CONFIRMED Slaviša Jokanović

[Flatulent_Bob]

Bob pardon my ignorance mate but who's Rip Van Winkle fella?

I spelt it wrong and I think I used the spelling for the guy who falls to sleep, which may not be mutually exclusive if he's had to watch all our games this season.,

Jan the Man

He the advisor to the Prince on all matter United World and before all that was a manager in his own right as well as being Bielsa's assistant at Marseille.
He is the guy that Wilder was supposed to have a problem with because of his transfer suggestions which according to rumour were routinely rejected by CW.
This may surprise you, but there is a rather good article in The Athletic about him.

 

[Scarebus]

I spelt it wrong and I think I used the spelling for the guy who falls to sleep, which may not be mutually exclusive if he's had to watch all our games this season.,

Jan the Man

He the advisor to the Prince on all matter United World and before all that was a manager in his own right as well as being Bielsa's assistant at Marseille.
He is the guy that Wilder was supposed to have a problem with because of his transfer suggestions which according to rumour were routinely rejected by CW.
This may surprise you, but there is a rather good article in The Athletic about him.

And some fairly good feedback from fans who have engaged with him and said he seems a decent lad.

 

[Bladesman]

Are getting this guy or not?

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Are getting this guy or not?

This may surprise you, but no one on here's got a clue either way, so we're just knocking the idea about.

 

[Bladesman]

This may surprise you, but no one on here's got a clue either way, so we're just knocking the idea about.

I demand answers!

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

I demand answers!

Oh sorry you should have said, the demanding answers room is the next door down on the left.

 

[Caseh]

Yes thats the problem.... PA not concentrating on 1 club ... probably using our parachute payments to fund others?

Before coming out with this kind of shit why don't you educate yourself on the club's accounts? You know, so you don't come out with this kind of shit.

 

[Gimli]

Can't wait to celebrate Promotion next May outside Barry's with cousin Niko Slav.

Hey cousin, want to go Bowling?

 

[robbiez666]

I think under Wilson in that first season we finished on 93 points which would have seen us go up as Champions nearly any other year, I think its harsh to call him a failure but he should have been able to see us through those last 3 league fixtures with the quality we had instead of folding lack a pack of cards.

His biggest mistake was not replacing Simonsen. If he hadn't kept chucking goals in his own net we'd have been comfortably over the line with 4 or 5 games to go.

Pretty harsh on Wilson.

Ched got banged up
Hoskins injured
Cresswell was injured
Beattie was never fit and got sent off before the play-offs
so we had a half fit Chris Porter as our striking options.
And O'hallorahan

Pretty sure at one stage all our defence was injured or suspended

 

[Paisley Blade]

Pretty harsh on Wilson.

Ched got banged up
Hoskins injured
Cresswell was injured
Beattie was never fit and got sent off before the play-offs
so we had a half fit Chris Porter as our striking options.
And O'hallorahan

Pretty sure at one stage all our defence was injured or suspended

That's the kind of flashback we can do without on a Friday afternoon thanks very much

 

[Harrisblade]

That's good housekeeping then so good. Ok, so how much did McBurnie, Moose Rammers, Brewster, Burke, Berge, Lowe and Bogle combined add up to. I guess £105m or so? Therefore we owe around £25m. Obviously a complete guess.

Anyone know the situation regards what the cub owes for the mortgage on the assets?

Wonder what our wage bill will be next season? I'll hazard a guess at £25m

£4m salary for SJ?

What's left of the parachute payments and reduced income streams resulting from relegation? Here's another guess, not a great deal

The mortgage on the assets is (supposedly) £50m to be repaid over 5 years @ £10m per year

 

[Booker4]

Pretty harsh on Wilson.

Ched got banged up
Hoskins injured
Cresswell was injured
Beattie was never fit and got sent off before the play-offs
so we had a half fit Chris Porter as our striking options.
And O'hallorahan

Pretty sure at one stage all our defence was injured or suspended

If we're looking back on that season/s under Wilson, if there's someone to blame then it's McCabe in my view. We were second that second season, then we sold Blackman who'd only had 5 months with us and was essential. What a signing that was by Wilson also, he also signed Jamie Murphy for very little too and Shaun Wilson on a free. McCabe then sacked Wilson and gave it to Morgan who'd never managed when we were 5th I recall. Wilson deserved another season in my view, a better manager than Clough and certainly Weir.

Several players are on record from his time with us that said Wilson was very good on the training field also. The football we played in the Ched season; that was some of the best I'd seen to date. I actually wanted Mark Robins at the time when we got Wilson because I knew, like everyone else, that Wilson would get a bad reception. I was on Blades Mad at the time and one of my first posts was to defend Wilson. I got pelters from everyone bar one or two, the only I remember who was receptive was Telford Blade. I had a wry smile when we all signing the Danny Wilson walking in a Wilson wonderland song!

 

[blades78]

He had to do very little 'managing' in my opinion given the quality of the squad. All he had to do was get reasonable insurance for Ched, knowing what was hanging over him. He signed Hoskins who he knew was injured. He signed O'Halloran who was absolute shite and he signed Beattie who was 2 years past his sell by date. Overall, not. Avery good job when push came to shove. The fact he got taken on was ridiculous. He was a very nice guy, but he'd just got Swindon relegated from the division we wanted to get promoted!

He was a bit more unlucky the following year with what happened to Sean Miller and Diego and then McCabe helping him to flog Blackman only to be replaced by Jonathan Forte.

Its always mentioned that the Ched issue was the reason it all went wrong that season. For me, the biggest factor was Kevin McDonald getting injured the week before the game at Hillsborough. If I remember rightly, we went on an awful run while he was injured. He literally ran the midfield for the vast majority of games and was head and shoulders above that level.

 

[CrookesBlade]

He had to do very little 'managing' in my opinion given the quality of the squad. All he had to do was get reasonable insurance for Ched, knowing what was hanging over him. He signed Hoskins who he knew was injured. He signed O'Halloran who was absolute shite and he signed Beattie who was 2 years past his sell by date. Overall, not. Avery good job when push came to shove. The fact he got taken on was ridiculous. He was a very nice guy, but he'd just got Swindon relegated from the division we wanted to get promoted!

He was a bit more unlucky the following year with what happened to Sean Miller and Diego and then McCabe helping him to flog Blackman only to be replaced by Jonathan Forte.

To be honest I think he did well to get a tune out of the side he inherited which in terms of morale was on a par with this season's lot at the moment. We played some fantastic stuff that season and I would have backed us against most Championship sides.

I agree on the strikers though. The Ched Evans situation wasn't simply unlucky we'd known he could get convicted for the best part of a year. Seemed to take ages to get somebody in the couldn't have made more of a hash of it if he'd tried.

It was a fairly unique situation having to motivate the players after Ched got sent down but I feel a better man manager would have used it to galvanise the team.

Ultimately it was such a strange season given how positive we all felt for about 90% of it just to end in the flattest way possible.

 

[CrookesBlade]

Maybe Wilson had run his course by the end of that second season, but he was pretty unlucky in the first year for obvious reasons, and we played some great football that year. For the first time since my attending as a fan, the only question walking into a home game was 'how many by?' rather than whether we'd win at all. We'd go a goal down, and the reaction was to shrug, knowing the scoreline would merely be 3-1 or 4-1 instead of 3 or 4-0. That's not being Billy Big Bollocks, it just seemed that we were swatting teams away like flies, we had such a good team. Maybe that's why matches like the Oldham game stick out so much - forget the red cards/penalties, it was just so shocking to lose a home game.

As for the Ched backup - Hoskins, O Hall, and Beattie were all gambles of a sort. Hoskins looked decent before he got injured, O Halloran obviously was garbage, Beattie who knows? If he hadn't have got sent off in the last day of the season against Exeter, maybe he could have provided something at Wembley (past his best or not).

I agree with CrookesBlade on replacing Simmo - he was a liability. Problem is when he's on £20k+ a week, he's hard to shift. He also turned into a world beater somehow that day at Wembley, until his infamous penalty...

He was the definition of the 'good shot stopper', that was all he could do and built a career on that. I found it amazing watching a pro of his age have so little command of his area.

 

[Booker4]

Are you Howard Kendall?

Bless him, made me think of Kendall and that awful lime shirt! Didn't realise he chose to wear it when he went back to Everton. He gave us some great football though, and some of my favourite Blades Michael Vonk - a centre half who could pass, and I'd never seen one of ours do that until he came (!), Mark Patterson, David Holdsworth, Jan Aage and Gareth Taylor stand out for me. Shame he sold Blake though!

 

[CrookesBlade]

Pretty harsh on Wilson.

Ched got banged up
Hoskins injured
Cresswell was injured
Beattie was never fit and got sent off before the play-offs
so we had a half fit Chris Porter as our striking options.
And O'hallorahan

Pretty sure at one stage all our defence was injured or suspended

I take your point but Wilson has to take the blame for the striker situation as he signed them all. The Ched thing was bad luck but it had been hanging over him for 12 months so it wasn't like nobody saw it coming.

Overall though I liked Wilson and wouldn't class him as a failure.

 

[Gimli]

If we're looking back on that season/s under Wilson, if there's someone to blame then it's McCabe in my view. We were second that second season, then we sold Blackman who'd only had 5 months with us and was essential. What a signing that was by Wilson also, he also signed Jamie Murphy for very little too and Shaun Wilson on a free. McCabe then sacked Wilson and gave it to Morgan who'd never managed when we were 5th I recall. Wilson deserved another season in my view, a better manager than Clough and certainly Weir.

Several players are on record from his time with us that said Wilson was very good on the training field also. The football we played in the Ched season; that was some of the best I'd seen to date. I actually wanted Mark Robins at the time when we got Wilson because I knew, like everyone else, that Wilson would get a bad reception. I was on Blades Mad at the time and one of my first posts was to defend Wilson. I got pelters from everyone bar one or two, the only I remember who was receptive was Telford Blade. I had a wry smile when we all signing the Danny Wilson walking in a Wilson wonderland song!

Typical Blades selling our best striker.

Another example of shooting ourselves in the foot.

 

[robbiez666]

I take your point but Wilson has to take the blame for the striker situation as he signed them all. The Ched thing was bad luck but it had been hanging over him for 12 months so it wasn't like nobody saw it coming.

Overall though I liked Wilson and wouldn't class him as a failure.

Didn't he struggle to sign someone in that January and ended up with Hoskins at the last minute as the cover for Ched?

 

[billyblademan]

Typical Blades selling our best striker.

Another example of shooting ourselves in the foot.

Blackman was nothing flash (except for pens) but was good enough in a league that wasn't as good as the year before. We went about 15 games unbeaten at the start of the season as well. The good football from the previous season had gone, but with Maguire at the back we were very solid.

And as for the legend that is Chris Porter, have we had a finer #9 in recent years?

 

[Ranmoorblade]

Wonder what our wage bill will be next season? I'll hazard a guess at £25m

£4m salary for SJ?

I believe this years wage bill was £70 million and everyone has a 50% reduction in wages on relegation. If we sell a few and lose the ones out of contract I would guess at a wage bill of £30-33 million.

 

[bypassblade]

Its always mentioned that the Ched issue was the reason it all went wrong that season. For me, the biggest factor was Kevin McDonald getting injured the week before the game at Hillsborough. If I remember rightly, we went on an awful run while he was injured. He literally ran the midfield for the vast majority of games and was head and shoulders above that level.

McDonald was brilliant "class in a glass" I was reading other week he is ill needs kidney transplant I think it is, I said I think.

 

[Blade58]

The mortgage on the assets is (supposedly) £50m to be repaid over 5 years @ £10m per year

Well PA might want to pay a little more than £10m/year now while he still has the parachute payments to use

In a couple of years time, unless we fluke promotion, that £10m payment is going to seem like an awful lot of money

 

[Vikkster]

Oh sorry you should have said, the demanding answers room is the next door down on the left.

 

[CrookesBlade]

I take your point but Wilson has to take the blame for the striker situation as he signed them all. The Ched thing was bad luck but it had been hanging over him for 12 months so it wasn't like nobody saw it coming.

Overall though I liked Wilson and wouldn't class him as a failure.

Yeah seem to remember it dragging on for ages and he ended up gambling on Hoskins fitness wise.

We had Billy Clarke and Matt Phillips in earlier in the season, either of them would have fit the bill nicely. Think Clarke had signed for Crawley though as they were offering him more.

 

[Upton_Blade]

I take your point but Wilson has to take the blame for the striker situation as he signed them all. The Ched thing was bad luck but it had been hanging over him for 12 months so it wasn't like nobody saw it coming.

Overall though I liked Wilson and wouldn't class him as a failure.

He didn't sign Beattie, McCabe did against his wishes.

 

[Wards]

Football-wise I thought that Wilson team was excellent, maybe even better to watch than the side we went up with. Granted there was some quality in the squad but we looked outstanding at times when that side peaked.

 

[Bladey_blade]

Yes thats the problem.... PA not concentrating on 1 club ... probably using our parachute payments to fund others?

Are you genuinely suggesting he’s using our parachute payments to fund Kerala united etc who’s wage bill is probably less than your local Morrison’s

 

[St Albans Blade]

Doesnt/didnt Jack and Duffy commute from Liverpool, Mcburnie from leeds didzy Nottingham... as long as he does the job well it doesnt matter

Valid point. Just don't expect any longevity in a Jokanovic appointment. If he doesn't get us promoted in two seasons he'll be sacked by the board. If he gets us up, he'll only hang around as long as we're in the Premiership, which is sadly approximately 1 to 2 seasons based on our form in the last 40 years or so! Plus we have NEVER, EVER, EVER bounced back to the top-flight first time. So, unless there's mind-blowing investment from the owners, we should look ahead to a 36 months trip back to where we are now at best or a 10-15 years mystery tour (including League 1) back to the Premiership at worst. All will be revealed soon!

PS: Seems the Europa League Play-Offs are now conspiring against Blessin's Oostende. So he's clearly sharpening his Blades-like managerial credentials!

 

[Bladey_blade]

I believe this years wage bill was £70 million and everyone has a 50% reduction in wages on relegation. If we sell a few and lose the ones out of contract I would guess at a wage bill of £30-33 million.

70 million is an AVERAGE of 54 grand (ish) a week across 25 players and some won’t be on more than a few grand, Rodwell Robinson etc and even mcburnie has been quoted at being on 20 as a 17 million pound striker, that figure is WAY too high.