It hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but it seems certain that Roberto Di Matteo is our next manager, with Steve Clarke coming in as his number 2.
While RDM wouldn’t have been my first choice, I do think my reticence has been tempered by the appointment of Clarke and I’m hoping that they’ll make a good “good cop, bad cop” pairing, with Clarke kicking the backsides of some of the players; just as we all want.
Also interesting is the appointment of Massimiliano Marchesi as our new fitness trainer. Click on his name, if you want to see his CV as a PDF.
I can’t say I know anything about him, but he’s very highly rated, which is excellent because our fitness has been shocking for a while. I’d actually suggest that his appointment will be possibly the most important of the lot, as we all know how tough the Championship is and players really do have to be at their peak.
At the same time, we don’t want someone who will flog the players to death either, but I’m sure he’ll know what he’s doing.
It’s certainly a combination I can get behind, but sadly I can’t make any promises about going to many games, as my work commitments just won’t allow it.
Which all means it’s much more important how you fans who actually turn up to the games actually think and hence we have to have a vote for this one, don’t we?
I suspect I already know what sort of result we’ll get, but I’m intrigued anyway.
Now we’ve got this part of the jigsaw in place, I’d hope that things start to move pretty quickly and Dr Xia soon gets the nod for his takeover.
I’d like to see some player movement too, both in and out, but we have to consider that most players are contracted until the end of June, so the manager will have at least a month to play with. Hence you’d hope RDM will have been tracking players and will have been given detailed reports on some of our mob.
I can’t wait to see who leaves, (the odd few who are worth a place in the Prem, apart) and trust we’ll see at least a few of the troublemakers moved out.
