Nope, 48 hours after ending at this rate.

Edited by Booted Eagle (18 Jun 2021 8.49am)

“ [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

One thing we have to agree on lads, and it is that Mr Parish has kept a pretty tight lid on all his work in finding us a new manager. And at least that appears a more controlled approach than at Everton and Spurs.

A few names have been bandied about for us, but the only one that seemed to get serious was Santo. It appeared he came in with a last minute demand and scuppered the deal. His being greedy looks to have damaged his chances with Everton too. Serves him right. Everton became aware of Santo's talks with us and have now turned to Benitez who is intensely disliked by their supporters. It 'shows chaos behind the scenes' says the headline in The Times today.

Similar situation at Spurs as they 'switch from Fonseca to Gattuso'. Apparently Fonseca was astonished last night when discussions with him were suddenly terminated. Their search has moved around a few high profile names including Conte and Pochettino. So they are struggling to find the right fit too. But in a way that has been more widely discussed than ours.

We've had some fun on here speculating about who our new manager might be, but in fairness to Mr Parish, whatever stress and angst this job is causing him, it would appear to be a more calculated and measured approach than elsewhere.

No doubt we'll soon find out who he has decided upon. Then the real fun will begin!

Dad and I watched games standing on the muddy slope of the Holmesdale Road end. He cheered and I rattled.

On the contrary, I'd say the agents are having a disastrous summer. The purpose of an agent is to place his client in a job, preferably a highly paid one. Thus far, not a single one of them has managed to do that. In fact, when one has come close (Conte, Fonseca, Nuno, even Wilder), things have broken down at the eleventh hour mostly because of unreasonable remuneration demands.

It appears thus far this summer, the tipping point on agent power in recent years has been reached and clubs are taking back control. No longer are sides being held to ransom by prospective managers; they're making "take it or leave it" offers (Parrish to Nuno, Levy to Conte and Fonseca) and if the manager doesn't get what he demands, they're telling him to f*** off and they'll look elsewhere. Even Wilder, a successful and qualified manager didn't get the West Brom job due to his history of clashing with his last club's owner. For agents, this is all a disaster. Their clients aren't getting what they want. The agents themselves aren't making their cut. It looks like the clubs are finally saying "enough's enough" and taking some power back.

And it's about to get worse for agents too unless you believe the transfer market will still yield seriously inflated prices. Look at Zaha. Does anyone really think we'll get the £70 million we were not unrealistically asking for two summers ago? For agents, the managerial merry-go-round of recent weeks has been a case of being brought back down to earth with a bump. About the only thing agents have succeeded at so far is spreading rumours in the hope of generating interest in their clients. It hasn't worked at all. Yes, we fans are getting frustrated with our chairmen's seeming inability to hire a manager, but perhaps we should be applauding the fact that they're finally doing some due diligence and working to a sensible budget instead of being ripped off.

If you want to know who's having a field day right now, trust me it's Steve Parrish, not Nuno's agent. Steve may not have his new manager (yet), but that's better for Palace than getting financially arse-f***ed by an agent with a client whose hire holds no iron-clad guarantee of success.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Salient points gallivanting down an intellectual alley and worthy of compliments.

I think you are right. Notwithstanding the one and a half "lost" seasons (without crowds), what COVID has done is presented owners with a chance to get their financial houses in order and to re-write the rules on how clubs (and the game itself) are managed. To their credit, owners appear to be taking it. As a result, the long-term impact of COVID seems likely to be that the balance of power in the game has changed, with clubs wresting back much of the financial initiative they've given away (to agents and players) over the past two decades. This, on some level, has to be good for the game.

Clubs, even smaller ones, generate revenue by default, simply by playing the game. If they tidy up their outgoings, they're going to be a lot less financially vulnerable than they were before. Agents, on the other hand, generate no revenue at all unless they're cutting deals. And right now, they're not (for managers) and even for players, they're smaller deals than they were before. Ultimately, the consequences of COVID may be good for the game, even if there's been a lot of suffering in the short term.

What's really changed in football in the past couple of decades is the nature of owners. Whereas once they were local-businessmen-made-good, largely in it for ego reasons and happy to make poor fiscal decisions to sate their egos (think Ray Bloye), outside of the stupidly rich Arab Sheiks who have more money than sense, most of today's owners are global business magnates who are extremely financially savvy (nb our own Americans and Liverpool's owners, all hedge-fund billionaires). These guys know how to run a business and, slowly, they're bringing that to football. This can be frustrating and beneficial at the same time.

Edited by sydtheeagle (18 Jun 2021 10.33am)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

I think this may possibly be you're best constructed sentence in the history of this board.

"It was a Team effort, I guess it took all players working together to lose this one"