Bienvenido Ubenga - Sporting Director

Yes I only meant that to apply to the first part ie he didn't know the league before joining.
Perhaps if I had written "..., and that the sort..." rather than just "...and the sort..." I might have made it clearer.

 

Yep, this bit stands out quite worryingly

 

And Ferreira.

I'd be very surprised if he had much to do with Britt or Porteous. Kone was also seemingly agreed before he came in and more of a Pozzo deal.
The only more ambiguous signing is Hoedt.

 

Who is his agent I wonder?

 

“His aura will benefit our project.” Trying not to vomit….

 

Dunno about you but I'm onboard.

 

One in the eye for those ITK types who were convinced we were paying him just to have an eight month long handover and not do any actual work...

 

The fact he suggests we'll already be prepared to spend more than 2mil for players is surely a positive for those saying we won't have any money to spend in the summer.

 

Didn’t Julian ****s suggest he and Costa were a bit clueless in comments he made to someone on here ?

We’ll see I guess .

 

Not being a COG, but are these admissions that concerning? Is it that unusual for a member of staff not intimately familiar with a league to take time to get to grips with it? Yes, the end of last season was poor, but there can't be any better way to get to know the league than getting involved in it, so hopefully lessons have been learned (to use a popular phrase!)

 

Yeh don’t think that is particularly concerning. He’s new to the championship , which is quite different to the leagues he’s worked in before , so it’s taken him some time to familiarise himself with what is needed . That’s to be expected . So we should see him
Going out for more suitable players in the current window.

 

Maybe he didn't but everyone else at the club did. At least he's shown us some honesty which we've lacked for many a year.

 

Hope you’re right but be in the scouting business you would think he know a bit more than he’s suggesting

 

If I were Pozzo I might not unreasonably argue: “we were in the playoffs. I gave you £15m to augment the squad. We finished 11rh. Grade: F. Up your game”

 

And he/the club might well expect another promotion push next season .

I doubt they will settle for a season of consolidation or work in progress .

 

I mean, the realistic prospect of that is another question, but unless there's something happening that nobody else has any idea about behind the scenes, it is absolutely imperative that we have another promotion push next season. If we don't go up this coming year, our financial situation will be devastating, by all available accounts, and the Pozzo scales will unavoidably tip from 'net neutral - a decade squandered and back to where we started' to 'possibly quite severe damage done to the club'.

 

That interview makes the VI appointment make a lot more sense, basically he didn’t have a clue about the championship, recruited incredibly poorly, and now his assessment of the Championship after 6 months is that it’s basically long ball, physical football akin to what Barnsley played. If he’s right then great, but no guarantee that he is and no guarantee he’s fully grasped exactly the type of player that’s needed.

Football moves on quickly, Brighton are doing well because of the analytics from Bloom’s company, there is no guarantee that Mangas approach that worked in a different league will now transpose to the championship when it’s now been proven what he was doing before doesn’t work. We’ve already seen that play out with Gino and what works at Udinese.

 

After reading the interview, it seems clear that Manga is going against his instincts with hoof-ball, or "Val-ball" as it's termed now. He's having to adapt to it, and while I admire his honesty, I am concerned he was so na*ve to the rigours of the Championship in the first place. But, we all live and learn as we go along, so as long as he does learn, applying his intelligence to what is required, we should do ok. We're banking on his judgement being what we need.

It looks like he's itching to get back to his comfort zone though, of what he knows best, judging good technical players for the top leagues. So, we'll see if another season of underachievement will see him go....be it with Gino's boot up his backside, or him resigning so he can go somewhere that matches his ambition and skillset.

 

It's certainly more positive, but Manga also has to deal with spoilt man-baby Gino and his refusal to spend time building a team and demanding instant success.

Pozzo refused to build something when we had time to and due to his mismanagement, we no longer have that time as we are up to our eyes in debt.

 

Not knowing the league in your previous job is understandable I guess, but if I were in his position I would've most definitely watched a ******** of Championship games before signing players. I get there must've been a pretty quick turnaround considering he joined us on the 22nd Dec and then just over a week till the window opened but I imagine discussions were happening at least a month before that.

At least there was some accountability though for some sort of silver lining. Physicality is indeed a big part of the league, but it's possible to combine that with nice football as Burnley, Boro and Swansea showed this season.

 

Yes, that seemed pretty unprofessional and complacent of him tbh.

 

He better have already signed 15 new players before 1st July.