Alan Doh'liver

That's all fair enough from his POV, but at the same time it also suggests he didn't want the job as much as we would have liked. I still believe he must have given some indications that he was on his way, and then changed his mind. This has all turned out rather well for him in retrospect, suddenly he's a manager wanted in England and Spain. If he'd lost yesterday, he could have been months from the sack anyway. In any case, we should have kept quiet until it was signed and sealed, can't blame anyone except ourselves for that. Hopefully lessons learned for next time.

Hopefully the appointment of proper football people to handle the press will fix that. But at the same time, I doubt we would have been tipping off the press unless Emery had given the nod to take the job. He's got a buy out clause, so if he really wanted to be here, he would be on his way. I just don't think he wanted it as much as he led us to believe.

Do you really think the news about Emery taking the job was from our side? It would seem really amateurish to do that unless Emery had given assurances that he was taking the job. My own opinion is that he might have been tempted to take the job, but being a bit indecisive, has changed his mind. I read somewhere that he was described as an anxious type, and it could well be that having won the CL tie yesterday, he's had a change of heart.

Anyway, on to the next on the list of managers, much as I quite like Howe and Martinez for the way they approach football, it just seems a real risk to take a punt on either given they are not really well known for making teams hard to beat. Emery had some credentials in that regard, even if his football wasn't always inspiring. I just wonder, given our resources, if there aren't slightly more experienced and savvy candidates we could sound out?

They shouldn't be attracting them over Spurs though, that was the point.

So how would that have gone? "Oh yes Mr Conte, we might not be owners of NUFC right now, because the Premier League have blocked us for the past 12 months, but if and when they change their mind, please don't take any other jobs just in case..." 🤗

Well yeah, but some don't seem to have grasped that yet.

If we are feeling pissed, imagine how Man U fans must feel. They had all the infrastructure in the world, dallied for one week, and Levy took a run up and booted Nuno up the arse ASAP, and before you know it, Conte's at Spurs instead of Man Yoo.

Things move fast in football though. You can line up all sorts of people to employ, but if you can't give them the job because the takeover still hasn't gone through, they will move on somewhere else. I really don't understand what people expected them to have done differently given the speed of the takeover when it happened.

Maybe we aren't stable and competent right now, let the press have their little giggle of self satisfaction. We will build the structure to give us that competency, of that I have no doubt, so as far as I am concerned we will be the ones looking down in the long run. We can't force people to get on board, but the ones that do won't be on the losing side in the final reckoning.

Personally I wouldn't be thrilled with Howe or Martinez, but I would rather have a manager who really wants to be here over someone who was indecisive. Both play good football at least, and I still think Howe is one of the brighter English managers. If it's him, so be it, I'll get behind him. But at this stage, it's probably all guesswork, no one really knows who the owners have lined up next.

We don't need to get it done. If we wanted Howe, we could probably have got him in three weeks ago. Are you really going to blame the owners for trying to get the best possible appointment they thought was available? Seems to me like Emery himself was a bit disingenuous. It might backfire on him once they go out of the CL if his results in the Spanish league don't improve. Fuck him tbh.

He's still raging that Staveley had the nerve to hang in there and get this takeover done and make him look like an even bigger tosser.

Well no shit Sherlock. The new owners aren't qualified to run a football club inside a month. Maybe we should swap them for Sheffield Wednesday or Brighton owners instead. Just calm the fuck down, it's one of the blowbacks of suddenly getting the ok on the takeover after a long and painful process. It's going to take a while to settle down, but we'll come out of it stronger.

Spanish clubs are notoriously hard to deal with, still remember the song and dance the chairman made when we tried to sign Gutierrez. If Emery is genuinely interested then he'll come if we can provide him with a decent wage and assurances of the club's direction. Let's face it, he'd have told us to do one already if he didn't fancy it. Might just be him trying to use the situation to get the best possible deal for himself. Especially considering his current team are through to the next round of the CL, while he'll be coming here to slog through a relegation battle.

I mean he hasn't said he's taking the job yet, so you have to wonder, if he's more or less qualified for the CL knockout stages tonight, will that make him think twice about giving that up to come here and fight a relegation battle?

Well Villareal have won 2-0 in his hopefully final game for them. Nothing too inspiring, VR look defensively well organised if nothing else. Reading up on Emery, it does seem like he's quite flexible when it comes to formations, I think any new manager will need that to find a way to get something from our lot.

I do wonder as well how motivated some of the squad will be? Some of them have got very comfortable with their feet under the table chugging along happily in survival mode. How many of them will want to double down on their fitness work when they know they will get moved on if we survive relegation?

Well that's the same reason I would usually start Almiron ahead of Fraser. He'll give you 70 minutes of hard graft and an outlet, then if things aren't going well, you could bring on Fraser to maybe nick a goal. I love Almiron, but he's not a goal scorer so when you see him on the bench you don't think "ooh get him on, he might nick a goal!"

That probably sounds more like Unai Emery than he himself does

This is all great information, thanks for the detail.

Would agree with you on Potter, he's got Brighton playing some great stuff, but I think Emery probably has a bit more experience and knowhow having worked in different countries. 9 trophies? I'll have a bit of that.

I'm just going to put it out there, I'm happier with Emery than if we'd appointed Rafa. While I would have given anything to bring him back a year ago, I would prefer not to go back now. Rafa likes his teams to sit very deep, and I think I've had my fill of it after the last few years. I know Emery is not exactly a swashbuckling type, but it will be interesting to see some new ideas.

We can worry about that when we're fighting them for the CL places.

Not the worst by any means. Other than the rumour that he's wedded to the south coast, I quite like Howe, definitely out of all the British managers. Potter is the other one. Would prefer Emery to both though.