Who's the Rioch to Evatt's Neal?

[TonyDomingos]

Aye, that's her.

[The_Gun]

Keith Hill says we should go for Dyche. Hmmmm. Be absolutely brilliant but why would he drop to league one?

He wouldn’t.

[GhostoftheBok]

I think it's quite likely we'll go for a Mat Sadler/Lee Bell/Bryan Barry-Murphy kind of appointment.

Lee Bell is the dream.

He gets us to the Prem, wins an FA Cup and we show more bravery than City did and name the North Stand "The Bell End."

Many won't admit it, but we all need this.

[GhostoftheBok]

He wouldn’t.

He would, if we'd pay him £2-3m a year.

Shall we have a whip-round?

[boltonboris]

The shiney foreign manager Miron Muslic who Plymouth hired to replace Rooney is 5-0 down at home in his first match. The second half hasn’t even started yet.

Whilst it’s early days, the guy has never played, or managed a game in England and in a struggling team that’s getting smashed about for fun, that’s dangerous.

[jmjhb]

He wouldn’t.

He would, if we'd pay him £2-3m a year.

Shall we have a whip-round?

That'd be a cut in salary from his Burnley and Everton roles!

[DJBlu]

Nixon is linking us to Schumacher, Evans and Robinson. Seems a lot of ‘guesswork’ to me.

Oh, I wouldn't trust Al's rumours as far as I could throw Steve Evans.

[GhostoftheBok]

That'd be a cut in salary from his Burnley and Everton roles!

Everton, certainly; but he won't get that next gig. Was on around that at Burnley, though it may have gone up late on.

[DJBlu]

The shiney foreign manager Miron Muslic who Plymouth hired to replace Rooney is 5-0 down at home in his first match. The second half hasn’t even started yet.

Whilst it’s early days, the guy has never played, or managed a game in England and in a struggling team that’s getting smashed about for fun, that’s dangerous.

Is that the one who published the video of his first team talk and our fans lapped it up?

[GhostoftheBok]

Is that the one who published the video of his first team talk and our fans lapped it up?

Yes. He spoke slowly and clearly in front of a whiteboard...so naturally there was a collective orgasm from twitter.

[TonyDomingos]

I see the shiny foreign manager at City has lost again. Hope he's not coming to us. He'd never played or managed in England, so obvs he was going to be a failure.

[BWFC_Insane]

Wouldn’t be my choice but Iles is mentioning Russel Martin so maybe worth adding to the list. Also seems to think Wagner is a possibility.

[Harry Genshaw]

Wouldn’t be my choice Iles is mentioning Russel Martin so maybe worth adding to the list. Also seems to think Wagner is a possibility.

Interesting. Nice football, heavily possession based with mixed success. Won nowt but plaudits at MK and Swansea, took a recently relegated PL side back up through the playoffs before weekly capitulation in the PL.

Would make sense with the current squad but I'd want assurances he has some pragmatism about him and he's not just another Evatt mkII albeit with a higher profile.

[Prufrock]

He has zero pragmatism, and for all those plaudits at MK and Swansea he never finished in the top half until he took over a parachute payment, just relegated Saints.

He left them on track to break Derbys worst ever Prem team record.

I'd be unconvinced. Especially with where the fans base is at.

Lucy Pinder turning up at the Bok would be nice though. Not since Christian Wilhelmson etc...

[BWFC_Insane]

He has zero pragmatism, and for all those plaudits at MK and Swansea he never finished in the top half until he took over a parachute payment, just relegated Saints.

He left them on track to break Derbys worst ever Prem team record.

I'd be unconvinced. Especially with where the fans base is at.

Lucy Pinder turning up at the Bok would be nice though. Not since Christian Wilhelmson etc...

Yeah I’m putting him into the ‘absolutely not’ pile alongside Rooney. Only two in there so far for me. Rooney and Martin.

Quite a few more in the ‘well I’m not sure really’ pile.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Russell Martin will want a Championship job (perfectly reasonably), and the board would hopefully realise that his style of football is *too* similar to the bits of Evatt's that infuriated people. I don't mind the idealised style of football but we don't want an even more fanatical ideologue.

More realistically, Iles' BN piece this morning says Schumacher is "understood to be interested in speaking to Bolton" so that's good. Obviously such a conversation may flounder if he wants a £5m wage and £10m to spend but it suggests he's open to the idea.

[BWFC_Insane]

Russell Martin will want a Championship job (perfectly reasonably), and the board would hopefully realise that his style of football is *too* similar to the bits of Evatt's that infuriated people. I don't mind the idealised style of football but we don't want an even more fanatical ideologue.

More realistically, Iles' BN piece this morning says Schumacher is "understood to be interested in speaking to Bolton" so that's good. Obviously such a conversation may flounder if he wants a £5m wage and £10m to spend but it suggests he's open to the idea.

I’m more worried about our decision making. On Schumacher who I’m warming to by the hour as I’ve listened to his interviews etc…what happened at stoke? Would that be a failure or just ‘he did as well as anyone would do there?’

[HMX]

Russell Martin will want a Championship job (perfectly reasonably), and the board would hopefully realise that his style of football is *too* similar to the bits of Evatt's that infuriated people. I don't mind the idealised style of football but we don't want an even more fanatical ideologue.

More realistically, Iles' BN piece this morning says Schumacher is "understood to be interested in speaking to Bolton" so that's good. Obviously such a conversation may flounder if he wants a £5m wage and £10m to spend but it suggests he's open to the idea.

I’m more worried about our decision making. On Schumacher who I’m warming to by the hour as I’ve listened to his interviews etc…what happened at stoke? Would that be a failure or just ‘he did as well as anyone would do there?’

Stoke has been a poisoned chalice since their relegation to the Champ in 2018. I don't know why anyone would take it on. Going off wikipedia:

2018/19: Rowett sacked when team were 14th
2019/20: 16th place finish with Nathan Jones
2020/21: Jones sacked after 14 games with just 2 wins. Finished 15th with Michael O'Neill
2021/22: Finished 14th
2022/23: Replaced O'Neill with Alex Neil, finished 16th
2023/24: Neil replaced with Schuey in Dec 2023 (placed 20th), finished 17th

[BWFC_Insane]

^^Cheers that’s perfect context thanks. Interestingly Marc Iles is saying he heard that on previous occasions when Evatt was very close to leaving - post Huddersfield for example the likely choice was Alex Neil. Who he heard whispers about.

So Neil proven record of promotion from this level and managed at higher levels too. Still young.

It does sound to me a lot like Schumacher - perhaps not that simple but he’s the most Alex Neil like candidate about.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

On Schumacher who I’m warming to by the hour as I’ve listened to his interviews etc…what happened at stoke? Would that be a failure or just ‘he did as well as anyone would do there?’

EVERYBODY fails at Stoke, it's just a matter of when and in which order. As I see HMX has explained, they are in a half-decade Groundhog Day of lower-mid-table finishes - never really threatened by relegation and thus never even having that joyous release.

As for Schumacher, I'll copy-paste what I posted yesterday about him in the division above:

Plymouth were 16th when he left in December; he improved Stoke from 19th to 17th that season and they were 13th when they sacked him to hire someone they also sacked after three months with them 19th again.