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Oh, I'm not losing any sleep over it. I'm pretty confident all will turn out fine Just a bugbear of mine, your use of the word qualified. That's kind of my point (which I know you understand based on your other posts elsewhere about potential signings). You can end up with a credentialism, with people being assessed on where they've worked previously or what UEFA licenses they've attained rather than their actual talent and knowledge. Potentially generating a shortlist of qualified people with all the capable, suitable people excluded.

I don't really see anybody being happy about it, though? That's the bit I think we're confused by. It's more a sense of relief after a drunk driver hits you, and while you've got a damaged car, they're in a coma. There's no part of you that's glad you've been crashed into. Unless you're willing to put your body on the line to hurt drunk drivers I suppose.

We've been doing pretty well overall, although I don't think it's been clear he was integral to what's been going well. It's not clear what he's been involved with, which has made it harder to assess. Signings? Going well before he got here and going well since, on first sight. Became more wobbly while he was here, if anything. Involved in getting Gordon, but we know Eddie had tracked him for years already and the documentary suggests Amanda handled the negotiations. And we can't totally ignore Tonali. Training ground? Initial reforms seemingly based on Eddie's preferences, and began before Ashworth arrived. Developments on entirely new site sluggish. Fitness? Using his physio hires, we've had the worst injury crisis in decades. Player relations? Tasked with new contracts for Bruno and Joelinton, both became unsettled and ended up being escalated out of his hands and resolved quickly and satisfactorily by others. Youth? Quite impressive overall. Things like our loans under Ameobi are questionable, but seemingly we've massively improved our recruitment and scouting. Happy to give credit here. Women? All I've heard is he's been invisible here. As I said, it's not a slamdunk that he's useless at all. There are certainly possible excuses or justifications for most of the above. But nevertheless, before it all kicked off there were certainly already grounds to question what he was actually bringing to the party.

As I say, I really don't know. But one or two articles have basically made it sound as though the agency, after conducting it's own assessments and such, weeded out the majority and presented around half a dozen profiles to our board, before the final two or three went to Yasir. So depending on our attitude to the search - and I fully respect we're probably still time-poor - it's possible we wouldn't even know who the other applicants were. Even with your points system, it's essentially the equivalent of filtering Amazon products by 4 stars and above. But with the stars being awarded by bots and accountability-allergic bureaucrats. "No one's ever been fired for buying IBM". I'm also a bit surprised at the suggestion Spors would make it to the final two before his references were checked... At this level I would've thought that would've been nailed by the agency a while back.

From my perspective, I think we're just already pricing in that it's a big shame we ever hired the guy. It was a bad move and a big misstep. But not one which wasn't very well justified at the time we made the decision in early '22, so no blame attached. Since then we've found good reasons to question his quality as an operator - not slamdunks, but still. And now it's been revealed conclusively that he's poisonous, so we're well out of it. So yes, it would definitely have been better if either we'd never met him or if he was a higher quality man. But allowing for that, we've found out relatively quickly before he was in even deeper, our club's still standing, backroom functions seem to be carrying on just as well if not better, the evidence is we have one of the most ambitious and competent ownerships in the world, they're not letting us be pushed around, and one of our major rivals is publicly embarrassing itself and heavily suggesting they don't know how to conduct an effective operation. There are plenty of positives to take from it once you accept that yes, it's a shame we ever met the guy. Edit: And yes, as Kaka said, we will still have extracted value from having him in the for the first 12 months or so, just down to the weakness of our previous club structures if nothing else.

It'd be interesting to find out on what basis our recruiters are screening out applications. Whether Giles is one of them or not - again, we can't make too many assumptions at the minute. I have to say, I'm not entirely comfortable with us (apparently?) outsourcing the search to an external agency again. It made more sense to me the first time around with Ashworth, when we'd just been taken over and had much less internal infrastructure. I realise that the exact way in which we're using them could vary a lot, and therefore affect my opinion. But if we're quite reliant on them cutting out 95% of the field, as portrayed in the media, there's scope for it to hold us back a lot. The worst case scenario is assessments being carried out by miniature versions of that Eghbali guy at Chelsea.

Yep, I'm firmly in the no rush camp.

Interesting...

Imaging having him AND Tonali... Got to admit I'm praying Bruno's never been attached to all this given Paqueta is his best friend. Woodgate was shattered by it, but Bowyer had the form of his life.

SLUTTY SEAHORSE KLAXON!!! @Kid Icarus INCOMING!!!

True, but if we don't offer an avenue for his ambitions we might just lose him anyway.

Trippier always looks like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders nowadays. Not sure why. Hope he's alright, but it does need to be solved somehow.

What a poor article. And they wonder why local papers are going out of existence.

Didn't realise yoyo clubs were so beneficial to other premier league members... Interesting. Seems like you'd rather give preferential access to your loan kids to recently relegated teams therefore. Big conflict of interests.

Can't help but see him as a div. Don't know for sure what happened, but it must have been the straw that broke the camel's back, and there were rumours he was leaking.

Agreed - although again, it's not obvious to me what Paolo Maldini knew about that before he became a director - but if they're talking about splitting those kinds of technical responsibilities off, I guess that improves Nickson's chances. He was the one that flew out to Brazil to onboard Bruno too, and I think I read he was the one who fronted Joelinton's recent contract negotiations after Ashworth fucked off. We'll see. His candidacy seems to have gone more quiet so maybe it's not happening, but we'll only really know what they're thinking once the appointment/s are announced.

Singing Joe White's name. Must make you feel immense to work alongside Bruno!

There was talking of him putting himself forward for the position and being taken seriously due to the quality of his performance in other areas. He's handled some negotiations for us before and since Ashworth, seemingly well. It's conceivable they'll promote him, everyone's got to start somewhere. Particularly as they're now looking at splitting the position and having a separate Performance Director. I like the idea of getting a vastly experienced guy in, but I think the quality of the person is most important, and my suspicion is the marketplace of sports directors is riddled with charlatans. CVs pumped up with hot air and salt water.

They might sound exciting to us, but the club might not have been impressed in reality. I wouldn't be stunned if we stick with Steve Nickson.

It's a bit self-fulfilling, but I'm inclined to think anyone who chooses not to come here shouldn't be offered it in the first place. As Kaka said, it's all in or no thanks. I realise the Sports Director position is a bit different, but you need someone with a clear vision of what the future should be.

That's a small example of what I was saying earlier. I realise it doesn't mean a ton, but it's interesting that the armband would be given to Joelinton before Bruno. The team - including Bruno himself - might see it differently to how we do.

Everyone's already got that permission

Sure, but after the latest revelations, again, I really don't think we need to worry too much about it. We just need to be clear and consistent with our messaging about needing to protect ourselves from a rogue agent, someone who has a demonstrable track record of behaving outside acceptable bounds of conduct. Even in other areas like Bruno, we've been far less overly combative than clubs like Tottenham or West Ham would be. The main focus has been on wanting to be a club that staff don't want to leave, rather than just enforcing contract terms.

I know what you mean, but I think we (ably assisted by Ratcliffe and his cronies) are doing a pretty good job of dispelling that perception. All other indications within the game are that we're pretty amiable and constructive to deal with. It's Manchester United making headlines about breaking deals, banning lunch and making staff attend offices which don't have enough seats for them all etc. The mood music is very sour and small time. They're starting to settle into their status as the third team in Lancashire.

It's certainly shitty for Ipswich, that's true. Modern football is grim.