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Speakman gone


Shocked but not that bothered, I mean he’s done a great job and fair play to him but Flo seems the real deal and let’s crack on with him now. Just like roefs replaced Patto, xhaka replaced Neil etc… flo replaces speakman. Happy and exciting days.
 
Bloke on Wise Men Say podcast really doesn’t seem too fond of him :lol:
Would love to know what that’s all about.

I’ve been one of KS’s biggest critics at times but it honestly sounds personal with this fella.
Your never going to be popular in a role like that you have to carry yourself a certain way
 
Doesn’t sit well with me this one speakman as much as kld deserves all the credit in the world for getting us from league 1 to the prem speakman basically ran the club last few years shocked to see him leave after the job he’s done
Whilst I like Speakman, from what I've seen. We don't know what goes on in the background or what his involvement really is.
 
PL outfits are shopping where we are shopping. It seems to be the consensus on here that those sort of targets aren’t really his speciality. He may turn out that to be a Ralf Rangnick type in that getting fallen giants back on their feet and back where they belong is his forte.
Sheff Wed will be needing someone with his skill set next season. WBA, Blackburn or Leicester even.
I’d like to see him resurface at Plymouth myself.

I think that’s people projecting what they hope is the case as regards his speciality. Frankly it’s conjecture and speculation. The facts remain under his time here our playing staff and recruitment has largely been f***ing superb. If Ghisolfi was all about the summer transfers then fantastic. As that was superb too 👍 I’d worry that the ‘consensus on here’ know the square root of fuck all though about how involved - or not - speakman was this summer.
 
I'll get taken apart for this I know but IMO he gets far too much credit for where we are now.

He came in and made some good signings early on, Pritchard, Hume, Clarke, Stewart etc but overall his business in the transfer market was very very questionable. Despite claims of a "data driven approach" it was instead lots of punts on young, inexperienced players, refusing to budge from that when it was clear we needed experience. After signing Dan Ballard permanently we went about 18 months hardly signing a player who positively impacted the first team. We're still saddled with a number of the sub standard players he signed who wouldn't even be good enough if we were still in the Championship.

There were two transfer windows when Mowbray was crying out for strikers and he responds with Geldhart, Ekwah and Anderson and then Hemir, Burstow, Ruysn and Mayenda.

Despite claims of implementing a philosophy of style of play throughout the club and lists of the next potential Head Coach, he bounced around from Lee Johnson to Alex Neil to Tony Mowbray to Michael Beale. Coaches who have very little similarities. It cumulated in the Mike Dodds debacle where I'm convinced it was an audition for the permanent job and we ended up with either the worst or second worst form in 2024.

Let's not forget that in that close season there was a poll on here where over 90% of voters wanted him out.

This followed with the shambolic managerial search in the summer of 2024 where we were seemingly turned down by our top 4/5 targets and if you read between the lines it seems like KLD has stepped in and found us RLB (via the same agent who managed many of the players at the time and French journalist Julien Laurens saying on 5Live that Reggie is only here because of Kyril).

This was the turning point as Reggie was the main reason for us going up last season IMO, immediately coming in and taking virtually the same squad of players to the top of the league and at the same time.

The summer of 2024 also saw a change in KLD's mindset to give more control to the Head Coach as we saw players such as Isidor and later on Le Fee coming in who have strong links to RLB and he was also free to not play some of the punts who he didn't think was good enough. IMO this was down to Speakman's performance the previous year.

It's no coincidence to me that as soon as we got promotion to the Premier League, KLD got a new man in and phased Speakman out in just over 6 months.
 
Does
Evolution.
I'm pondering this Linus. It is a shock I wont lie, but is KLD thinking he got us their on a budget, and he did beautifully and we are now beyond this (with players dads dictating how many games his and son can play) and KLD thinking we have moved on(and we have) it's ruthless, but we have seen this already and we reap what it brings now. I 'm itchy about, but what the F*ck do I know.
 
Also looks like Ghisolfi already began re-arranging the scouting team. According to LinkedIn we’ve hired the former fc midjytlland head of scouting as a senior scout and another scout from what I can see
Have we? I didn't know that. Given they are part of the Brentford owner's group that's an interesting appointment. Midjytlland have done brilliantly since they took over.
 
Doesn’t sit well with me this one speakman as much as kld deserves all the credit in the world for getting us from league 1 to the prem speakman basically ran the club last few years shocked to see him leave after the job he’s done
No time for sentiment

Done well for us but we need better now

Proper winners approach - sentiment is for losers
 
Good luck to him, he seems to have played a really positive role in our recent success.

It did seem that he reached a point of being under a fair bit of pressure the summer before last but he came through with the goods.
 
I'm not sure he gets that credit. Think without Ghisolfi we would probably have been a Championship club next season.

Very little Premier League quality in his signings. Very good job given his budget but also very lucky to get promoted, he was not scouting Mukiele, Alderette, Mandava, Le Fee, Xhaka, Bobby, Isidor etc..

I will always remember him for taking a punt on Anderson and Hjelde because they had a left foot and my favourite Hemir (He-man) on a five year deal. His legacy to me will be tied with what Seelt achieves in the game... A solid championship player for a championship recruit er.

Good luck to him in future as ultimately he helped bring us back to life.

Ah the lucky 49 games season
 
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