So, what happened?

fritter

UTC Legend
I've been thinking about this since the weekend. Takes some time to order thoughts. There are some things I can't make sense of.

I'm sure there is more to all this than meets the eye. If Eddie had decided to go if we went down then I reckon he would have told the players after the Everton game and announced it that day or the next.

If he was undecided, what did he need to know that would help him make his mind up one way or the other?

Either he was keen to stay and the board weren't or he wanted certain guarantees and didn't get them. I can't believe that there wasn't some conversation between him and the board before last week. If so the board have been very remiss.

It is odd that he seemed not to confide in anyone at the club, they all seemed to be genuinely shocked. Also it was surprising that Kris Temple was so shocked.

It also seems odd that there has been no succession planning from within, apparently.

Something happened that Eddie didn't anticipate.

I know that there have been a number of threads and this is one more.

But there's something that doesn't fit.

Last time I felt like this was not long after Max took over. I was trying to figure why he would buy the club and the (entirely implausible) conclusion was that he was aiming for the premier league. That seemed impossible at the time, but it was the only reason that made sense.

So, thank you for your indulgence. I will remain both puzzled and open minded for the foreseeable.
 
I think he may well have mentally ground to a halt.

From experience, that isn't a nice place to be; it's nigh on impossible to think straight and very easy to make really stupid decisions.

It's only with the benefit of hindsight you can look back and try and rationalise what was going on.

I think people are reading waaay too much into the situation, it's wasn't some sort of Machiavellian scheme or long game scenario, it was a decision made on the hoof.
 
Every road I go down to try and work this out just contradicts every other road.

The What Does Willo Know thread bothers me, because of the fact that it's clearly something that has upset him. Perhaps the new manager reveal will hint to what it was. Or maybe it's an actual nothing thing...red herring.

One thing I'm sure of more and more is this didn't have to happen. Someones f**ked up somewhere, and I dont think it was Eddie.
 
I don't think we can underestimate the impact of lockdown and the extra time he got to spend with his boys. We all know Eddie put in astronomical hours at the club - I think the stress of the relegation battle put a lot of things into perspective for him. Wouldn't be surprised if he just fell out of love with the job, if not the club.
 
I think he just wanted a couple of days to let the dust settle, think it over with his family and make the decision.
The only other one is that he was not happy with the level of cutbacks that may be needed on his coaching and backroom staff. I am sure we will hear some of those soon.
 
Every road I go down to try and work this out just contradicts every other road.

The What Does Willo Know thread bothers me, because of the fact that it's clearly something that has upset him. Perhaps the new manager reveal will hint to what it was. Or maybe it's an actual nothing thing...red herring.

One thing I'm sure of more and more is this didn't have to happen. Someones f**ked up somewhere, and I dont think it was Eddie.
But what does Willo know. I am not sure he knows much if anything. Funny that he would be the only one that claims to know.
 
Sorry to be the doomsayer but I firmly believe that and as Eddie has always made it known, he wanted to see some sort of legacy planning and was adamant there had to be the new training ground and academy built at the very least. It seems blatantly obvious to me that Max is not going to build anything and that is why Eddie walked. As I've said on another thread I do hope I'm wrong but I fear the worst, no more investment (not that there has been any) off the pitch with dwindling investment looking likely on the pitch.
 
I think that you're right, it was all very strange. I reckon that Eddie and the playing staff thought that he was staying but during the meeting something drastically changed. Willo alluded to knowing something on Sunday during the Solent programme. He said he couldn't say anything ( on the Sunday) but that he might be able to on Monday. Nothing from Willo that I've heard. Has he been silenced or was it just hot air.
 
I’ve worked in jobs where the hours are stupidly long and you can only take it for so long even if he was on a fair whack of money. Money isn’t everything.

People tend to forget it was well documented Eddie used to be at the ground by 7am every morning and leave very late. He wouldn’t see his family much and lockdown gave him the opportunity to have what he had missed out of for years. I don’t believe there was anything else going on other than he felt he had let the club down and wasn’t sure he was the right man to take us up again and wanted a well deserved rest
 
Max says to Eddie, right I can either afford to finish the training ground or I can subsidise the playing side to try and get us back up. Eddie says we need both. Max says no. Eddie leaves. Could be as simple as that but I still say Eddie has had enough and needs a break.
 
What about this, needed to go down, sell all the stars players to clear the debt, people who wanted to buys us in January come back and invest when not so much debt on club, hey presto investor for new ground
 
It will all be speculation but I have a number of thoughts:

Eddie has always wanted control of the buying and selling of players. Max allowed him to do that. The team that has just been relegated was his team, his players and his staff, not people parachuted in by a director of football.

Eddie knew we had a choice of spending money on players or infrastructure, we couldn’t do both. Rightly in my opinion, we spent it on players to try to stay in the PL

One of the reasons Eddie hasn‘t appeared to consider other roles previously could well be that no other club would give him that control.

The reality is Eddie has overseen the relegation of the most talented squad we have ever had. That squad should not have ended up in the bottom three. Eddie took us to places we never dreamed of, for which we will be forever grateful, but we cannot hide that for the past 18 months more of the performances have been poor rather than decent. We can blame the players but he has the responsibility to get that out of them. you cannot fail to view this (season) as failure.

The fact we don’t have a ready made replacement would suggest a Max wasn’t expecting this. Max has proven himself to be supportive of Eddie numerous times in the past. Most owners would have sacked him several times over given recent form. Max stood by him.

Tactically, Eddie has been found to be less brilliant than we thought at this level, his stock has dropped. Did he want to risk it declining further if he couldn’t get us back up?

My guess is Max is prepared to bank roll the club still but wanted some changes, perhaps adopting a more “first team coach” rather than old school manager. Perhaps he wanted him to off load some of the “old boys” coaching staff? They have responsibility too. Perhaps it was team or infrastructure and Eddie didn’t like it?

Regardless, we are where we are largely because of Eddie but that would have been impossible without Max’s money so I think talk of doing more to keep Eddie needs to be put in the context of we have just been relegated, poor football, his team & his players. Wenger. Went on too long, did Eddie too?
 
Wenger. Went on too long, did Eddie too?
I’ve seen this banded around by a few journalists. I think it would ring true if he was using AFCB was a stepping stone to move to a bigger club.

I actually think his sole motivation was to make AFCB as successful as possible and wouldnt give any thought at all what some journalist decided was best for his career.

The mistake he probably made was caring too much and taking on too much responsibility himself. Perhaps the board recognised this and this is the new direction talked about.

I genuinely believe it was amicable from both sides.
 
Sorry to be the doomsayer but I firmly believe that and as Eddie has always made it known, he wanted to see some sort of legacy planning and was adamant there had to be the new training ground and academy built at the very least. It seems blatantly obvious to me that Max is not going to build anything and that is why Eddie walked. As I've said on another thread I do hope I'm wrong but I fear the worst, no more investment (not that there has been any) off the pitch with dwindling investment looking likely on the pitch.
Sorry to piss on your fireworks but did you read Max’ communique to the supporters?
 
I'm with fritter......something happened to make him suddenly announce it on Saturday, nearly a week after the end of season.......will the truth ever come out ,who knows ?
 
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I think he may well have mentally ground to a halt.

From experience, that isn't a nice place to be; it's nigh on impossible to think straight and very easy to make really stupid decisions.

It's only with the benefit of hindsight you can look back and try and rationalise what was going on.

I think people are reading waaay too much into the situation, it's wasn't some sort of Machiavellian scheme or long game scenario, it was a decision made on the hoof.
That makes more sense than anything else I've read on this thread.
 

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