davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Brands + Silva is the only source of stability.I sense one of the times when sensiblities come into line with yours @davek . A bitter red pill to swallow for us blues.
Got to hold fire with Silva for the long term good. This rabble of players contains a sizeable contingent of the malcontents from seasons past who are mired in the averageness mindset at best, and actively disruptive at worst. They need to get a manager with the authority and backing from the club who will outlast them so they can settle back into the role of being players and not the ones who rule the roost. I'm not denying that senior players should be able to voice concerns and issues and make suggestions and give insights from the players, but I think Silva riding this out well into next season will show that the manager gets the backing for as long as possible, and that player power does not hold the ultimate power. It might not help Silva if results don't go his way, but it might help the next guy.
I don't mind Silva. I think he genuinely tries to play decent football. I think he only has about half a team capable of his preferred style of play. He failed in a lot of regards in getting the best out of his players, but that would have been an impossible task for almost everyone. There doesn't seem to be a viable plan B either which is against him. But he got the gift of no premier league quality striker which was unforgivable and this would have masked a lot of the defects of this team. He has also bore the brunt of lots of individual mistakes that have been punished - so he's not the lucky general that Napolean would have prescribed for a team in our position - and those will kill him eventually if they haven't already.
But if he can turn it around, if he does get a few more players, including a striker. He will have shown that he can stick around and see off some of the deadwood and perhaps waved farewell to some of the more malign elements in the dressing room. Who knows, Kendall was probably checking his office window to see if the dreaded taxi was about to arrive, before his team caught fire.
Pretty hard to remain upbeat with the option of sticking with Brands and Silva at the moment, but I think it's the only one in town for us at the moment.
Imagine Brands sacks Silva at the end of the season for finishing midtable after the mess he inherited? The whole point of bringing Brands in will be shredded. He's here to provide stability - and then seamless transition when a coach departs. It would be an utter car crash if Brands sacked Silva after a season living with Brands' plan. If that happened I'd know we hired a complete 'kin dud who was just here for a massive pay day.
I dont believe he'll do that. He'll back Silva. Anyone who knows football can see the rubbish the manager deals with - inherited rubbish like Pickford - and has had one transfer window alone when he should have been backed in January. Brands knows all that. He can see that, despite it all, there is the green shoots to recovery that need nurturing not stamping on.