Godders

I'd very much prefer Dyche to Bruce. Would take either though.

He would have been an interesting and bold appointment in the summer too, so what makes him more qualified now than he was back then?

Just out of interest, I've done a search on this forum for "Wagner". The first serious mention of him in connection with the job was on September 11 in the RDM thread. There was a mention last season in the context of the Championship being a league you need to know your way around since he started with a couple of defeats. Another mention was made last season when a poster said he'd take him here, and a couple of replys were made that maybe the composer would be a better fit. Now I don't know too much about football, but I suspect that if he was as good as some here seem to think, there would have been far more noise about him from last season and in the summer, especially when we'd been taken over and were looking for a new manager. The only conclusion I can draw then is that the only reason Wagner is being discussed is because his name has bern linked with us, and Huddersfield are at the top of the table after 11 games. And to think the Wagenerites want him in as a long term solution! A month ago, it looks like we didn't even know who he was!!

Oh I'm sorry. I'd rather have Bruce as he gives a much better chance of going up than not, as opposed to Wagner where he's 50/50 at best to get us up. Of course both could be rubbish for us though. That easier to understand?

I'd rather take 60% chance of promotion, 35% chance of stagnation and 5% chance of dross under Bruce than 45% chance of promotion, 45% chance of stagnation and 10% chance of dross under Wagner.

To get relegated from the prem, you need to be in the prem first. As DDID said, lets look short-term. Let's worry about staying in the prem when we're there.

I understand your position @Gary Thomas. As you've said, he could get promoted rather than finish 17th. That makes the guy a real unknown at the moment. We're not going to have any good idea as to whether he's the next Guardiola, or another manager destined for the lower leagues (or anything in between) until he's got at least a season under his belt, and preferably more and with more than 1 team. Now's not the time for taking a huge gamble like this. There will be times in the future where a gamble makes sense, but now is not one of them because the risk of getting it wrong is too big. We may well miss the boat if Wagner gets Huddersfield promoted and into Europe in 5 years. It's more likely though that their form will fizzle out and they won't get promoted this season. Even if we do miss the boat, there will be others who will be lauded as the next best thing. When we're a bit more stable then we can look at getting someone in who makes sure the most intense part of training sessions start at 4.27pm.

Lets say RDM had stuck it out until the end of the season before getting the boot. Had Huddersfield finished in 17th, would people still be calmouring to get Wagner in? I wouldn't even think he'd be on many people's radar. And, if he was bought in under those circumstances because of his coaching methods, I'm sure there would be more than a few disgruntled fans. Can't really see myself why Wagner would be a good candidate for us at the moment.

"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

Bruce for me. Wagner could be great. He could be average, or he could be poor. Bruce probably won't be great. He probably will be average, he probably won't be poor. I don't think we're really in the position to be taking gambles. Wait until we're back established in the prem before taking a punt on an unknown. Far less risk then.

And we were top 11 games ago. Promotion happens at the end of the season, not a quarter of the way through. Huddersfield may well not be in the mix at the end of the season. Does that mean Wagner is still more likely to get us promoted than Bruce (who has done it 4 times already don't forget)?

Will he bring Beckham with him??

Thanks @Richard. Nothing to do with confirmation bias, was just interested to know if you would also act cowardly in Xia's position.

@Richard, I'm genuinly interested: If you were the owner, and our manager was someone you rated highly, would you look to sack him after a run of 1 win, 2 losses and 7 draws, or would you keep him a bit longer thinking he'd come good?

It could well be a conscious decision NOT to run tweets through the club PR dept. If the club's PR strategy is for the owner to speak directly to the fans, then running them through the PR dept risks watering the messages down to an extent where the fans will be able to see that it's simply an overly engineered PR job, not an owner and fan speaking doing everything in their power to make the club great again. I don't mind his tweeting. He's not bought the club into disrepute. His tweets don't look like they're affecting on field performances or dressing room harmony. If some fans want to read too nuch into it then that's their perogative. Im currently enjoying the insight that he gives at the moment. Especially when the last guy said nothing at all, except when he'd throw a dictionary at us.

You're right @markavfc40. It was a poor thought through argument on my part. I just find it pretty incredible though that we've seemingly managed to collectivley assume that the video to the lads that RDM asked for, has come about through some variation of RDM going cap in hand to Tony and asking him to motivate the players because he can't. What if RDM has been banging on to the team and Xia that the squad is more than good enough for automatic promotion. Since not all players are on promotion bonuses, or the promotion bonuses don't differentiate between auto promotion and promotion through the playoffs, Xia agrees to each player getting an ad-hoc bonus over and above what's in their contract, should we finish in the top 2. The video is simply the method to communicate this to the players. Nothing there to suggest that RDM is a rubbish manager. On the contrary, it would be an example of him using all the motivational tools at his disposal to get his team achieve their target. And nothing there to suggest Xia is treading on RDM's toes, or doing his job for him. Obviously this is one of many possible reasons why this video was done. Edit: also, the video is to "the lads". We don't if that's the first team, the new signings, the old guys, the youth team etc.

If we win the next game then, is this lauded as a genius bit of leadership from both RDM and Xia?

It's the way it copied across - I wasn't shouting it at you, honest! Ultimately, Xia rates RDM otherwise he wouldn't have employed him, so he's going to get more time. Correctly in my opinion, since statistically we're playing as one of the better teams in the league, and we're defensively solid. Just got to start converting the chances, but I think that will come. We're unbeaten in 5 at the moment, only lost twice, taken the lead in most of our games this season. Yes it's an easier league, but the distance we've come since being relegated as one of the worst teams in premiership history, with the worst home form in the country, to bemoaning the fact we're not top 6 where really we should be, is pretty staggering IMO. RDM deserves more time for me.

Confirmation bias In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/confirmation_bias.htm In both cases you've listed, you're using your preconceptions to interpret our current run of form. That's why I said in my previous post that it's only reasonable to want RDM out now if you would also want any other manager out if they also had the same run of form in their first 10 games.

Not if that person would give a preferred manager more time after the same run of results as RDM has had over the same number of games. That's not logic, that's confirmation bias. If people can honestly say that they would be clamouring for a new manager after 1 win, 7 draws and 2 losses regardless of whether they originally rated the incumbent or not, then that's absolutley fair enough. Wanting RDM out now because they didn't want him to begin with to give somone else the best part of a season to find their feet though is pretty unreasonable IMO.

A perfectly valid stance, since I assume that if we had a manager you did think was good enough, you would be quick to change your opinion of him and would be loudly calling for his head if he also averaged a point a game from his first 10 games. Personally, I think 10 games is far too soon to pass judgement.

Ah ok. You don't think he's good enough, therefore he doesn't deserve any time to prove otherwise. Gotcha.

Not specifically directed at you Richard, but in general I must admit I'm a bit confused, so hopefully someone can clarify for me... We want to sack RDM after 10 games apparently because we're not getting promoted this season. We want to do this now so that the new manager can use the rest of this season to evaluate the squad and go for promotion next season. What I'm confused about is why there's a different standard for the new manager than there is RDM? Why does the new manager get most of a season before we start expecting to see promotion form when RDM only gets 10 games? By my simple logic, sacking RDM now should mean that the new manager is judged after 10 games too. If we're not seeing an average 2 points per game, then the new one should go as well. And so on and so forth. If we're willing to give a new gaffer the best part of a season before expecting promotion, then we should be giving RDM the same amount of time IMO.

RDM isn't going anywhere. We've got a team that average more shots per game than most In the league. We've conceded in the first half only once all season. There's only 6 teams who have conceded less goals than us this season, and 2 of them have played less games than us. If those stats were for any other team, I'm sure most here would consider them to be unlucky, and that if they keep on doing what they're doing, they'll come good. I'm fairly sure the first reaction would not be "that team needs to ditch their manager pronto" We've hit the woodwork what 6 or 7 times this season? Let's say luck was on our side, and 4 of those went in, let's also assume that 2 of those games we held on to win. All other things being equal, that puts on 14 points in 12th, 3 points off the playoff spots. It's still not ideal, but it's a far more palatable situation. Had luck ruled that a couple more bounces gone our way and not landed plumb at the feet of the opposition striker, we might have won another couple as well putting us on 18 in 3rd. There's so much variance at play given the small number of games played, the fact is no one can be sure if RDM is a mistake or not at the moment.

Im bored, so i decided to try a little experiment. I fliped a coin 8 times in a row. Heads was a 'win' and gave us 3 points. Tails was a 'loss' and gave us no points. I did this 10 times and recorded the results. The lowest number of points from those 8 'games' across 10 'seasons' was 6 (we'll call them team A). The highest was 21 (team B). Are the team A fans right to think that the manager is rubbish because of their poor start, or that it's because he's had no experience overhauling a squad? Is it because of their lack of midfield that they're down the bottom of the table? Or the owners tweets putting too much pressure on the players? Are the team B fans right to sing their new owners' praises from the rooftops? Joyous in the fact he's spent more than any other club in the league on the best players? Is it because of a Champions League winning manager that they're flying high? Or his well respected assistant? Are they right to believe they may be back in Europe soon enough? At the end of their respective seasons, both teams finished within 10 points of each other. Moral of the story? 8 games is nowhere near enough to draw any conclusions either way about the manager.