1: I hope everyone doesn't go leaping off a cliff wailing "the players are crap", Stendel doesn't understand this league", "sack the Board" etc when we lose a game, which we surely will at some point. 2: The Owners show some backbone in January when other clubs start throwing blank cheques at us for Moore, Bradshaw, Potts, Dougall etc. 3: The above players, and anyone else in the squad, come out and state they're happy to stay at a winning club and get back to the Championship on merit and not just do it by being seduced by the lure of a few extra quid. We are currently the most united the club has been for many a season, long may it remain so!
That's it the new owners haven't done anything yet. We will see what they are made of in the next year if they dish out new contracts and spend enough next summer to comfortably consolodate when we are back in the championship.
I wouldn't say they've done nothing. On the negative side they appointed Morais. Inexplicably. On the positive side they've kept our squad together. Added a very promising player in Dougall and brought in a couple of highly rated youngsters on 4/5 year deals. I'd say that, at the minute, the needle's in the right part of the barometer.
More middle ground for me. Brought in Dougall who we had been tracking for a year so he was known about before they came in. Brought in a couple of kids with a relegation and barely a first team match between them. They might be highly rated but it's a case of wait and see. Stuff like the HOF and murial were in the pipeline before them too. Bringing in Morais and then a wall of silence after relegation. By the start of next season they could be well on their way to legends status. We could have Styles and Williams as first team regulars with 3-4 years left on their contracts, championship football, guys like Bradshaw not leaving for nothing, replica shirts out early June, better quality of pre season friendlies, an open day that's a day event etc.
I'm not blaming it all on Morais. Far from it. Relegation was a result of a collection of reasons. Morais was still, to my mind, bizarre.
Agreed, but I think he gets a bad rap. Not saying he's a good manager, he's just not as bad as has been made out.
Well, time will tell I guess. There must have been something the board saw in him. Anyway, that's in the past. Early signs of Stendel are positive.
All we have to do is compare to our previous great managers. Is Morais equal to a Spackman, Hart or Parkin, or perhaps someone like a Davey or Hodges?
I'm not suggest for a moment he was great, just saying he took over a squad that wasn't his on a downward spiral that didn't look interested and seemingly tried his best, even got the odd decent performance like the Sheffield United game out of them. (Just a contradicting opinion I've not seen anywhere)