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What a shock. To be honest, I only saw the first half of the headline for the first couple of hours, so had assumed this all related to the recent problems. Had to reframe my thoughts when I found out otherwise. Hope he and his family manage well with everything. I don't really know about this condition at all. How long could he have been dealing with it? For his own sake, is it realistic for him to keep working with us for any serious amount of time? Never had anything against him, until recent events made me suspicious. But beforehand he always seemed professional and sunny side up - nothing wrong with being light-hearted alongside your business in my view. Presents an interesting situation for the club, meanwhile. It's almost like a more grandiose version of appointing your DOF after your manager. Dare I say it's a headache Yasir doesn't need.

To be honest, yeah. Subject to the details of the contract. But it's positive that we seem to be back on track for ironing out these situations and haven't ended up butting heads, which could've been very ugly for everyone. Hopefully he doesn't do an interview next weekend about how good he is at getting players to undervalue themselves in negotiations

Periodically I post again on here that a week or two after the deal was killed off, an authoritative looking article came out - I forget if it was the Athletic or Craig Hope - saying their first offer was a loan, their second offer was £2m and their last offer was £6m, not the £12m+ widely first reported. Which was an insulting collection of bids.

Article sounds like pure bait. Without any regard to the merits of extending them, that's been made up to needle the situation.

As I recall we did partner with StatsBomb - and I think another? - but whether it was used well or we're still with them, I don't know.

Specifically on this point, the suggestion is he wasn't able to implement this because it wasn't his data model, it was gambling supremo and Brighton owner Tony Bloom's system, and it existed pre and post his time there. I highly doubt Howe was putting blockers on having a scouting and analysis network like theirs. Even before he joined us, it was regularly noted in more in depth articles that scouting was not Ashworth's strong suit. It's not immediately relevant, but as I write I'm just having a flashback to - assuming the documentary was a halfway faithful reflection of reality - Ashworth pressuring Staveley over the phone to get the deal done for premium-priced English kid Anthony Gordon. At a time when we were already tiptoeing around the edges of PSR, particularly considering we had no guarantee of Champions' League football and it's associated income at that time in January '23. So it's not like he was a total hostage to fortune. It would appear that if anyone still at the club was getting dug out and undermined by Mitchell for his track record, it was Nickson though? If you want to take Hope's reporting seriously on this whole situation re: Eddie's disgruntlement with a DOF, then Nickson was very much one of the figures who felt put out over the interview. He's overseen our recruitment for many many years and accordingly was made to sound like a putz.

It's funny isn't it

That teaches me for not reading ahead before posting my own thoughts!

Going to the dark side is fine, but I don't think you've gone dark enough. You seem to be leavening it with huge amounts of faith in Eales and Mitchell, which I don't think is warranted. I think the situation is quite possibly worse than that. Also, Howe seems to be getting assigned the blame for a host of things that he wasn't or shouldn't have been responsible for. You point out that Howe himself has said we haven't got enough data in our scouting, and ask who is responsible for that situation. Well, the answer would be the previously incumbent DOF (and board) - but you seem to be steadfast in the idea that we should be backing whoever is occupying the DOF position because the concept of the position itself is good. I think the idea - that seems to be taking hold with some - that Mitchell has no responsibility for the summer window, and every transfer action taken after he joined is Howe's fault, is ridiculous. The idea he would try and fail and spend £55m-£70m on Marc Guehi for a month, most likely returning us to serious PSR debt in the process, even though he thought it was a bad idea and knew better than to buy players of this profile as it would hamstring our future trading options, just because he wanted to give his subordinate a golden hello and keep relations stable, and doesn't bear responsibility for that, is preposterous. If the last sentence reads too long, that's because it's a very silly proposition. What kind of new employee goes hard in the paint on a strategy that they themselves predict will deeply compromise the next 3+ years of their primary business responsibility? If he was opposed to it and thought it was a product of 'not fit for purpose' thinking, he should have taken hold of his responsibility as an expert, put his foot down, and told whoever was necessary "no". But supposedly he didn't, for some reason.

These posts are a welcome contribution. Are you ok?

Kick and rush.

Took me a couple of seconds to realise it was real. Wow.

As an aside, the ultimate solution to all this might be just to get rid of both of them. It seems like the original sin in all this, if there was one, was hiring a manager pre-DOF in the first place, if that is the system the club is committed to. And they probably would've been better off sacking Howe in the summer, too. Weak decision making from our sackable CEO.

I had no idea RTG was such a good read by the way, seems to be incredibly well visited by our fans.

That's more about imagining a competent chairman/a chairman who is reliant upon a competent footballing advisor though. As opposed to an all encompassing system in which the (hopefully competent) chairman picks the players, the style of the club, the support staff and the youth development system and sacks the manager if results don't go to plan. I think a lot of people's ideas about the benefits of a DOF-Head Coach system would be salved by a return to the very old fashioned approach of managers having decade long stays at clubs, with chairmen riding out multiple seasons of indifferent form without a whimper while the 'concept' is implemented. The two things aren't that far apart as it is.

Expecting nothing other than defeat, and no real complaints about that. My only demand is that this game doesn't knock our form and confidence for the Everton game. But it would be a struggle to do that right now anyhow... Hope we can get something to scrape back the lost Fulham points, is the way I'm looking at it.

Ah right. But even so, with him still not fully over dislocating his shoulder a second time, I think we'd have been looking at breaking even at best.

Spot on.

You reckon we get £15-20m for Pope next summer? I would be surprised. Among other things one of the ongoing problems with our bargaining position for most sales is we blatantly want the sales to go through.

I did not see this angle coming.

Yeah, I think that's the way to see it on this occasion.

Eales came out with the 'better on the grass' stuff beforehand, yes. It seemed pretty calculated - at least as much as any of his 'canny' statements about PSR rules to start the media conversation off about them, anyhow. As I've said previously, it's plausible Eddie could already see writing on the wall and wanted to set out his position in advance to avoid having his reputation and career trashed on someone else's altar.

The uncoached part remains a mystery to me, given what went before. Somewhat ironically I trace it back to our win at Fulham in the FA Cup last season. There have been a number of times since where I've thought "great, we've got players back and a solid week/fortnight of prep in us - can't wait to see what we do", and we've looked worse than we did beforehand.

Know what you mean. I feel frustrated as this was a big season for us and Howe - one in which he was going to be judged for better or for worse - but due to the disruption at board level it feels like he's had one arm tied behind his back. Anything that happens is tainted. I'm not gunshy about criticising him in the slightest, but I feel I want to be biased in his favour to counterbalance what I think's going to happen if he's less than perfect this season.

Can't disagree with most of what's being said. Thought Howe was telling him to get ready for a rocket as they came off, if anything.