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I'm already a self-professed in-the-know-fückall member of our message board, but from what I do know...
Good things started happening when he came in...
We booted out the lazy, weak and the 'unlikely to make it at this level' lads. Got rid of Ramsey and the like (what we wanted).
We made some signings that looks like they may have been found using analytics (overwhelmingly what we wanted as fans) – a full international striker in Celar, a goal-scoring midfielder in Madsen, a world class footballer's brother in Varane, and towards the end of the window, Dembele and Saito. All of which I was really happy with, or at least hopeful for. Madsen was a touch of class at the start, and most of us were well impressed with his touches, that has fallen off a cliff now, and he looks unwell. Celar was slow to start, and when he eventually scored a couple of nice goals, he got himself injured and was never seen again. Dembele started very nicely indeed, and then got injured. Saito has been pretty consistently quality, especially now he has aclimatised to the speed and physicality of the division.
Some bad things started to surface, with zero communication and cloak and dagger contracts.
Is there a rift with Marti? (genuine question)
Who has final say on transfers? (genuine question)
If we're saying it's him and we're coating him off for Celar and Madsen, then there surely has to be some credit for Saito and Varane, no?
I dunno, I'm a lot more hopeful with us where we are now, and potentially heading vs where we were with Les, Ramsey et al.
I really was optimistic about where the club was headed in the pre-season, which I put down to Nourry. We had got rid of a lot of dead wood from the development, reserve and fringes of the 1st team squad.
I was excited too by the signing of Verane, Saito and Dembele.
I like the push towards signing for the development squad too - forward thinking.
I was really quite up for Nourry, as I really didn't like Lee Hoos at all, and think we had come to the end of the road with Les as the DoF. We seemed to be heading for a more analytic approach - something a lot of us fans were clamouring for, and that was something most of us were very pleased about, I definitely was – this was a bold new direction for us.
I'm not an insider, I'm not in the know, I really struggle with the business and strategy side of football, and a lot of you seem to get it and can form opinions and come up with alternative solutions - fair enough, but there is an awful lot of revisionism (is that even a word?), and being wise after the event.The season hasn't panned out the way we wanted it to, and all of a sudden 'analytics' is a word to be scoffed at, and we need a proper DoF again?
Loads of midgets up front, not really taking into account the injuries to key forwards all at the same time. Smyth is crap, then he's exactly what we need. Chair is injured – 'oh no!', and then 'I think its Chair thats the problem'... Frey was wicked when he was cracking them in, now he's crap again. Lloyd was a breath of fresh air with all his running around and enthusiasm, closing down etc, now he's useless and needs a loan. Charlie Kelman was useless, got a loan, is absolutely smashing it now, and someone we'd be talking up as a possible solution to signing a lower league player who we could develop further... but he's still useless to most fans here... poor Charlie, if he doesn't get a gig back here, I hope he goes off somewhere and makes it, just to show some of you guys on here how much you really know about football.
We were crap before with a separate DoF and CEO, but now thats apparently what we need again - we are constantly looking for a scapegoat... not all signings pan out, they don't all work out, even if the strategy behind them looks good - sure, someone should be held responsible, and if thats Nourry, Belk, Les, Ruben or whoever, whatever - so be it, but I'd personally rather we didn't go mental and insist on a complete new direction once again because its had a rocky start.
We've started down a new pathway, i'd love us to stick with it for a while and see if it takes us somewhere in 5 years time, even if its painful for a year or two.
Nourry is definitely not perfect, there's a few things he could do better and different, but lets not start creating another 'Evil Les', please.
Employing Mourinho is like bringing a Lion into your home...
"Hey everyone, look at this! It's a fücking Lion, in my home, it's unbelievable!"
for a while its exciting and it gets people talking about you, but you know eventually, its going to tear your home to pieces, and feast on your corpse.
Madsen strikes me as somebody having a mental crisis.
He just looks dishevelled, like he's just been woken up up and told to go out there and 'feel the fear and do it anyway'.
I do feel sorry for him - I think there is a player in there – when he first joined, there were flashes of assuredness and quality touches, but for whatever reason - form or fear, he's shot.
Fans have given up on him, and he's probably given up on himself... doomed I reckon, shame.
David Tomlinson played George Banks in the film Mary Poppins.
In 1943 he married Mary Lindsay Hiddingh, daughter of L. Seton Lindsay, the vice president of the New York Life Insurance Company. She had been widowed in 1941 when her husband, Major Armand Guy Hiddingh, was killed in action, leaving her to care for their two young sons. Tomlinson married Mary in New York in September 1943, but on 2 December 1943, she killed herself and her two sons in a murder–suicide by jumping from a hotel in New York City, after learning that she could not take her two sons with her to join Tomlinson in England until WWII ended.
I lost my mum a week before Christmas, to a very short, sudden and unexpected illness - kidney cancer.
She was a young 70, and had so much living left to do, it was truly devastating. I was with her at the end, and the payoff for being by her side was to witness what cancer and death does to a person at the end of their life - some memories I hope to forget, or at least replace them with ones that make you smile instead.
She was born on the Westway, and was true to that her whole life - grounded in her roots, proud of where she was from, and she was a proper laugh.
This will be my first Mother's day without her, and although I still shy away from thinking too much about her, and i struggle to look at pictures of her for fear of thinking too much about the life she is missing out on, I will be thinking of her.
Love you ma.
I still can't listen to this, but this was the song she chose for her funeral:
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