Who is next in the hot seat?

Keegan wrote:I've been dreading that. Don't rate him as a manager.

Don't believe a word

Today's hot favourite is still Tony Mowbray with Chris Haughton and Phil Brown running close.

It looks like we will get one of these 3...

Won't be Brown as that would mean compensation, and there are quality managers that will cost us nowt..

People can argue until they're blue in the face on forums about who'd be a good appointment and who wouldn't but here's how I look at it.

If somebody had offered me Steve McClaren 12 months ago, I'd have said over my dead body. He's since taken an average Championship side and turned them into probably the best team I've seen play us at this level.

I'd have been massively underwhelmed with Sean Dyche if we'd got him instead of Burnley, and look what he's achieved there.

It works the other way too.

Nigel Adkins was hot property a year or so ago. We'd have definitely taken him, yet he's been thoroughly poor at Reading.

Whoever comes in (within reason) I'll be neither excited nor furious until I've seen a bit of what they can do with this team.

And I emphasise "this team". It's no good sacking Dougie on the basis that this squad shouldn't be bottom of the league, only to spend two years saying "this isn't his team, it's Dougie's, give him a chance to bring in his own players."

doffcocker wrote:

And I emphasise "this team". It's no good sacking Dougie on the basis that this squad shouldn't be bottom of the league, only to spend two years saying "this isn't his team, it's Dougie's, give him a chance to bring in his own players."

But that's what Hipster, 1874 & Wanderlust will be telling us for the next two years.

Hardly but I will always say a manager needs time, thats just my opinion, I think it's shared by most. Sometimes things just click sometimes it doesn't. We'll have to be patient with whoever comes in I'm afraid, though we probably wont be.

anyway, don't like the sound of this Dennis Wise link, what the fuck has he ever done?

Don't want Dennis Wise.... in golfing parlance people often use his name on the putting green.

MartinBWFC wrote:Won't be Brown as that would mean compensation, and there are quality managers that will cost us nowt..

The ones you're probably referring to would still run out dearer than Brown I think.

I can't imagine the compensation for Brown being a lot of money, and I bet he'd settle for a relatively cheap contract to manage Bolton.

Also, any manager with a respectable CV is only gonna come here if they're promised backing in the transfer market. It seems to me the club decided before the start of this season that the purse strings had to be well and truly tightened. I can't imagine them suddenly going back on that.

I'm amazed that you can get 50/1 on Dave Flitcroft.

I backed Steve Clarke.

doffcocker wrote:People can argue until they're blue in the face on forums about who'd be a good appointment and who wouldn't but here's how I look at it.

If somebody had offered me Steve McClaren 12 months ago, I'd have said over my dead body. He's since taken an average Championship side and turned them into probably the best team I've seen play us at this level.

I'd have been massively underwhelmed with Sean Dyche if we'd got him instead of Burnley, and look what he's achieved there.

It works the other way too.

Nigel Adkins was hot property a year or so ago. We'd have definitely taken him, yet he's been thoroughly poor at Reading.

Whoever comes in (within reason) I'll be neither excited nor furious until I've seen a bit of what they can do with this team.

And I emphasise "this team". It's no good sacking Dougie on the basis that this squad shouldn't be bottom of the league, only to spend two years saying "this isn't his team, it's Dougie's, give him a chance to bring in his own players."

Excellent post.

i have to agree with Dofffcocker, whoever comes in faces an uphill battle to turnaround a team and club that has been in steady decline for the last few years with no sign it will improve for many years to come.

Norpig wrote:i have to agree with Dofffcocker, whoever comes in faces an uphill battle to turnaround a team and club that has been in steady decline for the last few years with no sign it will improve for many years to come.

Spot on, but it won't stop 99% of fans calling for his head within 6 months.

as my wife always says football fans are very fickle

Natasha Whittam wrote:

doffcocker wrote:

And I emphasise "this team". It's no good sacking Dougie on the basis that this squad shouldn't be bottom of the league, only to spend two years saying "this isn't his team, it's Dougie's, give him a chance to bring in his own players."

But that's what Hipster, 1874 & Wanderlust will be telling us for the next two years.

What a load of cock. 
"This team" is the Board/Gartside's team if anyone's - they're the ones who made Dougie clear out the high earners then refused to back him in the transfer market so all he could sign were freebie no marks to fill the gaps.

Presumably the incoming manager will get the same treatment and if he wants to change the first eleven personnel he'll have to do it via youth development.

Dougie may be gone, but we're still stuck with the same players, same debt and same piss-poor one-dimensional Board. 

And if Doff is right in that Dougie was sacked on the basis of "this squad shouldn't be bottom of the league" then getting rid of Dougie at this time was an even bigger mistake than I at first thought - this squad absolutely deserves to be bottom of the league and there is no evidence whatsoever that they should be any higher as the quality on show is appalling.

If we accept this (and I for one think it's true despite my love for the club) then Dougie is really the only sensible appointment.

Knows the club, knows the players, handles the pressure, is geared up to having nowt to spend and is obviously preferable to Phil Brown or Mowbray who are the only realistic contenders apart from racist McKay.

God knows who we'll get landed with.

Got to be Hughton for me. His record at Birmingham with nothing to spend speaks volumes.

I quite like Hughton, but our fans won't. He's as cautious as Freedman in the way he sets up teams, he also won't be screaming at players from the touchline. But at least he's not Scottish.

wanderlust wrote:
"This team" is the Board/Gartside's team if anyone's - they're the ones who made Dougie clear out the high earners then refused to back him in the transfer market so all he could sign were freebie no marks to fill the gaps.

You seem to be clinging onto the idea that Freedman identified Jutkiewicz (and maybe a few others) as a player we should sign, and the owners failed to bring him/them in.

Do you think Freedman is the only Championship manager that would have liked to add a Premiership player (or three) to their squad and didn't get their wish?

Granted, he had to get rid of a lot of players on big wages, but that doesn't mean he had nothing to work with over the two years.

I think there were at least 5 players he didn't get backed on who were touted as being cheap Doff - Juke was far and away the most expensive target.

Water under the bridge now - they're history.

Steve Clarke interviewing for the job this afternoon.

Source: Mr Lonagan