Johnstone Burgh

Would Tillman even want to stay here? Not much we can do if he doesn’t.

He’s obviously going to make more errors if he’s facing more shots at shite like Stoke and Birmingham. Our current first choice keeper lets in about half of all shots he faces.

That’s only his Premier League appearances, it doesn’t take into account any of his Championship appearances, cup appearances, or his England appearances. 300 if you include his internationals.

It would be concerning if it was true. 291 appearances in 10 years.

Can’t be any worse than what we’ve got right now.

Won’t happen unless he’s sold. Even if he declines further next season and finds himself playing less he’ll remain captain.

The structure of our defence is irrelevant when we have a static goalkeeper and so many cowardly defenders. Our defence is too prone to switching off, which happens to the best of them, but we no longer have a goalkeeper who can bail us out. Errors seem to be punished ruthlessly by very average sides. They’re not all to blame, we should’ve been a few ahead at half time. Our attack is dreadful at converting chances but the sheer volume of chances we create normally sees us through, regardless of defensive cock ups. It’s imperative that we build from the back this summer. A stronger GK, a replacement for Barisic, and a competent LCB should be the top of our shopping list. The jury remains out on Yilmaz, I hope once he is fit and firing he will make the LB position his own.

Not much you can do when they only drop points in 3 games all season, same as the 55 season for them although they were truly abject that season. I don’t have to state my displeasure at the situation we’re in because it should be obvious that we all feel the same way about it, I was just pointing out that the comparison made by OP was irrelevant.

You brought that era up. We’re 3 points off the winning total in 17/18 with 5 games to go.

We can finish on 94 points and people are acting like we’re back in the Murty/Pedro era. I know we just lost but please have a wee think before you start posting drivel.

Probably because our nearest rivals have only dropped 7 points all season rather than any sort of regression on our part.

The papes are one point off last season’s final total, with 10 more goals scored than they did and only 3 more conceded. Our league performance across this season would have us on course to win the league in almost every other season bar the recent undefeated seasons.

We would be clear at the top of the league if we had our current points/goals total after 33 games in the 17/18 season. What’s the point of this comparison?

We’ve got 9 more points, 5 more goals, and 16 less conceded than we did in 17/18, with five games left.

Blocked shots don’t count as shots on target. The one cleared off the line won’t be classed as a shot on target even though it was going in, same with the Raskin one.

I don’t even think it’s a guy that’s got that tattoo. Imagine pulling a burd then finding that when you got her up the road.

It would take you no more than 2 minutes to do so.

Nonsense. If you’d read the article you’d understand the need for it in modern sport.

Virtually every single major club operates using this model now. We’ve had a Director of Football on and off for about 20 years now. Dick Advocaat was basically a DoF once McLeish came in, Gordon Smith was DoF. This might give you a bit more clarity on why. The transfer window of players has closed, but a feature of this football season has been how the permanently open market across other levels of a club continues to gather momentum. Arsene Wenger very memorably reacted last year to a query about directors of football by asking whether it was someone who “stands in the road and directs play right and left” but even he could not defy the tide. Job titles can sometimes only confuse. Whether it be director of football, sporting director, technical director or even Raul Sanllehi’s initial and rather awkward ‘head of football relations’ title alongside Wenger at Arsenal, the basic job and rationale is the same. It is to provide one overarching vision and strategy across football departments that is sufficiently coherent and resilient to ensure continuity amid the inevitability of managerial or even ownership change. Lee Dykes, who became Bury’s first sporting director last year, believes that every club in the English Football League pyramid will have a comparable position within the next five years. It is already the norm throughout football in Europe, north America and just about every other major sport. “We have to be self-sustainable as a football operation,” explains Dykes. “Gone are the days where you just have the first team and a youth team. What you have now is the coaching, the medical, the sports science, the analytics, the recruitment, the women’s team, the youth team operation. You are managing seven or eight individual businesses. “We cannot be self sustainable if, every time there is a change of manager, all of the plans go out of the window, a big chunk of staff leaves and half the playing squad is considered a cost because the new manager wants to bring his own players in. It would just plough the football club into debt. “Ryan Lowe (Bury’s manager) is doing very well, but just say he gets a move to a higher level of football. We hope he is with us for a very long-time, but we need to be in a position where we are recruiting maybe one or two members of staff to go again and everything else stays the same.” Dykes says that his job, in consultation with the various other departments, is to provide pioneering best practice across every specialist area for the very purpose of giving the manager the best possible opportunity. The increasing recruitment of sporting directors following rigorous and independent processes is perhaps the best indicator of how this area has been professionalised. Brighton, for example, added Dan Ashworth this season from the Football Association to what was already a very well functioning team with a respected chief executive in Paul Barber, head of recruitment in Paul Winstanley and first team manager in Chris Hughton. The FA were in turn keen to continue with a model that has helped inspire a shared identity across the various age group teams. They appointed Les Reed, whose work at Southampton has itself greatly helped to popularise the structure. The successes both of Liverpool and Manchester City have also been in large measure down to a consistent and comparable off-field strategy, respectively led by Michael Edwards and Txiki Begiristain. The role has become a specialism in its own right and one that is regularly transferred across other sports. Dykes, for example, is currently studying for a Masters degree in sporting directorships at the University of Salford and has no interest in being a manager himself. Where problems have often occurred previously in football is where an owner, chairman or manager simply recruited a director of football figure through having some sort of past friendship. Even worse was when it was someone who might then be a contender for the manager’s job. Arsenal’s internal frictions, where recruitment chief Sven Mislintat and Sanllehi were appointed independently by former chief executive Ivan Gazidis who, himself then left, also underlines the importance of clarity. Mislintat departed shortly after it became apparent that Sanllehi was very clearly now responsible for the club’s overall sporting strategy as director of football. Stewart King is the global head of performance at Nolan Partners (a sports recruitment specialist with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles) and is experienced in working with ownership groups and boards of Premier League clubs to appoint sporting directors. “The sporting director model is very well established across other sports, especially in North American professional sport, who tend to call them General Managers," says King. "It is certainly something that has been growing greatly and becoming standard in the Premier League. "It is about having someone who will provide that overarching strategic thinking and planning. It is a position that should insulate and support the head coach. The job is just too big in the modern game for managers to oversee all the areas that they once did.” A new type of club owner appears also to be emerging, especially given the increasing American influence on English football. For them, a longer-term strategy built on the sustained success and growth of their investment is key. That requires a stability in planning but also an off-field figurehead who, in the words of King, “are as fluent, comfortable and credible in the boardroom as they are on the training ground”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/02/01/clubs-have-director-football-now-actually/

https://twitter.com/rangersfc/status/1646845977129623555?s=46&t=Ue52hFc7_FHZVqrk8FV3qg

You conveniently ignore the fact you’re assuming they won’t come back up again, as well as the fact that 5 out of the 6 teams to be most recently relegated to the Championship have spent fees at least 3x higher than you’re mentioning. I know it’s easier to try and change track than simply admit you jumped in two footed and made an arse of it, but you should try the latter sometime.

What, £10m plus players? That’s what I said. Even before this season’s spree, they spent around 40% more than we have since 2018. They won’t be going back to their previous financial level for several years. You seem pretty convinced they’re going down, and that they won’t come straight back up. A lot of mental gymnastics to reach your conclusion.

Moving the goalposts again there.

This season: Burnley: spent almost 40m including 11m on one player. Norwich: spent over 10m on one player. Watford: biggest signing was 8m. The season before: Fulham: spent 14m on a player and 8m on another. West Brom: spent 8.5m on one player. Sheffield United: biggest transfer 300k.

I suppose that’s easier than admitting you’re wrong.