott) went into the Lancashire Telegraph during the Covid ground closure and said that they would discount season ticket prices for the following year to compensate fans for those games that they had been unable to go into the ground to watch during restrictions. This was said to be an alternative to people seeking refunds for missed games. A few months later, despite still being under restrictions, not only did Waggott not offer this discount, but he also introduced a price rise. So in the unlikely event that they were to now backtrack or offer some form of future discount I would be very wary - this lot don't keep their promises. I suspect this failure to keep promises, lies, misleading statements and altogether treating paying supporters like dirt and for granted is a major reason sales have collapsed, along with expensive prices. I know personally the behaviour of the Club is more important to me than the price they are asking.

Sensible suggestion but one I don't think would ever happen here. Waggott would not have authority to make such an offer and Venkys work on 12 month cycles and budgets so wouldn't even dream of next year at this stage. Plus we'd get all the 'we don't know what league we are going to be in' (even though nobody else does when releasing tickets in February).

The other issue beyond pricing is what else can they do to tempt people? The best they can do price wise is to do away with the £30 disloyal fan increase. But even then it's still expensive by Championship standards. Tomasson intriguing but not an appointment that will make many sit up or rush to the ticket office. Ambitious transfer business? Not going to happen. Loans and cheap deals only. So quite scary really. Some of us have been warning of this for years.

The Club has tried to take plenty of credit for the various 'community' and other awards that it has picked up in recent years. So it has to accept criticism for what amounts to dangerously low season ticket sales. All the efforts at engaging with children and the community utterly futile if you are losing thousands of season ticket holders every year. Waggott has to go. He is CEO and his decisions have obliterated our bread and butter season ticket base. A U turn might recover some lost ground but still nowhere near enough, and a U turn would merely confirm that he has made a complete pigs ear of things. Time to go Waggott. The Club is dying - a direct result of negligent unfit owners employing substandard administrators and letting them run riot for years on end. Bolton, Derby, Wigan, Blackpool might have had financial chaos and administration but that was a short sharp shock followed by healing and rebuilding. We are now into year 13 of this and the direction continues downwards. For once I am seeing some common ground online - almost everyone seems to accept the Club is at fault here and the prices are ridiculous.

I would hope that this appointment of someone with significant clout as a player (Champions League / UEFA Cup winner, Denmark legend) will count for something - hopefully it acts as some sort of pull for potential signings and can teach our existing crop a thing or two. I don't have any particular issue with his appointment. If he hadn't had his 2 seasons of success at Malmo recently I would be concerned, but his time with Malmo certainly matches or betters CVs of other European coaches who have arrived in the Championship recently. For example Kompany with the dingles hasn't managed to win anything with Anderlecht who are giants in their league, Farke and Wagner were only reserve team managers, Frank had worked in Denmark and not won anything. So no particular issues on giving him a chance there, he's certainly got enough on his CV to merit a shot at it. My concerns go beyond which individual gets the managers job. - The structure and mechanics of our new 'setup' - in the past the way to get funding and things done here was to go straight to the source of power and funds - India - Kean, Bowyer and Mowbray did that quickly and were the only ones who managed to last here with any reasonable transfer backing. I am worried that without this we are going to be extremely limited as to what we can do and when we can do it as healthy funds will not materialise unless Desai sanctions it. - How much power do Waggott, Pasha and Broughton have? For example if Tomasson turns out to be a disaster and we are struggling for survival does anyone have the power to sack him and pay up his multi-year deal, or is this something that has to be done by India in their own good time? - Getting the squad into shape for the new season. I get the obsession with using the academy where possible but there are more important things here than ensuring certain players get their breakthrough. At the least we need to ensure we are equipped to survive this season, not a foregone conclusion, and for that there has to be good, solid recruitment and quickly. As per paragraph above I am not confident that this will happen with the resources available. - the setup of old - manager running everything and reporting to India once a year - needs tipping on its head. I am certain of that because under the old system the manager was an indespensible and bulletproof component regardless of results. That has to change. Tomasson needs to be able to focus all his efforts on first team games and issues, and live or die by results on the pitch. If he's good then we are all happy, if he's rubbish then he will need replacing quickly not another unsackable situation. - the coaching staff - if Tomasson is having staff imposed on him this is concerning. If he arrives and doesn't like the people here he must be allowed to replace them. If they won't even allow this insignificant cost and step then we have big problems.

I've lost interest the more time has passed since it became clear that the Club was unwilling or unable to agree to the removal of Mowbray's coaching staff. If that is for footballing reasons then we have Venkys, Pasha or Waggott imposing staff on managers who are better qualified to judge such things. If this is for financial reasons we might as well go home because the cost of doing this is chicken feed in the scheme of things. If we have undertaken this 'search' on the basis that contenders for the job have to agree to work with those already here then we have not undertaken a thorough search. We have unnecessarily restricted and hindered our options. Tomasson may be good, may be bad, I don't really care. The incompetents above him and Mowbray's staff below him are still here which is a bigger issue IMO. I'll wish him the best, it's certainly a more 'interesting' appointment than the dross we've seen on the list but it also isn't an appointment that suggests excitement or ambition either.

Broughton might just be a convenient one to blame. After the Lenihan and Nyambe debacles I'd be surprised if even these moronic owners hadn't started asking questions of Waggott. Bringing in a Broughton on a relatively cheap deal, buying a couple of years whilst he settles in for 'the journey' and then pointing fingers in his direction if more goes wrong should see Waggo through to comfortable retirement.

I think there is a considerable difference between a Marketing Manager / Head of Marketing and a Commercial Director. We haven't had a Commercial Director since Dave Biggar resigned some 6-7 years ago. That is the real issue and problem here. Marketing managers and the like - Greg Coar and co. - have a much smaller remit and in my humble opinion this is a central reason why our sponsorship and commercial performance has been so poor.

Pandemic, cost of living crisis, no PL football, small towns - all the excuses the apologists usually come with demolished thanks to our neighbours. Myths busted All it takes is some understanding and treating people properly.

Tomasson strikes me as one who as I said earlier is desperate to resume his coaching career and who seems to have been throwing his hat in the ring all over the place. I'm a bit concerned by him. Not sure what it is but see little there to give me any confidence, though I would take him over many of the names involved at this stage. Complete shambles of a club but some will be so desperate to see some conclusion to this exhausting process they won't actually be bothered who we get as long as it is someone.

Probably, though I'd say our budget is too low rather than all the potentials are too high.

I'm not renewing before the deadline. I'm in no rush. I'll happily pay the extra if I see evidence of a Club that backs up words with actions. You might get away with silly beggars stuff when charging low end prices but if you want to charge top end prices I expect to see top end action and product. If not then I might not bother. My two mates definitely aren't doing so I'll be on my todd if I do unless I relocate which I'm not particularly keen on doing.

It's clear JDT is eager to yet a job. He's been out of work for over 6 months and has, supposedly, been in the running now for QPR, Hibs and Rovers this summer. I am always wary about this for two reasons. Firstly I suspect someone at his end is throwing his name into the reckoning as he's desperate to get a job. Secondly because if there's truth to our interest I wonder how much of it has come from us identifying him and how much has come from him throwing himself at the vacancy. I suspect the answer will lie in the make up of his coaching staff and if he's willing to play the game here. I'd prefer him over most of the names left on the list at present although to be totally honest I'd be underwhelmed. It would be intriguing but not one that would fill me with confidence.

I dont think we will get a foreign manager. Too expensive. Too complex. Probably too ambitious. There's a reason we've only ever got one foreign manager in Berg and that was because of his playing days with us. This is a small time jobs for the boys corner cutting pound shop operation. With that in mind it will be someone local, cheap, desperate and happy to work alongside the other pound shop people already in place.

23 league games. Their attendances are average 20 odd thousand ours average about 14 thousand. 23 x say 10000 is 230,000 extra people a year. Average £20 a ticket that's less than £5 million a year. Very rough figures but shows that alone does not make a game changing difference. Then we need to recognise that our attendances are artificially low due to self sabotage and negligence and could easily be 2 or 3 thousand a week higher as Preston and Bolton will show this season So all in all maybe a third of Adam Armstrong's money.

So if that happens we are only following part of our own plan. You mention selling players and reinvesting. But there hasn't been any reinvestment of funds received from Armstrong. Nor have we sold to reinvest on Lenihan and Nyambe because we've refused to pay them the going rate. Then the other issue - according to the Club and local media we wanted to keep Lenihan and finances weren't the issue last week when he was waiting to see who the new manager was going to be. So we were trying to keep that 28 year old and allegedly made him a good offer. Finally you mention bringing in a loan to replace him. That isn't consistent with 'the plan'. It's just once again doing things on the cheap short term solution.

Not necessarily all financial on Lenihan despite the usual Facebook and Twitter culprits attempting to portray him as a mercenary moving only for a payday. No, I'm sure 5 minutes on the phone with Chris Wilder, proven ambitious manager building for an immediate promotion assault and then a look at the uncertainty at Rovers as to whether we plump for Warne, Ainsworth or someone else as the weeks tick by and the talk about journeys starts again. Might even be worth a pay cut

It's not a question of what is sustainable. Its a question of what is allowed under the rules. People on here have been beating the FFP drum for years, advocating the importance of selling players at big profits to trade. Well we've done that with Armstrong and Brereton yet I'm supposed to believe that despite the good work done on those players and massive funds received that we are still at a massive disadvantage and unable to compete with .... Middlesbrough? We talk about the Brentford model yet reinvestment and retention of key players on robust contracts essential to their model... we haven't done that here. Selling players and reinvesting is precisely how Brentford competed and won promotion... not by letting key players leave on frees to rivals. So it is sustainable and is a route to competing. Middlesbrough's income may be greater than ours ... but they only play 23 home games a season like we do. They aren't getting big crowds on every weekend. As I say it matters not if we have a big sale every year to two to wipe out the difference. I'm not sure what you are on about at paragraph 3. Of course losses matter, FFP is based on profit and loss, central to which are income and expenditure. Their income might be much higher but so are their outgoings, or at least they should be given the massive cuts at Rovers since last year. How many big earners left now?

So what about the £20 million we have brought in from selling Armstrong and the forced sale of Brereton that will have to happen? That money wipes out comfortably any revenues Middlesbrough have that we don't. That's before we get onto wage bills. Any guesses what theirs is compared to ours now? No this comes back to willingness. Gibson wants to spend and will get around FFP to do do. Venkys don't want to spend, will use FFP as a convenient shield and have slashed the budgets again as they did in 2015-16. Mowbray himself alluded to it in his parting comments. We've just got to hope the outcome to these cuts is different to 2017. I don't see much reason for optimism on that

Is this why we have our academy? To grow, develop and polish up players so they can be cherry picked and lured away by fecking Middlesbrough on free transfers in the prime of their careers? If so we'd be better ditching the academy altogether.