I wouldn't say Khedra was a must. Obviously Van Hecke would be a massive bonus.

Bloody hell, allow us our five minutes of guarded optimism for the first time in three years, it might all have dissipated by 15.30 on July 30 th anyway. We didnt end up with the Pardew/Grayson/ Adkins/ Pulis appointment many were fearing. Mowbray was very well backed in his early days as well so there isn't anything to automatically point to JDT being starved of funding.

Exactly, one or two stained pairs of trollies still whizzing round in the drum but hopefully we're moving gradually in the right direction?

BTW, don't know if everyone is having the same problem but that bastard Aeriel ad is being particularly troublesome this morning to celebrate the arrival of the new management team!

A good sign?

Not really, if he's sensational and gets poached we'll get compensation and the converse if he bombs. Mowbray imo did a poor job and lasted five years though so based on that the odds are JDT will be here 3 years if he does an OK job unless the owners get a lot more ruthless.

I was thinking Gareth Bale. If Cardiff can go in for him. ......

Transfer window opened on June 10th but most deals won't go through until July 1st. Fixture list - Thursday June 23rd.

Promising appointment in theory. Hope he does well. Not sure how "a culture of giving everything to the Club" ties in with keeping on Lowe/Benson etc but hopefully the new performance director will see them off in short order. They're certainly all talking a great game and singing off the same hymn sheet at this stage. Let's see if the reality matches the spiel!

Not until June 30th. We're paying Mowbray to mow the lawn.

What, you mean it was a joke? 😕

He didn't walk out mid season I don't think. Their season ends in December and he walked out after 2 successive League titles. The fact he walked out of that successful scenario to then be out of work for 6 months for no apparent reason would be my main area of concern though.

Hence my refusal to believe JDT plus his own choice of assistant would be any form of downgrade. If it turns out I'm wrong, so be it.

I think he was out of work when we appointed him though.

We finished 8th with Venky's + Swag + a washed up disinterested manager + Venus + said underwhel.ing coaches though so I refuse to believe JDT plus an assistant if he brings one in will be any sort of downgrade on that. What will potentially kill us is losing six established first teamers plus Poveda but you would hope an improvement in the standard of coaching would offset that.

If it's correct, some easy money to be had on SkyBet at 4/6.

Is there such a thing?

I've made my views on this fairly clear already I think. I'd be fairly apoplectic at what I would regard as another "Mowbray Mark 2 appointment" such as Pardew or Adkins. JDT would be far from my first choice but is different enough to pique the interest slightly. As far as my view on the owners went I'd have to see how JDT did before passing comment, at this stage it neither improves nor worsens my view of them.

Agree entirely. They never really seem to have understood the importance of hiring the best manager they can possibly get, probably assuming it's a job anyone can do give or take so why pay over the odds? A completely false economy in the general scheme of things. This insistence on Lowe Johnson and Benson staying (if true) takes it to a whole new level. If Waggott had had anything about him he should have put his foot down from the off and told them we wouldn't get a top class candidate unless they were allowed to bring in their own staff.

Great post. My mate nagged/shamed me into getting my season ticket in the pub on Friday night. I was going to leave it and see who we appointed originally.

I would love for that to happen if only to see Gav's reaction.

I'm told he'd be amenable to an approach as well.

No Greg Coar has apparently just left to go to Wigan and is apparently being replaced by some guy coming in from Bournemouth.

Not hard to imagine what scuppered discussions at an early stage there - Lowe, Johnson and Benson.

And you won't take on board my point that the owners were probably sold a pup by Waggott initially but if we accept that "He can only do anything with the owners permission" it is most likely that it was they who nipped it in the bud.