2 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Very disrespectful to this man who's pouring his heart and soul into his job.

2 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Thought that was Enzo LOL

Surely they have to go. What have they done?

3 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Surely they have to go. What have they done?

BlueCo saving that trick in case the protests actually have a constant impact.

They are responsible for ruining this club as much as the owners.. we knew palmer was still recovering , gittens were injured, delap still struggling and we decided to move out George and the Argentine to make our attacking options thinner.. they believed garnacho was the answer along with gittens and neto!!

Complete muppets fck u winstanley..

The squad we have now is way worse than last season. Sancho, Nkunku, Madueke, Felix, Jackson all offered way more than Delap, Garnacho, and Gittens. Its not even close. Im not surprised Maresca walked, after the summer window, he probably got found out in the tranfer meetings leafing uo to January that there wasnt going to be any reinenforcements.

Maybe we were forced into some of these chamges due to the uefa squad restrictions, but that would still be the fault of the sd's for completely overspending on sh*t.

I remember moaning on here a couple of years back about how much we were spending on players for the future lime Washington, Denner, etc. There was a few comments about how we had these 2 pots of money, and spending on these kids had no impact on whether we could spend on 1st team. Thats proven to be a complete fallacy.

Lets see the disaster of a summer we have now after we finish about 9th or 10th.

Both SDs and Rosenior should be out the door tonight.

1 minute ago, big blue said:

The squad we have now is way worse than last season. Sancho, Nkunku, Madueke, Felix, Jackson all offered way more than Delap, Garnacho, and Gittens. Its not even close. Im not surprised Maresca walked, after the summer window, he probably got found out in the tranfer meetings leafing uo to January that there wasnt going to be any reinenforcements.

Maybe we were forced into some of these chamges due to the uefa squad restrictions, but that would still be the fault of the sd's for completely overspending on sh*t.

I remember moaning on here a couple of years back about how much we were spending on players for the future lime Washington, Denner, etc. There was a few comments about how we had these 2 pots of money, and spending on these kids had no impact on whether we could spend on 1st team. Thats proven to be a complete fallacy.

Lets see the disaster of a summer we have now after we finish about 9th or 10th.

Both SDs and Rosenior should be out the door tonight.

I was the same. I hated the way we were spending. I didnt either Caicedo or Enzo for 100m. 50m on Gittens is when I realised the club had ripped my soul.

Not a single hint anywhere in the media that any of the 5 SDs is under pressure or at a risk of losing his job.

Forget Winstanley and Stewart, even the other three are completely bullet proof.

Zero compromise on the SD front.

2 hours ago, yaz said:

Not a single hint anywhere in the media that any of the 5 SDs is under pressure or at a risk of losing his job.

Forget Winstanley and Stewart, even the other three are completely bullet proof.

Zero compromise on the SD front.

Someone posted a video where their jobs may be in jeopardy but yeah, actions vs words and all that.

I would’ve sacked them over a year ago.

3 hours ago, yaz said:

Not a single hint anywhere in the media that any of the 5 SDs is under pressure or at a risk of losing his job.

Forget Winstanley and Stewart, even the other three are completely bullet proof.

Zero compromise on the SD front.

Owners are happy with them. Means they are doing what the owners want.

6 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Owners are happy with them. Means they are doing what the owners want.

Alternatively, the owners know bugger all about football and naively placed their faith in the hands of a couple of chancers. It's a matter of how long they take to wake up to same.

13 hours ago, dermott said:

Alternatively, the owners know bugger all about football and naively placed their faith in the hands of a couple of chancers. It's a matter of how long they take to wake up to same.

I think they may catch a lot of heat for this season tbh. Summer transfer window was a disaster and we’ve regressed substantially.

Then to top it off, they presumably signed off on/recommended Rosenior.

14 hours ago, dermott said:

Alternatively, the owners know bugger all about football and naively placed their faith in the hands of a couple of chancers. It's a matter of how long they take to wake up to same.

That is my biggest concern. Roman took his time to educate himself about the club even though he didn’t speak too much English. He also surrounded himself with people who were knowledgeable about the game. He was known to have a team of advisers; Pat De Visser was one, Gus Hiddink was another.

These guys seem to be clueless, treat it like a business and ex pros that have encountered them talk of a cold approach. There was no way under Roman that we would have signed Caicedo and Lavia in the same summer for one role, signed Santos 5mths later for the same role, and then signed Essugo for the role again 2yrs later. Like how do you sign 4 players for one DM, all within a similar age range. We made some mad signings under Roman, but there was no way this would have happened.

2 hours ago, markpitts said:

That is my biggest concern. Roman took his time to educate himself about the club even though he didn’t speak too much English. He also surrounded himself with people who were knowledgeable about the game. He was known to have a team of advisers; Pat De Visser was one, Gus Hiddink was another.

These guys seem to be clueless, treat it like a business and ex pros that have encountered them talk of a cold approach. There was no way under Roman that we would have signed Caicedo and Lavia in the same summer for one role, signed Santos 5mths later for the same role, and then signed Essugo for the role again 2yrs later. Like how do you sign 4 players for one DM, all within a similar age range. We made some mad signings under Roman, but there was no way this would have happened.

Agreed. Clearlake actually did the opposite and cleared out pretty well all the long standing staff members at the club, replacing institutional knowledge with data analysts.

1 minute ago, forbzy said:

Agreed. Clearlake actually did the opposite and cleared out pretty well all the long standing staff members at the club, replacing institutional knowledge with data analysts.

And nobody made them do it.

Nobody Made them hire these millions of directors who had little experience in the role and none at big clubs.

Nobody made them do this project.

Some make out that they are lost sheep being led astray by these dipsh*t directors.

Please...

2 hours ago, markpitts said:

That is my biggest concern. Roman took his time to educate himself about the club even though he didn’t speak too much English. He also surrounded himself with people who were knowledgeable about the game. He was known to have a team of advisers; Pat De Visser was one, Gus Hiddink was another.

These guys seem to be clueless, treat it like a business and ex pros that have encountered them talk of a cold approach. There was no way under Roman that we would have signed Caicedo and Lavia in the same summer for one role, signed Santos 5mths later for the same role, and then signed Essugo for the role again 2yrs later. Like how do you sign 4 players for one DM, all within a similar age range. We made some mad signings under Roman, but there was no way this would have happened.

It's also the calibre of people surrounding that is the issue. Ranieri is a flawed coach but is one of the greatest talent identifiers in modern football. Kenyon transformed not just Manchester United but by extension the Premier League. Mourinho speaks for itself. De Visser and Arnesen discovered PSV's golden generations. A colossal battle of egos that ended spectacularly, sure, but the 3-year period in which it worked flawlessly unpinned over two decades of success and was so self-sustaining that it even developed once-inexperienced nobodies like Michael Emenalo into top administrators.

If BlueCo took over in 2003 it would be the equivalent of sacking Ranieri's team, replacing them with Chris Coleman and skipping straight to the hiring of Avram Grant and Michael Emenalo as administrators.

21 hours ago, dermott said:

Alternatively, the owners know bugger all about football and naively placed their faith in the hands of a couple of chancers. It's a matter of how long they take to wake up to same.

21 hours ago, dermott said:

Alternatively, the owners know bugger all about football and naively placed their faith in the hands of a couple of chancers. It's a matter of how long they take to wake up to same.

Not sure this is the problem. Our strategy is very similar to what Brighton has been doing which is what Eghbali said that he want to do

Edited April 20Apr 20 by Bob stark

2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Not sure this is the problem. Our strategy is very similar to what Brighton has been doing which is what Eghbali said that he want to do

Amounts to the same thing. Brighton's is a professional, sophisticated set up driven by Tony Bloom's very successful data-based Starlizard recruiting system. Amongst others they sourced Mitoma (£3m), Caicedo (£4.5m), Mac Allister (£7m). BlueCo poached Winstanley thinking he was a master recruiter. Winstanley minus Starlizard is the waste of space he is for us. Bottom line: the owners' ignorance have us where we are today.

6 minutes ago, dermott said:

Amounts to the same thing. Brighton's is a professional, sophisticated set up driven by Tony Bloom's very successful data-based Starlizard recruiting system. Amongst others they sourced Mitoma (£3m), Caicedo (£4.5m), Mac Allister (£7m). BlueCo poached Winstanley thinking he was a master recruiter. Winstanley minus Starlizard is the waste of space he is for us. Bottom line: the owners' ignorance have us where we are today.

It is not about this. We basically use Brighton playbook and honestly the result is as expected.

Brighton is a stable midtable club but you don't see Brighton taking the next step of competing for top 4/5.

It is the same thing with us, in the last three seasons we have been competing for top 4/5 without taking the next step of becoming title contender.

It is this simple.

Edited April 20Apr 20 by Bob stark

20 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

It is not about this. Brighton transfer is about signing prospect and Brighton is a stable midtable club but you don't see Brighton taking the next step of competing for top 4/5.

It is the same thing with us, in the last three seasons we have been competing for top 4/5 without taking the next step of becoming title contender.

Yeah this is the issue

It's one thing to be a mid table club, its another to fight at the top table.

They thought they could game the system, that there were loopholes they could exploit. I think there was a significant level of disrespect to the sport in their eyes. "Soccer" being behind more professional sports like NFL/MLB.

And unfortunately what's happened is they've left us incredibly exposed as an institution. I think this summer they will be exploring how they can minimise their losses for a future sale rather than trying to improve. We will sign a shirt sponsor at a lower rate, all stadium plans will be shelved, and a few players will be sold.

I don't see anything positive happening at this club until we get sold, purely from a debt point of view, they won't be able to make the investments necessary to get us where we need to be.

I looked up a list of players signed by us since these two took over recruitment. Out of a very, very long list I would say that only Palmer, Caicedo and J Pedro have been (qualified) successes … check it out and see what you think!

At least Brighton but cheaply, so you’re almost guaranteed profit. We buy mediocre, young talent at a price where its almost impossible to make a profit and at worst you’re risking the future of the club. Its not a strategy, its just stupidity

14 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Yeah this is the issue

It's one thing to be a mid table club, its another to fight at the top table.

They thought they could game the system, that there were loopholes they could exploit. I think there was a significant level of disrespect to the sport in their eyes. "Soccer" being behind more professional sports like NFL/MLB.

And unfortunately what's happened is they've left us incredibly exposed as an institution. I think this summer they will be exploring how they can minimise their losses for a future sale rather than trying to improve. We will sign a shirt sponsor at a lower rate, all stadium plans will be shelved, and a few players will be sold.

I don't see anything positive happening at this club until we get sold, purely from a debt point of view, they won't be able to make the investments necessary to get us where we need to be.

It is something like this but not sure they are wrong. If you look at it logically, they are not wrong.

Signing two cheaper player is better than 1 expensive player as it reduce your risk, signing prospect is also better than signing older player as they tend to be cheaper and demand less salary and more importantly has much better chance to retain/increase their value in their future. It is even better if you have multi club model because it means you can sign more players.

Of course the result is as expected. We intentionally target player who are 2/3 steps away from being ready, what do you expect?

11 hours ago, markpitts said:

Roman took his time to educate himself about the club even though he didn’t speak too much English.

He showed a lot of respect to where the club came from too. Look at all the old players he brought back in to the fold of the club by either employing them in some capacity or simply just celebrating their careers here. He made sure the dna of the club was understood.

These pricks came in, pretty much said everything that’s come before was a load of sh*t, stripped the club of its identity and hired these useless morons after getting rid of club legends like Petr.

It goes to show how bad they are at their job when even I, someone who barely knows much about our own players these days, know that the players we’re targeting are absolute dogsh*t.