Rene to be replaced by Curbishley?

We're WAY past the crisis point. Not even that crazy Italian fascist DiCanio can rescue this situation. But it might be fun to watch him try. Anyway, I don't see this happening. Like you said, it's the Mirror.

 

That would seem to confirm that the decision to make a change was made in advance of Rene's last 2 matches, likely after the Sheffield United replay on the Tuesday night prior. We didn't play United until Sunday.

My big questions in all of this are if the club underestimated how bad of shape this team was in, by how much and when it dawned on them? Why else would you take such a big risk like appointing Meulensteen with virtually no managerial experience? Playing games with the title like they did would suggest they viewed him as an interim manager. But then they backed Rene by bringing in Curbishley and Wilkins (both at his request) as well as in the January transfer window. With the move to playing so many players from our youth setup, it looked like they were going to take a longer term approach, regardless of relegation. Then they sack him and appoint Magath, which is a polar opposite move. It's a shorter term, panic move that is entirely focused on survival. That's not a criticism, it was well past the time for panic, imo. But it's an indicator that either they didn't realize how bad off we were or that there may have been 2 schools of thought and the more conservative one won out initially.

I think it's all a bit unfortunate from a timing perspective. Jol needed to go in the summer but that wasn't going to happen with the transition in ownership. At the same time, the new tv deal kicked in, so while we weren't spending money and fixing a squad that was past due for an overhaul, the teams around us were investing this new boon into upgrading their squads and closing the gaps between wage bills. The result is that, where in the past you had a top 4-6 clubs, a middle of the pack, and then a bottom five, you now have a lot more parity. You've still got 6 clubs who spend significantly more than the rest. But after that, it's very tight and you're seeing that in the table. Eight points separate the teams in 10th and 20th. If you aren't in that handful of (what I call) the best of the rest (Everton, Soton & Newcastle this year) your margin for error is very small. The reason I bring this up, is perhaps Mackintosh/the Board/Khan failed to accurately forecast the effects of this change and got caught thinking they had more room for error than they really did?

I guess I just find this all a bit frustrating to watch as Don and I have been saying the sky is falling with increasing urgency for several years. If two Texans can see it through a burger and shiner bock induced haze, why the heck couldn't the folks in charge at the club? Maybe Khan needs to come to San Antonio for the bb&bs lunch every couple of months.

It'll be interesting to see if any of this stuff comes out at some point down the road.