The Downward Spiral

I honestly don’t think Stendel cost them millions. They managed that all by themselves with their refusal to provide the experience he needed. Not part of the business model of course.

 

Casino management. Spin the wheel often enough and hope you guess the correct number every now and then.

 

There are many sins we can lay at the door of our owners. Perhaps the biggest one in my mind is the lack of consistency to a plan, a belief, an approach.

We have massive churn rates through our club. Particularly at levels of leadership. Our CEO and Head Coach. Given our stated desire by the owners to have a high press style of play and favour youth over experience, the one thing you would expect would be to have a solid foundation around what we expect coaches to do. Create a style of play, a formation and tactics that fit the ideals of the fans. That allows young players to focus on their key jobs in their role and perfect them.

Yet we have so much turmoil and upheaval from one coach and CEO to the next. It's not especially fair to expect players to instantly pick up such fundamentally different styles of play from fundamentally different coaching styles and approaches and do so in a way that turns out results at Championship level.

Right young Callum. I want you to play centre mid. No, wide left. No left wing back. Actually centre mid. Hmm, maybe a deep lying playmaker. Actually, play no 10 and press. No, don't press. Apply a block. Actually, channel them left side as an out ball. Hmm, try left wing back again and get up and down. No, press them. But not too much. But more intense than that. But track back. As long as you look for a counter. And pass the ball quickly, but run with it, but play it into space while hitting a target man....

There's little wonder our players are confused as hell and even if they may not realise it themselves, they don't believe. They don't believe they can get out of it, or what they are doing works and so the 50/50 challenges, the never say die spirit, putting their bodies on the line, just isn't there.

It's a mess. From top to bottom. And sadly it stems from both ideology and implementation.

 

Hmm, no so sure, McCarthy went to Man City around that time, Ian Banks to Leicester
Edit:I replied to Old Gimmer’s reply to me, don’t know why it’s posted as a new message?

 

Which is, more or less, what investment bankers do.

 

I actually remember periods where we didn’t sell at the first opportunity. The Glavin era for example, and it was no coincidence that things went downhill when Aylott went back to London. I guess the difference now is that it is explicitly stated as the core of their business model, whereas I would argue that in the past it was a frustrating, if necessary, part of keeping the club afloat.

 

Is that when Harry Potter used to be a board member ?

 

I don't think we are selling at the first opportunity though. We've sold very few of our first team players in the last 2 years. Likely because the bottom has fallen out of the Championship transfer market.

I think it's ironic that we're likely holding out for bigger money at a time where we don't have the leverage we would have had in previous times.

If I were a Championship club wanting to buy Helik, Andersen, Woodrow, Morris, Brittain, Styles or Collins... I'd simply wait til the summer.

 

Exactly. And, as we all know, the value of investments can go down as well as up. I just hope my pension pot is in better hands!

 

I was referring to the extra amount that the 80%ers have to pay for the club, which became due when Stendel steered us to promotion. I'm talking purely in terms of the owners pockets, not the clubs finances.

 

Fair point, although I’m not aware that holding out for bigger money has actually happened given the CEO’s comments about the style of play and bids received.

 

Understood.

 

They both went after Aylott left and our halcyon period was in decline.

 

He did say we'd had some bids this transfer window... though we don't know who for or for how much. He did also say he wanted to keep the squad together.

I don't think we'll see bids at the sort of level they want given the perilous state of finances. So it becomes a case of they refuse to let players leave and they just wait for their contracts to lapse, or they take lower bids at the point of our own financial distress.

Theres only a few days left of the window and I thought we might see a couple pf players sold, likely with one decent fee, and maybe a nominal attempt to freshen it up a little but while also saving costs for next season by offloading a top earner or two. (Perhaps the injuries to Cauley and Helik have hindered that)

 

The January window is notoriously difficult to predict given the desperation of struggling clubs, and the determination of clubs doing well to hang onto their better players (except us in 2017 of course!). And residual contract lengths also affecting things. For what it’s worth, I’m not expecting anything to happen this window.

 

Don’t want to fall out with you but the Huddersfield story was true Stendel was out of his depth and was desperate to make the most his promotion kudos . The OP didn’t mention Hibs so why you bring it up I don’t know , Conway ran his mouth off , it’s what he does sometimes that’s why he’s the focus of fans dissatisfaction . Val , We were given £2m by WBA and he’s on a shed load more money , the idea we could compete with WBA for his services once they trigger the release fee is ludicrous, I’m guessing the money on offer to the back room staff was similarly out of our league . Dike went to Brom for what £10m , are we going to pay that ??? All I’m saying if people are going to criticise this ownership group don’t rewrite the past to do it . They’ve got questions to answer , their decisions ( some forced on them ) in the summer have been shown to be poor , the West Stand business a shambles ,the £750k payment . On the other hand when has BFC ever stood up to the FA like these guys did in the Wigan affair . I’m neither for or against them , I’m ambivalent to them , they are business men who want to make money , it’s in their interests for us to be successful , who knows Hull have been sold to the Turkish Simon Cowell , we might get the Albanian Ant and Dec

 

100%. There has been no proof whatsoever provided to show the Huddersfield story is true. None. As you say, we were told by the same person who claimed the Huddersfield story was true that we were going to sue Hearts and we know how accurate that was.
Still, these people aren't Patrick Cryne, so they can do no wrong.

 

I’m certainly not going to fall out with you either. You simply have a much different take on things than I have. Ironically, given I have actively supported the club for 55 years, and have inflicted the same madness on my two sons (with two grandkids also now involved), I would much prefer you to be right and me to be utterly mistaken. I very much doubt it though. Anyway, let’s just agree to disagree.

 

O

Just one further point. You say Stendel was ‘out of his depth’. Out of interest, which of their five other managerial appointments would you judge to have not been out of their depth?

 

I still can't quite piece together why no legal action was taken about our Head Coach allegedly having spoken to a club who made an illegal approach (though Conway was on the record several times saying "Daniel was welcome to stay however long he wished to"). But perhaps most curious is why given Conways suggestions of actions against a multitude of parties, we didn't go through the very simple formality of reporting Huddersfield for their part in what was loosely alleged.