The Premier League Thread

For most clubs, yes, that is the case. The only exception being the few that are owned by supporters trusts.

 

If your club's leadership gives absolutely no ****s, this is entirely true.

I do think that fans can break the complacency, though. For better or worse, Swansea's board moved earlier than we did to remove an underperforming manager because, well, it took the growing pressure off of them, as Swansea's support has gotten rather venomous. While that's a far cry from resolving their own issues overall, there's a good chance they'll survive and we won't because they felt the need to make a move in December, while we dithered until late March.

 

Brighton 1-1 Spurs. Brighton just equalised with a penalty.

 

There will never be a another season that three promoted clubs enjoy as much as this. Ever.

 

It's possible fans can have some influence, but ultimately the decision to stick or twist when it comes to a manager, and every other decisions, is completely down to the owner. Football club's aren't democracies, or even republics (which is more what Portsmouth were when we were fan-owned). And there's no knowing how an owner's attitude or objectives might change over time or who they might sell to. For me personally I wasn't so much concerned about Eisner taking over, but what would happen after him. Unless the Eisner's intend to keep the business in the family for generations, like some NFL teams.

 

Unquestionably, but modern football clubs are businesses. While there are some clubs that are run seemingly on spite alone (and I won't mention which in your previous post I refer to there because I don't wish to be sued), most are keenly aware of customer discontent because they want revenues.

Now, this doesn't meant that clubs run off the whims of the fans (I don't believe that the sacking of Puel owed to the fairly muted discontent expressed by fans last year, as an example), or anything close to it, just that fans do have indirect influence. Unfortunately, though, most modern businesses are only really responsive if you kick up a fuss.

 

I keep being told that the fans don’t have an impact on these things.....

 

“Fairly muted”

Fans were in the teams back very early for a lot of games. Of course the fans had an impact.

 

The promoted clubs have won 3,4 and 6 more games than us respectively.

We need to win three more games.

 

Fairly muted compared to the (frankly, over the top) expressions of discontent at Swansea, and West Ham, and elsewhere? Damned right they were.

Some groaning in the stands doesn't affect their bottom line. What teams care about are things that might.

 

“some Groaning”??

You clearly didn’t experience a match Day in that time then.

 

So, tell me. When were tens of thousands of people chanting "you greedy bastards, we want our club back" through large sections of the home games and protesting outside the stadium? Or straight-up accosting directors? I'm absolutely not recommending that, mind, but ye gods we have lowered the bar if anything our crowds did last year could be construed as truly venomous.

 

1. I didn’t say it was as bad
2. I didn’t say it was truly venomous


I have said for a long time that Saints fans could have had an affect on the team and then what happened to Puel. I was ridiculed and a couple of posters have continually referred to that several times since. Now you are saying that fans can affect club decisions, but of course not Saints, because you know .... it doesn’t suit the narrative. Les Reed and the rest of the Board would have sat through several games last year where the atmosphere was negative and the team were booed. I don’t think they sat there and thought, “well at least they are not being truly venomous,” or “at least nobody’s accosting the Directors.”

It really makes me wonder why some support a team when they can only find negatives against the club and won’t allow any mitigation on anything. Everything gets delivered as fact.

I am actually beginning to think where we are now is what some of our fans deserved to get hit with. It’s just a shame everyone of us has to suffer it too.

 

No, rather I think it's quite a stretch to imagine that it was fans that produced it given that i) the fans were much more vocal with Pellegrino, including the not infrequent "you don't know what you're doing", yet he remained for a good four months thereafter, and ii) it was widely reported that Puel had fallen out with the players, and that was a driving force for the change. Something that has gained credence recently with the reports that Puel has fallen out with the players at Leicester, too.

Yes, as always, it's an incredible shame that we all drag the team down by failing to be as good a fan as you are.

I give up. I'll stop distracting you from your 2500th sanctimonious diatribe about the fanbase.

 

Oh dear Schad, your last sentence. That’s all you’ve got? Come on. No need to resort to that, you’re better than that.

On the rest of it, you’ve once again put things as fact. I didn’t and never have said the fans produced it, I said they had an affect. You seem to suggest they couldn’t have had an affect because they weren’t as venomous as other club’s fans. “You don’t know what you’re doing” was also sung to Puel. I think that maybe (that’s not a fact, thats a maybe) the Board this time around felt they had to wait before acting because they’d ditched Puel too early. I think hey may have put themselves in a corner on that.

Could have. May have. Areas of grey. Contributing factors.

I thank you though for recognising my position as a top fan. Super Fan I believe. I can’t acceot this award though as I’ve not been to the games, bar a handful, this season.

 

I think you're overestimating the quality of the lower Premier League and underestimating how good the championship is these days. If/when we get relegated it isn't going to be a cakewalk to get promoted. Plenty of quality to challenge us.

 

Good time to remember that we lost both games to bottom club Bristol City, the year we got promoted.

 

I’ll give you the courtesy of replying to your edit.

Are you giving up on a discussion/debate because you’ve been challenged? This always happens. It’s ok to post message after message pointing out the failings that we all know are there about our club, yet the moment it’s mitigated, the stones start to get thrown.

You’ve posted for a long time. You’ll maybe remember that for many a season I suggested that the moment that we didn’t continue our progression upwards, that a large number of the fan base would not be able to deal with it, such is the expectation. That happened.

We were always unlikely to sustain the upward momentum we had. Last year was, in my opinion, a poor reaction from our fan base. I believe my criticism of it is justified (and Predicted) just as much as your criticism of how the club has been managed is justified.

It makes me laugh that you are happy to have open criticism on the club and how it’s been managed (again I’ll say justified as I have above), yet any criticism of the fan base is ridiculed.

If you can’t hack me offering a flip side to your point of view, put me on ignore. That would be a shame though as I get told a forum is for debating, or to use another word, challenging.

Is it wrong I challenged the attitude of the fans?

I bet you have questioned and delivered your 2500th stat on why the club has been managed wrong. That’s ok though, but just don’t challenge the fans?!

 

I remember you saying in the past that as soon as the upward curve stopped then some fans would lose their ****. That isn't exactly a ground breaking prediction though as there are a large number of football fans who are complete idiots and only remember as far back as 2 weeks ago when it comes to football.

I would suggest though that to call this season "not continuing our progression upwards" is a huge understatement, and in a worst case scenario (not that I am saying it will happen, but there is a chance) we may end up virtually back where we were when the upward progression started.

As for the general theme of yours and Schad's discussion, do I think some of our fans are entitled due to our success? Yes. Do I think they have had a part to play in the current situation the club finds itself in? A small part. Do I think our fans are different to any other fanbase in the country? No.

 

I can’t disagree with anything you’ve said here. I’ll add that although this season is more than a blip, I was referring to last season in not being a continuation of our upward trend. My point there being that was the time for our fans not to react the way they did, realise that it wasn’t that bad, rather than be one of the contributing factors that lead to us changing the manager to one who was simply not good enough. Puel may not have been the right fit in a lot of people’s eyes, but he was capable and good enough to do a job. He may or may not have developed into something better, but we ended up with MP2 and the rest is sore, recent history.