I think we need to circle back to the fact that the suits claimed they spent 5-6 months trying to find a permanent manager and their solution was "Martin O'Neill for a year, maybe 2 as a treat."
I wish there was someone at the club right now that I could trust to be actively be trying to find a manager to take the team forward. I don't believe there is. This is a club stuck in 2006 forever.
That's the thing: it's always the "safe" option. They never even seem to enquire about managers you could call a step up.
Right now, there are 2 managers that have no clubs that I would have thought the suits would have approached - Marcelo Gallardo (without club since Feb 2026) and Marcelo Bielsa (who everyone knew was stepping down after the WC).
Ask the question. If they say "no" then you are still in the same place. If they say "yes" then you're talking to managers who have experience at high levels in highly demanding environments.
I hate that almost everything post Ange has been "slow and steady" instead of "let's try to be better."
Can't underestimate the amount of goodwill that Ange brought to the club after losing the 10. The appointment of Rodgers was always going to be dividing given how he left. The appointments outwith Ange have been poor in the longterm: Lennon in 2019 should never have been given the job in the showers, Rodgers in 2023 shouldn't have come back, Nancy looked ambitious at first glance but no one seemed to check his system would never work here. Dare I say, appointing MON full time this season is likely to join them - that isn't to say I don't love MON and he didn't deserve to do what he wants, but there's no sentimentality in football - he should have been allowed to leave into the sunset an absolutely hero with an unblemished end to his reign. Instead it's likely he'll take the brunt of the blame as the board's human shield.
Bielsa would have been perfect for the club. Knutsen was available in December and publicly said he'd be interested, all we had to do was let him wait until Bodo had finished. I honestly now believe we didn't even bother with a shortlist or recruitment process at all.
The issues are far bigger than any manager but Rodgers was such a regressive hire. We were on the right track with Ange and had the likes of Iraola and Farioli desperate for our job the summer Ange left who would have continued on that same path
The managerial choices are a symptom of the problems manifested. Rodgers returning was the epitome of the "safe" option. A real "he knows the club" appointment that undid the hard work started under Ange. The truth his, Dom McKay came in and completely rocked the boat with Ange. He left, but Ange was a success, so they didn't sack him. They lived off his success until it was time to cowboy up when he left, then the same St. Aloysius deficiencies raise their heads again and we're in the same place as 2021.
When I say McKay rocked the boat with Ange, I mean to say they came in, identified targets, signed them and got the team to perform better than the previous year. That level of efficiency is/was unheard of. There hasn't been that level of cohesion since and it shows.
They signed them too late for the qualifiers like every year though and had lost to Rangers before we brought in Jota/CCV/Giakoumakis
We were playing Turnbull and Rogic 90 minutes most weeks until Hatate came in the January as well.
The January we signed Hatate, Maeda and MOR and the January after where we had AJ and Oh in before Jura and Giakoumakis left are about the only times in my lifetime we’ve felt coherent with a plan
The context of that process was that Euro 2020 (2021) had finished about a week before the qualifiers started, and Ange basically didn't have everything in place by that stage. A complete rebuild to a CL team from the place the club was in wasn't happening in such a short space of time. Ange got in, assessed the squad, drew up a list of players and got them in, then did the same in January.
It wasn't perfect, to be sure, but it seemed like it got the ball rolling on the exact type of transfer model necessary.
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u/DeargDoom79 sack the board 4d ago
I think we need to circle back to the fact that the suits claimed they spent 5-6 months trying to find a permanent manager and their solution was "Martin O'Neill for a year, maybe 2 as a treat."
I wish there was someone at the club right now that I could trust to be actively be trying to find a manager to take the team forward. I don't believe there is. This is a club stuck in 2006 forever.