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Speakman gone


While he did a decent job overall,we are still left with a load of duffers like Ba .So I hope he comes back for some of these at his new club
Every club ends up with a lot that don’t work out in the transfer market
 
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While he did a decent job overall,we are still left with a load of duffers like Ba .So I hope he comes back for some of these at his new club
Decent is a pretty big understatement.
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.
In RLB's comments he mentioned working with KS during two windows, the summer and winter of his first season.
 
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Decent is a pretty big understatement.
Yep maybe ,I think he did aswell as could be expected from anybody from such a low bar.We have a huge amount of his signings that will have to be paid up or continually loaned out with us paying some of their wages.So I think decent is a fair statement really.
Every club ends up with a lot that don’t work out in the transfer market
Possibly but we have loads
 
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For context, the below was the first starting 11 named when he walked in the door:

Burge

McLaughlin
Flanagan
Wright
Hume

Scowen
Leadbitter
Power

Maguire
Grigg
McGeady

I'm sorry like but there's not even room for debate on this one - anyone who doesn't think he has done an exceptional job is simply an idiot.

Thank you for everything Kristjaan. You will always be very fondly remembered here for the crucial role you played.
That really is remarkable.

To take that squad in League One and within 4 and a half years be not only promoted to the premier league, but promoted with a positive net spend. Meaning we had the foundation to spend the way we did this summer and not sweating over PSR. We had one of the best squads in the league last season, and our wage bill was one of the lowest in the league. I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic to say that squad building is up there with one of the best jobs anyone has done in English football since the turn of the millennium.
 
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.
He couldnt spend it if he didn’t have it.
 
Mental the turnaround (not necessarily from the op like), but he was speakshite not so long ago, he got a load of unnecessary shite and not much credit. Now all of a sudden he needs a a minutes applause at the stadium 😂
 
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