I must ask the question as to where the leadership will come from during our most desperate time of need. Is it me or have the top brass disappeared off the radar and left Derek to shoulder all the blame for this totally unacceptable debacle? Hiding in your office, or on your island of choice, will not solve any problems, unless you consider the future of Bristol Rugby Club as your only priority. Leadership is the only thing that we need right now and I just don't see it coming from the people at the top or from the players in the dressing room. Surely there must be someone willing to stick their head above the parapet and take the potshots that will inevitably come their way from the likes of us. We are, after all, the backbone of the revenue streams that help to keep us in business, and yet we are the seemingly the last thing on the minds of the so called decision makers. Is there possibly another agenda of which we are unaware or are we, and Derek, just being treated like lambs being taken to the slaughter? Where the hell are SL and CS during these troubled times or are they just too busy with something more important? I don't know about the rest of you but I'm absolutely appalled at the lack of leadership from those who should be shoulder to shoulder with us during this time. If survival in the Championship is as important to you as it is to the supporters then may I suggest you get off your backsides and tell us what you intend to do, and when.
My worry is that DM will pack his bags in the summer and leave like Coppell did. I hated Coppell at the time but to be honest I can see why he did jump a sinking ship. I'm pretty sure someone said on here before that he isn't happy with the current state of affairs. It's not as if we are the most economically deprived team in this league but I can't understand why we act like we are!? I know you have to be cautious and we are making huge annual losses but relegation will cripple the club more than signing the players we need??
Don't think Lansdown can do any more he's backed us all the time. But we will need the biggest backing in the summer if were still in the championship
There was a mention on here earlier this year AshtonMatt that it was rumoured in Scotland that DM was unhappy due to apparent broken promises by our board. It was felt that his experience might precipitate his return to his roots north of the border. Many on this site have questioned our belief in the "cheap option" approach and I can understand SL's reluctance to pour good money after bad but relegation will be a very expensive long term option. I'm sure he's aware that you have to speculate to accumulate but perhaps somewhere in between lies the near perfect solution. I just hope that the powers that be haven't adopted the belief that everything will take care of itself because that would be wrong.
Rumours of broken promises, surely not from our board. This was the reason Cops gave when he left that when he took the managers job he was promised things by SL who didn't live up to his word. Now it sounds like the same is happening again. I am sure that DM probably wanted to strengthen the squad more in January and guess was stopped from doing so as I can understand the board need to balance the books and we have a very large squad of players which are so poor in quality other clubs dont want them so we have had to release some instead.
As an aside to the original thread I would like to respond to andyyandyy. How many of our exisitng squad are out of contract in the summer and of this bunch are there any worth keeping? We have been overweight with players for years because under previous regimes the only answer to problems was to bring in more players, even if they did not play in the positions where we were weak. Many people have highlighted the fact that our wage bill is way over the odds for the results on the pitch. Obviously fiscal responsibility is the order of the day in current economic times but surely it is plainly obvious to us all that our outlay hasn't got us the results that it should. Major change is needed and unless that fact is accepted by our board then someone please close the door on the way out.
I look at us and make comparisons to Chelsea as think they have similar problems to us. Most of our squad is still the squad GJ had and then on top of that we have players Cops brought in that havenât cut it and... a few Millen also brought in. I am sure that the squad size needs to drop down to around the 23 man mark which is about 2 players per position as we dont need any reserve players anymore. If this was the case DM will need to get rid of at least 10 players I would imagine to start bringing in the players he wants which is a big ask. I think he/the club was right to have let players like Hunt and LJ go as I would imagine they are on £5k a week plus and they will never feature for the club again before their contracts are up so best to get rid of them now at a cheaper rate. Stewart has been loaned out and hopefully he will be another to go. I will admit I was a little surprised to see Stead start as given his twitter comments recently and has been linked with a loan move to Brighton I thought he might go as he is one of the highest paid players at the club and recently has just been sitting on the bench. Currently I count we have 33 players in our squad (includes 5 loaned in) but we have 4 loaned out. I'm sure we could all look at the current suad and have different opinions to who should go and stay but we would all be taking a big chunk out as there are quite a few players there who are not championship level or are not worth the wages we are paying them. The question is do we have a big clear out in the summer and start rebuilding from the group up or try to make small changes over a 5 year period?
Good points Andy - I personally feel we need a real clear out this summer whether or not we are relegated. Of course, if we are relegated I think we would be likely to lose Fonts and Adomah. Can't imagine those two happy about playing League One football. I've said before that next season we should retain Gerkin, Ribs, Fonts, Wilson, Foster, Pearson, Skuse, Adomah, Bolasie, Stead and Pitman. But in not the manager and I don't see these players on a day to day basis so in Del we must trust. I see what your saying about Stead but personally I think he's undroppable. Always gives it his all and a very talented player at this level. Him and Pitters are surely a match made in heaven!?
