Little bit of context for what it’s worth……..

4 games ago we was all getting giddy that we’d clicked and the top 2 would have to be looking over there shoulders…….fast forward 4 games and folk want the club bulldozing and the owners crucifying!!!

Whilst those last 4 results have been poor and I’m as disappointed as next man we could quite easily have took 8 points from them games too, Bristol we had more shots than all league 1 put together that afternoon, Wycombe and Stevenage conceded goals in the last minute and Burton had enough chances to beat them too, it’s all about fine margins, see Arsenal and Martin Odegaard last night as an example!

This window hasn’t been great and I really hoped we’d fetch at least someone who the fans could get excited about, but we’ve not seen these lads kick a ball yet, they bother appear super quick which we’ve been crying out for all season……let’s see how they pan out before writing them off just yet eh?

The owners/board/CEO
I’d love us to be financially competitive and it pisses me off when I see Wrexham and Stockport out muscling us, I feel we’ve gone back massively over the last 3 years and it cuts deep after 30 years of watching BFC but I’d more upset if they tried to blow the ****** in in getting us up and it ruined the club completely like we’ve seen with many other clubs!! I think on the whole those at the top are good people and actually have BFC at heart but sadly for us fans there still learning on how to be football businessmen and woman which is frustrating given our last 25 years we’ve been relatively successful for a club our size.

Patience and fine margins are massive in football……..folk are bleating saying how bad things are but we’re 1 point off the playoffs with a mismatch squad and a manger still learning the ropes, there’s teams around us having great seasons and yet are only a point better off or less than us……things can turn very quickly in football.

And as my dad says……….’The highs always outweigh the Lows’ and ya know somet? He’s 100% right too!!

 

You don't have to be a football business person to simply communicate with the fans and not make the mistakes they do or improve things in the ground

 

"4 games ago we was all getting giddy that we’d clicked and the top 2 would have to be looking over there shoulders…….fast forward 4 games and folk want the club bulldozing and the owners crucifying!!!"

That's not true.

IMO Winning those games is not relevant. Neither is whether we win or lose the next 4. Looking beyond the immediate position is what maters when judging a Club. In that case, whatever measure is used - on or off the pitch - the Club looks to be in decline with no sign of that situation abating. The role of the owners is principally to make good appointment in terms of 1) who runs the Club (the CEO) and 2) who manages things on the pitch (the Coach). 'Judge us by our actions' does not produce a lot of evidence to say they have done that.

The incompetency in terms of how the Club is managed day to day is down to the CEO. Again, recruitment is key. In this regard the key appointments are in; Player recruitment/retention team, Communications, day to day running of the Club. I can't know the detail of how that is being managed, but from the evidence I've seen and from the perspective of the Supporter/customer, it looks pretty bad - over a long period of time.

 

One positive is our home games don't get called off these days for weather. It's sixteen years tomorrow since our home game against Crystal Palace was called off. How times have changed for both clubs...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/feb/06/weather-postponements-fixtures-abaondoned

 

Sadly, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of small, lower league clubs attracting sugar daddy owners.

It’s been done to death in the top divisions, and has just left an environment where almost everyone’s just in the same boat. Very little advantage to be gained, and some of those clubs are even dropping down into our division.

Anyone who wants to buy and be seen to be going places very quickly will now surely be looking at the lower end of the league, and non league. Championship is when it starts getting really expensive.

 

Every cloud...

 

I was happy after the 4 straight wins. DKD was scoring in every game and we’d done far better than I expected in the period without Earl & Roberts. I wasn’t even worried after the Bristol Rovers defeat tbh.

 

Earl and Roberts come back and the rest is history.

 

But at least Earl managed to outscore our forward line during those last 4 games.

 

I'd hope by now that fans could look beyond short term and assess where we are in a wider context.

And I'd always start from the basis of a single question. Are you enjoying it? For me, it's a resounding no. I'm not enjoying our style of play, the games I've seen have been poor, i can't say there's a player I rate extremely favourably or have any sort of connection to. That's the same for coaches and execs.

After that I look at the bigger picture. Strategy, tactics, recruitment, communication, media, finance, decision making and our current trajectory as a club.

Yes, inspite of many many negatives, to the point people who have been going decades don't feel the pull to Oakwell on matchday and decide to stay at home instead despite having paid for a season ticket, we're somehow within spitting distance of the playoffs. There is a possibility we could make them still. And when you're in them, anything can happen. But that just shows how poor a league this actually is. Under the Stendel promotion squad, I reckon we'd have romped this league with over a 100 points.

But ultimately, I'm very concerned about where we are, the decisions we continue to make, the sacrifices to save pennies when we're throwing many pounds into a black hole and year on year our squad gets weaker and our position gets lower.

 

During January we loaned out 3 strikers and saw another ruled out for 4 to 6 weeks through injury and brought in 1 unprolific striker from the French 2nd tier.

That's pretty negligent.

 

This sums us up perfectly. We're sinking lower on and off the pitch year on year.

 

Couldn’t disagree with the OP more.

What we are seeing is mismanagement and failure to address certain measures.

It’s not about “waiting to see” how things progress.

It’s about addressing things correctly, forward progression.

We aren’t a club on the UP.

We are on the decline.

I ask why some people can’t see it!!

The problems aren’t from this season alone. You just have to go to the end of last season to see the crazy decisions they’ve made.

You can’t keep sacking managers without realising that maybe the manager isn’t at fault. Is it higher up?

Time isn’t something you get in football whether that’s as a player, manager or owner.

They don’t need TIME.

They need to go or get someone in to do the football decisions who have experience in the game instead of trying to learn on the job.

 

That’s fine……all about opinions!!

When you say ‘They need to go’ can I ask who is going to keep the club funded? I’m not arguing with you btw but I don’t think it’s as simple as that!

 

That question gets asked every time someone suggests they go but I will answer it the best I can.

Football clubs always find a buyer. The problem is that some sales take longer than others.

Blackpool and Blackburn both got bought out after the fanbase turned.

It’s a case of whether it’s a quick sale or a prolonged one. In my opinion…..we would get bought out. Someone would be interested. It’s whether the current board want a highly inflated fee or would they want a quick sale?

The other thing is that they don’t have to go.

In that tho, they need to bring in people with a football background to run the club in terms of a chairman and a recruitment team with experience. A sporting director with someone like Mick McCarthy or Neil Warnock would be ideal. It doesn’t have to be them but I guess you get my gist.

It’s dangerous territory that they are treading in going into the next 12 months. They have to start getting things right or I dread to see where we end up.

So yeah….I do believe we could have options.

 

A get what you are saying but I don't think many fans are asking us to go out and bankrupt the club, problem is we don't look like we are building anything either, we just keep operating on false economies of scale with regards to recruitment, constantly having to deal with deadwood, either loaning them out until the end of their contract.
Has there been any point in the signings of Lofthouse, Dallas, Shaw just to name a few, they've zero impact, even if they were all only on 1k a week that's over 150k x however many years.

We are coming upto 3 years with Nareev steering the ship and it feels like we've built nothing, I mean we we haven't owned a NO:1 apart from a brief stint from killip, since Brad Collins left and over 2 transfer windows we sign some whis inexperienced from the French 2nd Div.

It's poor, just looks like their heart isn't in it anymore.

 

Rumours are we have the 3rd highest wage bill in the division 60+ players on the books. Benson who's hardly played for 2 seasons on 5k a week I keep hearing these owners putting in millions each year but all seems very wasteful.

 

I dont know what the long-term answer is other than decisions relating to the football on the pitch and the quality of players need to be improved. The control /management of these two factors by the current board have been dreadful over the last 3/4 years. Things have not looked joined up at all. No clear direction in spite of board claims that there is. The resultant decline of the club is alienating fans (like me) and it will take some serious planning and focus by those running the club to win people back. Football is about points and league position but its also about entertainment, passion and hope. The last three of those have disappeared in large measure and fans are voting with their feet because of disillusionment. The board have to create that entertainment and passion and get that hope re-kindled. Fans will start coming back then. But, as said, it is down to the board to make intelligent football decisions. Whether the current board members are capable of doing that is still open to question with the DoF now well into post. The decline does need stopping soon though or it will be L2 rather than the Championship. We will be back to the early 1970s. So, to cut a long rant short I dont know what the answer is - support the current board and assume they're learning how to run things or ask them to put the club up for sale and ask for other investors to come in? At the moment, although I'm completely disillusioned I'm tempted to cut them more slack and hope that with the DoF the decline will, by summer, be clearly halted. I'm looking primarily to see what happens on the pitch in terms of entertainment, passion and hope. I want to see some green shoots soon so I can look forward to going down to Oakwell rather than dreading it and watching on telly instead. I think we'll all know if things are improving by the end of the SUMMER window.