Alex Neil


Are you expecting to bring in around 15 players this summer?

I guess Tezgel and Lowe should be part of the first team squad proper next year reducing your need to bring players in a bit.

Haven't got a clue how many for certain but we have 9 contracted players, so you'd expect around that figure give or take a few.
Given what you’re saying re only having nine players under contract come the season’s end, it will be interesting to see who you bring in assuming that Neil wants to be his own man regarding recruitment, then we’ll see the fruits of his fancies next season.

In the recent meet the club night, he's pretty much confirmed he's handing the recruitment over to the Technical Director so that he can concentrate on solely 'on the pitch' matters.

How much involvement he will really have I'm not sure. You'd think he would still have 100% say on who he wants with the TD concentrating on all of the agent nonsense etc.
 
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He is a despicable man. Stoke fans need to be aware that he will also drop them like a stone if he thinks he can get more butter on his bread elsewhere.

He served a purpose for us in getting us out of that league, for which we have to be grateful, because we are like that. Him on the other hand will be oblivious to the fact he walked away from the biggest club he will ever manage and by doing so, did us a massive favour as we would not be where we are now, playing the style of football we are now, if he was still here.
 
In the recent meet the club night, he's pretty much confirmed he's handing the recruitment over to the Technical Director so that he can concentrate on solely 'on the pitch' matters.

How much involvement he will really have I'm not sure. You'd think he would still have 100% say on who he wants with the TD concentrating on all of the agent nonsense etc.
So he’s happy to work under a TD at Stoke but allegedly wouldn’t accept the recruitment policy at Sunderland 🤷‍♂️
 
Different situations though. We started off on a much lower bar after a poor start under O'Neill. We also have only 9 players under contract at the end of the season, and 3 of those aren't fancied by Neil so there are a lot of moving parts in the club at the moment.

Most managers are bluffers to be fair. It goes with the job.
That's interesting.

Are your lot happy enough for Neil to see the summer through then I take it? It'll certainly be his neck on the line next season I'd imagine.
 
That's interesting.

Are your lot happy enough for Neil to see the summer through then I take it? It'll certainly be his neck on the line next season I'd imagine.

He seems very confident himself, so let's go for it.

“All I will say is that it is really clear to me what we need to do going forward; players we need to recruit and how we can improve as a team.

“In that aspect, it’s more worrying if you look and you’re not sure how you can fix something but for me it’s quite clear. I’m quite happy with that.

“We’ll be a good side next year, I have no doubts in my mind. We need to make sure we keep players fit, we recruit well and we retain the ones we need to retain to get to where we want to get to. I’m optimistic – albeit frustrated from this defeat.”

He added: “I think it’s probably been more of a slow burner than I would like. I would have wanted a bigger upturn initially and the last two home games are frustrating because it’s felt as if we’re getting somewhere. We’ve put in two really good 45 minutes and let ourselves down in the second half, that’s annoying. It’s something that we can fix quite easily but that doesn’t help at the moment.”


 

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