Speakman


His position would’ve been questioned if we didn’t go up, January and February were a disaster, playing on when players had Covid, The Mike Dodds games, sacking Johnson then taking over two weeks to get Neil
 
Hmmm or did Neil pull him out of the shit…

Losing Flanagan without a replacement remains a joke decision (as does his reasoning of putting the player first), not having a coach for two weeks was shocking, plus we’ve been playing central midfielders and wingers at full back all season, not to mention the lack of cover for Stewart.

All I’m saying is he has made plenty of errors regardless of which division we are in next year..
He's also made positive contributions. He's in a new job for him and will make mistakes.
Cirkin not on loan but Spurs lad too. Huggins Leeds.
Huggins was signed permanently
 
I think most agreed when they joined that Broadhead, Roberts, Clarke, Hoffman, Dajaku, Huggins, Cirkin, Doyle, that West Ham guy, were exactly what we should be going for. Before they were signed I saw every single one of those described on here as overly ambitious, literally out of our league.

They didn't all work out perfectly but for where they were at the time (Tottenham, Bayern etc) I don't think anyone here had a more exciting shopping list than the above.

Yeah I agree with you, not every transfer is going to work is it, its about getting majority right

he delayed a bit too much in appointing Neil, and left us bit short in defence, but he did a good job, I dont get why people so reluctant to give him credit

I think some just dont like the idea of a sporting director and just want Neil to get total control
 
Hmmm or did Neil pull him out of the shit…

Losing Flanagan without a replacement remains a joke decision (as does his reasoning of putting the player first), not having a coach for two weeks was shocking, plus we’ve been playing central midfielders and wingers at full back all season, not to mention the lack of cover for Stewart.

All I’m saying is he has made plenty of errors regardless of which division we are in next year..

We replaced him with Batth, no?
 
We also don't know how much he has to get the go ahead from the ownership group. he will be entrusted with a budget that he has to make work. He may have wanted to sign Johnson another cb or cf,but if we didn't get permission from the owners. Same as hiring a manager will have to still be agreed with the owners
 
Reported (Soviet sympathiser)

After Bolton+3 I get why people wrote Batth off, but Batth AND Neil, that was a great partnership to bring together, even if it did take too long.

The whole managerial thing was just bizarre, good end to it though.
 
We replaced him with Batth, no?
But shifted out Alves and Younger.

For a team often playing 3 centre backs you would want 6..

We had:

Wright
Batth
Xhemajli (hadn’t played in 18 months)
Doyle… (who looked done in after Bolton)

Am I missing anyone?
 
Are you saying it was his decision - there were a few involved in the recruitment process IIRC.
Think we'd all love to know the intricacies. Speakman did say very clearly that Johnson sacking was more to do with data than Bolton.

KLD liking Keane on instigram and the like, it did feel like a farce at the time, and kind of was in terms of PR. Luckily Sir Alex Neil > PR.
 
But shifted out Alves and Younger.

For a team often playing 3 centre backs you would want 6..

We had:

Wright
Batth
Xhemajli (hadn’t played in 18 months)
Doyle… (who looked done in after Bolton)

Am I missing anyone?

I think that's it but then he choose to play 1 cb, he had more available. So you could make a case for 4 being overkill, if you wanted to, which I dont, but you get my gist.
 
Think we'd all love to know the intricacies. Speakman did say very clearly that Johnson sacking was more to do with data than Bolton.

KLD liking Keane on instigram and the like, it did feel like a farce at the time, and kind of was in terms of PR. Luckily Sir Alex Neil > PR.

IIRC KLD said it was a culmination of things>
 
But shifted out Alves and Younger.

For a team often playing 3 centre backs you would want 6..

We had:

Wright
Batth
Xhemajli (hadn’t played in 18 months)
Doyle… (who looked done in after Bolton)

Am I missing anyone?
Speakman does talk about this in his interview. Mentions we'd all love 4 players in each position, but they made difficult calls and will continue to make difficult calls.

Recognised there's always a risk but feels vindicated by the outcome, the final points haul as much as the playoff win. (No-one could have predicted the final points we ended up needing, it was a freak year in that regard).
 
Saturday was great. Feels most decisions they made have been justified by the final points total, and squad AN was able to work with by Wembly. (He didn't mention Batth iirc, but obviously alluding to him + AN = better defence imo).

Subtley hinted we'd have a huge budget next season: Q: "Other teams will have higher..." A: "Ha, says who?"
(I'm paraphrasing)... but also mentioned high spenders can easily be relegated from the Champs.

Happy with all loans as they all played their part. Pure buzzing for Patto and Embleton, highly complimentary re: his own involvement in their development plans. Retained list focused on who can develop with us as players (didn't name names as recorded before list released).

"We don't want players happy in L1, a desire to leave us if we didn't get promoted is a good thing"

Says KDL is MASSIVE on developing our own, notes we're the only club in the country that would retain their A1 academy status through 5yrs in the 3rd division, which could well be true (tho ultimately untestable).

Wouldn't get drawn in on Broadhead but positive tone IMO.

AN contract not a priority because we love him and he loves us, end of.

Doesn't want people to expect a promotion push next year, but it's clearly the medium term plan and essential if we want to keep our better players.

You dont think AN should we have a good season next year will attract attention from other clubs?
 
Could be worse. He could be saying "we dust worselves down and go again".
Everyone would love him if he'd dropped that in there :lol:
You dont think AN should we have a good season next year will attract attention from other clubs?
From the interview, to Speakman it's clear as day Alex Neil is sticking to the task in hand.

Like, we know now Alex Neil's straight up. He'll have gone, I'm here if you back me, and they'll have gone aye of course we'll back you, and that's all you need for Sunderland and a Glaswegian.
 
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