Bacuna always seems to cause us problems. Dunno if Josh Murphy is as good as his twin. Flint is getting on a bit now but might be good for a season.

Lol!! Yeh, sure, ok.

Nor good assistants. Those are the two contexts in which Kidd is brought up as an example. It's not to say they can't be successes, either. It's just for when people talk about prospective managers with no managerial experience and talk like a great playing career and/or being a number 2 at a big club compensates for that lack of managerial experience. It doesn't. We shouldn't ever appoint a manager who hasn't managed. Let other clubs take that risk. Sometimes they'll reap the benefits but more often it will go wrong.

It would be nice to think that, but there is no real logical basis to think it. The process alone shows we are still a mess.

I very much doubt Venkys spend enough time thinking about us to scour the forums.

Difference is, Brentford actually know what they're doing.

There will be some players available in Europe that meet the points requirements, but the fact is most of them won't. The realistic market is smaller than it used to be.

Every time any club appoints a manager it's a gamble. Almost everything in life is a gamble of some sorts. There is a difference between being a small gamble and being a big gamble. It's a non-point to observe that all appointments are gambles. We know that. It's the degree of the gamble which the poster is questioning.

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.