39 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

So why was he on the touchline second half? Why was given players orders from the touchline? 

 

I know you believe everything the club says so here is a snippet from the announcement regarding Eustace's appointment about the Stoke game.

8 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

6 points from 6 games

He wasn't manager for the Stoke game

A pound shop Tony Pulis.

It wasn't just the Wigan game whenever he played in his first two seasons he looked dreadful and the Wigan game was just the final straw. But he improved massively last season and continued to go from strength to strength ever since. He is now without a doubt our undisputed number 1. 

Hard to believe that was the same group of players that played at Birmingham and Cardiff on the previous two Tuesdays. Pears' growth continues he really is completely unrecognisable from the goalie who played when we went out at Wigan 2 years ago, Markanday finally looked like the tricky pacey player I hoped we had signed 2 years ago. Also first look at the Liverpool lad and he looks like he's got all the attributes to be a good defender.

The players set a standard tonight that needs to be the standard for the rest of the season starting with Swansea on Saturday, it's no good playing like that tonight against Newcastle and then losing at Swansea and potential being 1 point of the drop.

That Burnley keeper is terrible and yet they keep picking him. Can only assume it because of the crazy sum of money they paid for him.

Thought Gent played well and no sooner had he gone off Celtic scored two goals from down his side.

Sheffield United and Burnley have to be two of the very worst teams in Premier League history.

5 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Wahlstedt and Telalovic were work in progress signings.

Is that your way of saying they are terrible? 

You can't say it wasn't coming. Shocking defending from Brittain

36 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

A warm welcome and best of luck to John Eustace.  If he can keep us up this season and the club hopefully have a reset in the summer the future might be a bit brighter.

If you mean by reset, cash in on a few more players and replace them with a few free transfers and kids on loan.

1 minute ago, chaddyrovers said:

Owen Coyle, he appointed Sandy Stewart, John Henry and Phil Hughes as his coaching staff. 

Stewart and Henry weren't on Coyle's team when he was initial appointed they only came to the club after Irvine and Kelly left.

Surprised that he isn't taking charge tomorrow. You'd have thought that he would be chomping at the bit to get going

Just now, Mattyblue said:

Lambert?

I forgot him but yeah it would be him. Always found it strange that we went for Coyle over Warnock in part because he would work with Irvine and Kelly and within a few months they were both gone anyway.

Who was our last Manager allowed to bring in his own coaching staff from the start? I suppose you could count Bowyer but McPhillips and Grant were already employed by the club anyway. I can't even remember what Appleton's coaching staff was other than Darren Moore. It always seems to be a case of you can bring one coach with you and that is your lot.

Out of work, cheap and uninspiring a classic Venky's appointment. But lets be honest no manager with any sort of reputation is going to go near us after the events of the past year so, to take this job you'd have to be desperate.

17 minutes ago, smiller14 said:

We did lose a lot of players in summer, but is it as bad as people make out?

Kaminski - preferred Pears

Diaz - fair enough, big miss for us

Dack - didn't really fancy him

Morton - a godsend as it meant we picked Wharton 

Ayala - permanently injured

The problem is none of them were replaced well enough. Kaminski was replaced with Wahlstedt & I think everyone would agree that he is significant downgrade. Diaz no one has come close to replacing, I supposed Sigurdsson is supposed to be the replacement but it is hard to envisage him scoring the same amount of goals. Dack still featured in 33 games last season and when he was let go I'm sure the manager was hoping that he would be replaced with a better player given his wage but in reality he hasn't been replaced at all, I mean just look at the attacking options to bring off the bench last week.

Ayala started half our league games last season and was by far our most experienced defender, we kept 9 clean sheets in the games he started and only 5 in the games he didn't (and in one of those he came on as sub), in the summer his experience at the back was not replaced. Midfield was an area that we were light in last season losing Morton, loaning out Buckley and only bringing in Tronstad has only served to make us even lighter in there.

17 minutes ago, smiller14 said:

The complete lack of striker has been a real pain point, but the regression has been absolutely alarming. And whilst JDT hasn't been backed, didn't we spend nigh on £4m for Szmodics and Hyam combined? Absolutely great buys for the money but a decent fighting fund compared to anything since 2019 (which is a comment in itself). So whilst he didn't get to blow £6m on Gally, it was actually the most we had spent in a summer for 3 years.

The problem was he was given numerous players he clearly didn't rate. Also whilst not backed so much in transfer fees Mowbray was well backed the Covid season in terms of the wages that must have been shelled out for loan players. The likes of Douglas, Elliott, Tyrbull, Branthwaite and Harwood-Bellis won't have come cheap. Also just naming those names look at the drop in quality of the loan player we are brining in.

14 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

I don't rate JDT, so he's an upgrade or a big upgrade. You can choose which option you prefer.

Eustace would follow the same blueprint as Hughes and Allardyce, which I think is the right approach. Following the same blueprint doesnt mean he is a peer of those two or a direct comparison, simply that he would build from the back. You can Google what blueprint means if you're not sure! 

Look at the defences those two had to build with and look at our defence now. How anyone can look at our goalkeepers, defenders, defensive midfielders and expect us to be defensively solid staggers me. We've been relegated from this league with a stronger defence than we currently have. We are 18th in the league (with a game in hand on a number teams) that is give or take a few places either away where the current squad belongs. We massively overachieved last year and the squad has been significantly weakened in the two windows since then.

Also there is an apostrophe in doesn't.

6 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

He's very pragmatic who focuses on getting the basics right and then evolving the playing style from there. If you speak to Brum fans, they will tell you he started by getting the defensive side of the game right and being strong at set pieces. That's 💯 the right thing to do. Compare that to JDT, we are the worst team in the league at defending set pieces, cannot do the basics at all, and are way too open. Yet JDT continues trying to play champagne football.

Our two best managers of recent times - Hughes and Allardyce - they have both followed the same blueprint of making us us solid first. 

Eustace came into an extremely poor Birmingham side in his first season who were strongly tripped for relegation and kept them up easily. He had some money to spend in the summer and they signed well, with a focus on exciting wingers. We desperately need those kind of players too. He had them in 6th place and should never have been sacked.

Eustace also knows the championship far better than JDT and understands what it takes to get out of a relegation scrap.

All in all, a big upgrade for me. 

So in the space of 4 hours he has gone from being an upgrade to a big upgrade and being compared to Sparky and Sam. I think you are getting ever so slightly carried away with a man whose sole managerial achievement to date is finishing 17th in his one season as a manager. 

Also given that Birmingham's new owners had planned all along to replace him with Rooney I highly doubt that he was responsible for those summer signings.

47 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

Eustace would be an upgrade on JDT in my opinion. Hope its true. 

Based on what? He has had one full season in management where he guided to Birmingham to 17th. If in the summer we had sacked JDT and appointed Eustace no one would have said it was an upgrade, Eustace has only developed a reputation thanks to Rooney doing such a dreadful job at Birmingham.

44 minutes ago, JHRover said:

He did nothing that Lee Bowyer, Aitor Karanka, Pep Clotet and Garry Monk didn't also do there - bottom half survival.

He might be more well liked by their fans, suspect that's more to do with the unfairness of his sacking whilst they were sat in a good position and replacement with a clown.

Anyhow, I'm not buying it, not accepting it and not falling for it.

Eustace's reputation has been enhanced not because of anything he did but because of the disastrous job Rooney did at Big Club. As you say Eustace did a similar job to the numerous Birmingham managers before him.

19 minutes ago, M_B said:

It's just a good job that the club was as stable as it was, because Broughton and Co look to have taken us back 3 or 4 years. They've actually employed about 10 more people and made it worse. 

The club has never been stable since the takeover, Broughton is merely a symptom of owners who in the last 13 years have taken the club back decades.

19 minutes ago, M_B said:

I'm not so much comparing how they both did, but the situation they've left the club in. We'd all now take 7th bottom. 

Mowbray's situation was largely of his own making, Tomasson has been reliant on The Goonies. 

In which case the two situations cannot be compared. Because as you acknowledge Mowbray had a lot of control of his situation whereas JDT has had little.

38 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

It had those 3 but it had a lot more crap and it didnt have players like Szmodics, JRC, Hyam, Wharton, (who we had for all but 1 game so far) Tronstad, Carter, Pickering, Dolan etc. Im basing on the half season prior to the Wharton sale.

Williams (player of the season that year if I remember correctly) was as good a full back as Pickering. Mulgrew was a better centre half than Hyam. Lenihan was a better centre half than Carter. I'd take Craig Conway on the wing over Dolan, much more end product.

It didn't have a player like Szmodics but it did have more goal scorers in it with Graham, a better version of Gallagher, Emnes and Joao. 

The midfield if you include Wharton (but we don't have him anymore) was stronger.