Bruce

I am a bit more inclined towards Mowbray as a short-term appointment if his health is up to it. Paylor mentioned that he's already familiar with the players and he is probably the head coach who would be most up to speed on day 1.

Thing is, if he had stayed and a new head coach hadn't wanted him then he would end up in the same limbo zone as Ledbitter. On the other hand, going with Edwards probably means his wage has doubled. Sure, he's likely to be out on his ear once Edwards' is sacked but at least he'll have some Premier league coaching on his CV, a chunky pay-off and a chance to move on then.

I personally think that Gerrard would be a disaster for all the reasons I've already said so I am going to shut up about him because it winds me up when people go on about a player or manager they don't like. If he does get appointed I won't spend the next 6 months looking for reasons to say "I told you so." Life's too short for that kind of garbage.

Ok so I am biased because I really don't want Gerrard but everything in this piece just makes him worse in my eyes. The whole thing reads as "I'm special and I need a club that's big enough and special enough for me." He needs a "club that is going to win because he's a winner." He was let down by his other coaches and now he has baby granddaughter and is enjoying his family time. The mixture of self-entitlement and ego married to a track record of failure as a manager really does nothing for me. If he arrives here you know he's going to be doing us a favour as far as he's concerned.

I believe that the team that gets you promoted (including the coaching team) is not the team that keeps you in the Premier league in the first year. Likewise the team that keeps you in year one is not the one that establishes you in the Premier league. Teams without parachute payments or the remnants of a Premier league squad like Sunderland and Notts Forest pretty much bought a brand new team the year they went up. (Forest brought two brand new teams). Ipswich thought they could just buy good players from the Championship and went straight back down. To be fair to Sunderland, Le Bris has done far better in the Premier league than probably anyone expected. We probably can't find a head coach who is good enough for the Premier league but will join us now in the Championship so anyone we appoint is highly likely to be a transitional appointment if we get promoted. If Farke happened to be available he would be ideal but that's not going to happen. When Luton appointed Edwards he had managed just 10 games in the Championship but he took over a good team that had been built over several years by Jones and simply carried on with it. We haven't got the same continuity of team building as Luton did and the forward line is a mess but probably all we need is someone with a base level of competence to come in, make some tweaks and work with Viveash. If we happen to get promoted then we cross that bridge but no point in trying to cross the bridge before we get there.

Anyone but Gerrard. Corberan is my obvious top choice. My left-field choice of people we know are available would be Liam Manning. Seems to have succeeded at each club until Norwich and looks to have left Bristol City in good shape. Don't know what went wrong at Norwich but I think he's at a sweet spot in his career where he is still young but has plenty of experience at this level. If a big beast like Rodgers, Hutter or hasenhuttl is genuinely interested then definitely but I don't see it. I wouldn't be totally against Brian Barry-Murphy, concerns about Edwards2.0 notwithstanding. I'm probably less outraged by Edwards than most but let's face it, it would take a massive dose of hypocrisy to welcome someone into the club who has just done what Edwards did without even the excuse of moving closer to his family to a club he has long ties with.

For what it's worth, from Wales Online re BBM I wonder if he was on our short list in the Summer given his Man City background but we went with Edwards instead.

Agreed. Let's face it, if we know he knows and we're not going to be making an approach unless we think he's interested. If he's prepared to jump ship from Cardiff after 14 games then who's to say he won't do the same to us in January? I mean, recruiting a fresh young lieutenant to take over with Sgt Mjr Viveash to hold his hand is a classic thing to do. But given that we just slammed Edwards for doing what we appear to be encouraging two names Murphy to do is pretty rank. Given that Celtic are already sniffing around, indicating that he's open to jumping to whoever dangles the most cash his way isn't exactly putting him in a good light.

He seems to have left Hartlepool the same way a certain manager left Forest Green Rovers though the owner is such a basket case that the situation may not be equivalent. I can certainly see him stepping up, especially if he can work well with Viveash. He also seems to prefer 3-4-2-1 though he seems to have lined up in 4-3-2-1 so maybe he was audtioning (badly, as they lost 3-0 to Luton. Hard to know if League One/Championship is his ceiling. You're probably right. I do worry that he's a managerial equivalent to Hoppe. Scores a hat-trick in his first season then is never seen again. I also get the impression that spinelesslness in a team often comes from the top. Look at the difference in us between Carrick and Edwards. Shame that Edwards' spine turned out to be far too flexible but that's another issue. I actually wouldn't be against Will Still but I would be sceptical. I don't get any impression that he's on the radar though.

The Absolutely Nots Gerrard. Absolutely not. He's a fraud. Like Rooney he's incompetent but at least Rooney has tried and done the work while Gerrard has swanned off to Saudi and gives every impression of believing he's entitled to manage a top club. Gary O'Neil. On paper he did ok in two struggling Premier league clubs but something about him gives me the Ick and both clubs seemed only too happy to get rid at the first opportunity. Brian Barry-Murphy. Why would be talking about poaching a manager who has managed just 14 games for a club in league one having been appointed the same day as Edwards? The hypocrisy would be off the scale. Slaven Bilic. He's basically entered dinosaur territory. Another one whose ego doesn't match his ability. The scepticals Russell Martin and Brendan Rodgers. I think they'll regard themselves as too big for us and, frankly, I reckon it will go badly with both with their egos dragging us down with them. Mogga. It might be a pleasant fantasy for him to return and lead us to the promised land(tm) but he needs to focus on his health. I suspect, sadly for him and us, that he needs to hang up his big coat and enjoy some family time. It would be great if we could find some sort of consultancy/advisory position for him. Adi. He's made it plain that he wants to be a #2 and I think we should respect that. The Maybes Lee Carsley. Sorta maybe. I don't think he'll be interested but I could see him making a good team with Viveash. He feels more like someone who would need to start in the summer and focus on building a new youth-based team. I don't think we're going to "poach" any in-work managers but I think we would be prepared to approach a club and do it by the book in certain circumstances. I don't see any current UK-based managers/head coaches who seem viable. Of the out of work crew. Liam Manning actually had a decent record pre-Norwich and it would be interesting to know why things went so wrong. I could see him making a good team with Viveash. Will Still has a punchable face but maybe his failure at Southampton has been the making of him. He'll be desperate to prove himself but, like O'Neil, something about him gives me warning signs. The yeses The likes of Hasenhüttl and Hütter, if they have expressed interest, definitely. Feels like a reach and I doubt they really have expressed any interest. It would be nice to have an ümlaut though. Corberan. Been there, got teams to the playoffs. His team outscored Carrick's Boro despite Carrick spending £20m on a forward line and Corberan spending 3p and packet of crisps while being a defensive manager. Note also that he managed both Huddersfield and WBA for over 100 games each, including turning down an approach from Leeds (he was asst mngr there under Bielsa) half-way through. No one else comes to mind. What we need, ironically, is for someone to do what Edwards did when Jones was poached from Luton; take a team that's already doing well and give it a little extra push.

Last season we saw all three successful approaches to getting promoted. Score lots - Leeds, defend lots - Burnley, organisation and will-power - Sunderland. This season we have been most like Sunderland. It's a high-wire approach because every game is a battle decided by fine margins. If you don't have the best attack or defence you can be the team that never gives up. A new manager could improve our defence and add it to our current winning mentality (which is essentially how we started the season) or can improve the attack and keep our winning mentality. Unrealistic to expect them to be able to do both. We will improve our defence by keeping them on the pitch. The forward line needs one or two of forwards to click and take some of the weight off Conway.

We don't know what the preferred formation for the new head coach will be but it's useful to look at the list of players who you want on the pitch every match if they're fit. My take on it is: always starters Brynn Brittain, Ayling, Fry, Jones, Targett Hackney, Morris, Browne McGree, Conway Technically, it makes a 5-3-1-1 first 11 but that's not a team you want to start a game with unless you're playing against a team who significantly outclass you. The obvious gaps are pace, width, creativity and goal scoring. Come January, Malanda should arrive and hopefully he'll be at least as good as our current CBs and not usually injured but it may take time to adjust to the high-speed meat grinder that is the Championship. The players who might come good under the new manager are Nypan, Strelec, Sene, Hansen and Whittaker. Still no width, only Sene with pace. If Nypan or Hansen come good that should add some creativity while Sene and Strelec might add some goal threat. We also need to hope that McGree is over the worst of his injury problem. No matter what formation we play, we need some pace and width on the left which means either a wing-back or winger depending on how we set up. Given that Targett is one of the best LBs in the league, it seems a shame to import a wing-back unless Targett gets moved to LCB. Given that Ayling is arguably player of the season so far, you don't really want to lose him from the team either. If we want to play with a #10 it looks like we'll need to loan a high quality one. We have three non-scoring strikers presently with Strelec in particular looking a long way off what we need. That feels like loaning a high-quality striker and challenging Sene and Strelec (and to an extent, Conway) to get into the team and stay there. Doesn't seem any point in buying yet another #10 or striker project when we have multiple projects already with none of them working. What I would do. Buy a left winger who can play wing-back or a wing-back who can play left wing. Loan a Premier league quality #9/#10. Hope that 2 out Strelec, Nypan and Sene click before Christmas. As far as I can see, the emphasis has to be on instant impact quality in January rather than more projects for the future. I reckon buy one and loan 1 or 2 should be plenty. Sell/loan-out/de-register: Gilbert, Hamilton, Bangura? Burgzorg?

To be fair, it depends on the quality of your forwards. You can be creating multiple good chances a game but if your forwards don't score them, you get nowhere. You also can't just ask it in a vacuum. If you increase your xg by 0.5 per game by increasing your xga by 1.0 a game, then odds are you'll get fewer points. According to FBRef our current xgd (i.e. difference between xg and xga) is +1.8 which is the 8th best in the league. So we have been, statistically, scoring more than we concede. Four of the teams above us on this metric are Southampton, Birmingham, Blackburn and Watford so either they will improve in the real world or, more likely, they'll regress statistically. We have been scoring more than our XG (mostly thanks to our midfield and defence) while our actual goals conceded Xga is about on par. We've struggled defensively the last few games, partly due to our never-ending centre back curse and partly due to the lack of goals from our forwards putting us under pressure. We are currently 8th in the form table over the last 6 games but the league is very bunched up; 4 teams are on 11 points from the last 6 games (us, Millwall, Wrexham, and Charlton). Derby and Hull have been on a charge over the last 6 games along with Coventry while Stoke are also on 13 points from the last 6. 11 points from 6 games is 3rd/4th place form. Bottom line is that we're 2nd in the league averaging just under 2ppg which is 2nd place over a season. Before Edwards slithered off we had two issues; non-scoring forwards and centre-back injury issues. Fix both of those and you would expect to maintain 2nd place. We were just about managing the centre back issue but still struggling to get our forwards firing. For me, the key stat is that we haven't dropped any points from a winning position and we've saved 4 points from losing positions though they have all been losses to draws rather than converting losses to wins. That speaks to me of a top 2 mentality and organisation.

You would have said the same about Le Bris beforehand - as did we all. One relegation from Ligue one, no Championship experience and no track record. He looked like yet another cookie cutter overseas coach who would be out before Christmas. I well remember all the fun and games we were having laughing at them. Even George Whitt was still fuming that they had got rid of Mogga and ended up with another cheap option.

Personally, I think the review led by Scott aimed in part at coming up with an answer that Carrick wouldn't agree to. I think the review was legit; no one knows the true competence of Carrick Jr and Woodgate as coaches but I think it was also pretty clear that Carrick would walk if they were let go and getting rid of Carrick was high on Scott's agenda. I also get the impression that Carrick wasn't exactly unhappy to be let go. He had talked more frequently about the importance of family and was increasingly thin-skinned. (Don't think Woodgate wanted to go.) I don't rate Carrick as a manager. I remember Gary Neville talking about how the second he got to stand on the touchline as a manager he realised he couldn't read the game and had no idea how to change it. I can't remember a single case where Carrick made a change that positively changed a game. I think he's perfectly fine at dealing with players and has ideas of how he wants a game to play but he seems to have no idea about how to get from A to B. Woodgate is the same; he's a football romantic and clearly loves being out there but tends to flail pretty hopelessly. Both of them are quite good at understanding a player's strengths and weaknesses. Anyway, this is not really about Carrick. For his short period here Edwards showed that he's actually a pretty well-rounded manager. I think if we can find someone with his level of ability but with an actual functioning moral centre then we'll be good. I'm actually pretty sanguine about this as long as we don't go down the Steven Effing Gerrard route that I'm pretty sure Gibson is itching to take. Our problem right now is that when you look at the forwards we have signed in the last two window it's been very poor. We've signed Burgzorg, Conway, Whittaker, Hamilton, Strelec, Sene, and Hansen. Of those only Conway has been a success. The loans (Doak, Iheanacho, Iling Jr, Nypan) haven't been much better. That's a lot of money on 11 players.