Nuno Out

[northbankfrank]

2,500 posts by the end of the season?

[RootsRadical]

Sullivan won't spend much in in January.
It will be loans as usual as he won't spend money thinking that there's a good chance we're in the Championship next year.

So no real solution to the years old striker issue.
Will be another loan stop gap who will be off whether we stay up or not.
Who would want to join us anyway?

I'd be looking at the best the Championship has to offer and hopefully find another Bowen, if we do go down we're well placed to come back up.
I don't expect Sullivan to do that though as it requires a well thought out strategy and identifying the right players.



 

 

Normally I'd agree, I want us to make shrewd long term signings that will contribute to the club in the future. and preferably chosen by a DOF, it's what we all want.

However, this is not the time for that. We have our eggs in the Nuno basket, in a critical situation. We need to give him a minimum of 3 players of his choice, and hope to fuck he can do what he did for Forest in his 1st season there.

Fair point but will they want to join a sinking ship?

[Russ of the BML]

Back in the autumn  of 2022 there was the league hiatus due to the WC. It was speculated by some that it was the perfect time to jettison Moyes and replace him with Emery.

Missed opportunity?

I called for it at the time and hate this fucking Club's Owners for never showing any ambition getting him by paying the compensation to release him from Villarreal. Unless they're out of work costing him fuck all, he aint interested. A massive missed opportunity that's in-keeping with the BS regime of penny pinching. He would have set us up for years to come just as he's predictably doing now at Villa. 

Yes - But for me, the writing was on the wall when we got to Europa League knock out with a small and tired squad and in that Jan window we brought in nobody. That told me all I needed to know. I said to my mate, that window should've been the springboard for the owners to deliver what the promised all those years ago - Champions League. If we went out that window and bought a striker, midfielder and a back up defender, then we win that EL and get into the CL.

We subsequently got knocked out in the semi looking tired and overwhelmed. 

But not buying anyone in that window, the owners proved that their ambition of getting into the CL was lies. 

[Russ of the BML]

The weird thing with this season is, especially last four / five games, I think we have played pretty well. There has been a marked improvement in organisation, commitment and competitiveness in the players. That's very clearly Nuno's impact. 

You look at Bournemouth and we had a solid lead and threw that away. Could've nicked it at Utd. Got robbed at Brighton and on another day we beat or draw with Villa. So for me, we aren't too far off - Its just seemingly that we are also going through a spell of bad luck and during those critical moments in games - Its not going our way. 

You look at that Brighton goal. Total freak. Should've been free kick for high kick. Bloke controls it with his hand, shoots and it literally goes straight back to him. Law in an ass but it was a freak goal. Bowen's off-side yesterday. So close. Mavro's own goal yesterday. A freak. Soucek late chance against Utd. Bournemouth's equaliser with deflection. As doom and gloom as it is, in another season we are easily 7 or 8 points to the better. 

My worry is that yesterday was a kick in the guts too hard for the players. They looked deflated. Its clear they and Nuno have been working hard. And to lose it that way was sickening. But they have to get up and fight and want it. Every single game. I am sure there will be more teams going on a bad run. There will be more dragged in.

But when you are winning games on a good run and in a comfy league position, a result like yesterday can easily be put behind you as one of those days. But we are now running out of time and games to have days like that. We look competitive but we must turn it into wins. We have four winnable games after Man City and we need to take at least 7 points. Just hope the players are up for the fight.

[Massive Attack]

Back in the autumn  of 2022 there was the league hiatus due to the WC. It was speculated by some that it was the perfect time to jettison Moyes and replace him with Emery.

Missed opportunity?

I called for it at the time and hate this fucking Club's Owners for never showing any ambition getting him by paying the compensation to release him from Villarreal. Unless they're out of work costing him fuck all, he aint interested. A massive missed opportunity that's in-keeping with the BS regime of penny pinching. He would have set us up for years to come just as he's predictably doing now at Villa. 

[Eerie Decent]

Back in the autumn  of 2022 there was the league hiatus due to the WC. It was speculated by some that it was the perfect time to jettison Moyes and replace him with Emery.

Missed opportunity?

The time we should have got rid of Moyes was the time when Villa pumped Gerrard. We had started that season off appallingly, the rot had set in the season before, we beat them 0-1 at their place in the worst game of football I've ever seen, Fornals heavily deflected goal, they done the brave thing, we stuck with Moyes.

I argued with loads on here about it at the time, it was clear that long term the league form was not sustainable, but the Europe thing had everyone roped in.

[Eerie Decent]

Sullivan won't spend much in in January.
It will be loans as usual as he won't spend money thinking that there's a good chance we're in the Championship next year.

So no real solution to the years old striker issue.
Will be another loan stop gap who will be off whether we stay up or not.
Who would want to join us anyway?

I'd be looking at the best the Championship has to offer and hopefully find another Bowen, if we do go down we're well placed to come back up.
I don't expect Sullivan to do that though as it requires a well thought out strategy and identifying the right players.


 

 

 

Normally I'd agree, I want us to make shrewd long term signings that will contribute to the club in the future. and preferably chosen by a DOF, it's what we all want.

However, this is not the time for that. We have our eggs in the Nuno basket, in a critical situation. We need to give him a minimum of 3 players of his choice, and hope to fuck he can do what he did for Forest in his 1st season there.

[,]

Roots, if you fill the side with championship players they will play like a championship team. It is no surprise to see Burnley where they are compared to Sunderland.

For sure there are the occasional gems to be picked up from the Championship but anyone in that league who shows PL squad potential is generally snapped up quickly.

[,]

Back in the autumn  of 2022 there was the league hiatus due to the WC. It was speculated by some that it was the perfect time to jettison Moyes and replace him with Emery.

Missed opportunity?

[RootsRadical]

Sullivan won't spend much in in January.
It will be loans as usual as he won't spend money thinking that there's a good chance we're in the Championship next year.

So no real solution to the years old striker issue.
Will be another loan stop gap who will be off whether we stay up or not.
Who would want to join us anyway?

I'd be looking at the best the Championship has to offer and hopefully find another Bowen, if we do go down we're well placed to come back up.
I don't expect Sullivan to do that though as it requires a well thought out strategy and identifying the right players.
 

[El Scorchio]

We've been in horrendous league form for about 5 seasons now, bottom half and in a couple of them dicing with a relegation scrap, so this has been on the cards. The problem at the club is clearly the owners, but they backed Moyes and his obsession with experienced players, even ignoring the clearly appalling signings like JWP, players like Zouma, who most would say was a good signing, clearly a good centre back but 27 and shot knees for £30mil, it's so short sighted for a club to be making signings like that. Long terms it's been a killer.

I'm not a fan of negative football at all, and the manager clearly has a severe weak spot with substitutions, even if he does have limited options. But some are putting far too much blame at his door, he walked into a club with a team that was going to battle it out with Wolves for rock bottom, under a manager who had 2 transfer windows and a full pre season.

We've just got to hope and pray January we can get some signings in that he wants, and that he can make it work. I'm not hopeful, and I think we're down, but I won't be blaming him. I've blamed past managers for sure, but it's pointless doing that anymore. We know what the true problem is, Nuno not having George Earthy on the bench is not the problem at this club.

Great summary of the situation.

[Eerie Decent]

We've been in horrendous league form for about 5 seasons now, bottom half and in a couple of them dicing with a relegation scrap, so this has been on the cards. The problem at the club is clearly the owners, but they backed Moyes and his obsession with experienced players, even ignoring the clearly appalling signings like JWP, players like Zouma, who most would say was a good signing, clearly a good centre back but 27 and shot knees for £30mil, it's so short sighted for a club to be making signings like that. Long terms it's been a killer.

I'm not a fan of negative football at all, and the manager clearly has a severe weak spot with substitutions, even if he does have limited options. But some are putting far too much blame at his door, he walked into a club with a team that was going to battle it out with Wolves for rock bottom, under a manager who had 2 transfer windows and a full pre season.

We've just got to hope and pray January we can get some signings in that he wants, and that he can make it work. I'm not hopeful, and I think we're down, but I won't be blaming him. I've blamed past managers for sure, but it's pointless doing that anymore. We know what the true problem is, Nuno not having George Earthy on the bench is not the problem at this club.

[El Scorchio]

The three we haven't played are Man City, Fulham and Wolves. Got to be looking at 4-6 points there, taking us to 17-19 at half way.

We're three points off safety with 22 games to go. Hardly a lost cause.

God knows how many times we've been in a similar situation.

Not that often, actually. It’s rare that we’ve been in the bottom three at Christmas.

We’re away at Man City next. Leeds and Forest both have games where they could pick up points. So it’s possible that we’ll be six points or so adrift at Christmas. That usually doesn’t end well.

We’re in trouble - and we need a very canny, effective January transfer window. Too many at the club are sleepwalking it into the Championship.

Two people are. Their names are David Sullivan and Karren Brady. Everyone else at the club has their hands tied behind their back thanks to them, from the scouts to the recruiters to the manager to the coaches to the players who are capable of more to even the training ground staff

[El Scorchio]

There's a precedent here and it's already happened this season that currently appears to be working for them. Forest. Now people may scoff and say they're a basket case, however there results under a manager that has inspired the Team and gets the Club from within as a former Forest man. And it's working with decent results and performances that's made them pull away from us.

They also made the move early having sacked new manager Postecoglu who clearly wasn't working out for them. There was a lot of mocking and sneering at what they were doing but Dyche is so far getting the best out of a bad performing bunch. 7 wins in 12, 58% win ratio - beating Liverpool, Spurs, Porto.

Our Dyche who has just as much passion for our Club could well be Bilic at a time of needs must. 

Now ideally Nuno gets his act together and finally gets us some wins on the board and digs us out of the bottom 3 but thee evidence as a while so far doesn't read too good. 2 wins in 11, 18% win ratio, making endless weird decisions with no sign of it improving significantly enough to make anyone think, yep we've turned a corner now and can see how we are going to turn this around. And if he cannot achieve it within these next 5 matches and it continues as poorly as it has done so far, then he'll only have himself to blame for making a pigs ear of such winnable games such as Leeds, Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton and possibly some coming up if he fails to beat them also.

A hell of a lot is at stake and little time for Nuno to drag his heels any longer. It needs to start happening in the next 5 games or he could be in serious trouble and not many would be complaining if he continues what he's already managed thus far.

Forest do also have a far better team/squad than us as was evident last season. They were lying in a false position thanks to the bad blood and irreconcilable relationship between owner and manager- yes I am aware of the slight irony the manager was Nuno but the owner takes the huge share of the blame for that situation. They were always going to rise up the table simply because they have fundamentally good players anyway who were underperforming and all it took was some unity and feelgood factor, Our problems are so so much deeper than theirs to the point where I don't think a feelgood factor and unity are enough at all. We desperately need a lot more quality in the squad. You cannot get by these days when you have only probably nine players in the whole squad who are actually good premier league quality. I'd argue that's less than 17 other teams we are competing against. Yes Nuno needs to find a way to win games, but he also needs a LOT of help from the chairman. Bilic would be in exactly the same boat if it were him. The damage to the club was done long before Potter's replacement would walk through the door, regardless of who it is. Look at the situation now- the defence was in tatters, the midfield was an embarrassment with Potts and Fernandes riding the bench for James Ward fucking Prowse, we have not one premier league quality striker. (Even Leeds went out and got DCL- far more ambitious than us) The club wouldn't even pay for the manager's backroom staff. That's how bad it is. 

[southbankbornnbred]

The three we haven't played are Man City, Fulham and Wolves. Got to be looking at 4-6 points there, taking us to 17-19 at half way.

We're three points off safety with 22 games to go. Hardly a lost cause.

God knows how many times we've been in a similar situation.

Not that often, actually. It’s rare that we’ve been in the bottom three at Christmas.

We’re away at Man City next. Leeds and Forest both have games where they could pick up points. So it’s possible that we’ll be six points or so adrift at Christmas. That usually doesn’t end well.

We’re in trouble - and we need a very canny, effective January transfer window. Too many at the club are sleepwalking it into the Championship.

[Sweep]

The three we haven't played are Man City, Fulham and Wolves. Got to be looking at 4-6 points there, taking us to 17-19 at half way.

We're three points off safety with 22 games to go. Hardly a lost cause.

God knows how many times we've been in a similar situation.

[Massive Attack]

There's a precedent here and it's already happened this season that currently appears to be working for them. Forest. Now people may scoff and say they're a basket case, however there results under a manager that has inspired the Team and gets the Club from within as a former Forest man. And it's working with decent results and performances that's made them pull away from us.

They also made the move early having sacked new manager Postecoglu who clearly wasn't working out for them. There was a lot of mocking and sneering at what they were doing but Dyche is so far getting the best out of a bad performing bunch. 7 wins in 12, 58% win ratio - beating Liverpool, Spurs, Porto.

Our Dyche who has just as much passion for our Club could well be Bilic at a time of needs must. 

Now ideally Nuno gets his act together and finally gets us some wins on the board and digs us out of the bottom 3 but thee evidence as a while so far doesn't read too good. 2 wins in 11, 18% win ratio, making endless weird decisions with no sign of it improving significantly enough to make anyone think, yep we've turned a corner now and can see how we are going to turn this around. And if he cannot achieve it within these next 5 matches and it continues as poorly as it has done so far, then he'll only have himself to blame for making a pigs ear of such winnable games such as Leeds, Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton and possibly some coming up if he fails to beat them also.

A hell of a lot is at stake and little time for Nuno to drag his heels any longer. It needs to start happening in the next 5 games or he could be in serious trouble and not many would be complaining if he continues what he's already managed thus far.

[southbankbornnbred]

I’ll start the week by making one simple observation, which holds true in all sports - but particularly football.

Poor owners make poor appointments which lead to poor performances.

It remains the case that Sullivan and his acolytes have to leave the club for West Ham to improve.

Nuno, and what continues to happen on the pitch, is a symptom of this club. Not the cause.

[El Scorchio]

There could even be an argument for sacking him straight after the City game if they decide to really turn it on tearing us a new one. The situation could be untenable which would then leave us a full week before taking on the next 2 fixtures at Home.  

The problem we've now got is the gap that's appearing between us and Leeds and should they also likely win at Home on the same day, it's going to look dire. That would potentially be 6 points clear with a goal difference already widening as well. 

 

 

I just don't see any viable replacement for him, TBH. I agree the main worry for us is the form of other teams rather than ourselves per se. We have in fairness just gone five games into a very tough set of six fixtures. Given we were absolutely mugged off by the ref and VAR at Brighton, Objectively Liverpool is really the only 'bad' result amongst those and Leeds' very unlikely win against Chelsea which would have been an away banker is the difference and makes things look a lot worse.

The table this season is such an anomaly with very few 'weak' teams (unfortunately this time we are one of them) but so many teams bunched up from 16th to 6th and everyone taking points off each other. If we can go on a little run we are right back in it and I believe we will when the fixtures get a little kinder, with the caveat of Sullivan actually doing his job properly for once. However this is a really bad season to be a bad team, unfortunately. It's just our luck it's shaking out this way so far. But as a counterpoint, Sullivan has absolutely had this coming through his years of piss poor squad and transfer management. He can try and blame everyone else, but we all know it's his fault.

[,]

I am not blaming our manager for yesterday’s defeat. We battled and played well considering the opposition and their current run of form. If we had played like that against Brighton and Bournemouth we would be four points better off than we are at the moment.

What did for us yesterday was an attacking midfield player who basically dominated the second half in away that at least matched those performances of Gascoigne and Bale at home to Spurs in our Boleyn Ground days.

From here on in a point a game is insufficient and we need to average 1.5 points a game to stay up.It’s a tough call but most weeks we will not be playing against Morgan Rogers. 

[goose]

they're not gonna sack him.
i doubt they will really back him in january, some shit will be brought in on the cheap and surprise surpise they will be shit.

this has been going on for some time now and its down to the ownership. you can see the steady decline from the tail end of Moyes, into Lopetegui, then Potter and now Nuno. If nothing changes we will be in the same position next year (if we somehow stay up).

[Sir Alf]

Who will be manager number 6 in 18 months? And will he be making changes to the starting 11  with the squad we have to change outcomes or is it mostly subs and timing of subs that fans think Nuno should be sacked for?

Or is it the low block tactics? Or do we think we could play “front foot” football with overloads and bombing forward without conceding boatloads? 

I think he messed up early in the Brenford and Leeds games but imo the squad constraints have limited us more than anything gettimg results. We have lost to Liverpool, Villa and Arsenal since he brought in Magassa and Potts and started giving Wilson minutes.  He repaired the set piece issues to a large extent. Compared to the previous 3 managers ( low bar admittedly ) he has made progress.  It comes down to results against the middle and lower teams which we are about to see.  I might be wrong ( often am ) but I dont see who Sullivan will get in that will be any better for the predicament we are in andcSullivan created?

[Massive Attack]

There could even be an argument for sacking him straight after the City game if they decide to really turn it on tearing us a new one. The situation could be untenable which would then leave us a full week before taking on the next 2 fixtures at Home.  

The problem we've now got is the gap that's appearing between us and Leeds and should they also likely win at Home on the same day, it's going to look dire. That would potentially be 6 points clear with a goal difference already widening as well. 

[El Scorchio]

Leeds have Palace next (Saturday ) after they play on Thursday with Palace lsoing 2 players to Afcon.
Nuno is to blame for all this,he's had time to see who is good at the club but hasn't played them. 
Instead his love in with Paqueta isn't working,his love in with terrible subs and tactics will send us down.


 

No he isn't- Sullivan is. 

[El Scorchio]

Putting it bluntly now, he's got 5 matches to save his job. And the last 2 fixtures are against both his former employers with Forest ironically being the last of them.

City
Fulham
Brighton 
Wolves
Forest

Get these points sooner rather than later as it won't get easier. 7 points with 2 wins at an absolute bare minimum.

 

 

He's not getting fired even if we are certs to go down. I don't think there's anyone who is an improvement that can or more importantly WILL realistically come in at this stage.

Bloke needs help from the owner. I'm not surprised he's reticent to make subs and when they come they are the way they are, because what we have to choose from off the bench is absolutely fucking dire. And just my opinion but before they scored the third, I felt we were looking the stronger and more likely team. The trouble is ALL our subs, whatever choice we make, weaken the team with the exception of Wilson, if he's on the bench and not already on the pitch. Almost whatever choice we make doesn't allow us a change in tactics other than to add another defender or central midfielders even if an attacker needs to come off. Most other teams have no drop off or an actual improvement/flexibility from the bench because they have more than eight or nine bona fide premier league quality players in their squads.

[BoleynGone]

Leeds have Palace next (Saturday ) after they play on Thursday with Palace lsoing 2 players to Afcon.
Nuno is to blame for all this,he's had time to see who is good at the club but hasn't played them. 
Instead his love in with Paqueta isn't working,his love in with terrible subs and tactics will send us down.