Lessons Learned?

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devonsurfer

Member
Jun 5, 2011
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With relegation out of the league looking very real, I had a quick browse of Argyle internetland to gauge the mood.

Gee Whizz there are some very short memories out there in Argyle land. I remember just a short few years ago when Argyle were playing the likes of Newcastle and we'd just been relegated from the Championship.

"Oh well at least we'll get to see a few more wins next year in League One" said many of the bewildered Green Army.
More losses and relegation followed.
"Oh well at least we'll get to see a few more wins next year in League Two" said many of the bewildered Greeny Army.
More losses and almost certain relegation is looming.
"Oh well at least we'll get to see a few more wins next year in BSP" say many of the bewildered Green Army.

FFS people, wake up and smell the coffee!!! How many more kickings are necessary before people realise that the downward spiral is still in full swing? If Argyle in its current guise with the current squad goes down to the BSP then we might have a mid-table side. What will happen though is that we will shed any players with any value, restructure cost-wise for an even lower league, sign even more inferior players and start getting regularly thrashed again.
The club has got to stop selling its limited talent whenever it gets relegated and put a stake in the ground and not allow any further shrinkage or cuts. The club has always been a division behind where it needs to be in terms of squad quality.

In the Championship we had a team good enough for League One.
In League One we had a team good enough for League Two (barely!).
In League Two we have a team good enough for BSP.

Can you see the pattern? If the decline is to stop then we need an owner/management that is prepared to put on the brakes of decline and stop selling talent, stop shedding and stop cutting each time we go down. Will be a bitter financial pill for JB to swallow but it's the only way to stop the decline. Every time you restructure you put yourself back to square one and at the bottom of the heap below competing teams that are already stable, established, competitive and on the up.
 
Yes I've read those comments as well surfer although I don't think the writers were agreeing with the management decisions made. It is difficult to see where Brent will not restructure once more. He is a number cruncher and openly has said he won't put his hand in his pocket. To do so will take a massive change in his way of thinking. The thing that gets to me most is who was advising him all along. There are football people at the club with experience in most of how things work. Either they were very silent or they told him and he just didn't listen. The alternative being he listened to the wrong people.

I am not hopeful this season but I would like to think that we won't be sliding further. Not based on any sort of knowledge just based on the rot has to stop somewhere and the luck change. You are right though. Brent needs to take a pace backwards and have a long hard look at what he has done so far and why things have gone wrong so badly. He then has to decide if he is actually going to be an owner of the club and take responsibility or he is going to bale out and let somebody, if there is anybody, do it. I am not holding my breath that he will do either. Certainly not until his building portfolio has been completed anyway. For me that has always been his main objective and the club was the inconvenience that went with it. We will however soon see if his statement at the outset that Plymouth must have a professional football team and he was going to raise it back to it's former glory has any merit in it at all.
 
Best lesson learned so far is the ignore list but let me take a guess..... Argyle fans are stupid and pathetic for putting up with this, probably a mention of coffee smells, we will be doomed in the BSP and we have to start spending money we do not have. We always sell our best players, buy crap, any idiot can see where the problems are blah,blah,blah. Fans fault for accepting this and we need to change it.
The end is nigh, doomed, doomed I tell ya..... I think we all appreciate the position without the annual rhetoric. I must have missed the celebratory posts when relegation was avoided, despite the assurances of our immigrant 'expert', last year.

:emoticon-0113-sleep :emoticon-0113-sleep :emoticon-0113-sleep :emoticon-0113-sleep :emoticon-0113-sleep
 
I read on another website that "if this was any other club there would be a riot at the goings on". Not by devonsurfer though mexijan but one of the perpetual moaners about everything. The simple fact is that this has happened at other clubs and Argyle are not unique by any stretch of the imagination. Riots? Well I haven't heard about any so branding Janners as being more pathetic than others in this respect is just not true. What can the average supporter do in reality. Stop going to show dissent, stand outside the ground with a placard, write to the press as Mr Angry. This is not the supporters fault. There is a mindset at the club about cashing in early on any talent and not investing beyond means. The Administration was brought about by not entertaining sufficient people and buying twice as much dross at a higher price than the good players we sold for profit. Over staffing in panic mode. Again this was not brought about by supporters. I think most average intelligent supporters can see a lot of what is wrong at the club. Changing it or even having any sort of power to do so is another matter. I enjoy the matchday as I've said often. Why should I therefore deny myself that making a protest of not going when in my heart I know it would change nothing.
 
Sensible, like Mexijan, I'm a firm believer in the Ignore list but I think Mexijan was making the point, tonge in cheek, that we know we're in deep ****, thank you.

Facts to remember though:


Nobody makes bad decisions deliberately. Other than hindsight, there's no magic formula to ensure you buy only good players and get the most out of them, apart from finding that 1 in 10 manager who makes a difference. Names in a hat?

Football finances generally are bad & getting worse. I see this morning that Coventry haven't paid the rent on their stadium and are facing an administration order - again. Portsmouth are still teetering on the brink dependent on the valuation of their stadium. Even those who have already forgotten how close we came to extinction may one day be glad we've had financial discipline imposed on us.

Argyle fans have been invited to participate in the running of the club and as far as I can see, have rejected it. This contrasts with Portsmouth fans who are on the point of buying theirs outright.

You're right, there were few buyers interested in buying Argyle when it was on offer for next to nothing and the fans variously had the knives out for all those that did bid. There's no reason to think that's changed​
.
 
So what did James Brent offer the "fans" for upto £400.000 of the club in regards "running" it.
 
I don't agree with your fans involvement point one bit notdistant. The supporters had an outfit up and running who, had Brent been serious, he could have engaged with. Instead there was a campaign both by club officials and by pasoti heirachy to undermine this set up and Brent attempted to impose a supporters group on the supporters of his own choosing. The elections were a face for this. I read on pasoti last night that the set of minutes for the last meeting between the two have yet to be published. This is 10 days after the event. Where is the openess in this or even half hearted attempt to engage for real.

Brent offered nothing in exchange for £400k. Not a place on the Board nor a vote for anything. In other words you give me £400k and I will pocket it and use your money how I see fit and give you nothing for it. Why? To save him having to put his hand in pocket is my opinion. It's his fan's group nobody else's and he can chose to ignore it or speak to it at will. They are expected to toe the club line and sing from his own hymn sheet. That is the worst kind of interaction with the fans I ever heard of. There is simply no place for any fan to take a hand in running the club anywhere that is meaningful. A complete joke of an offer.
 
Why is it moan whinge gripe? There is nothing said in my piece that isn't true apart from the one bit which is opinion and not based on fact. There is nothing whingy about telling the truth and not liking the truth. The fans have been disengaged as far as I can see unless you are one of the supposed super fans who sit in the Director's Box on matchday. Very few people wanted the PASB and that was quite plain to see given the number of posts around the sites that said so. These sites are both visited by Jones and contributed to by Jones under a hidden name. It is a fact that he used pasoti to undermine the Trust personally. Much angst was caused when somebody complained and they were told, by him, to buy a Man U shirt and support them. Don't tell me that Brent is not aware of this because I won't believe that.

The only supporter involvement is on Brent's terms and with an organisation he personally set up. Even against a backdrop of it being unpopular. Minutes haven't been published. All of that is fact. He only offered a finacial deal one way, his way, and for nothing at all in return. Another fact. Why he should expect people to just hand over money when they have no say in where it would go or any say in anything else is beyond comprehension to me. Would he do that? We know the answer is not on your nelly so why expect anyone else to. The only supporter involvement I can see is the continuation of good numbers going to matches and nothing the other way. That is not openess or involvement by him or the club. Smoke and mirrors whilst his other deals take form you might think if you were a bit cynical.
 
Brent is no different than the last bunch we had.. As for the fans trust.. What has happened to it or did it ever kick off. Webb has his say on all that as he has in tongue well and truly in Brent
 
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