Roberto De Zerbi *OFFICIAL*

[Muttley]

Let's hope so - keeping us up would give him a huge amount of goodwill from all sides of the club (fans/players/higher ups) so it should set us on the right path going in to the summer/next season. However, worth noting that coming in to an extreme situation like a relegation battle and succeeding is not always a precursor to onward progression - I'm sure there's plenty of examples of a manager coming in, beating the drop then not kicking on.

Probably more examples of that than the other way round to be fair. Shouldn't mean we can't have belief in RDZ even a little blind faith.

When you think about it, the playing field isn't level in football. You get clubs like ours who should have an unfair disadvantage with our revenue streams and cashflow model. Other clubs above us could only dream of that. If RDZ just gets us punching at our own weight e.g. 6th biggest team, that will be OK to start with. There is absolutely no reason where we shouldn't expect 6th every season.

 

[harr1984]

Let's hope so - keeping us up would give him a huge amount of goodwill from all sides of the club (fans/players/higher ups) so it should set us on the right path going in to the summer/next season. However, worth noting that coming in to an extreme situation like a relegation battle and succeeding is not always a precursor to onward progression - I'm sure there's plenty of examples of a manager coming in, beating the drop then not kicking on.

Definitely, lets not forget how rosy many thought things were for the first couple of months of Franks tenure. What I will say is, it was pretty obvious from the get go that RDZ is stylistically the sort of manager that suits the squad and the club in general better than his predecessors. That doesn't guarantee things will continue on an upward curve of course, but gives us a better chance.....

 

[Rafa87]

I so want that point (ideally 3!) tonight, of course because it will be nice to be able to basically relax, but more so because I want this back in the boards hands as soon as possible.

I want us safe so it can be “right, over to you, prove what you can do”. For them to actually show that they are going to turn this around, we will have finished 17th two seasons in a row, and this season it’s not even confirmed yet.

Lange, in my view, shouldn’t be in the same job next season, and someone with footballing knowledge needs to be leading things. Di Zerbi needs proper backing, not the ‘backing’ our other managers have had. Our squad, again in my view, needs a proper overhaul, there’s lots of outgoings and ingoings needed - the ‘leadership’ group needs a complete rethink and we have a number of positions that require big upgrades.

We need a proper investigation into the injury situation, and one that leads to actual changes being made because we can’t rely on “when we get x and y back…” for another season, because what the last few seasons have shown us is that even with x and y back, a and b then get injured.

Massive, massive work needs doing and it cannot be that this tin pot board sit there this summer and go “ooh bad injuries you know, it’ll be ok next time” because it won’t be, this and last season need to be the massive wake up call they have so far ignored. Di Zerbi has done a good job so far, I think he can take us places if we out some adults in charge on the board to help him with what he needs.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

There is absolutely no reason where we shouldn't expect 6th every season.

Which we did (or better) for season after season.

But many fans raised their expectations beyond that, but couldn't temper that with a dose of realism of the situation.

These last two seasons have been outliers (hopefully) and a silver lining might be supporters might have a reset of their expectations and just settle the fudge down and be realistic rather than effectively self harming and blowing the lid at the first sign of difficulty.

 

[Muttley]

I so want that point (ideally 3!) tonight, of course because it will be nice to be able to basically relax, but more so because I want this back in the boards hands as soon as possible.

I want us safe so it can be “right, over to you, prove what you can do”. For them to actually show that they are going to turn this around, we will have finished 17th two seasons in a row, and this season it’s not even confirmed yet.

Lange, in my view, shouldn’t be in the same job next season, and someone with footballing knowledge needs to be leading things. Di Zerbi needs proper backing, not the ‘backing’ our other managers have had. Our squad, again in my view, needs a proper overhaul, there’s lots of outgoings and ingoings needed - the ‘leadership’ group needs a complete rethink and we have a number of positions that require big upgrades.

We need a proper investigation into the injury situation, and one that leads to actual changes being made because we can’t rely on “when we get x and y back…” for another season, because what the last few seasons have shown us is that even with x and y back, a and b then get injured.

Massive, massive work needs doing and it cannot be that this tin pot board sit there this summer and go “ooh bad injuries you know, it’ll be ok next time” because it won’t be, this and last season need to be the massive wake up call they have so far ignored. Di Zerbi has done a good job so far, I think he can take us places if we out some adults in charge on the board to help him with what he needs.

No more overhauls please. It is part of the problem why we keep finding ourselves where we are.

We need academy promotions and 2 or 3 elite signings. Let's not go down the quantity over quality path again and try to fix an entire squad in a single summer.

It's completely the wrong strategy.

I do agree with pretty much everything else you've said there though.