The elusive Kelechi Nwakali

Another load of boll**ks from the shed lol

 

Could this just be something as simple as the lad was late coming back (he had permission from the club) and the official photographer went on holiday for a couple of weeks before the season started?

 

The photographer has managed to get photographs of all the new signings.

The lack of a photograph isn't any sort of proof that Kelechi hasn't returned to the club. It's circumstantial evidence at best. But we're not trying to convict a murderer. It doesn't have to be water tight evidence. We're just wandering if he's at Oakwell or not. He's not been involved in any preseason games, there have been no reports or photos of him in training, and there's no official photo of him on the club website, even though there are photos of all the new signings and of Russell who returned to training later having played with Jamaica. Doesn't prove anything, but no one is trying to prove anything, we're just interested.

 

This was my last sighting of him, with a bag packed….the plot thickens…

 

The info I've been told from a decent source, is the club want to offload him and ideally want a permanent but would accept a loan deal if most of his wages are covered, he doesn't feature in conor's plans and doesn't want him involved with the 1st team group.
It's purely a football decsion that suits both club and CH.

 

That clears it up, he's been detained by the fashion police.

 

Lol

 

If that’s true then yet another fantastic signing from our recruitment team

 

He’s joined the Foreign Legion

 

He was never needed in the first place. 100% panic signing from Sormaz due to floundering in the transfer market...... again.

 

If you were trying to offload someone would you not want them to be as fit as possible for any potential suitors? Why would you banish someone from training and matches etc

 

We gave Hourihane the permanent job during a pretty poor run of form after saying we'd wait until the summer to make an appointment. It now seems that we did this in the knowledge that he didn't want half the squad, some of whom will be difficult to shift.

Either it's somehow immediately apparent to anyone he comes into contact with that he's going to be a complete success, or the board have lost their ******* minds.

I hope it's the former, but I know which I'd bet on if pushed.

 

Seems mental that we’d banish him from the squad while paying him what I imagine will be one of the biggest wages. How do we expect to offload him when he’s not even training? Absolutely bonkers.

 

He didn't want the coaching staff either, he's certainly been allowed to shape things how he see's fit.

 

Conor doesn't want any negativity about the place, a player not part of his plans could potentially infect others, there's been issues around application previously.
Seen it countless times in football, not unusual within the game.

 

Absolutely bonkers isn't it.

After having experienced managers hamstrung by being forced to play a certain way, have to make do with players who did t really fit and essentially being nothing more than a coach with a fancy title they then hand the keys to the entire club over to a guy with frankly an absolutely awful record as caretaker boss.

It's one hell of a gamble. I'll give them that.

 

I find it a bit mental we have a sporting director, given the remit of dictating our approach and style, who has hired experienced coaches to play that style (despite little to no prior expertise of said style) and now, we’ve appointed a coach with no experience at all, who had a shocking run of form last season, and the Sporting Director has completely deferred to him, changed formation and has shipped out all our wing backs.

You can just see us sacking Hourihane in November and signing a dozen wing backs in January as we change back!

 

Unfortunately this is what happens when non footballing people start bringing in new data metrics to the club to recruit from.
The summer of 2022 felt like we meant business, we started to build bridges with the fanbase, brought in some decent players, appointed a solid head coach, got massive fees for Mads and Kitching, this was all under Neerav being hands on, that remains our weak point that we have an owner that does care but is largely absent.
Mladen Sormaz was and is a terrible terrible appointment, I won't repeat some of things I heard, nice guy but not cut out for the coal face, we would have been better keeping Bobby Hassell as the Sporting Director.
Before anybody jumps on the defensive "we've got no money" Mladen is given a budget to work with and the recruitment team to support that function, what's getting fed into that process is dogger.
He's a data analyst and that's it.

 

Hourihane's fault or the tools he had to work with (pun intended).

 

Our form dipped dramatically when he took over despite the tools remaining the same