Chairman's message

[Finney Is Back]

Very good post, which I pretty much agree with all of it.

The 'reset' as you call it is going to be tough, take time and dictate the type of manager who we need and our transfer policy. We need a manager who is likely to want to be around for 3-5 years, so not Nagelsmann.

We'll also need a smart transfer policy as we're not going to be signing the likes of Bastoni etc this summer nor probably next summer...and this summer it's going to be even tougher given lac of prep time for the DoF/Manager (individually and together) before the transfer window. If appointed in late May or early June, they'll be able to do video/desktop prep before players return for pre-season in July and speak to Mason and existing scouts etc...but highly debatable whether they'd ok any signings or sales before actually seeing the players in pre-season.

Very much a summer and next season of resetting and trying to get back on track

A smart transfer policy actually involves quite a lot of investment and some time. Our CEO is ultimately accountable for that going to brick.

 

[Raziel]

If we have to operate within the boundaries of club earned finances then that’s fine, but let’s get in a CEO that doesn’t happily oversee the complete neglect of the recruitment structure for the football club.

Take it from someone who has spent decades working for much bigger companies than ENIC

The next guy in isn't going to be better, he's going to sit down with a spreadsheet and decide how he can change the quarterly profit, cut costs, sell assets, pay people less, recommend shareholder dividends, and because he wasn't part of the last 20 years, he has no legacy to protect.

If you want real change you need new owners, and the kind that are money laundering or sportswashing.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Take it from someone who has spent decades working for much bigger companies than ENIC

The next guy in isn't going to be better, he's going to sit down with a spreadsheet and decide how he can change the quarterly profit, cut costs, sell assets, pay people less, recommend shareholder dividends, and because he wasn't part of the last 20 years, he has no legacy to protect.

If you want real change you need new owners, and the kind that are money laundering or sportswashing.

I’m not sure (e.g.) Paul Barber has done that at Brighton at all.

We don’t necessarily have to spend more money, we just have to spend the money better. The structure of our club was a joke for several years. The CEO should be accountable, the problem is that he is also the second biggest shareholder. We are screwed for a while now IMO.

 

[monkeybarry]

Very good post, which I pretty much agree with all of it.

The 'reset' as you call it is going to be tough, take time and dictate the type of manager who we need and our transfer policy. We need a manager who is likely to want to be around for 3-5 years, so not Nagelsmann.

We'll also need a smart transfer policy as we're not going to be signing the likes of Bastoni etc this summer nor probably next summer...and this summer it's going to be even tougher given lac of prep time for the DoF/Manager (individually and together) before the transfer window. If appointed in late May or early June, they'll be able to do video/desktop prep before players return for pre-season in July and speak to Mason and existing scouts etc...but highly debatable whether they'd ok any signings or sales before actually seeing the players in pre-season.

Very much a summer and next season of resetting and trying to get back on track

Assuming we get the right manager and DoF / whatever set-up we go with, I'm pretty optimistic about the reset.
Slot/similar seems to be the right kind of approach.

Squad wise, we have a top 6 squad - just. It needs refocusing, tactically and mentally.

GK: A new No.1; Hugo/FF/an other as back up
RB: Royal; Spence. That's healthy.
CB: Romero.
Problem area. Time to move Sanchez and Dier on. Good servants, but it's time.
1 X new first choice CB.
Lenglet as backup or Phil Jones (I know!!! But he's a decent defender and home grown. He'd fill a gap, not be a starter.)
LB:
Davies; Udogie. Decent with good scope for growth.
Sessegnon - move on.

CM:
Skipp; Bentancur; Bissouma. Tricky one. It's good with room for growth on paper.
PEH/Sarr. Keep one. Sell/loan other.

AM:
Son; depends on the manager. If he fits the managers style he's a no brainer. His limitation is that he needs space and/a channel to run into/cut inside from. Without a game stretching formation - cash in.
Kulu; same as Son.
Porro; I actually think he'd be useful in CM in 3. Looks good going forwards. Not a defender.
Danjuma; see if we can get another year on loan.
Gil, Devine, Scarlett, Parrott; get them in the squad. Good opportunity for growth. We're in the perfect position to allow enough space for youngsters to grow.

Kane and Richi. This is tricky. Kane's contract and Richi's being brick.
Can Richi come good? Maybe.
I don't think Kane will run his contract down - he'd destroy his reputation. Sign a new one with an agreement re: sale if he wants.

That squad has echo's of late Redknapp/early Poch years. It's a good platform.
It's needs 4 good signings: GK, 2 X CBs, an extra attacker or CM, formation and style dependent.

I'd like us really focus on a cup next year - FA or Conf Lge, to build that mentality and feel good factor.
We've had 3/4 years of trying to slog pragmatically to CL under Jose and Conte.
Let's release the energy and have some fun - that's been the backbone of the good times!

 

[Mr_B]

i want us to lose heavily at leeds, can't be any papering over cracks and for GHod's sake, it wont do us any good playing in the conference league

 

[Kandi1977]

Dunno if it's his wife - thought it was Donna Cullen or Rebecca Caplehorn or somebody.

It's definitely not either Cullen nor Caplehorn, unless they've had some really heavy 'become totally different' surgery.

 

[AdamB]

It's needs 4 good signings: GK, 2 X CBs, an extra attacker or CM, formation and style dependent.

So I completely agree with your conclusion on incomings and better to have 4 good signings than 6-8 average.

However your post highlights the amount of work needed in terms of outgoings...and we're probably not going to want to commit on signings til we've off loaded some of these given the total wage bill:

Lloris or FF
Sanchez
Dier
Sessegnon
Tanganga?
Perisic?
Reguilon?
Rodon?
PEH or Sarr
Ndombele presumably
GLC I guess too
Winks probably

All that is a brick load of work for a DoF and Manager to arrange/agree on given that they're not even in the club at the moment!!

 

[monkeybarry]

So I completely agree with your conclusion on incomings and better to have 4 good signings than 6-8 average.

However your post highlights the amount of work needed in terms of outgoings...and we're probably not going to want to commit on signings til we've off loaded some of these given the total wage bill:

Lloris or FF
Sanchez
Dier
Sessegnon
Tanganga?
Perisic?
Reguilon?
Rodon?
PEH or Sarr
Ndombele presumably
GLC I guess too
Winks probably

All that is a brick load of work for a DoF and Manager to arrange/agree on given that they're not even in the club at the moment!!

Wow! I had literally forgotten about most of those!! Some are even in the current squad!

 

[Finney Is Back]

So I completely agree with your conclusion on incomings and better to have 4 good signings than 6-8 average.

However your post highlights the amount of work needed in terms of outgoings...and we're probably not going to want to commit on signings til we've off loaded some of these given the total wage bill:

Lloris or FF
Sanchez
Dier
Sessegnon
Tanganga?
Perisic?
Reguilon?
Rodon?
PEH or Sarr
Ndombele presumably
GLC I guess too
Winks probably

All that is a brick load of work for a DoF and Manager to arrange/agree on given that they're not even in the club at the moment!!

Several of those will clearly be kept. I expect Dier, Sessegnon, PEH and Sarr all to be at Spurs next season, perhaps Perisic as well.

 

[AdamB]

Several of those will clearly be kept. I expect Dier, Sessegnon, PEH and Sarr all to be at Spurs next season, perhaps Perisic as well.

I agree. I was responding to Monkeybarry's list

 

[Finney Is Back]

Assuming we get the right manager and DoF / whatever set-up we go with, I'm pretty optimistic about the reset.
Slot/similar seems to be the right kind of approach.

Squad wise, we have a top 6 squad - just. It needs refocusing, tactically and mentally.

GK: A new No.1; Hugo/FF/an other as back up
RB: Royal; Spence. That's healthy.
CB: Romero.
Problem area. Time to move Sanchez and Dier on. Good servants, but it's time.
1 X new first choice CB.
Lenglet as backup or Phil Jones (I know!!! But he's a decent defender and home grown. He'd fill a gap, not be a starter.)
LB:
Davies; Udogie. Decent with good scope for growth.
Sessegnon - move on.

CM:
Skipp; Bentancur; Bissouma. Tricky one. It's good with room for growth on paper.
PEH/Sarr. Keep one. Sell/loan other.

AM:
Son; depends on the manager. If he fits the managers style he's a no brainer. His limitation is that he needs space and/a channel to run into/cut inside from. Without a game stretching formation - cash in.
Kulu; same as Son.
Porro; I actually think he'd be useful in CM in 3. Looks good going forwards. Not a defender.
Danjuma; see if we can get another year on loan.
Gil, Devine, Scarlett, Parrott; get them in the squad. Good opportunity for growth. We're in the perfect position to allow enough space for youngsters to grow.

Kane and Richi. This is tricky. Kane's contract and Richi's being brick.
Can Richi come good? Maybe.
I don't think Kane will run his contract down - he'd destroy his reputation. Sign a new one with an agreement re: sale if he wants.

That squad has echo's of late Redknapp/early Poch years. It's a good platform.
It's needs 4 good signings: GK, 2 X CBs, an extra attacker or CM, formation and style dependent.

I'd like us really focus on a cup next year - FA or Conf Lge, to build that mentality and feel good factor.
We've had 3/4 years of trying to slog pragmatically to CL under Jose and Conte.
Let's release the energy and have some fun - that's been the backbone of the good times!

Funny how opinions work, mine are quite different to yours (am aware that doesn’t make me right just interesting how people can look at things differently).

RB.. Has Spence ever shown he can play in a back 4?
CB. Can Romero play in a pair instead of a 3?
LB. We saw how poor Davies was yesterday. Udogie is a wing back who is weak defensively, could be horrible in a 4.
CM. I think Bentancur won’t be back for the start of next season. Skipp is pretty average (probably OK for a reserve). Bissouma just looks constantly poor, zero awareness of how to defend his opposite number.
I don’t get what you mean about Porro as a CM? He looks I’ll equipped to me (as he seems quite weak)
AM. Kulu we don’t own yet. Same with Danjuma. Scarlett and Parrot are nowhere near PL players, I’m not sure either ever will be. Gill probably needs a year at a championship club to get used to English football. Devine would be far better off going to the championship or league 1 and playing games.
Richi is a very poor replacement for Kane. I’d have real concerns if he is our first choice number 9 next season (though I think he is likely to be).
I think Kane will absolutely run his contract down if the club don’t sell him this summer. We might need the funds to help our rebuild but without Kane we look like a relegation battler level team and I’m far from convinced we’ve got the recruitment department in place to make it likely that we spend the Kane money we’ll if we do cash in.

Slot is a good choice on paper but might be a bad choice in reality as we really do lack players in quite a few positions for his preferred shape. If we couple that with our chairman’s lack of patience and likelihood to fire our manager if he happens to be outside of the top 6 or 7 then I’d expect us to be looking for a new manager again before half the season is done.

 

[parklane1]

Looks like a man hurting and a supportive partner to me.

He's screwed some things up, for sure. But let's not forget just how much we've done since he joined.
Look at the stadium.
Look at the training ground.
Look at the players that have worn that shirt.
Look at how many times we've finished top 4.
Look at our 3rd (4th?) highest ever league finish.
Look at the greatest goalscorer in our history.
Look at having developed the most successful British player of all time.
Etc.Etc.Etc.

Add that to the context of operating in the financial doping era.

Compare it to where we were beforehand.

There are plenty of other business people that would love to come in and take over the riches. But what would their motivations be?

Levy's motivations and deliverables are clear:
Create and sustain a solid football club.
The reality of that in modern football, from where we were, and without financial doping, is what we currently see.

Our target and focus is regular CL qualification - which we've had. Not ever season - and there have been a few missed; that's sport

The alternative (and I'd be ok with this, but I know most fans wouldn't) would be the Sevilla approach. Understand you won't win the league except for a freak season, and really focus on building a legacy of Europa League wins. And along that journey, you might just get the kind of freak season we had and reach the CL final.

The biggest problem with our fans is we think we're Man Utd, but don't have the pedigree to back that up.
We're a very solid top six club in the best Lge in the world. Occasionally we'll lower than that. Occasionally we'll higher. The past 15 years has seen more 6+ than 6-.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Currently, we're underperforming. Time to all pull together, reset, and get back to where we should be.
Europa lge qual and push for a cup next season.
Push for top 4 year after.

We're about to enter (probably already in) a really fascinating time in the lge. All of the following will expect CL qualification:
Man C
Arse
Newc
Lpool
Man U
Spurs
Chelsea

Plus Brighton up and coming.

It's going to be tough. That's what we all want.

COYS

They will not listen to much sense for them in your post.

 

[Gazza]

They will not listen to much sense for them in your post.

Perhaps but is there not an alternative to do better? Not expected but at the very least a vision and real backing when needed to push through the ceiling if we are close?

The trouble is the teams in the mix are probably short of a few players we are in desperate need of a team refresh. A wholesale change never bodes well.

 

[parklane1]

Perhaps but is there not an alternative to do better? Not expected but at the very least a vision and real backing when needed to push through the ceiling if we are close?

The trouble is the teams in the mix are probably short of a few players we are in desperate need of a team refresh. A wholesale change never bodes well.

There is always a alternative to do better ( as there is in all walks of life), but some tend to believe everthing they read ( and lets be honest that is pretty stupid). There is a lot of work to do i agree BUT the doom and gloom i read on here is overhyped at best. imo

 

[Gazza]

There is always a alternative to do better ( as there is in all walks of life), but some tend to believe everthing they read ( and lets be honest that is pretty stupid). There is a lot of work to do i agree BUT the doom and gloom i read on here is overhyped at best. imo

The doom and gloom comes from the last compounding false dawns... its the expectation that will kill you ... ive got my white flag out and surrender ... we won't progress much better this coming year as what is required will not be achieved nor realistic under the regime.

 

[parklane1]

The doom and gloom comes from the last compounding false dawns... its the expectation that will kill you ... ive got my white flag out and surrender ... we won't progress much better this coming year as what is required will not be achieved nor realistic under the regime.

You have seen all that in your crystal ball??, listen i do understand the frustrations we all feel but the doom and gloom is over hyped imo. We shall see i guess but football fans are fickle ( all of us have our reasons) and expecting the worse is foolish) imo.

 

[Gazza]

You have seen all that in your crystal ball??, listen i do understand the frustrations we all feel but the doom and gloom is over hyped imo. We shall see i guess but football fans are fickle ( all of us have our reasons) and expecting the worse is foolish) imo.

Come on then gramps, I got to say I think we finish 6th next year ... thats with a lot of wholesale changes.

 

[AdamB]

Come on then gramps, I got to say I think we finish 6th next year ... thats with a lot of wholesale changes.

I'd take 6th next season now. Would mean that we finish above at least one of Emirates Marketing Project, Man U, Liverpool, Arse, Chelsea and Saudi Sportswashing Machine and gets us back on the road to recovery

 

[Gazza]

I'd take 6th next season now. Would mean that we finish above at least one of Emirates Marketing Project, Man U, Liverpool, Arse, Chelsea and Saudi Sportswashing Machine and gets us back on the road to recovery

I'm not even being doom and gloom that's about the maximum of my optimism

 

[Jurgen the German]

Come on then gramps, I got to say I think we finish 6th next year ... thats with a lot of wholesale changes.

If we keep Kane maybe. If Kane leaves I think we will be bottom half. We have the 6th worst defensive record in the league and that’s with Kane’s goals papering over the cracks. I’m going by the squad as it is now just to be clear. Obviously getting the managerial appointment right and the recruitment side of things will ultimately decide how high we finish.