I did laugh when Lambert was droning on about 'getting everyone around the table' and bemoaning the lack of infrastructure. He's been here for over two years, why has it taken him this long to get everyone around the table?! Why hasn't he been more persistent and vocal about the need to overhaul the infrastructure? If you speak to people around the club or read between the lines from some former players' interviews - we come across as a club with a 1990s set-up, an old school approach to scouting and physiotherapy, and a club all too willing to cut corners and to do things on the cheap. Our Director of Football, Sporting Director, and CEO are usually one man doing the same job and, in the case of your Cleggs and Milnes, somebody without any experience in football. We raise it time and again on this forum, but is it any wonder managers are doomed to fail when they arrive and the club has declined so severely over the past decade?
I honestly don't think Marcus Evans gives a monkeys about the club. He certainly hasn't showed an iota of leadership during his time here. He has no vision. His 'Five Point Plan' gets broken every season. He has no connection with the fanbase. You compare and contrast that to how successful clubs at this level - like Lincoln, Accrington, Peterborough, and Portsmouth are run by their owners (who generally appear to care and have a clear business strategy in place) - and it's truly eye-opening. It's frustrating that we have to be so critical of our owner, and I feel like a stuck record having to bring it up all the time, but it's so obvious to us all! I honestly believe that we are saddled with one of the worst owners in English football. Just look at our record. He doesn't invest in the club, it all gets turned into debt owed to him. It's standing at over £100 million now. Evans gets such an easy pass by the media, where the nationals just brainlessly parrot the simplistic 'be careful what you wish for / you shouldn't have sacked McCarthy' line.
I think it is abundantly clear we need a new manager. Just as we need a new owner, a new Director of Football, a new sports science team, a new scouting set-up, a clearer mindset of what we want to achieve as a club, better engagement and communication with supporters, and for someone senior to actually care about the state of the club. Unfortunately for us, there are not many rich, football-mad multi-millionaires who are willing to buy football clubs, particularly in this economy. I don't think he or she even has to be a football fan, they most notably need the passion for football and the awareness to hire the right people around them.
One immediate change that can at least inject some life into this club, and maybe get us in for a decent shout at promotion, is a new manager. Paul Lambert must be a dead man walking. Evans should be talking to the likes of Paul Cook and the Cowley brothers and he should be completely open and honest with them. Lay out the state of the club, get their feedback, and back them to make some much-needed changes. At the very least they'd implement a set of expected standards and have a better idea of how to set this team up. Now it won't be enough for lasting success, not without a change at the top, but it should hopefully be enough to get a strong squad for this level realistically competing for promotion and capable of beating half-decent sides.
