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What has Speakman done to be so hated?

sb022x1030

Striker
He's signed some exciting young players, managed to get 10 mil for a crock with only a year left on his contract, got out of league 1 then the next season immediately in the championship play offs under him. We are moving in the right direction under him after languishing in league 1 for years. He has made a number of mistakes in a short period of time in the last couple of months, but overall he is doing a good job IMO
 

He's signed some exciting young players, managed to get 10 mil for a crock with only a year left on his contract, got out of league 1 then the next season immediately in the championship play offs under him. We are moving in the right direction under him after languishing in league 1 for years. He has made a number of mistakes in a short period of time in the last couple of months, but overall he is doing a good job IMO
They didn’t know Stewart was going to get injured they can’t take credit for hindsight. Only one direction we are heading in let’s see what happens with incomings
 
He hasn’t got us into copious amounts of debt and brought in “big name” signings.

The actual issue is the lack of communication or actual movement in the window
 
Speakman has to work under a tight budget and the model set by the owners. If he had the money available he would be signing better calibre youngsters who could come straight into the team and make an impact.

It's not like he has big bucks and is just refusing to spend it. I bet given our low budget that we don't even have an adequate scouting system and instead rely on contracting data companies to find players, you really need a mix of both.

It appears we keep signing players with injury problems too which is very worrying, you are just throwing money away like you would if you were signing 30+ year olds which they refuse to do.
 
The decision to sack Mowbray with nothing lined up to replace him adequately is worrying. If we were looking at MB when he was first sacked, that's worrying. If we weren't looking at MB and ended up with him that's equally as worrying. I'm not sure the blame can fully land on KS though, as he doesn't have an unlimited pot of money to poach who his target would be, if it wasn't Beale.

I don't mind Speakman and don't fully understand the grief he gets - a lot seem to target the lack of spending, hiring managers out of work, having a low wage bill etc. which is strange, as he doesn't finance the club (as everyone surely knows).

Atleast his decisions are justifiable, and he can be given the benefit of doubt that he just isn't given the money to do much better that what he's done - which is brilliant considering the academy, squad value, squad age, the amount of long term contracts etc. all whilst working on a limited budget.

I really feel that anyone with issues with Speakman need to look higher and the bigger picture.
 
He doesn’t decide the budget but he’s overseen a fair few mistakes recently mind.

Some of his statements just don’t help him either.

Sunderland don’t play with a number nine ….

Obsession with progression …..
 
Recruitment has been poor since we came up apart from 1 or 2. Still to this day we are mostly relying on players signed in league 1. Of the 11 players signed in the summer theres only 1 whos started many games and thats jobe whos being flogged. KLD being so tight isnt helping mind.
 
The positives outweigh the negatives for me, but his key failings recently are:

- Failing to improve our first eleven in the summer, predominantly investing in potential who likely won't be ready for a season or two. I don't mind this, but we need to find a balance.

- Losing Mowbray and replacing Beale despite the outcry of fans against the appointment.

- Failing to bring in a capable striker/regular goalscorer to replace Stewart, Simms and Amad's goals.
 
He's signed some exciting young players, managed to get 10 mil for a crock with only a year left on his contract, got out of league 1 then the next season immediately in the championship play offs under him. We are moving in the right direction under him after languishing in league 1 for years. He has made a number of mistakes in a short period of time in the last couple of months, but overall he is doing a good job IMO
What did he have to do with Stewart like?
Stewart wasn't one of his signings and Southampton offered us £10m.
How does he get any credit?🤷‍♂️
 
No decent sriker brought in so the team have had to play without one for a year.
Poor january window last year ending our promotion hopes, no signings this window so far so it looks like its going to happen again.
All of our summer signings deemed not good enough to start games (ex his mate jobe).

IMO if we have another bad window and a few of the better players leave it will be a real struggle to stay up next year.
 
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Because he has got rid of a steady experienced coach far more suited to this unbalanced squad and replaced him with a training ground coach.

His arrogant demeanour probablys means he thinks he is better at making footballing decision than people like tony mowbray.... but he's not.

It ruined ellis shorts reigb with similar people deciding things. And it'll ruin this regime as has already begun. Key period of time coming up for kyril and kristjan.

They need to be humble and admit they got it wrong and learn from it otherwise we'll be in a mess
 
Generally speaking, he has done a good job. The negatives are -

The recruitment of strikers has been a glaring long term weak point which he doesn't appear to recognise or do anything about.

Recruitment overall was terrible last summer. We needed some first team ready players and we didn't get any.

The favouritism towards Jobe to the detriment to the team.

The terrible appointment of Beale.
 
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Player....................Age.........................Capped...............................Contract length

Pembele.................21..........................France u-20..........................5 years.
Seelt.....................20...................................................................5 years.
Trantis...................20..........................Australia u-23........................4 years.
Bellingham..............18..........................England u-19.........................5 years.
Aouchiche...............21..........................France u-20..........................5 years.
Semedo..................20..........................Portugal u-20........................5 years.
Mayenda.................18..........................Spain u-17...........................5 years.

The young players signed in the Summer, and there was a good few more of a similar ilk already signed previously.

This is what is being invested in, the length of the contracts, and the number of players at the club of a similar age and with a similar contract length show how hard it would be to reverse the project, even if the club decided to.
 
The positives outweigh the negatives for me, but his key failings recently are:

- Failing to improve our first eleven in the summer, predominantly investing in potential who likely won't be ready for a season or two. I don't mind this, but we need to find a balance.

- Losing Mowbray and replacing Beale despite the outcry of fans against the appointment.

- Failing to bring in a capable striker/regular goalscorer to replace Stewart, Simms and Amad's goals.
The first eleven in theory improves itself year on year though with more experience Ballard, Clarke, Hume, Ekwah etc should be improving. It doesn't work at all if you don't give your players a chance to develop. We are clearly short in some positions. Ekwah is never a defensive midfielder and none of the strikers seem to fit the mould of Stewart.

If we listened to fan outcry we wouldn't have seen Mowbray (or Neill) even appointed. So I'm pleased he doesn't listen to that. I would love to know how we've ended up with Beale mind. I'm not going to bitch on about being "cheap" because the figures banded about for someone like Will Still are ridiculous, but I'd love to know how they've determined Beale is the best choice.

Yeah we haven't signed a striker of Stewart's quality but every club in the division wants to sign one. We've sold an injured version of Stewart go for £10m.
 
I think the problem is signing this many youth players, who are being flaunted for the first team squad. These players could do with at least a season in PL2 or out on loan to a lower level English club to acclimatise to the country and playing style. We are putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves by doing this, people almost expect them to hit the ground running. Hemir for example, he was given the number 9 shirt… why? People expect a number 9 to be your main striker, not going thru the motions in the under 21s.
 
The first eleven in theory improves itself year on year though with more experience Ballard, Clarke, Hume, Ekwah etc should be improving. It doesn't work at all if you don't give your players a chance to develop. We are clearly short in some positions. Ekwah is never a defensive midfielder and none of the strikers seem to fit the mould of Stewart.

If we listened to fan outcry we wouldn't have seen Mowbray (or Neill) even appointed. So I'm pleased he doesn't listen to that. I would love to know how we've ended up with Beale mind. I'm not going to bitch on about being "cheap" because the figures banded about for someone like Will Still are ridiculous, but I'd love to know how they've determined Beale is the best choice.

Yeah we haven't signed a striker of Stewart's quality but every club in the division wants to sign one. We've sold an injured version of Stewart go for £10m.
I have mentioned exactly what you've said numerous times on here, so agree regarding existing players improving, however we're still very light and don't have enough quality to rely on, hence we've suffered when Roberts and Huggins have picked up injuries.

The fan outcry for Beale was no where near the levels it was prior to the Neil and Mowbray appointments. It was on par with the protests prior to signing Danny Graham imo.

When you see teams like Hull signing Carvalho and Twine, it shows they're being more ambitious than us. Whilst I don't necessarily think those players are what we need, they are improving their first eleven. We have yet to make inroads this month in the transfer market, despite being desperate for additional quality and if rumours are to be believed, we shouldn't expect much this month, which is really disappointing.
 
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