I'm now done grieving, great blole and amazing job overall, but it had become quite clear that the ownership and him was a relationship that wasn't going to work much longer and there's only ever going to be one winner in that situation. Even when Marianakis was interviewed after we stayed up last year it was clear he wasn't exactly in love. It is what it is, whoever is responsible for the deterioration doesn't really matter. For things to work significant accommodations would have had to have been made and we would have needed a psychological reset and I don't think thay was realistic. Marianakis managed it last year with the frankly genius move of giving him a new contract when things were bleakest but that was the kind of magic trick that you can only do once really. Overall SC was given good backing compared to most PL managers.
We move on, let's see now what Nuno can do. Weighing up background and past record, he may not be a bad fit. On the face of it, it's not a bad appointment.
This is not a bad squad at all compared to the bottom three or nffc 2022/2023 edition, apart from goalkeepers and centre forward department. I don't think it is light years worse than what Nuno had to work with at Wolves.
Murillo, Danilo, MGW, Sangare, Niakhate, Aurier, Elanga, Dominguez, Mangala, Felipe Williams (Awoniyi when not groined-out) are all high quality and much better collectively than what we had a year ago. Toffolo has really surprised me with his convincing impression of a Premier league footballer recently and Yates remains able to operate effectively at this level in the Robbie Savage role. We have physically strong, big players up to the level. We ought to be able to upgrade the keeper in January as good keepers are not that hard to come by, good (centre) forwards are more challenging.
Things can, might and should look up with a reset.
Finally, if Lopetegui thinks he's going to hold out for the Man Utd job good luck with that chap. What exactly has Lopetegui achieved in the game and why is he suddenly flavour of the month? Seems to me his record is average with Spain, shit at Madrid, shit at Porto and mardy and entitled at Wolves.
Interesting longer piece in t'Athletic by Daniel Taylor.
Randall axed after mocking Worrall, briefing against Cooper been going on a while, owner miffed by the Cooper love.
It's a bit of a fluff piece about Cooper, but also quite defensive of the owner (winning mentality, fans really grateful for his investment)
Interesting to see Mitiadis come out with a gushing Tweet about Cooper. Clearly craving more public attention.