RiseAgainst

"ChatGPT, design me a horrible football top nobody in their right mind would wear." <ping> "Perfect, thanks. Can you find us a new manager?" <Sean Dyche enters the chat> "Abort! Abort! Reset!"

It's an underwhelming appointment as it stands, but it could be transformed with the addition of a dynamic second in command.

Impossible to predict given the gaping holes in the squad and the empty management bench. Once we know who's in charge, we can start extrapolating how they like to play to determine which players we've currently got might work/will need to be sold, and to what extent they'll call on the U21s/loans. After that, it's a big summer. I suspect we'll end up playing something akin to 4231 next season to maintain the consistency from one manager to the next, but honestly, most of our squad could leave tomorrow and I wouldn't even remember they'd played for us a year from now.

Another 15 pages in, and all I've learned is that Craig Johns has excellent taste in music and we might be appointing two managers or maybe just the one.

Are people now suggesting Mousinho is a candidate because someone hiding in the bushes took a photo of a dark-haired man getting out of a helicopter from a long way away and the man looks more like Mousinho than another man? Honestly, this managerial search could give an aspirin a headache.

Did they? One involved signing two nonentities plus Patrick Bamford, the other involved loads of supposed prospects like Whittaker and SIJ coming on board. Other than the return of a former fan favourite (Giles), I don't see much similarity in terms of quantity, budget, overarching objectives or anything else. Also, I don't think we sold a key player in the January PL window, or had a fraction of the number of injuries to address.

Sorry if this has already been posted - not got time to trawl through all the previous pages - but I've been told Leeds are looking at Azaz. Apparently they're interested in swapping him with Joe Gelhardt, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad deal from our perspective.

Rohl: 50% Cooper: 50% Edwards: 0% You're welcome.

I can knock up an impressive .ppt file and I live to the left of a field (genuinely true). Maybe I should put myself forward for the job? I could choose new signings based on oneBoro polls - over 50 per cent yes votes and a player gets a three year contract. If Nobby has previously mentioned him, I'll add a relegation clause.

So, to summarise our managerial options: Rob Edwards is *** and he's not any better than Carrick Jon Dahl Tomasson is also *** and he's not any better than Carrick either Sean Dyche is *** and plays the worst football imaginable Steve Cooper is *** and people don't like his face Gary O'Neil is *** and deliberately got a yellow card 15 years ago Robbie Keane is *** and made Woodgate look dynamic on the touchline However, there's a German I have literally never heard of and he's good but if we don't get him lots of people will boycott games next season and we might as well have stuck with Carrick and honestly what is the point of Kieran Scott and Gibson just needs to grow a pair and hire someone else. Does that about cover it?

Has Rav officially applied this time? For sheer persistence, he deserves consideration. Then we can rule him out and go back to debating the limited merits of other middling Championship managers.

Because there's a world of difference between managing internationally, with short periods of frenetic activity followed by months of sitting around helplessly praying your star players don't get injured, and being involved in the daily cut-and-thrust of a 46-game domestic season. I know it's a step down on paper, but I think a lot of international managers really struggle with all the downtime and fallow periods.

I'd be amazed if we'd sat on our hands for a month without contacting anyone. The whole 'detailed review' thing must have involved some consideration of who could do better than Carrick, if he was to leave. It couldn't just have been a month of poring over last season's results saying "that one was crap, that one was crap, that one was really crap". If we haven't even started negotiations with Cooper (or another potential managerial candidate), what the hell have the club been doing for the last month? Breaking out the ouija board to see if Neil Warnock will make contact?

That made me smile, because that's why I wasn't going to follow the team next season. There's no fun in watching a match when everything from the timing of substitutions to the torpid second-half performance could have been written about in advance. There are people on here defending Carrick, but none of them are acknowledging how utterly, pathetically predictable Boro had become, to the point where opposition managers could give their team talks a week before the game and know they'd still be effective. You can't succeed when everyone else has identified weaknesses you won't address - it's almost self-sabotage.

Genuine question - what's your issue with wingbacks? I appreciate we don't currently have the players to make the system work, but it gives you three at the back, width with pace down the flanks if you choose the right WBs, lets you play two up front (I am so unspeakably sick of watching Boro toil away with one lone striker against a back four) and still put three men into midfield. My personal formation of choice would be 4132, but I don't get the hate for wingbacks. What was Rösler doing that was so unenjoyable to watch?