Remember when Cryne said

I think I agree with most of this, and our recruitment since promotion has been a lost opportunity.

I honestly expected us to retain what even Conway himself, last February, said was the core of a good championship squad, maybe losing Davies as his contract was up, and add fewer players of better quality to that squad, and then supplement with a handful of "low cost" gambles and try and develop them. I think the point about developing ready-made replacements is fair.

Admittedly, no guarantees in football that investment brings success, but we've not given ourselves a chance from day one really, we've looked a relegation side since the Luton home game for me. Fair to say that there has been a short improvement under Struber, but the last 3 games appear to have been as bad as anything that went before.

The other thing that doesn't work either is this "balanced budget" approach. Now, and I might sound like a stuck record here, I completely accept being prudent and running the club to a budget and have defended this principle regularly. But, and this is where I think my thoughts and Supertyke's overlap, any business that wants to drive forward and progress often has to budget to make a loss for a year or two with the business plan being that as the business grows (equivalent to gradually stabilising in the Championship) the return on that investment then comes through. Its not fail safe but neither is the current approach to balancing the budget season in, season out, the latter will require more sales of players, and this surely reduces our chances of either staying in the Championship or returning swiftly if relegated.

3 or 4 streetwise pros in the spine of the side would make a significant difference. Remember Taggart and Tiler, they developed alongside Futcher and Smith, Nicky Eaden had Davis, Fleming etc. And although very short term, look at the impact Kevin Long had on Mawson and Roberts.

My final point, and I hate to say it as I'm normally not one to pull down players, is that at this level, we simply don't have players of enough quality or ability. There are too many for me who don't have potential, they're is no evidence of learning from errors made week in week out, admittedly at an unforgiving level. And the board / recruitment method has take to responsibility for that.

 

Need some perspective here. Agree, this plan isn't working and the frustrating thing is we all knew it was unlikely to. Last year's defence woukdnt have been good enough either.. We got away with it because our best form of defence was attack and in league one we weren't punished. Previous plans haven't worked either where we have had older players. We are not far away imo and only needed an experienced spine, centre half, midfielder and striker (that's if we played with one). Too many signings in a short space of time and none with the right experience is the reason why we are where we are Looks like we are going to have to drop down a level again but let's hope this time we learn.

We may not be happy with how the club is being run footballing wise but there are some positives in terms of the safeguarding of the clubs future. There are many other clubs in this division in a worse position in that respect. Perhaps we need to be what I'm the worst at, patient.

 

Can work. But needs working capital, patience, a skilled team with common vision and success criteria - and quite a lot of love for the club! And luck. So, easy, then.

 

I don't think there is any safeguarding of the future. Our owners have stated that all the money has been spent. In fact they stated 95% had been spent prior to January so I'd hazard a guess that bringing in strubers mates has put us in the red. The squad has been weakened so long term the income will be lower. Fans have been driven away so income will be lower. Parts of the stadium have been mothballed so income will be lower.

I see no progress being made in any department which gives me hope for the future

 

It can't work though. You cannot constantly sign in none league kids and throw them into he championship without an experienced head to learn from and expect it to work. You may get lucky occasionally but long term it can't work unless you retain key players t bring them on and sign them earlier to develop them in your development squad not just throw them straight in on their own

 

I don't agree....they may not have spent the money wisely but we can at least take the hit of relegation and build a competitive team for next season. For some clubs relegation would be a disaster

 

But if the £6m went on general administration costs how can they afford to lose that money? The running costs of the club won't reduce by £6m

 

I agree on the way transition has to occur, as you say there needs to be some smart succession planning to ensure there is a stable state on the field performances. My point is that the model can work if all the factors align. But it's a hell of a difficult one to get spot on without some proper seed capital that the owners are willing to take a much longer-term ROI on. As other posters are saying, if we have to work on a balanced budget approach, we make things much harder. There's also a massive vacuum that is sucking the life out of the fan-base goodwill - the club's expectation management and general comms to supporters is atrocious. Now, the club won't want to publicise stuff that may give away competitive advantage but it HAS TO be miles better at explaining honestly what's going on to the fans. It should be setting the comms agenda, not ignoring it.
There's so much being posted on here that has merit in different ways that the club should be posting on forums like this - YES, openly posting. One blocker to that may be the level of needless personal attacks and generally discourteous tone of some posts on here - so maybe that's down to us to solve.

 

Players contracts have reduction clauses and we will sell some of our saleable assets. Squad size will be reduced but we won't be riddled with debt since they have planned for the possibility. Now I know we would all agree they have planned for it to happen. I am just saying we can cope better than most.

 

But Dane Murphy said the money hadn't been spent on wages, the £6m was used to pay for general costs and bills. They don't suddenly disappear

 

Thing is with Stendel as manager they had the love for the club. In some ways he was doing the CEO job forwthem And they threw that away before a ball had even been kicked in the championship by ignoring him ok so that mistake was made, why then lose some love that was still there by cutting communication? If patience is what's required they need to communicate that.
My conclusion is that they couldn't care less that it's a football club they are running and they dont understand or care about history and belonging to a place .

 

No dig intended, just saying the consortium had been around trying to get into club but had been turned away or as you say walked away

 

Costs will be reduced and player sales will have to offset the reduced revenues as it did last time with the sale of Potts.

 

Does the gas and leccy cost less in League One?

 

Ooof! Can you imagine life at Brentford under this shower?

Brentford fans are living the dream. £70m in debt but tearing up the championship in front of league 1 gates.

These feckers would soon have burst their bubble for them.

 

Probably the only people that came forward to buy us and what was he going to do? I doubt very much if he hadnt been ill he would have sold to them. But i’m just assuming....

We are where we are. Their model will not work without fans paying to watch to pay the wages so something will have to give if we drop 3/4k fans and lose tv cash if we are relegated.