As another season falls by the wayside and the usual soundbites start to come out --- 'we need to put it right before the next game' - no ****, 'we played well for periods of the game but we need to play like that for 90 minutes' - you think so? --- there is only one man to be held accountable, who is on a whopping great salary and - whose judgement has been lacking in managerial appointments, in transfer dealings, in ticket pricing and so on and so forth... if Simon Clegg has made a decision then time and again over what is now a few years he has consistently made the wrong call. Surely as we incredibly face another season in the abiss it's time to act?
What are we actually blaming Clegg for? Managerial appointments - has a say, although it was Evans that met both RK & PJ, although I assume Clegg was there. You cant blame him for transfers - Jewell has already stated on several occasions that he and he alone arranges them Ticket pricing - I agree that they are wrong but I assume that Clegg has little to do with it. He may have the overall say but I surely most of the work will be done by the marketing, Public relations and accounting departments. I would also assume that the pricing is done with a 'wider view' than bums on seats. Companies do a lot of work on this area and will also have to take into account policing costs, stewarding costs and I would imagine a whole host of other factors to make the most overall income to the club. Its very easy for us to say that tickets should only be 20 quid an adult but, given that most tickets are currently 30 quid, then to stand still you need an extra 1/3 through the gates every match. If the police advise that for every 5000 fans there should be x amount of police offices present and also additional stewards then thats more costs. I dont like our pricing strategy but I also dont want us to be full everyweek and losing money. I prefered Sheepshanks to Clegg as a chairman. He was a public figurehead and was forever willing to be approached and would discuss at length on any issues BUT in all honesty other than good PR a chairman should be there for the business side of things before all other issues.
Agree with this. Its always very easy when things aren't going well at the club to have a go at those at the top. When alot of the time I don't think we have alot that we can actually judge them on. In all honesty perhaps Clegg and Evans have been fairly naive and I also think the ticket prices are ridiculous but I don't think what I've seen that Clegg or Evans are as major a problem as we all make out.
Yorkie Excellent post my friend you have hit the nail on the head. Clegg has to be the most ineffectual CEO that we have ever had. His total inexperience in football before he took the helm has shown. He admits that he followed Rugby more than football! He is just a lacky for Evans as it becomes clearer by the day. If Clegg is so savvy why is Evans negotiating with players agents? God things were bad under John Kerr in the the late 80s but Clegg is way out of his depth. For the sake of our club long term we need to appoint a genuine Football man as CEO. How can a so called businessman get ticket pricing so wrong! How can a businessman allow players contracts to run down to the extent where we are letting players go for nothing after costing a fortune in transfer fees! Clegg is part of the problem and not the solution. We are paying him a bloody good salary but for what Im not sure! Great to see you back Yorkie!
Totally agree hampy, ME needs to have a bloody great overhaul at the club, starting with Cleggy. Does nothing for the fans, does nothing for the team, does nothing for the football club in general. How many deals that we don't know about have fallen through because of this idiot, we know of some really close ones but i bet there is loads that were kept quiet.
To be fair guys, if none of the above points are down to Clegg then what is he actually here for? The face of ITFC?? If so i could think of a lot higher profile figures to be the face of ITFC, **** me i'd rather have JEDWARD!!
JWM, agree that Clegg may have been involved in failed past signings but not any more - jewell has commented several times that he has the say on all signings and that the previous regime was one he wouldnt stand for. As Guru points out he doesnt seem to have an input on the footballing side. I understand he has attended a few fan based audiences but I couldnt say if he contributes anything - he certainly doesnt have the public 'interface' that old ones had. Also if the general consensus is that Clegg is purely ME's lapdog then surely it is ME that should carry the blame for our clubs failings and not Clegg. Can people just clarify one thing for me - why do you want a football fan as chairman? I understand it for some reasons but I dont see the need for it. I would like the club run, overall by someone that understands multi million pound business, not just an person because he has once kicked a ball.
Spanish, wash your mouth out! ****ing oxygen thieving little bastards. Obviously, the signing we have made are Jewells suggestions but how far down the list were they and what else did Clegg **** up to get that far down the list. Regards the pricing, surely it wouldn't cost that much more to fill the ground on policing and such like. Considering that we will only allocate so many tickets for away fans (the same as now), so unless we are going to fight between ourselves why should we need that much more police? so then its only stewards and that won't cost that much! I know its not that simple, but it sure the hell can't be a lot harder.
You have misunderstood the point I was making. Surely someone that has experience of running a sucessful football club is far more preferable than someone that hasn't? Delia for example know's nothing about running a football club but she brought in David McNally who has got a proven track record. With all of ME's millions surely he could have made a better appointment from the football world as a whole and not one of his buddies that has experience of running Olympics teams. Or is the real reason (oh cynical me) for Clegg being appointed is to help promote Marcus Evans other business interests leading up to 2012 Olympics?
Guru, I think policing levels have a lot to do with health and safety and insurance rather than because there is an actual worry of trouble - no idea about the cost aspect though. In relation to transfers, Jewell said he knew how much money he had available and it was down to him how he spent it. I assume that means if he wants to blow the budget on number 1 target its down to him and if another target then arises they will have discussions about adding a bit more funds. With a player wage bill of 14m a year (for a pile of ****e) I cant see that Clegg/ Evans can be called too restrictive. JWM, I see what your saying and I kind of agree but surely if your able to run a multi million pound business, you can do it in whatever field you want. If we take away the football/ coaching aspect then it has the same make money, broaden brand appeal, stop waste etc remit as any job. I agree that Clegg got the job from being close to Evans for possibly dubious reasons but Evans must also trust him to run the club. In relation to the Norwich comparison, and it is scary how similar our stories currently are but just 4 years apart, McNally has done a quiet job for them and I assume they had no expectation levels last season so therefore less pressure. Lambert didnt spend a fortune so its not a case that they simply rolled over and let him have a free reigh. Surely Norwichs success can be attributed mainly to the workrate, effort and commitment that Lambert has formed within his playing squad rather than any major input from McNally. BBC Look East normally has more comment from him than Clegg, so they are good at reaching out to the fans but I cant recall any major change that he has made, although I could be wrong. Maybe Superman can give an insight if their has been any major off field strategies. I thought when it was said and I still think it was wrong, that the 'operation premiership' campaign was the worst thing that could possibly happen to us. You get fans hopes up and their expectation levels are so high that they are never satisfied with what they actually have. When the statement was made we had no more than an average squad. The club never took into account the need to make sensible upgrades to the playing squad and get a strong squad. A lot of you claim Clegg hasnt supported enough. I would say his one major failing was to offer too much, both in the terms of promises and adding to the squad when it wasnt needed. An old saying that seems relevent is dont run until you can walk. We tried to challenge Usain Bolt with a brick tied round a toddlers ankle!
Can anyone think of something positive he's done? We were sold him as someone who was behind the successful British Olympic team...
Clegg has more spin than a Roulette wheel! tractorbhoy you make a very good comparison to McNally in budgie land, but you hardly see him in the limelight yet we get Clegg's ugly mug rammed down our throats. The sad fact of the matter is that we are paying for 6 years bad mangement on both the football field and the business field, and i don't think that throwing money at it is the answer. We should learn from the 5 year plan that burley had, and install those beliefs to our transfer dealings.
Surely the police have to have enough resources to cope with a full gate on every game? because with as far fetched as it sounds we could still have a full house with on the gate sales? how do they know? or is our great club only concerned and expect about 18,000 supporters for every home game?
my knowledge of clegg is limited but from what i do know i tend to agree with yorkie that you'd be better off without him. appointing a 'football man' at the helm of my club was what kick-started our rapid rise. some may argue its a coincidence but i can assure you it isn't! we had our own clegg in neil 'doomcaster' doncaster. a solicitor by trade, he knew nothing about the game and yet was made our chief executive. he was hated by the vast majority of our fans because of his dour approach and negative vibe. 'prudence with ambition' was his mantra, one which never worked and ultimately led to our relegation. amazingly he is now running the scottish premier league - and what a mess he is making of that! i digress, when we appointed david mcnally in the summer of 2009 we were at our lowest ebb. we were in the third tier for the first time in 50 years and we had stupidly just appointed gunn despite his record. mcnally came in and immediately began to throw his weight around and make an impact. he has run celtic and fulham in recent years overseeing success at home and in europe for both clubs. he took one look behind the scenes and didn't like what he saw of the gunn regime - the 1-7 was bizarrely the perfect thing to happen. easy decision to get rid and get his own man in, someone as ambitious and driven as he is. mcnally has admitted that he sailed us pretty close to the wind in league one - we were weeks away from administration but he decided to back the manager and take the risk. wow, norwich city taking risks! this isn't normal. but it was a calculated risk and it paid off. since then, well, you know the story, but he set up the '7-year plan to self-efficiency' which meant we had a clear route to go down - everyone at the club and all the fans know exactly what the club is doing and why they are doing it. at the time it seemed ambitious to be a self-sufficient, stable, premier league club within 7 years but the plan is working far quicker than anyone thought it would. he set up clear aims: stabilize the club on the pitch; stabilize the club off the pitch; sort out the youth system; increase capacity; increase advertising streams; increase catering - he has increased all revenue at the club, he has fought our corner over numerous legal matters, he is freely available to discuss whatever you like on twitter, he keeps a connection with the fans but also keeps it at a distance if that makes sense! he has also made tickets very expensive but kept season tickets competitive. clever. but most importantly he knows how to run a football club and be successful doing so. he is highly respected throughout football and business circles and i would fear for my club were he to leave above that of lambert, thats how important he is to our football club! the comparisons between clegg and doncaster are startling. get yourself a football man in charge and suddenly things might pick up. i've always been of the opinion that a happy club off the pitch will breed success on it. david mcnally is the most important person at my football club. he makes the decisions, he sets the plans, he negotiates deals. a proper chief executive. i'd suggest if you aren't really sure what clegg is doing then he isn't doing his job well at all.
Agree he was appointed due to a friendship with Evans. ME must rate him so I assume he must be good at something -havent seen proof of it yet. I cant name one good thing he has done but I fail to see many totally stupid things other than operation premiership. He seems 'steady' and maybe 'ynamic' is required I hardly ever see or hear about Clegg other than at the end of season - lets sell more season tickets campaign. Maybe Im missing something but I would like to hear more from him as a spokesman for the club No idea, I know that for alot of things you need a certain percentage of officals per participants (for want of a better phrase) I cant see that the police would use the same amount of officers for a 20000 attendance as a 30000 one but could well be wrong Cant quote all of that post Superman but its very well written and very insightful. I could well be a millions miles wrong on my viewpoint. I feel a 5 or a 7 year plan, as you inplimented would be lot more worthwhile and sensible than our instant success plan. You need to have sound footings before you can build anything major and this is probably where we are lacking. I compare us currently, and I hate to say it, with Newcastle. New owner appoints dodgy friend as chairman, renames everything in his own name so the club has limited external income and generally makes silly mistakes. The thing is they hated everything last season when things were going wrong. Hated the manager, the stadium rename, the owner, the chairman, the lack of replacing the key striker but look where they are now. They still have their frustrations but its very easy to overlook the non playing role when you are doing well and its equally easy to dislike a lot more than you need to when things are going wrong.
tractorbhoy, as i mentioned on a different thread, your clubs approach is very scattergun - the plan seems to be 'get promoted as quickly as possible', but there doesn't seem to be any foundations to that statement, its just a statement! things don't just happen overnight. even man city have had to build consistently over the past few years to get to where they are now - its a myth that they can just spend money and win things. you still need team spirit, clever signings and good management! money certainly doesn't guarantee success - you still have to earn it through hard work and clever work behind the scenes. you wouldn't need a 7-year plan but maybe a 3 or 4 year one to secure premier league status and stay there, so that every single fan knows what the clubs strategy is and why decisions are being made. its the old 'singing from the same hymn sheet' thing again! difference with newcastle is that ashley, despite being viewed as cockney maffia and doing a poor job is actually doing a brilliant job at stabalizing that football club. they keep making profits and thanks to pardew have made some very astute signings for a fraction of the cost of carroll was sold for. they DO seem to have a long term plan for success, unlike ipswich
Superman, agree 100% of plans are non existant and we are suffering. Fancy taking on the job? you seem to have more sense than our current board and half our fans put together!
no thanks! although thinking about it, i quite fancy being the 'chief executive who takes you down to league one'
I dont think we need any secret agent help in that one mate. If we dont sort ourselves out soon then we could be the arcitects of our own downfall
