bluebruce

Hmm, I would think most marketing types that football clubs employ would gain that experience at football clubs? I think it's different from most product marketing in that a knowledge of football and football fans is an important prerequisite. And I'm not sure many clubs at our level have the types of inbetweeny roles do they? I wonder if any such roles existed at Bournemouth for example (which I think is where someone said he came from), or if it was just one or more Marketing Managers underneath the Head of Marketing. If no such other roles existed there, the Marketing Manager probably does work a role similar to those, as nobody else is there to fill it. Tbh I'm not at all worried by the jump in this case, especially since our marketing was shite anyway. What concerns me a bit though is the current trend in the club to appoint people to roles they've never done before instead of hiring experience. A lot of this is internally (which stinks of jobs for the boys, as well as being cheap) but we just hired a Director of Football who has only been an Academy Director. Now that I think is a big step up and his role could have major implications for the club. People deserve chances in new roles, nobody would get to senior roles otherwise, but doing lots of it through the club risks an experience void.

We have two. We can't really say Carter is better. In their first team appearances for us, I'd say THB did better than Carter did. I'm optimistic about the latter still though. THB didn't do well at Stoke huh...probably means he is still available for a Championship loan? Probably doesn't fit the new style, more of a battler from what I remember, otherwise tbh I'd consider having him back, given our likely restraints, if we were signing a better CB too.

It's great to have the manager saga resolved, Mowbray replaced, and it not be any of the numerous losers that we were linked with (although also not one of the best ones we were linked with either). I also think the combination of foreign head coach and DoF could be the right model to go with moving forward. Whilst great players don't automatically make great managers, Tomasson has enough reputation from his playing time to command a bit of respect and maybe act as a draw for new signings. He seems a much more positive personality than Mowbray, and being early into his managerial career will really want to prove himself. This combo should expand our knowledge and contacts in Scandinavia considerably, which has often been an under-exploited market (unfortunate that Brexit now makes it far harder to exploit though). It could have been done a bit earlier, but with the way we are ran it could also have dragged on another couple of weeks and crippled us in the market. All of that said, I do have reservations. The more I think about it, my main reservation is that the DoF is Gregg Broughton. I think you can get away with an inexperienced DoF or an inexperienced (relatively) manager, but combining the two, at a club that has never used this model before, with both starting at the same time, and a lot of player trading needed, is not the best recipe for success. Either Broughton could have done with a more tried and tested manager to support him in senior player acquisition (which he has never done before), or Tomasson could have done with a tried and tested DoF to let him take charge of purely training and tactics whilst he gets used to a new club, new players and (managerially) a new country. Broughton clearly did a good job in directing the development of youngsters at Glimt, and with our own excellent academy and reliance upon it, it can only be a boon for our youth development moving forward. The problem is his experience only extends as far as what Stuart Jones is already doing, but that isn't the role he is taking up. He will have to sign senior players for us now, primarily in a market he hasn't worked in for a few years (as work permits limit what we can do in Europe, especially in Norway), at a time when we basically need to replace nearly half a squad on likely a low budget. A low budget which may suddenly bloom late in the window if BBD is sold late. The youth work is a plus, as I say, but his personal work on it could take years to bear fruit. Hopefully Gregg turns out to be as skilled at signing (and probably negotiating) for senior players as he seems to have been with youth players, and my worry is for nought. I do have some reservations about Tomasson too...not so much about the man himself, despite not having too much managerial experience yet (as he does have some and has had recent success, so it's a far cry from appointing someone like Ferguson). It's more that I worry he might not be the right fit for the club right now. From reading posts on here at least, it seems he likes to play 4-4-2 and possession football. IMO this will require more signings, as I don't think our squad is well set up for either of these things. I've nothing against 4-4-2, I think people are wrong to treat it as obsolete when it's merely unfashionable. But, we own ZERO proper wingers. Assuming he wants players who can beat a man and put a good cross in, we don't have a single player who meets that criteria. Under Mowbray we have essentially assembled wide attackers who wouldn't really work in a traditional 4-4-2. If the 4-4-2 he plays isn't the traditional one with proper wingers, this might not be an issue. But if it is, we need to sign two new wingers. Probably three so we're not left unable to get crosses in if there are injuries. We can probably 'wing it' with the 4th you would usually need to cover both being injured, from our current crop. Using the previous formations I'd have said we only needed to bring in one wide player to replace Khadra and Poveda. We also don't have the players suited to possession football. We demonstrated this amply in the 2020/21 season, although of course the personnel and thankfully the manager have changed since then. To my mind, only the following players are really capable in this style: Buckley, Dack, Kaminski. Arguably, Travis will be OK (because even a possession side needs a spoiler, and his basic sideways passing is unremarkable but acceptable), and Wharton and Pickering probably wouldn't struggle to fit in but aren't exceptional at it and of course just defenders so won't impact it that much anyway. There are two big pluses here though which make this less of a worry for me. Firstly, the new manager, who has had recent success playing that style, can hopefully implement it far better than dour TM, whose sole tactic with possession was just to keep the ball and get the possession stat at the end of the match as high as possible. He had an absolute lack of invention when it came to creating space and deliveries in the final third. I don't think he understood possession football at all. We just passed it around the edge of the box and nobody really made movement to open space, then eventually we would lose it, the other team goes down the other end and has a proper effort at goal. Secondly, the void of players is actually an advantage for switching the style. A lot of new players (hopefully) coming in means we can sign the players who DO suit the style. The core of Dack and Buckley for the middle is enough to work with if we are bringing in some quality (though talented ball players might be hard to get with our budget). We have lost Rothwell and will probably lose BBD, these were two of the players key in making the counter-attack our most effective style. So in a way it's a chance to transition approach without wasting the best qualities of two of our key players. If Tomasson knows how to do this approach properly (which, the signs are there for) and we recruit properly (that's the part that worries me as per above) this could still turn into a massive positive and the good times may return. We await the results with baited breath!

I meant what roles.

Why, what comes between marketing manager and marketing executive in a marketing operation as small as ours must be?

He quite clearly is. The post was balanced.

I can't remember a single thing Mark Venus ever said. Did he even do interviews?

I see no reason why that would be the case. I would get it if we were a multi-billion pound multinational organisation, but our marketing operation really won't be that big. It's also surely no more of a jump than from the standard marketing role to marketing manager.

It's actually more a milestone of how much we waffle a load of shit when nothing is happening. The unacceptable amount of time passed before the appointment is the milestone of negligence.

As I've mentioned a few times through this process, we are signing a manager, not a player. That said, if he knows how to translate that knowledge, particularly the movement, into tactics and coaching, it will be a plus. If he mostly played off instinct, or doesn't know how to communicate what he did, it's meaningless. Being a disciplined hard-worker is definitely a plus in a manager's psych profile though.

I agree on Hanley. His first good season with us was his last one. It was especially annoying that we had put up with him being a shite liability for years and then as soon as he got decent he went. Hard disagree on Cairney, who was clearly class and hampered by being played out of position (yet still managing to make meaningful contributions) and on Raya, who was blatantly worth a fair bit more than we got for him. With foresight, not hindsight, I said both were terrible deals for us. So they proved.

I can't see them wanting any less than 5 million for him. That said, we were told City would want something like 8+ mill for Tosin, then he moved to WBA for about 2.

The assistant manager role is free. So of course he won't have Lowe, Benson and Johnson as second in command even if he can't shunt them out.

Do you know if he got on the pitch?

Did you watch this game btw?

Sorry what do you mean not only in profit?

Don't worry, it's tongue in cheek.

This is the point though. The relatively unknown players probably aren't available, most of them anyway, because of the restrictions. I'm not sure Pukki would have met the requirements. I think he would, with Brondby being one of the best teams in Denmark so probably qualifying for Europe, but can't say for sure. But if we are just shopping at the top teams in this league, we probably don't have the budget for it. Can anyone remember if we determined Kaminski would have met the criteria? From memory I think it was an 'only just'.

Fast forward 6 months... "A big part of why I agreed to come here was because the club said they were fine with me commuting from home every day. But being honest, the 6 hour journey twice a day and the jetlag has started to be a bit too much for me. That's why, starting today, I'll be working remotely from home via Zoom."

He's one to watch, if the injury hasn't caused longer term issues, but clearly THE one to watch as you put it, would be Ash Phillips.

People do like to keep ignoring this.

Eek don't put it like that, bit scary! (Also, plus half a squad gone)

That's probably even worse, for me. We do have young players who need to come through, especially with our weak budget, but we also need to rebuild half our squad. We could do with a manager with a decent record in the market, although presumably that's mostly going to be in the hands of our new DoF. Whose experience....oh...is mostly with bringing youngsters through too.

It's annoying enough when someone says a player's replacement is already at the club, but it's usually a youth player they're referring to. In this case they're referring to someone who has already been in the first team for two seasons (and has a piss poor injury record). How is that a 'replacement'? It's just downgrading.

I think Waggott would be delighted with that show of 'non-support'. It will mean more money in the coffers if you don't buy a season ticket but buy individual tickets to all the games.