Where's Waldo? Ahem, Manning. Does anyone know? Have any journos commented or referenced him recently? Is he in Toronto, San Diego- California or is he A Travelin' Man? Europe or South Amercia? I believe we all know where Bob is.
Where's Waldo? Ahem, Manning. Does anyone know? Have any journos commented or referenced him recently? Is he in Toronto, San Diego- California or is he A Travelin' Man? Europe or South Amercia? I believe we all know where Bob is.
Yeah, more doable last season with Forest in the Championship and Horvath not playing.Originally Posted by Canary10
Not really how it works there, you know that. Loans deals all have specific clauses relative to recall and sell-on, so it entirely depends what they are in this case.
If we want to buy and Forest wants to sell, the only thing stopping it is a first refusal clause from Luton. So unless they want to pony up the same or more cash than us, it's down to the team and player. Luton doesn't really get a say, as they don't own the player.
Or are you thinking Horvath won't want to because of the playoffs? I highly doubt that. He's going to make his decisions based on career considerations. If he's making $500K a year more here than there, it's not going to be a hard decision.
If he were in the frame to move up to a higher league, or there was higher league interest, I'd see him refusing a move. But that's about it.
My sense of interviewing pros over the years is that they rarely care about titles at lower levels when there's money on the line. They'll move to a smaller team if they get paid way more. Luton's very unlikely to go up even if they squeak the playoffs, anyway.
Still, a bit of a moot discussion given that we seem inert when it comes to any sort of move other than signing Sean Johnson.
Last edited by jloome; 01-21-2023 at 10:46 AM.
Recent experience is they will have a plan B / Plan C when it comes to a keeper & will not leak that information out.
Agree. Like you, I have a bit more faith on this than most.
We have Ali Curtis PTSD. The fact that Bob isn’t talking and is leaving it late is not, in itself, evidence that Bob is clueless.
I am more worried about exactly what Plan B or C are. But I believe he has them.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
What recent experience?
We haven't signed a new starting keeper in four years. We literally had another guy doing the signing back then.
We have no "recent experience."
What am I missing here? Do we have some other signing with which we applied "plan b"?
I mean, I assume even the dumbest, most professionally incompetent manager is going to have alternates. But we haven't seen any sign of it here. So it's definitely "belief", because we have no way of knowing.
I "believe" on available evidence we're probably going to sign Sean Johnson, but I have no way of knowing.
EDIT: Sorry about the snippy tone. My optimism seems to have lasted exactly two days.
If, in the end, months from now, we don't make the playoffs again and it's clear we're shit, I'm going to be extremely irritated if forced to conclude that BB is an MLS 1.0 quality manager who really, really thinks he knows what he's doing.
Even then, it probably wouldn't be an entirely fair assessment, as even great managers can have blind spots that sink them, like keeping on poor staff, or sticking with what worked in the past when it's past due.
I just want some impetus publicly. Some understanding that they have a fan base who have seen the team slide for years. Some momentum, and a realization that good clubs do things pretty well in all departments, including both communications and roster management.
It still feels, to some extent, like it did before Lieweke. It feels like we have a corporate toy run by a bland, well-intentioned corporate yes man, with no real concern about tying performance to metrics on all fronts, about promoting and seeking out excellence.
Everything is an easy answer because they hire "obvious" rather than looking deeper. It's very rare that the easiest candidate to choose is the best; it's also very typical in corporate environments. There are a series of studies by Pew Research in the U.S. demonstrating that, once past their initial, founding CEO, the vast majority of corporate CEOs make their organizations worse than what they started with.
The issues with performance and maintaining it in an absence of personal investment -- because an individual is powerful enough to always delegate -- are so obvious, and so obviously found in every form of tribal leadership, that it's become a comedic meme, a basic understanding that at most companies, the people leading it are bullies and idiots, and it's the workers who keep it from collapsing.
Obviously, that's not always true. But what Pew -- and recent examples like Zuckerberg and Musk demonstrate -- is that when far too much money and influence is vested in too few people, they surround themselves with sycophants or, at best, people who "get along to get along" and become generally unprincipled as a result. They feel the subvconscious drive to protect their power by surrounding themselves with perceived support or goodwill over considerations like competence. Competence comes for their job, potentially, at some point.
It's also why the "Peter Principle" of rising to one's position of incompetence generally plays out in such environments.
I sort of feel like that's where we are. Uninspired, top-heavy management that isn't really paying attention to the small details. And the very fact that there is so little publicly to counteract that (especially given three straight years of total shit on the field) suggests the proof is in the fact that their communications strategy is so generally awful.
(Again, someone always at this point reminds me that we have tons of seasons tickets sold etc etc. That's not the point. Organizations that let shit slide slowly just do the slow frog boil. At one point you couldn't get a TFC ticket for love or money if you weren't a seasons seat holder already, and there was a massive waiting list. Which speaks to a club's social drive, popularity and overall health more: where we are now, or then?)
I just want this to be the management team that turns this shit around. I want Manning to prove his worth, not by appointing BB as all-knowing boss in charge of everything, so that he can shuffle him off later with a pat on the back like Curtis when all goes wrong, but by being proactive, out there as the guy getting deals done for this club, OR ensuring they are.
I love that they got the Italians. I love that Oso reupped and Hedges signed. But what I really want us to be is the Philadelphia Union, with money.
Last edited by jloome; 01-21-2023 at 01:30 PM.
Manning has more important priorities right now which include:
1) Building an Argos roster that can win back to back Gray Cups.
2) Finding the next winning team where all the leg work has been done and showing up to take credit for it.
I feel like our circus management is a place where players don’t want to take on the career risk unless they are getting a huge DP payday. Unfortunately we cant scout and attract good talent to balance out our roster that is a necessary skill to build a winning team. Sean Johnson clearly sees us as his plan B or C.
Last edited by ElvistheEvilScotsman; 01-21-2023 at 01:44 PM.
I assume you meant to say we can't scout and attract good talent?
Right now it feels as if the club is a lot closer to the Aaron Winter era than 2017.
That's a bit harsh, I think if we are to compare this may end up being the "Bloody Big Deal" 2.0.
Good catch! Yes. Key word is Can’t. I fixed it. Cheers.
Fair. Feels like we have some parts but no icing on the cake at the moment.
Re: attracting new players. The appearance of the captain is the coaches son is not a great one. I appreciate they feel they can handle it and might both be totally professional about it, but at face value, it’s a hard optic to fight against.
Yeah, part and parcel of the whole approach being just a little laissez-faire.
The loan agreement likely has an option to buy. He has a shot at the Premier League at least, I don’t think we’ll get him to move at this point in the season.
Anybody seen any good movies lately?
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
The Banshees of Inisherin is overhyped IMO
Last night I made a homemade mushroom sauce for the first time, served on top of pan fried chicken breasts. Even the family was impressed and they are not easy to please.
I think even Sean Johnson would have enjoyed it.
I added that last part so the mods wouldn't accuse me of going off topic.
Last edited by NK Toronto; 01-22-2023 at 09:43 AM.
The question is what would Sean Johnson think of it?
Careful, I will aggressively defend that movie with a verocity that will make the Bradley conversations on here feel like nothing. Consider that a warning, that film was fantastic!
White Noise was very strange. Not sure SJ would like it at all, but the Bradley’s might.
I certainly don't want to start another Bradley type discussion so allow me to add that Banshees is fine, funny but a bit plodding and slow at times as well. I had higher hopes and expectations as I have very found memories of In Bruges which was delivered by the same principals and is one of my all time favs. I hope Sean Johnson and TFC can resolve their impasse in a more favourable way than the protagonists of Banshees were able to resolve theirs and I also hope that the older version of Sean Johnson doesn't leave me feeling like he was overhyped.
The calm before probably even more calm.
The calm is making me feel we are leading up to some knee jerk signings to start the season similar to the season when we signed Usanov and Hscanovics.
I know TFC PTST is really long-lasting, but Preki isn't in charge.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
I have recorded Belfast and may watch it tonight. In honour of Mo Johnston.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
So one positive about our window so far, is that none of the moves we've made are bad or really hurt our team. Maybe the Petrasso move wasn't great and we'll need to see salary terms on Diomande, but none of our signings look like Kantari flops or Jozy taking up a DP spot way past his best before date.
I see zero way they get these players in time. Front Office is a disaster. I’m not going to say why I think that because who knows but the outputs suggest that.
I keep going back to Bradley's comments a week or so ago.
The outgoings one & Scandinavian transfer window ones.
He's planning on banking GAM then picking off players from Norway once the window is closed for the bigger leagues in Europe as those players will have less options/clubs less leverage.
Thoughts?
What a weird team. Why even announce it?
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/TorontoFC/status/1617243281829535746?s=20&t=4ZaCZ4xl8yWB5rO8KbaZzA
Posting Permissions
