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Dunno what the rumours are but there's been talk about us being open to offers for ages.

Perfect time of the year!

No one really knows. Solid chance that's a pure lie.

Well, that statement is pretty definitive. And appreciated.

Bang on.

It will have been Mitchell all along

You're right, but it's especially stupid Ashley didn't show any interest in it when it started becoming really obvious it was going to be critical around about 2010. Before roughly then, youth were often seen as a nice bonus, but after that it became a key industrial process, and we were one of the few to totally ignore it.

The youth academy is a killer for us. We were most of a decade behind any significant competitor. You can buy a lot of things quickly, but not that.

I had a post but TCD beat me to the punch. Basically, there are serious question marks over whether any manager can get us to where we want to be on a sustainable basis, if the wider club environment isn't offering positivity, sensible ambitions, consistent support and smart, determined thinking to overcome systemic restrictions like PSR. We can kick Eddie Howe out the club, but after a few spins of the wheel we may well end up concluding he wasn't the root cause of our failure. -- My post should have ended there, but consider Emery and Villa. It's weird how everything they've done is basically a year behind us. It's plausible that another 12 months of PSR restrictions, fatigue and the dawning realisation for their players that it isn't going to get any better if they stay in Birmingham will drain the life out of them and make them even rockier next season. And that's a club that has a much stronger infrastructure than us overall.

I've lost track of whose arguing with who about what and why. But what the board are up to has big implications for what can, should or will be done on the manager front. You can't really have a sensible discussion about it without them being involved. Potentially we bang our heads against a wall for years if we don't properly factor it in. We might have very fine ideas about what Howe or his successor should be able to achieve, but there's a chance it's all for nothing.

I'm not sure what your point is? My guess is you mean the opposite, but the club examining whether the manager is underperforming and looking to see what alternative candidates could offer would fit that banner to a tee.

Fucking LOL. So... Does this change the retconning of thinking it was Eddie and Amanda squeezing a good man out of our club? Handle Sports Directors with care.

Isak being on form today in a way he hasn't been for most of this season was probably the difference in preventing this being a much more dismal defeat. Excellent today overall and it's a shame we got no real benefit from it. That miss was a stunner, mind.

There's plenty to be concerned about re: Howe but we don't need to start picking on ridiculous shit to make him look silly. It will take 3 minutes to watch a post match interview with him on our website. It's perfectly clear he wasn't trying to use the weather as any kind of excuse for today.

This is a good question.

I agree that the idea of us hiring an elite manager might be fanciful, but they don't necessarily have to be seen as elite today to actually be elite once they get here. Frankly, Eddie was a great example of that until about 12 months ago. If we've got the talent at director/board level, it's very plausible we get someone seriously good, regardless of their reputation. I accept I'm one of the first to say that's a huge "if", mind.

Well I was thinking more of Brentford and Brighton, but we are on the same page.

Not necessarily, but probably, yes.

Very much this. The club have the luxury of not needing to panic, so it's entirely on them to make a beneficial and creative decision. Our competitors often manage it.

Playing on hard mode, I see.

Just as it hasn't really been addressed, there's been a lot of talk about Kelleher as a possible replacement for Pope, but if Pope had let in the Schar and Gordon goals, he'd have been getting rinsed in here. Pope isn't perfect, but the grass isn't dramatically greener in most other fields.

To be serious, I can imagine Krafth being really helpful in guiding Botman and Lascelles in their recoveries, seeing as he's been there and done that so recently. Looks like he takes care of himself impeccably.

The problem with this is Eddie has - in word and deed - demonstrated he's totally committed to the psychology of trying to achieve full system dominance in every game we play. He doesn't like taking what he sees as a step back in the slightest, which gets exploited by teams who know this and don't feel the same way. It'd be a major change for him to stop doing it that way, and I can't see it happening. To his credit, it's a winner's mentality.