Good article about GG here

The problem is that most people on here have very very short memories and have forgotten how good Mansford was.

Coming up to the end of the transfer window - Mansford would be on Radio Sheffield wiping up interest with the fans by telling us what the club was trying to do.
This message board would then light up.

Ganaye ............... nothing.

 

I'd rather he just got on with his job than spouting ******** on Radio Pig about transfers that may or may not happen.

 

I think most fans would prefer actions rather than words.

 

Ganaye has the right approach , if you build the fans hopes up & then something goes wrong , then the fans are disappointed & he gets it in the neck . It is clear Nudger you have an agenda with GG , which is fine it is your prerogative but to use Mansford has some kind of shining star to prove your point is quite frankly laughable .

 

Rubbish, Nudge. He’s been on Radio Sheffield plenty of times and we do hear a lot from him now.

I agreed with you to some extent last year but it does look like you have some small vendetta against the bloke now. He hasn’t got everything right, but I don’t think you can argue we don’t hear enough from him.

You often compare to Mansford. Well I liked him too (though what did he actually achieve?) but the truth is that he rubbed a lot of fans up the wrong way. He was divisive. Thankfully, Gauthier isn’t.

 

Yeah, Mansford was great with the fans in that regard, but a CEO should be concentrating on building a long term structure not currying favour, with the fans.
Don’t get me wrong I am not knocking Ben when I say this, he did the job I believe he was asked to do at the time.

 

Jeez.
Mansford didn’t mention the actual targets FFS !!!
He just gave REGULAR indications of what the club was trying to do e.g. we are looking to see if we can bring a couple of players in.

Probably best to ask the presenters on Radio Sheffield and the like what they thought of Ben - ask them what was Ben Mansford like at GENERATING FOOTBALL INTEREST at Barnsley ???

And why should people say I have a grudge against Ganaye ???
That’s rubbish.
I’m saying - we have had a good CEO at Barnsley with Mansford.
IMO - Ganaye isn’t as good because he’s too quiet.

 

The club have told us they were trying to bring players in??? Im not sure what else you want from them. They've done things discreetly and delivered (i.e. Dougall)... do you honestly want a Daragh Macanthony figure at the club?

 

He left his heavily pregnant wife in France to work at Barnsley? And then moved her over to Barnsley away from their parents? However did they cope?

 

I read all your posts Nudger with interest both on here & those you used to post on Tykesmad & the one thing that has been constant, is your obvious negativity towards GG & again I have no problem with that , however , when you use Ben & now radio sheffield to support your points then your post loses credibility .

 

He should have gone to Millwall to be closer to her.

 

Because you do.

It stems from the fact that you decided in your head that he's only here to provide a link to the continent, despite nobody saying such a thing, ever.

Then when we haven't filled our team with European players, you've decided that Gauthier isn't doing his job that you decided he has.

It all comes from your inability to realise that he got the job because he was the best candidate, regardless of where he's from.

 

Beat me to it!

 

I would suggest that GG has been working for Mr Lee and co a lot longer than since the takeover at BFC happened and I would think that GG is a well trained by our owners and is part of thier long term plan and have a support team behind him or call upon that our billionaire owners will have.

There must be a link between GG, Mr Lee, RC Lens and Nice. PC taking on GG and the Lee takeover can't have been a coincidence.

http://www.worldfootball.com/m/3145...lub-de-lens/ogc-de-nice-cote-d-azur/formation with a young Dimi on the bench.

 

I disagree that he must have been working with the owners prior to then purchasing the club.

I think that Patrick was just very impressed with his CV and decided he was the best fit for our club. There doesn’t have to be anything more in it than that.

 

Different people are different. I personally would do anything to be with my wife, should she fall pregnant. Some people don’t mind being apart, some can’t do it. Nothing wrong with either approach, but it hardly warrants making fun of Bradshaw for, does it.

 

Some people find it funny some don't, nothing wrong with either view point.

 

Gets on with his job, has managed change through one of the more 'challenging' aspects of the clubs history regarding ownership, and has brought - as Gordon own suggests - Barnsley into the public domain through a genuinely considerate act towards 'one of our own'. Raises himself a million miles above some of the petty, ill informed and quite frankly xenophobic criticism he's suffered on here.

And Mansford ? Absolute joke imho - we dodged a bullet there when he bailed out to go to Leeds. He'll properly slip up one day, big style.

 

My thoughts about GG:

I think it was a leftfield appointment but clearly we felt he had the right skills for the job. Initially I was underwhelmed with his ability to get transfers over the line (compared to Mansford, who was clearly very strong in this area) and I've since heard that it was BFC that buggered up the paperwork for the Yiadom deal. The fault for that has to land at the feet of the CEO. Can you imagine how the season would have panned out if we'd had McBurnie all season? Similarly, GG was responsible for appointing Morais, although clearly the board would have had a huge influence. I was a bit shocked when he publicly stated that we interviewed a number of candidates but only for due diligence because we'd already decided on Morais. Again, in hindsight it was a really poor appointment.

However, since he's been with us we've signed some good players for reasonable fees. They didn't all cut it last season but I think it's clear to see that with time they'll be seen as shrewd transfers. He's also improved the fan engagement with things such as the mural, enhanced family zone, and obviously our marketing and social media presence is something that's beginning to have personality. These are all things he said he'd do...and he's done them. Even better, we've carefully gone out and selected a management team that we think fits our players and style of play. We've invested in the recruitment team (as Hecky rightly kept moaning about) and we seem to have a more unified approach to bringing youngsters into the first team. In his time we've got good fees for players who are leaving (ensuring that sell-on clauses are included) and we've been able to sign more long-term contracts with players who we think are future stars.

I'd expect anyone to make mistakes at work, but fortunately most of us can do it in private. GG's initial mistakes were seen and I think it's safe to say he learned from them and is a stronger person for it. I think we have a good CEO and I hope we can keep him for the foreseeable future. It's a thankless task as times, so I'm glad to see that we're heading in the right direction strategically...I'm willing to accept that there'll be some bumps in the road along the way. We're Barnsley after all...

 

The job of the CEO (or club secretary, general manager, whatever you call it, the position is the same) is not that of public relations, it's to run the club. It's the paid position who reports directly to the board of directors. Depending on how hands on the chairman of the board of directors is will depend on how much work is delegated to this position. John Dennis was very hands on, involving himself in all club transfers, Patrick Cryne began more hands off but became increasingly more involved, Chien Lee and the current board do not even live in the country, so Gauthier Ganaye is both John Dennis and Michael Spinks.

The employee in this position would speak to fans who had issues, but they would rarely do interviews. Selling the club wasn't their job, running it was.

Ben Mansford was the first person who took up this position who decided to add PR to his list of duties. One of the reasons may have been that Patrick very rarely addressed the press or the fans when Ben took on the role. Ben became the public face of the club for a while and put in a lot of effort to engage with fans. Some people liked him, some didn't. Personally I thought he did a good job with the PR.

However, I have absolutely no idea if he did a good job in the role he was brought in to do, that of CEO. This job takes place behind the scenes and I'm unable to judge his performance. I'm also unable to judge the performance of Ganaye for exactly the same reasons, and as such I cannot make a comparison between the two.

All I do know is that Ganaye doesn't see PR in quite the same way as Mansford did, and doesn't feel he is required to address the fans and the press on a weekly basis. But that doesn't tell me whether he's good or bad at his job because that isn't his job. A couple of things Ganaye has done recently have made the national press and he's been happy to conduct interviews on this. He knows the value of good PR but doesn't believe it's his role to be speaking to the press every week, rather he will make announcements and be available for interviews when required.