Who's to blame for our situation?

Maybe one of the problems is that Dick is trying a more attacking line up.

The last few seasons it has been pitiful to watch us defending for 95% of the match, relying on the odd breakaway to try and score. Sometimes it works (like against Man City, Ji) but it's dire to watch and getting pounded for 85 minutes each game is soul destroying. When we tried to attack against the lower teams we usually got punished as our record against those around us at the bottom shows.

When I hear that we are going to try being more offensive I worry about us because we don't have the players to do it. Our heroics at the end of each season, keeping us up, was built around a tight defence and although awful to endure, it worked.

Along with most on here I recognise that it's those at the top who are the problem. All of our managers the last few years cannot have been the rubbish that they appeared, maybe one or two but not every one since Reid. The huge player turnover replacing players with cheaper ones cannot have helped.

The one consistent at the club during the shambles of the last few seasons is those at the top. We've been getting around ten players in each season and have had half a dozen managers, almost a new team every couple of seasons. This doesn't work and will not work no matter how many times we repeat it. Maybe getting a new manager every six weeks would give us the end of season effect that we have been getting the last few seasons but that is just plain daft.

Until the mindset of those running the club changes or they are replaced, we will continue to struggle and this season looks particularly ominous with the crap start we've made.

Dick says the players are playing as good as they can which is a polite way of saying they need replacing because we cannot carry on expecting them to produce 100% performances to keep us up. Even when playing at the top of their abilities they are simply not good enough with maybe one or two exceptions, Pantilimon has been ok for example.

Our future depends on the next two weeks. If we get a couple of players in, first team players, for around the £30 million price, we have a chance of staying up. If not we are doomed. Bookies have us at 1:2 odds on for relegation.

Maybe we are no longer the big club we think we are, something like the equivalent of Preston may be our level. True, we have everything in place to be a regular top ten premier league finisher apart from one thing: ambition. That is controlled by those running the club. Until they decide to actually do something then no amount of managers and cheap players changes will have any real effect.

It's the Board that is holding us back and they are to blame for the state we are in.

 

There's a guy listed on our board as head of footballing operations or something of that ilk, Ryan Sachs check out his LinkedIn one of his key achievements is that he was our sole negotiator in the Ji transfer. I'm confident he wouldn't get a job at another premier league or championship club, but he's here down to some tenuous link to Ellis Short.

 

Nail on head mate!

 

Players come and go. Managers come and go yet every year it's the same old relegation battle.
One person has remained constant during these depressing times. Ellis Short.
He's got to put up or ship out and quickly. Only major investment is going to stop the undeniable rot at the SOL.

 

Totally agree that the board is holding us back. This abysmal period of the last few years has coincided, more or less, with Short's tenure.
I think we can safely say the director of football set up has been a failed experiment.
Can it really be the case that we've just been unlucky to have a succession of bad managers: oneill; past it PDC; nut job Poyet; stubborn and loved himself.
We all mocked when Poyet said there was some thing seriously wrong at the club. Yes he had his failings but he probably closer to the truth than we may have thought.
I think Short needs to get a football person in to advise him so that he can start to make the right decisions and avoid cock up after cock up

 

Exactly mate, the board hire the manager and DOF, they in turn bring in the players etc.. It's the puppet master and his muppets who have let us down.

 

Good post and good questions/summation.

For me, the buck stops with Ellis Short, he alone owns the club, not the board. They take their directives from Short, it is he alone that sets targets and budgets and the board ensure that these are met. They don't determine what the targets/budgets are or how much money there is available, well they do, but only under the limitations put in place by the owner.

It's pretty obvious that Short wants to get the club on an even footing financially, finishing wherever in the league is secondary imo at this moment in time. He will balance the books at all costs, he has to, as he was a major player in setting up the FFP rules. Unfortunately this is all to our detriment as can clearly be seen by the state we're in. The fact that he is a multi billionaire is immaterial as he will not go against the FFP rules, he's a yank and a bible bashing yank at that so my guess is this is where we will be for the foreseeable future. Staving off relegation and scrapping it out at the wrong end of the EPL season after season. (if we're lucky)

I'm pretty sure he has footballing ambition but the penny hasn't dropped to the fact that if he wants the club to be anything other than fodder, then he has to dig deep and spend money.

Not long ago we considered ourselves a bigger club than the likes of Stoke, Palace, West Brom, West Ham, maybe Villa, Southampton and the likes, these clubs are streets ahead of us now. Sad but very, very true. It's a shame as we now have a decent manager in place who with some financial backing could take us on to be able to compete at a mid table level, if only the owner would change his recruitment policies and stick his hand in his very large pockets.

 

Ellis short was there just to put the money into the club. It's the people around him who have let the side down. Spending money has dried up so looks like he is bored and must go now.

 

Don't agree mate. Don't think for one minute that Short lets his board squander his money without him giving consent. I believe that in his naivety he was misled by the board, DOF's, managers etc but the final say is his, he authorises every signing.

 

Away mate he made his cash in oil, this was just a lil project for him he knows not about football. should have left with sir niall Quinn

 

Sorry mate, he did not.. No oil involved... Private equaty and real estate.

 

Can't argue with that mate. I work with yanks in the oil game and trust me, every last dollar is a prisoner, they may have loads of dosh but they don't like spending it and usually play by the rules as well. Why could we not get some rich arab?

 

I used to feel sorry for Short thinking that he had got some bad advice from the people around him which resulted in a lot of the money he initially pumped into the club being wasted. It seems like all of the previous mistakes are making him want to put his cheque book away, bury his head in the sand and hope for the best, which is going to result in relegation which he will have to take the bulk of the blame for as he's been the one calling the shots at the club for a long time now.

The whole director of football setup is a farce as well, if anything it seems to make our recruitment move at the speed of a glacier, it doesn't help us sign quality players, it doesn't help us get rid of players so what the **** does Congerton do all day, just trawling through the ****ing sale rail for players as far as I can tell and ****ing up loan contracts potentially costing the club millions (he should have been sacked for being incompetent when this came to light tbh)

The players aren't blameless, most of them just aren't good enough and the rest just don't put the effort in but we can't shift any of them on because Congerton is ****ing clueless and can't find a buyer for any of them. I feel that Dick has been let down massively but should be able to get more out of the players at the club at the minute and our previous managers (while still ****e) I think were let down by the board at the club as well.

 

That may be true mate, but he may also be restricted by budgets. Are we looking in Harrods shop window?or Aldi's? we don't know, so to say he's **** at his job is wrong imo. He could be the best in the business but if he's not got the money spend in the first place he ain't going to produce much is he?

 

I've put in on here before but here it is again.

Since 2009, which is around the time Short took over, our average net spend on transfers is £4.5 million.
That is no model for success.

I don't know our income amounts. I can have a guess that the TV money covers the wage bill which leaves the other incomes from gate receipts ( my guess is £16-£20 million) merchandising (£1-£3 million) sponsorships (£?) concerts and SOL functions ( anything up to £5 million) and there is probably other incomes that I'm unaware of.
Outgoings must include SOL maintainance, energy costs, insurances and other miscellaneous costs, maybe £10-£15 million. I have no idea how much Short and the board get paid but that would be included in the wages costs.

Looking at various googled sites we appear to be around tenth in the spending on players lists although looking around at other teams spending this seems unreal to me. The same with our wage bill. Imagine 22 of our squad getting £50,000 each a week, that would cost £55 million a year. Is this anywhere near the reality? What do Jones or Bridcutt get for example.

We are told that some players are still being paid even though they are no longer with us. Is this amount as much as we are led to believe? Who are these players?, Waghorn? Ba?

As I've mentioned, these are only guesses and you are welcome to list a more accurate number, or your guess, to try to make sense of our yearly limit of £4.5 million net spend since 2009.

Finally, I thought that until they scored yesterday both teams looked to be reasonably evenly matched. After their fortunate goal we seemed disinterested and were second to the ball all too often.
Maybe we will come good, I hope so, but this has all the signs of being déjà vu all over again.

 

No doubt that he is having to work to a budget (as anyone in his position would) but his failure to shift players surplus to requirements must be a big contributing factor in us having a smaller budget (Fletcher,Graham, Bridcut, Buckley, Mavrias, Roberge) I don't feel he's ever managed to get us good value when signing players (£10 million for Rodwell who had barely player for 2 years for example), I think I'm right in saying Colback left for free on his watch and the Alvarez loan fiasco is a sackable offence on it's own in my eyes. I think there is enough evidence there to say that he is **** at his job, or at least he's been **** so far for us.

 

Can't quote Colback mate, he was adamant he was leaving regardless of new contracts offered, he was swayed by the dark side.

As for Fletcher, Graham, Bridcutt and Buckley, etc, who the **** in their right mind would take them on? oh aye, i forgot, US. The best we could hope for is to offload them to a Championship side at best.

Lets not forget he did get shot of Dozy and brought in Defoe for next to nowt.

 

The senior players are getting away with murder here.

 

Short might be the one to say how much money is available for transfers, but doubt he is the one to choose the players,