There are many to choose from, but which is yours? What was the one calamitous error that tipped us towards relegation? Here are 3 strong contenders, IMO.. 1. Starting the season last August having signed no proven Championship quality players. Meire assured us she had 'learned the lessons'. Instead we soon became reliant on raw kids like Aherne-Grant, and players woefully short of quality like Makienok and Ba. We never stood a chance. 2. Replacing Luzon with Fraeye, and lying to fans by claiming he was interim. It poisoned the atmosphere further, and soon became obvious that, in the words of a Belgian journo, a guy who had been managing in our "equivalent of the Wessex league" was floundering badly in the highly competitive Championship. With a risible 10 points from 13 league games, Karel dyed his hair one last time before departing in a laundry basket. 3. The January transfer window. Poyet - dud. Roger Johnson - worse than a dud. And Rhys Williams. 3 signings, all binned since. Another 100% record of transfer window failure. Cheap panic out of contract signings Fanni and Motta only arrived later. Please feel free to add any others.
You've just about covered it. There are 2 common factors in these 3 decisions: 1) Cheapness is the priority; 2) Football decisions made by non-football people. I've got a feeling Murray was behind the January transfer window debacle- it was just after what the OS refers to as his "Q&A", when he said we needed to bring in more British players.
All of the above ...best moment was the famous Dublin fiasco as it convinced any remaining supporters of the regime that they were bad news and clueless and catalyst for the protests
Mistake No.4 It has emerged this morning that CEO Katrien Meire is currently on holiday...in Dubai In the same week that the business she leads get relegated.
I think there are positives to find within her latest error - she's cracking and needed to get away. RD will surely see how it's getting to her also, and questions must be circling in his head. Not for the good of the club of corse, he's probably more worried about KM. I think this serves as the beginning of her end.
In all fairness when else is a Chief Exec meant to go on holiday? There's no transfer window in play and presumably the close season is a CEOs busiest time so now - when theoretically they have little work of influence to get done - seems logical (having never thought about it before!). Maybe Rick Everitt can tell us all when and where Peter Varney used to go away.
What's the fuss about? She's worse than useless when she's here anyway. She probably read the "Roland & Katrien- time to go" banner and thought it meant time to go on holiday.
Option 2. All the regime decisions were bad, but Karel Fraeye defied any sort of rationality. No experience of UK football, no experience of profesional management, and working as manager for a bunch of part timers who were twelfth out of eighteen in the Belgian división 3 (the subarnock) Riga has now shown there was time to rescue the season. By the time Fraeye left, we were in a nose dive and there was not enough time to turn the Titanic around.
the single worst decision this year was.... when i shelled out for two season tickets after trusting the regime.
The owners decision to post a rant on the OS blaming the fans for all the Clubs problems this season.
Sends out the wrong message, IMO. The ship is just about to sink, and the 'captain' should be on the bridge when it does. Especially as she was the one who steered it into the icebergs
Good point When Rick has emerged from his cloud of sanctimony, I have asked him the same thing on Twitter.
If Roland realises the club can run without a CEO, then hey presto! at a stroke he has another money saving wheeze.
Fraeye. The worst managerial appointment in the history of our club and we've had Dowie and Les Reed. Their stubbornness has killed us and it was like week when it really hit just how badly they had messed us up with those 14 games. I knew from the 1st statement about him becoming "interim" we were in trouble but then to mess it up as badly as they did. Yeah Riga is no mastermind but he does seem like he has put some sort of passion into them, ANY manager would have put more passion into the squad than Fraeye... joke appointment by a Regime and if I ever saw Katrien I along with many others would ask, what the feck was she thinking? And I'd wait for the best excuse in the world before nutting her.
