Mhsc

This XI would potentially battle relegation

So basically the B team with Caicedo expected to hard carry. Should be interesting…

He’s flexible and adjusts to the squad it seems. I don’t think 3 at the back is his thing but rather it was a good way to play the style of football he wanted with Strasbourg’s squad, so he did it.

While it is quite uninspiring, I actually think he'll be fine. We know the head coach role is much more limited in scope than old style manager positions, so the damage he can do is already minimised, and it seems he is very strong tactically like Maresca was so I suspect it is at worst a sideways move there. His decisions will be micromanaged just like Maresca's were. They'll continue to get their way on player signings, and how many minutes which player can play. Then it is whether he can sort out culture and mentality, not sure he can do any better than Maresca did, but time will tell - maybe he has a bit more of a chance there tbh. And in game management, and talking to the press (and a closely related topic of building a relationship with the fans), which were the two obvious flaws in Maresca similarly its unlikely he's any worse. Imo it is pretty much a sideways move and not much will change. One great hope of all of this is that we have a huge problem IMO with Cole Palmer that is not being spoken about much (as he's English), he's been bang average for a long time now and if Rosenior can change the guys role or whatever is required to get him back to being the best player in the world then obviously that would be a huge positive for us, I do think Maresca is partly to blame for Cole's drop off. Maybe another man, even if tactically similar, will have a different perspective and find a way to get Cole back. p.s. Gary O'Neil will be our manager in 18 months I guess and on and on the cycle continues.

Absolutely, not even hiding that they're just a puppet feeder club. Doesn't really make sense to be a fan of such a thing does it? No independence and no ambition outside of supporting some foreign club you've no prior link to. And you just know the French are not the type of people to take that with a smile

There's a vague chance that as long as he keeps it simple and continues mostly with what Maresca was doing and just slowly tweaks things that he'll be able to do well, at least initially. Surely any big overhaul in approach will have to wait til summer with a scheduled so packed that you can barely get training sessions in. We have a good fixture run coming up which is perfect starting point for a new manager. From my PoV: Benefits to Liam's appointment - He will instantly lift the way the media talk about us, and will de facto be given more time and more respect than he deserves (not to say he doesn't deserve some, but English managers get a ridiculous amount of leeway by the English press). Perhaps even referees will start to treat us with less open bias. Downsides - Everything else - respectfully, of course. Not a job he is likely ready for in the slightest. The only reason he has a slight chance is that our situation is way more normalised than what Potter or Lampard were given (squads that needed multiple changing rooms filled to the brim with frauds).

That's the thing though, walking away from a nice compensation package does not make sense unless this is a preplanned move for him to walk into a cushty well paid job with a nice sign on bonus. I assume the compensation is as part of a mutual contract where he's locked in to not take another job without that team negotiation a fee with us. The fact he refused to do the deal suggests that he is either super angry and a moron financially, OR more likely imo based on what we've seen (appointing Mendes as his agent, negotiating with every club he can while employed with us, trying to use it as leverage for a pay rise etc) he is actually very savvy and very calculated (important traits in a manager surely). Guess we'll find out soon enough.

Amorim sacked. Would not surprise me if they appoint Maresca and it turns out he engineered this 'sacking' to be able to join without any negotiation or fee club to club.

Wonder if an announcement follows the match today?

Whatever happens, I can’t cope with another manager spending their first 6 months asking Robert Sanchez to pass it short. We became a serious side only when Maresca finally asked him to regularly launch it long and adapted the system to have the long ball over the top as a threat and not a weakness. He’s gotten pretty good at it too. We just need someone that will play to our strengths and not try to force some shit on that the guys can’t do.

This game should definitely be boycotted.

I suspect he could stay at Strasbourg depending on what reasons he gave. They probably wont mind him as a long term set and forget coach there if he really has that little ambition. But I doubt Rosenior is thinking anything negative, as surprising as that might sound in some ways - this really is an unbelievable opp for him if it is real, even if he only lasted a month it would be a huge career highlight for him - which says a lot of course. This is also an amazing time to join as we soon have one hell of a nice fixture run in PL and if you time it right you can get in, string a run of Ws together and suddenly you're winning Premier League manager of the month awards and being 'responsible' for us cementing a place in top 4 and people will start to say/think "Oh, if he had been here all season running them in this form they could have been competing for the title". Of course, some chance to win a cup as well - the squad has plenty of quality in it after all and on their day it is a cup winning squad for sure. Imo it is all timed very deliberately including having some nobody fall guy take the City game, and this was probably decided as soon as he spoke out after the Everton game at the latest (probably Maresca sussed it out and that is why he started talking out, so it was probably even earlier). Sick of these owners and this business approach which clearly is not about serial winning but about being a player factory, a pit stop for up and coming managers and players... its literally just a bigger budget Brighton with the same ambitions (i.e. non-sporting ones). Even the crash out of Eghbali vs Maresca feels very Bloom vs De Zerbi.

Personally I'd want Emery (serious PL experience, manages well with flawed squads) but would settle for an ex-CFC vibe pick like Fabregas.

Caicedo showed just how cut throat he can be in the way he left Brighton and fucked over Liverpool. He is 100% off within a season or two. He will end up in one of the best teams in the world and we'll be like Spurs with Modric and Gareth Bale - a team that had elite talents but didn't put together a project to keep them because of the owner.

I honestly don't think there is a head coach in the world that will stay for long in the circumstances we serve up. All we will get is people that are desperate and can use us to get a leg up in their career, and leave with head held high that failures were not their fault. Overall been a fantastic move from Maresca, now a famous, reputable manager, won trophies and managed (some) elite players, gets out now before things get worse and his name sinks with the ship. I would say his reputation is actually higher having walked away from the mad house. We should expect the same from the players too - Palmer, Caicedo, Enzo will move on in summer, or maybe the summer after. The project will continue to churn through both up and coming managers and players, never tasting much meaningful success but perhaps being just good enough to regularly stay in CL and get the occasional cup and a continuous stream of healthy revenue. This is the new normal under the owners until and if they decide to sell up.

This is not what I asked for for Christmas. We are such a broken club.

To be fair, they're good and have been chronically under appreciated/under valued by Man City. They have an excellent academy/talent pool like we do (both producing serious international tier players regularly).

I'm just glad its over. Transfer market is the most soulless, tedious shit in football. The daily tweets about a deal being still ONE TO WATCH. This shit is worse for the game than VAR. Football has got worse every year since around 2010.

Loaned in Jan not end of the world

NJ swap deal for Rogers surely Fucking insane this window what the actual fuck I guess the club got news that their preferred outcome was back on the cards after other transfers happened?

Yes absolutely Being regular scorers from set pieces is so underrated, it can carry you so much over a season The old good Chelsea teams were great at it and Arsenal rely on it to an extreme extent. If we can be dangerous in open play and dangerous from set pieces we'll be a genuine menace that everyone will dread to play. How it should be.

I mean, if the guy is chill and doesn't give a shit about hardly ever playing, will train well and be a nice lad in the squad then it is all good fmpov, just a bit random and probably pointless - but if it is loan like some of you are saying then hey why not, whatever. Its all just noise to distract from the fact we entered the summer with 3 foundational problems: GK, CB and ST. We've taken a stab at sorting out ST (bit of a risky stab but I don't mind it - looking promising so far) and totally bottled GK+CB. And then just generated a bunch of noise flipping and replacing players, removing players that were not difference makers and replacing them with players that are not difference makers. Pretty disappointing imo, especially as it is CLEAR Maresca wants solutions here and now for CB, and imo it is super obvious he would never have picked Sanchez to be his GK either. Cannot be surprised or even mad at him if we have another bad patch this year, the directors fucked him.

who the actual fuck is Facundo Buonanotte?

The only way Morgan Rogers is happening is in some kind of swap with NJ surely. Maybe mutually beneficial if he's asking for a move and they're trying to find a good, positive way to deal with it. I would be way more excited about Rogers than any of the other options but tbh any of these players are just going to be squad filler because realistically who are they displacing in the XI in PL games? Wharton is low key a bit of a baller and flying under the radar (as is Anderson at NFO for example, genuine talent that a top club should have gone for by now) as he genuinely is clearly a talented guy, but again its just squad filler, who cares I am gutted we have not fixed the key positions in the XI and spending all our energy on this nonsense instead, its all just noise distracting us from the fact the club have failed to invest yet again in the core spine of the team where PLs are won or lost

Don’t know how many times I have to say it chased = left on read because we didn’t care much he’s just one of a bunch of options the club is vaguely interested in but don’t rate all that much Even Spurs went for him as like a plan B or C after getting cucked on Eze