Roy was called back from retirement by Parish because no ambitious manager wants to put his name on the line with the weak squad we have, plus the dysfunctional board all of whom seem to be in disagreement with Parish and want out. This results in no team investment, poor quality or aged players in key position, all of which Roy has made clear on multiple occasions telling Parish et.al what he wants, they seem to ignore him, they cannot walk the talk and whilst he remains in place little will change and Parish will happily go on picking up his pocket money bonus from the club,for as long as can get away with it!

Yep I agree. And as a result, their squad is 100% better than ours.

I think the bold bit is key, especially understanding how it fits into the 3 year cycle. Trying get players in early, bed them in and make sure they are ready to cover departures.

e.g. Buy Ronnie Edwards now for 10m , loan him back for the rest of the season. Sell Anderson in the summer for 30m.

It would also mean we can end our love with extending contracts of 'end of life players'. Luka, Jairo, Tomkins. How much money has been thrown after bad.

It seems everywhere I look there's blame with no accountability.

Yes I Roy for quite a bit of why we are where we are. I think he should have left after the Arsenal game, but that's purely because I don't want to see a 76 year old man who is struggling to keep up with things eventually get abused. He's reverted back to "Version Roy 2021". He oversees the coaching, picks the team and sets us up so needs to find another way to get the team winning and expressing themselves.

Parish has also got to take some responsibility but I don't agree he should walk away, or that he's lining his pockets as some have suggested. He's recently spent £11M on 3 pitches at the Academy training ground. He's made mistakes and needs to rectify them.

Why we spent £50M+ in the summer on 3 players who, when everybody is fit do not make Roy's starting eleven suggests to me that our Director of Football is signing players without the manager's approval. Stubborn old Roy looks like he's more interested in proving Dougie wrong by not playing Franca unless we are getting tonked, rather than slowly introduce him. We are nearly into February and we still don't know if he's good enough. Signing Henderson to replace Jack Butland for £20M was a curious decision. I don't think he's as good as Sam Johnstone, but I don't think there's an awful lot of difference between him and Jack Butland.

I don't think we move players on quick enough. It seems we'd rather keep the likes Tompkins, Ward, Rieldewald, Hughes and Schlupp. I know that replacing them would cost millions in transfer fees. Rewarding them all with contract extensions just smacks of laziness in recruitment, and a reluctance to see what our youngsters can do.

There has to be a plan that we stick to rather than settle for survival one season at a time. That has to come from the top. Investment in the Academy and spending all that money on pitches is great, but if the door into the first team squad is shut then there is very little point. If I was SP I would want Dougie and whoever the manager is going to be to work much closer on our transfer targets, and who we release from the deadwood pile.

There’s a saying along the lines that ‘second marriages are a triumph of hope over experience.’
I wonder if there’s an element of this in relation to Roy and the club.
The first marriage ended by mutual consent with both parties wanting to move on.
The club entered into a new relationship (with Vieira) that at first was exciting and showed potential , but it eventually ended in failure.
At this point the club felt nostalgic about the good old steady days with Roy and said why don’t we try again?
Roy agreed, and there was a brief honeymoon period at the end of last season which led to us formalising a new relationship with him, full of optimism about the future.
However, it wasn’t long before flaws in the relationship became evident again reminiscent of those that led to the initial break up.
Another case of the triumph of hope over experience?
Perhaps I’m overthinking it!

More grist to the mill. Have to say, IMO the Standard aren't wrong with this article

[Link]

good.
thanks for link.

Kids,tired of being bothered by your pesky parents?
Then leave home, get a job & pay your own bills, while you still know everything.