Mladen Sormaz

Fraud, out of their depth, charlatan, useless, not fit for purpose are some of the words and phrases that are circling my mind in anger.

I've previously stated my thoughts on numerous occasions on this individual, but at the very least I thought they might grow into the role. Learn from their mistakes and improve, but even that seems beyond their capability.

Adding to the frustration is the silence. They continue to hide behind the Head Coach who has to field questions on recruitment, which is something they are not accountable for. In nearly one year at the club, they have appeared once in front of the fans and that was with his boss holding his hand. Khaled wasn't perfect and made some dubious decisions, but at least he fronted up to the fans and corresponded with them regularly.

Simply put, they should not be in the role.

Furthermore, the local mainstream media (Doug O'Kane, Andy Giddings, Leon Wobschall et al) need to up their game and start asking the difficult questions to the Director of Football and not just parrot the clubs' PR for content. Our club is in a negative cycle and this needs to stop.

 

Waste of a wage

 

guy doesn't have a scooby and until he fecks off we are going nowhere

 

That’s how it read, but maybe the insinuation is that I’ve said someone else has said it’s a rebuild? I don’t know. It has me as confused as the club’s business in the transfer window.

I haven’t ever called it a rebuild, for good reason. We’ve key players coming into their last couple of years at the club. The stated aim was promotion (so said Neerav, Clarke, Flatman and Sormaz). The CEO even addressed the state of the stadium, the matchday experience etc at a fan forum by declaring that all the money is on the pitch. That budgets were reduced elsewhere to ensure the best possible product was on show each Saturday/Tuesday.

That doesn’t suggest a rebuild to me. Or change of strategy even.

I’d have personally been behind one. Stop signing average footballers to contracts making a few hundred grand a year and live within the club’s financial means. Utilise the academy that Bobby tells us is the best it’s ever been. Properly fund other areas. Improve the stadium, matchday experience, give fans (youngsters especially) a reason to attend games regardless of the pitch product. A few years ago now, we really made an effort to improve all that and it felt like during the Duff season it was beginning to show. We even had fans come down in the summer and shoot for their seat. Get the ball in the hole and your season ticket was free. Stuff like that. Connecting with the community. Building relationships with famous Barnsley people (Dai Bradley, Stephanie Hirst for example). Just be creative, unique and back yourself.

Things have obviously changed in the last couple of years and I take no pleasure from seeing the current malaise.

 

Agreed, if DC is sacked then yes Mladen will deliver the news but that decision will have been taken above him. I'm not sure why this guy is getting absolutely hammered for our lack of transfer activity when it's those above him setting the budget (did we even have one this transfer window?) and making the final decisions. What's Mladen suppose to do when he's got no money to work with?
I wouldn't be surprised if both Mladen and DC want the **** away from this shambles but clearly they won't just quit without a pay out.

 

That's exactly how I see it too.

 

It would be interesting to hear Mladen's opinions on how he thought the transfer window went.

 

Because ultimately he will be fully aware of the budget he has to work with, he chased a No:10 for over a month in the summer when we needed a proper number 9.
He was a director at 777 partners the sole reason he was brought in (it out there in black and white) was Jon Flatman said he could understand and interprit Data that they couldn't.
The guy has then implemented a football and coaching methodology through the club determining how we play, which in turn has seen our home form fall off the cliff face.
He's been brought in to run the football operation and operate within a budget, so many transfers over the past 4 weeks were good business by clubs that didn't cost transfer fees.
He was given the benefit of doubt in the summer after not addressing the issues, we did the same last minute deals for a NO:10 and a wide player, it's happened again.

 

Just my opinion on all of this.
Firstly another shockingly bad transfer period....2/3 strikers required in summer (as quoted by Clarke)...still none (out and out) brought in.
Anyway I think, as I stated in the summer the board should have released a mission statement....telling all the fans we are skint and this will be the way forward...prudent measures....and would you (fans) please as the heartbeat of the club, just bear with us s couple of seasons to address the situation we are in.
Dortmund did it a few years ago...and the fans accepted the mess and continued to support.
At the moment despite a plethora of management and fan advisory thingy and social media at our finger tips, we still have difficulty telling the fan base how it is properly. I think the £8million loss per season, from Flatman was a good start but they needed to follow up with that and tell us the short, medium and long term strategy on how they intend to solve this.
I don't want to know every 24 hours how things are but just regular updates...say once per month.
I don't want any upper management soundbites...just give it to us straight on how the running of this club is being managed.
Personally....the academy needs a look at, to trim costs and we need (we probably do) to accept that selling at least £1million of players per season is the normal.
Looking at this transfer window, imho we are skint.....as I refuse to believe we cannot attract a striker of some aptitude for league one, with the time we have had....just what is going on with recruitment?
Over to the board.

 

29th May 2024

 

More chance of getting the man from Del Monte.

 

I'm not going for it now, I don't want you buggers moaning at me all day !

 

Totally agree with you pal, Sorma

Totally agree with you pal.
Sormaz couldn't buy a decent drink in a hotel bar.

 

Home form during the whole of 2024 was pants and he was there for 11 of the 12 months. It shows no sign of improvement and someone has to take ownership of that.

 

I believe he lives in the Olive Groves of Lundwood.

 

I could have written that in 4 words He'll **** it up

 

would that be sheriff flatman.....coming up on second base behind nicholas van what's his face???

 

Yeah, the exact words may not have been ‘re-build’, perhaps ‘transition year’ was the phrase. I read that to mean the same thing, roughly.

I read that late last year from you - pretty sure, but stand corrected if not. I remember it as I was thinking the same myself.

I only referenced you, as currently you’ll have a little more in-depth knowledge of the current set up a bit, but appreciate as time goes on, you’ll lose that insight a little.

That’s all

 

You say that he's commercially switched on but he's overseen the absolute destruction of our catering facilities and therefore all additional spend from customers.

On Saturday I looked at a hotdog stall that didn't sell a single item at half time. Not one. The lass working in it spent the entire time leant at the back of the kiosk on her phone.
The "fast serve" express kiosk must have sold less than 10 pints so far this season, it's always deserted.
The general beer stalls are absolutely empty every week with no customers at all.
Why? Because flatman has overseen the decision to price customers out. They're charging too much and from what I've read in the fab minutes it appears they're too stubborn or stupid to realise it.

And don't get me started on the excellent commercial decision to break the law week in week out by refusing to display prices at the food kiosk.

Commercial acumen? The man's got none from what I see at matches, either that or he simply doesn't give a ****