Gallowgate Toon

People just have an obsession with being negative, unfortunately. The fact is that we have businesspeople without football experience who, less than a month ago, had a deal sprung on them very quickly picking up a club & team in the mire. As fans, we struggle to afford time, but they're not going to think like we do and nor should they. If we've learnt anything about this consortium it's that they don't give up. Anyone who thought this would be absolutely perfect from the off was off their rocker. I'm confident they'll get it right but not necessarily first time. We don't demand a board that wins, we demand a board that tries!

Balague definitely has an in, but he's been one of those hammering the takeover (iirc) so I have a feeling he's probably enjoying playing this one up.

If he's held hours of conversations and given them a 'yes' that he'd accept a formal offer, it's a bit weird to be spooked by something as common in football as a leak. I think he's doing a bit of face-saving in the public eye because he's looked a bit of a dick to his employers and the players.

We could hire Pep and they'd still find a reason to try and make themselves feel better - "not won the CL in a decade! had a 7-game winless streak once! never felt the fear of 3 thousand mackems taking over a town yet!"

I think he'll be great for Almiron in that he might actually have an attacking plan for him.

I feel like he has a tarnished rep on these shores because of his Arsenal days but he has a bloody half decent record. He's not in the top, top tier of managers, imo, but he's in the next bracket down. That's fucking brilliant considering where we are.

Excellent stuff. He feels like a good foundation manager, purely judging the majority of his time at Villarreal. Great statement.

Really wanted (and want) Fonseca but I'd obvs be absolutely thrilled with Emery.

Top finish.

Nawty from ASM.

I still love him. Thought he made a noticeable difference when he came on and I was glad to see him get in an actual left wing position a few times getting to the byline. I think he's a proper system player so would love to see him under someone like Fonseca. We know now he's never going to be massively cutting edge but he can bring a lot to the team and be very useful for a while as we build.

At first, I felt strongly about this because I do feel there's a lot of hypocrisy from many (not all) journalists and, frankly, they're patronising as fuck. It seemed the PL were getting off very lightly with the coverage. Pretty chill about it now though. I actually think the Squires cartoon was the peak of it for me, I've not felt bothered by much since. Shrugged the flag off yesterday without much thought.

I work with Palace and I think they're a really good club. Behind the scenes, they're trying a lot of things to evolve the fanbase and create a direction. They have to fight hard for new supporters and they put a lot of effort into fan experience. Some of it is trial and error so it can come across as a bit of artificial but they really do have a lot of competitive factors to contend with.

Wilson is so good, man. Clearly our best player.

Darlow is a fucking moron.

Pretty bizarre. Presuming this might be a bit of a 'fuck you' considering what's going on behind the scenes.

Feels like one we might nick with Willock coming off the bench.

Palace look tidy.

Standards have obviously slipped, they've had more days off than on since the takeover happened FFS. Let's see if he keeps the same routine up.

I do think a back 3 probably suits our CBs now, tbh. I don't think there's a pairing that's good enough as a 2 but they can be very workable in a 3. Lascelles/Fede/Schar, in theory, should be good. I think the problems we really have playing with a back 3 are wing backs and the midfield. Midfield really is the biggest problem we have - no combination of players there or shifting of formation gives us enough.

Went down to the office yesterday (darn sarf) and absolutely everyone said to me 'I feel sorry for him, he was treated awfully'. Made the case that the guy is dourest, wettest, woe-is-me-est twat going but it didn't really land. I stopped caring what other fans thought about our view on managers after Rafa left - as is often the case in the current world, nobody has a clue but they do have a strong, expert opinion on the matter.

I'm excited about this but some of that is somewhat just down to the fact that we're not going with the usual PFM bollocks. I think Fonseca could be really good for us in the short and medium term. Doing some reading up on him yesterday, he seems to be really good at cultivating a good squad/club atmosphere (this will be important short-term), improving younger and more peripheral players, creating a culture of being comfortable on the ball, and providing a lot of detail to players. His defensive record is suspect which I think is what will inhibit him from being a top, top manager (he may very well learn though as he seems to be a student of the game), but, apart from a select few managers in the world, most have some pretty big flaws somewhere. He feels like someone who could get us into a top 8 position and create some great foundations. What I really liked about what I read is that he made Roma really good at beating teams you'd expect to beat which had apparently been their Achilles heel for some time, but he couldn't get it to translate to beating the big teams. For me, that's a good sign that he could get us into a good top 8 spot with some deep cup runs. It doesn't sound like his Roma squad/team was that good either, compared to what they've had in the past? We need to buy some really good spine players in January to keep us up. I'm confident he'll get us to a comfy position with some fresh blood in, and we'll have some actual proper football to watch along the way.

There's a fair chance he's competent enough to create a short-term plan for the players he has. Philosophy doesn't necessarily mean there's no room for variation.

Luke telling the world he loves wine again. He is a genuine creep.