Season after season of asset stripping and a managed decline have brought us to this. BFC is dying

Certainly not the club. Houses and beavor court is offices. Houses on Grove st are private. The school is the council.

 

Thanks, thought I had read on here about club buying some more houses for the Academy to stay in.
Which suggested they owned some and were adding to it.

 

I think this best explains. And click show more
https://www.google.com/search?q=who...zQuMjUuMTWgB5inAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

 

Agree skinner with all of this. Look at the season to season running costs player sales etc etc and the £8 million per year being pumped in there is a void of several million and it doesn’t add up ? Something doesn’t smell right how can these people be pumping £8 million a year in and employing Homer Simpson to run the recruitment aspect and sign totally the wrong type of players etc coupled with employing a manager who is tactically out of his depth and belongs in non league.

is it the club can’t attract anybody because in the football internal world managers and players know what can absolute sh*t show our club is and how it’s ran ?

these lot can’t even get the basics right so god help them with running a multi million pound business (BFC) and engaging with its fan base in a fair and professional way

judge us by our actions they say……well we are doing and we are going backwards, the empty seats and apathy tell you the fans have had enough

 

Do you think it's intentional? That they're purposely orchestrating the decline of the club?

If so, why would they continue to spend millions every year on the club that they will only get a return on if they sell?

 

We signed 2 strikers who scored 40 goals between them last season.So I don't agree that we can't attract players.

 

It's not managed decline it's a board and the people the board have employed to run the Club not having a clue how to run a football club and are cocking things up at every opportunity. The recruitment team somehow manage make the squad worse every window the current coaches appear to be draining out what bit of ability and confidence there was in the squad and the off field elements of the club are a mess.

 

trouble is Brian that anybody who comes to BFC it’s never a long term choice to build something good. Players and managers use us a stepping stone taxi ride to further their careers and get to a much better place. Anything that moves is sold, sell reset sell reset sell reset only see us going backwards and dropping lower down through the leagues. There is no strategic plan for what happens on the grass, there is no ambition and the club is ran like a joke shop with the mounting mistakes they make. It’s all about profit margins for the excel spreadsheet.

Fleetwoods scoreboard makes ours look like a Ferguson 20 inch tv and Accrington’s before after match entertainment puts ours to shame is that embarrassing.

For years we have zero improvements to infrastructure match day experience catering communication fan zones car park fiasco scoreboard west stand fiasco etc etc the list goes on and on. Head of recruitment is clueless and we have more coaches the gee vee. Can’t get the basics right so how on earth can the event be trusted.

they will keep us in the dark until the season ticket letters for renewals are due, that’s the only power the fans have is to stop their cash tills ringing and give them the message enough is enough

 

Thats a really good point except no, we didn't.

 

Top and bottom of it is we failed to trim the squad adequately in the summer to free up funds to support the manager, we've hit a poor run where the goals have dried up.
I genuinely believe clarke wanted more options to give us a blan b, as it is, its a back 3 or a back 3, he's tried to play as a 4 but we've nothing in the wide areas either as a winger or proper full backs to play it.
Most teams can second guess us and we are tactically nieve, it's no coincidence that our home form is poor all opposing teams do is close the space, sit back and take the soft chances we inevitably give up, we've seen it time and time again, that poor teams are able to set up with a low block and get a result, 2nd half goals galore when we inevitably become frustrated and switch off.

For us to be a success at this level there's a couple of changes I'd like to see.

Come away from a possession based stats game, Crawley have the 2nd highest possession stats in the Division behind Birmingham who let's be fair skew things with the amount they spend, Crawley almost 59% but a currently bottom 6.
Wrexham only 44% possession but sit 2nd behind Wycombe 51%
Unless you are recruiting quality players your p****** in the wind as ball retention will be poor with high turnover rates, our wingbacks are woeful I bet our crossing accuracy is way down vs what it should be in this formation.

Stop recruiting to a single model, it leaves you in a situation where we find ourselves, we've essentially paid 750k for a number 10 who's not playing in his position that's delivered his stats last season that's effectively why we wanted to sign him, based on last seasons stats.
Focus on giving the manager a smaller quality squad and utilise the academy, good quality pros would bring the young lads on and develop them faster than at present.

I'm not saying we move to let the manager or head coach sign players but focus on the quality rather than ignoring players we think we don't need because their either a full back or a winger, good players are adeptable.
We witnessed clarke desperately trying out formations and change after change to try to find a formula away from wingbacks knowing there not good enough but ultimately his hand was forced due to a lack of options.

Give the guy the right tools to judge him accurately

 

I don't know why, but this made me laugh more than it should have.

 

Who were they?

 

It's the deep state. The club is actually run by an alien paedophile ring plotting our doom by giving us money for free, hiring managers who are great when we win games, but terrible when we lose and intentionally signing the wrong players.

 

I went into the supermarket the other day. All I wanted was some oxo cubes. Woman who worked there said they were out of stock.....sorry had to be done!

 

Referring to Fleetwood's 'better scoreboard', and Accrington's 'better entertainment', it's worth pointing out that both have been recently relegated. One sits 14th in League Two, the other 20th. I reckon they'd swap their scoreboard and entertainment for Barnsley's if it meant they were challenging for promotion to the Championship for a third year running, like Barnsley. Don't get me wrong, ideally you have all the glitz, glamour and mod-cons plus the promotion-challenging squad of players. But we don't live in anything like an ideal world, do we? And the CEO publicly told the fanbase a few weeks ago that the club has now prioritised the playing squad, the coaching staff, the 'promotion challenge' over the so-called 'matchday experience'.

I'm not offering an opinion on whether that's wise or otherwise. But the club has openly stated its major intent is to 'put the money on the pitch'.

As of right now, 18 games in, I've not seen an improvement on last term. But that's just me. Just my opinion. We are four points behind where we were at this stage last year and our goal difference is five times worse. Because from what I can see, we are far easier to get at and then pass up far too many opportunities at the other end. It's not rocket science. If we were able to tighten up at the back a bit and be more clinical in attack, we'd probably be flying. The standard down here isn't great. Do we have the players and staff to achieve that? We'll see over the next 28 games I guess!

I was deflated the other night and I'm lacking enthusiasm for football generally anyway, but it's gameday tomorrow and what better way to get an uplift than by turning over the club who've got a £15,000,000 striker up front?

 

I wouldn't put it past us to beat Birmingham they are a possession based team which suits us, it will basically be an away game where the onus and expectation will be on them, but we need to be clinical we might get 2/3 chances to get a result.
I've seen them a couple of times they are very much about ball retention and grinding teams down

 

The key part of recruitment is the manager. Get a good manager in and then say to him 'ok, what do we need?' Listen to him and use the money being pumped in to back him. Trust the guy if you genuinely think he's good and back him to develop the team. That part of it is not rocket science to me. Its horses for courses (and other cliches which I can't think of). If they genuinely think Clarke is good they'll listen to him in January.

 

Season might be a dead rubber come January.

 

I just want to comment on your point re possession.

I'm not sure I see us as a team that try and retain possession. There have certainly been games this season where us having the ball seemed completely alien, either because we just sat off and let opponents have the ball, or we hoofed it and couldn't retain it.

My feeling is because each game tends to vary so much, Clarke is trying to set out a specific gameplan for each opponent. Though it's hard to cite where that has successfully translated onto the pitch.

Personally I'd rather he focussed on what we do rather than worry about the opponent. It's a poor league 1, I don't think we need to be so preoccupied that we change every week.

My preferred style of football has been to mix it up. Hold the ball when you need to, drive at the opponent when you need to. Try and switch play, hit long balls to turn teams, but try and retain possession while doing something with it, but do everything with intensity and purpose. Create a much toned down league 1 equivalent of Liverpool and I'd be very happy.

At present I'd be content to just know what we're trying to do... Let alone doing it.