Would you rather the club be in league two but owned by supporters

Or floating around as we are now between championship and L1, being used as a player trading vehicle to line the pockets of people with no connection with the club

 

Does it need to be either or? If no money is being invested why can't a supporter owned club with the right appointments get us floating around league 1/ championship?

 

Championship stability with entertaining football and the odd Cup run does for me. It's what i got used to after that glorious 80/81 season

 

I want to watch Championship level Football at the very least.

 

What a strange post

 

The owners are often accused as using us as a 'player trading vehicle', but when was the last time we sold any of our key players?

We had our 4th best ever season last year, and kept hold of all of our 'assets' this season, barring the head coach.

To my recollection, Jacob Brown is the last saleable asset we cashed in on. And that's going on for 2 years ago.

We'd still need to trade players, even if we become fan owned.

I do get the frustration around the current ownership, but the amount of misinformation, rumour and exaggeration that's flying around is getting a bit ridiculous.

 

Not really, the “would you rather” format is a common method of encouraging debate on a particular topic.

 

A couple of months ago we had the CEO whingeing and moaning that the club couldn't sell any of the players because of the style of play, so, despite it being successful in terms of winning football games, it had been changed to get back to the primary goal of selling players. They may not be very good at selling players but I think it's fair to say the intent is still there.

 

I think sometimes we forget that in a 46 game season there will be three teams that relegated and with all the will in the world you might not be good enough. No matter who you are. This season we fall into that bracket. Forest, Leicester, Southampton, Sunderland, Charlton, Ipswich, Portsmouth, Wolves. Nobody is too good to go down.

You can go down with 23 wins. (That will never happen).

 

I’m glad someone has said it. The idea that this seasons’s decline is all due to some nefarious plot by the owners is utterly ridiculous.

Several really important people walked out on the club. They weren’t sold, or pushed out - they chose to leave.

Yes, their replacements have been disappointing, but poor signings are hardly unique to this group of owners.

 

That’s what we were accustomed to through the 80s and 90s and historically that’s where we belong.
However, the landscape has changed dramatically in the last 20 years and standing in the game now is generally based on finance. That’s why we’re now looking at L1 as our level. To be fan owned and in L2 would be acceptable right now but obviously the aim would be to reach L1 and hopefully above in the future. With 10k plus gates that should be achievable.

 

Don't forget Wednesday. Massive they are

 

As Jay has pointed out. The only reason they didn’t sell is because the offers didn’t come in. They’ve literally destroyed the whole style of play that was so successful to try and sell more players.

 

Is there a question as to why they all chose to leave at the same time?

 

It’s clearly an unhappy camp when everyone goes at the same time. Even our long standing physio had had enough.

 

I don't think anyone is saying we wouldn't have to sell players. The difference since this group took over is that we are a player trading vehicle first and foremost. Their intent is to sell players and keep the conveyor belt going. Supposedly to sell a player and then through some form of alchemy, find a better player for less than what we've just sold at.

But as you point out, pretty much since covid came along and exacerbated the long standing perilous state of championship finances, they've sold more coaches than they have players (well, at profit anyway).

It's ironic that the collapse of the championship market has likely hit us harder than they perhaps expected, given their pious statements in the media of how we're sustainable while making operating losses year on year.

 

Dane Murphy walked out. But it was our owners who will have outlined the contract for him and would have/should have been aware he could walk out with no notice period. That mistake has been costly beyond words and lost the most continuity.

Ismael was allowed to walk out. But it was our owners who insisted on a clause meaning a fee would trigger his release.

It's not a plot. It's just their raison d'etre.

 

They probably read the BBS and thought, f*c* this for a game of soldiers...

 

I'm not sure that's definitely the case. I just think that when you have a successful charismatic leader who has boosted the profile of all our players and staff, and then he leaves, means that other staff members also seize the opportunity to move for more money/prestige etc of the back of that success. I think we all knew that without Valerian we were unlikely to repeat the success of last year.
It may also be that some members of staff didn't get on with the first new manager, and now some may not get on with the new new manager.