Having looked over JDT's 'CV' today, my verdict for now is it would be...an ok appointment. With as much chance of going wrong as going right. A mostly unknown quantity really, but with some experience and success at least, unlike absolute gamble appointments like Ferguson or Carrick. With how dysfunctional the club is, the position our squad and staff are in, I think we needed better than ok though. A Farke, Carvalhal, Knutsen or even a Deila would have been better options for me. Of course, we have tried at least 3 of those and 2 have gone elsewhere, probably due to our offering shite wages, budget and flexibility though. But it's hard to know how much chance we really had to land the first two over the clubs (and money) they went to without making excessive offers. Acting months ago may have helped, mind. I think we should be able to do better than JDT (in terms of CV) but if he's what we get I'll see how that pans out. We have to wee with the willy we've got, as Souey used to say.

Taken a team that yo-yo'd between the top two tiers in Norway and made them top flight champions for the first time in their history. Then did it again the next season. They're also based in the remote northern regions so had to travel quite far for all their away games. Did it with quite a lot of youth players too I believe. Oh and they smashed Mourinho's Roma 6-1 in European competition.

Nah, the time was all the years before Brexit changed the work permit situation. It will more or less just be the most expensive players on the continent who are available to us now, and a handful of bargains fought over by everyone in the Championship and some in the Prem and SPL. More than ever before we have to look at the UK, sadly. Also, Scotland isn't outside the UK. Edit - to be clear before anyone jumps in being clever, when I said the most expensive players on the continent, I didn't mean the 40 million quid kinda guys. I mean we probably aren't snapping some 300k bargain who will notch 20 goals, as he probably won't get the necessary points. I'm just saying the pool is a LOT smaller than it was before Brexit.

That should impress his next club.

If true, this is a slightly odd move, for Lenihan. I don't know Boro's squad well, but others seem to rate their defence, and Dijksteel is class. He will be on more money than what our final offer was, probably not all that much more though, and they aren't in as much of a mess as us so it could rightly be seen as a more likely club to get promotion (Coral have them 5th in the odds for the league, and joint third for promotion, we are 10th in both and tbh that's generous). But promotion won't be much use to him (aside from promotion bonus and possible contracted wage rise I guess) if he isn't making the team during it, as all that will happen is his stock drops and they probably shunt him out. It seems odd to choose one of only a handful of clubs where he isn't almost certain to start. I can only conclude that Wilder has told him he sees him as a starter, and rates him a lot more than some of the fans on here do. Given he has chased him for years, even when he was in the Prem, and he was better last season than he's ever been, it makes sense to me that they do see him as a starter. Do they play 3 CBs? I'm sure Sheff U used to under Wilder. If they don't, maybe they're planning the switch. Boro don't have that much more natural income than us, so I'm sure they're not paying more than we were willing to pay our captain and most important CB just to have him sit on the bench most of the time in a position they're well stocked.

With us being weeks down the road now with our laborious process, I don't see someone new suddenly entering the running. Especially if they've only just become available, meaning they wouldn't have been on the radar. With the players back next week, surely even this farcical setup wouldn't string the process along for another couple of weeks, risking more shortlist candidates going elsewhere, because another shiney new name popped up on the scene...surely? Right?

Maybe there isn't a point anymore, there hasn't been for most of the last 12 years after all! Seriously though, whilst some seem to have formed some kind of Wrist Slit Club, most are just being realistic rather than depressive. If good things begin to happen on and off the pitch, we will then become more positive. Hoping that something positive will transpire (which we all do of course) won't make it happen. Hoping it really hard (as in kinda expecting it, as many seem to be doing especially outside this board) is, on the balance of probability at present, going to lead to disappointment. If I keep wearing a t-shirt every day in March because I'm hoping for sunshine, it's going to be a lot worse when I get pissed on! If I wear a light jacket, at least I can take it off if it does get sunny. The true doom-and-gloomers are coming out bedecked in ski jackets, three layers, and hats and gloves. They won't know quite what to do with themselves if the weather is nice. Same can be said for the practically naked true happy clappers. The realists are just aware the forecast is bad, but ready and hoping to adapt if that's wrong.

Sod all of that. Just get the best man for the job. Compensation (within reason) or no compensation. Keeping the staff or shunting the staff, whatever they want to do with the budget.

There is a good, promising core, but I can't describe us as stable. It feels very similar to the start of the summer where we went on to get relegated. Too many players need replacing, because they're gone rather than because they're old though. We have no manager, assistant manager, fitness coach, and preseason starts next week. The manager search has shambolically dragged on for what, 6 weeks or something now? Even though we've known for ages what was happening. Our budget is very likely to be shite. Our best player will probably leave, which will bring in some needed funds, but I'd put money on it not happening until late in the window. Our idiot CEO has inevitably reduced attendances next season with his pricing too. None of this says stable to me. Obviously I'm hoping for a talented new manager who can sort out the staff and player shortages cleverly, a healthy budget with the awareness we need to set ourselves up for the next few years, and either an early, healthy sale or new contract when it comes to BBD. Based on the past and present though, I'm struggling to believe any of that will happen. But the core of the squad is there if we make those moves, to succeed, yes.

They are not 90% of the job, or managers would all be ex-boxers, soldiers, personal trainers etc instead of ex footballers. You think team selection, player recruitment and tactics combined are just 10% of the job? Passion doesn't always translate into good man management anyway. A fiery character like Ferguson will work well with some players but will alienate and disenchant others. Souness was the best fiery manager we've had in my time, a man who planted a Galatasaray flag at Fenerbache's stadium, and things went stale even for him in the end, and he tanked at Newcastle. Players are a different breed to those days, you can't just shout at them and expect results anymore. Not that it was ever just that simple for the likes of Souey either. If touchline performance is what you're worried about, which I think only has a small impact on the pitch, pretty much any manager will perform better in that regard than Mowbray, so don't worry.

As far as I'm aware, none of the coaching staff who are still here had contracts expiring this summer. So letting them leave at the end of their contracts would be next year at the earliest. I also don't see any harm in keeping the coaches around until a new man is appointed, like you say. That new man should have the power to replace that staff if they don't rate them though. The suggestions that they don't are concerning.

I may be proving your point here I admit, but it certainly can be worse than our 8th place finish. In fact the majority of seasons since Venkys have taken over have been worse. I didn't rate Mowbray but we have had worse managerial outcomes in that time too. Like you say though, fingers crossed we get it right this time.

I've no earthly idea why anybody would want Ferguson over Knutsen. The latter has won two consecutive top flight titles at a yo-yo club with poor resources who had never won one, and has worked with our new DOF. The former has 5 management games to his name with a very average record in them. Ooh but he's hard, great. Knutsen seems unlikely though, as we've been told a couple of times that he didn't actually get on with Broughton. If that's true I think we can rule it out. Deila seems to be the front runner based on what little we hear.

I know they're not your comments, Miller, but I felt the need to respond.

After having been in Norway for a while now, he probably doesn't have a big list of cheap talented players, other than ones which won't meet the work permit requirements.

I'd go as far as to suggest he is very likely on more than we were willing to pay Lenihan, at least in our initial offer last summer (which you'd think to be the point where we could have got it over the line if we'd just stumped up a bit more) and probably even on the one that was rumoured to be eventually agreed pending a new manager.

And that as a result there is now an uphill struggle to be had for the new manager.

Are you talking about FFP restricting our spending? If it's a myth, what's your take on why we sold the training ground? Which btw the club absolutely did come out and say that kept us from failing FFP. FWIW, I don't think they would spend much more if FFP weren't a thing. Our time in the Prem shows that. But FFP does impose hard limits. In the past we could have been more creative in getting around it, but the owners weren't desperate to lose more than the 20 mill yearly losses and that ship has more or less sailed now as the rules have tightened.

Let's be fair, we got over 200 games out of Lenihan. And what was it, about 40 percent of our minutes last season came from academy graduates? We are very reliant on the academy even if we never sell players from it for money (we do though, Raya for example). Given it is exempt from FFP calculations, the owners are happy to fund it and we don't pay graduates much thanks to our ill-considered structure, it's an absolute no brainer to continue with the academy. As far as FFP goes, it's a conveyor belt of free players on low wages.

Yeh, especially with how many players we need and how little money we are likely to have to play with. But we really can't just keep loaning Prem players, they're not even cheap usually and we need to build our own assets. We really should have relied on this less in previous years of the FFP cycle.

It won't free up a lot in wages either. Here is some pure guesswork of course... Rothwell - 7k Nyambe - 7k Lenihan - 12k Van Hecke - 10k wage contribution Khadra - 10k wage contribution I think a couple of those are high estimates tbh. But that comes to 46k p/w, or just over 2.25 million in savings. Probably enough to buy one starter for about 1.5 mill and pay their wages. Or maybe squeeze two cheaper gambles in instead.

Then I find it hard to believe we couldn't have come up with a satisfactory offer last summer, before the managerial situation was looking like it mattered. Instead we got Waggott penny pinching and lost quality players.

Yep, more false economy from the master of it, Waggott. The same man who thinks hiking prices for a working class town struggling to get enough people through the gates, during a cost of living crisis, will actually bring in more money this season let alone in the longer term as our fanbase erodes further. Even after fucking up with the same policy during the covid crisis. Also thinks it's worth letting probably about 10 million quid of talent walk out the door for nowt because he couldn't add a bit more dosh to each contract offer to rigorously preserve his precious pay structure (which is clearly flawed as 3 key players all preferred to hold out for better from elsewhere once in their last year, and at least 2 are off).

It's not hard to work out the probability. Last summer we received about 10 million for Arma after the Newcastle cut. We spent almost nowt. The season before that we spent almost nowt too. We still had to sell our training ground for what, about 15 million just to avoid the sanctions, a trick we can't repeat. If you think we will now be in a position to spend some 5 mill or so on a CB, PLUS rebuild the rest of the squad, replacing Rothwell, all the loanees, probably Nyambe, before we sell BBD, and not violate FFP at the next assessment without sales, I'm very confident you're wrong. Paying Lenihan a few k more, retaining an asset worth at least 2 million, and/or hiring a good manager in an appropriate time frame however, would have been much more financially viable.

Are Boro really paying that much more in wages than us? On a CB? We paid Ayala more than they were willing to. They don't have parachute money anymore, I can't think they have that much more income, and they probably already have a larger wage liability than us. The LT is certainly suggesting it's a factor, for what that's worth these days of course.