So to sum up …

I dont think he's good enough, and the abuse he got was too much. Doesnt change the fact though that we have literally bare bones in that position. That's all I'm saying mate.

 

Didn't you think Collins was the same? The bloke had been linked to the Walsall job before us, the only experience of Football management was in America.

 

Other than the fact that neither Connell nor Phillips actually attracted any interest? We do tend to take things for granted.

 

If only that were the main problem!

 

The FACT they didn’t attract interest? Based on what?

A football agent got Sam Cosgrove a loan at a top four league one club and Ben Killip a deal in the championship.

It would not have been the toughest gig to find bids for either of them. Especially Phillips.

If they wanted to sell them, they would have.

 

As opposed to the FACT that they did attract interest do you mean? The FACT is that neither of us know whether they did or not, and that was the purpose of my post.

 

I feel sorry for DC for not being given the best tools, but I'm still not happy with the way he uses the tools he does have.

 

We don't know that. Maybe some bids came in but they were nowhere near our valuation? The contract situation for both players means we have absolutely no need to sell either of them on the cheap.

 

Exactly my point. We just don’t know. Perhaps my post was badly written, but I was simply questioning the assumption that the club chose not to sell the players concerned. That’s all.

 

What's all this about? I haven't seen any evidence Cosgrove got "dogs abuse" at all, or that the theoretical abuse was too much.

A lot of people on the BBS eventually came to the conclusion he wasn't very good and shouldn't be playing, much like the manager did. But he had a hell of a lot of support and well wishes for a long time in the false hope that he'd contribute to the team.

I've seen an awful lot of other players in my time receive much greater levels of criticism - warranted or otherwise - than Cosgrove.

 

Have you got twitter bud?

 

Yeagh folks are queuing up around the block to buy us.

 

This is my issue with people like you though, just because we aren't screaming the place down suddenly means JAQ can do no wrong and we're all lovey dovey. Its just not the case

 

For me one of the issues going under the radar is why do our 1st choice then our 2nd choice targets turn us down. is it that absolutely everyone pays more than us and money is the only factor. Could it be that insider knowledge in the game sez don't do ther it's run like a toilet. On the accounting side who's doing the books ?. not that I'm up on it but a few seasons back we we're 6m in debt, sold 11m in players to be 8m in debt, before anyone says it's in installments it's guaranteed income and shows as a positive in the accounts. Lastly who is Maidan and what the hell are we paying him and his team for cos there's a saving right there, said in previous posts we're top heavy on Chiefs and Scouts and neglecting the Indians who do the work. My view is the top brass want to give off the impression that we're a mini Man City with all this technical setup but actually don't understand the bread and butter ethics of a provincial low level club like us and by the time they do it'll be too late.

 

We have absolutely no idea if we've missed out on our first and second targets though, mate. And if there are targets we missed out on, it might have had nothing to do with the player themselves. I suspect this window we probably have missed out on priorities - but people say this same thing every window, even when we have a pretty decent one.

 

God no

 

I’ve not even commented up to now because I’m just completely dismayed with all of it.

I’ve tried to not be one of those calling for people at the club to lose their jobs but time & time again they don’t address our weaknesses.

I’ve always said you can forgive a bad signing, anyone can make one but I just can’t forgive this continual failure to address holes in the squad. You at least sign the type of player you need.

I think I speak for us all when I say we all hope this new forward is what we need but even the most optimistic reds fan can’t say they’re excited by his signing, surely?

I don’t even think we’ve found him through data. It just screams of an agent offering one of his players to us where we don’t have to pay all of his wages or maybe De Gevigney recommending him or some kind of personal link somewhere. What criteria could be bringing him to our attention? It just doesn’t make any sense.

 

The MLS is generally seen as the equiv of mid-Championship standard, so he'd definitely worked with better players and bigger budgets then League one. I think Collins was/is a better coach, and I do feel like he was undermined by some of the players who wanted to leave and started to dial it in after January transfer window closed, and I said so at the time - Cole being a leading example.

 

Collins never worked in the MLS, Eastern Conference league is quite a bit lower than MLS.

 

To be fair, I'm glad a large number of fans are now starting to ask serious questions of the owners and the mess they have put us in. I've been banging the drum about this lot since the Collins sacking fiasco. We are supposedly losing £8m per year / season. How? Where? I believe the academy's running costs are upwards of £1m per season, well in that case they should be doing a root and branch assessment of the entire academy system because it just doesn't seem viable in it's current state. Player salaries would have been reduced accordingly following relegation to LG1 and this summer the following players are out of contract: Pines (the club has a 1 year option), Benson, Cosgrove, McCarthy and Humphrys. A further 5 or 6 players out of contract in summer 2026. We do have a bloated, unbalanced squad but I wouldn't have though we would be paying huge salaries. I get that matchday revenue will be reduced in LG1 as will the distribution of central funds, however, I can't see how we can be losing so much money. Something clearly isn't right.