Grumpy Old Blogger

So....this is where we are at. A lad with three whole games under his belt in his caeeer. Bound to fire us back into the Premier League. Or, is the plan to cut the budget to fit the Championship for a few seasons? Certainly feels that way.

[quote user="pliff"]The board has been a joke for years, you cannot tell me there has not been interest from potential buyers, the cook just does not want to let go, while she can put her red wine through the books she is happy for us to be mediocre. They take your money then take the p i s s, charge the earth for refreshments. I have been a season ticket holder for years and will continue to be, and i go to support my team not the people running the club.[/quote] We are told that The Smiths have £2m invested in the club. Well, if I had £2m and could use it to take full control of a club that is now debt free and worth, what, £60m? Owns the ground, Colney etc. Sounds like a bargain. And where doe the £60m go? To the people who paid £2m for the shares. Not a bad investment, eh!

Technology has never been Archant''s strong suite! From their online newspaper to the jobs Board to the WhatsApp feed. Nothing quite works as it should and always seems ''clunky'' even when it does.

We''ve probably both made the rookie error of assuming Archant have introduced some technology that works! Interestingly I can;t see it advertised anywhere now.

Am I doing something wrong or are others having problems getting the WhatsApp link, advertised by Archant last week, to work? Signed up correctly. Two ticks on the receipt. then......nothing. no news, no scores, no transfer news. Hang on. Wait a minutes. there is no news, we drew 0-0 and there''s no sign of any new striker. Maybe it is working properly.

First match against Chesterfield in 1960. Yours?

Inexperience? Certainly. Arrogance? Probably. Alex Neil seems to be composing his obituary every time he opens his mouth these days. We used to have a manager who had the same internal belief – that it was all about him. He deflected that by always insisting that it was all about the players. He had that same driven ambition that AN displays. He was just able to keep a lid on it until his final exit to Villa. So, inexperience has made AN tell everyone that it’s not HIS fault the players aren’t carrying out his perfectly good instructions. If they were we would be picking up points every week. After all he has only ever been promoted in in his career, hasn’t he…. ……and there is the arrogance. He has actually started to believe all the hype around him. He believes he is infallible. This, let’s not forget, is a manger who has been doing it for 2 ½ years and half of that time in a league not much better that the Conference. Sadly, it’s not possible to sit him down now and tell him a few facts of life. It’s too late. In hindsight, he may well come to see one day that he would have become a far better manager if we had failed to get promoted last year and he had had at least another season at Championship level.

The "poor dears" are the supporters who deserved better than a couple of loans when they can see that the team is weak in important areas. They care. Nothing wrong with caring - its what we do.

....like your logic but I suspect it might be a wee bit over the shiny head!

Have I missed the obligatory "I''m happy with my squad....we''ll go with what we have.." stuff from the manager? Maybe he isn''t happy. Nothing from the CEO telling us how difficult it is to get players in for the budget we have. Nothing from the bloke from Burnley asking, "Transfer window....what transfer window?" Maybe they all realise there is nothing much they can add to the debate. Having hardly missed a home game since 1960 I have seen loads of ups and downs, but the "ups" are worth it. Sadly, the euphoria of Wembley was washed away so quickly by the lack of activity on Tuesday. Perhaps our manager needs to realise that his publicity is just that - publicity. Not necessarily to be believed by him. He needs to understand he IS inexperienced at this level and when 20,000+ loyal supporters tell him that he needs a central defender or two and that Russell Martin won''t survive at this level - maybe, taken together, they have more experience of The Premier League than he does.

How very dare you suggest that everything in the garden is anything but rosy! We have an excellent board backing a hugely successful and experienced manager. Unlike all the other clubs in The Premier League we are going survive and still live within our very tight budget to ensure that there is plenty of money in the bank. We have a perfectly good side packed with Premier League experience led by a manager who walks on water for fun. We will definitely stay up with little or no problem by following the Southampton and Swansea models (used to be Charlton a few seasons ago – remember them!). You really should avoid posting on here unless you are prepared to commit unconditional loyalty to everything the club does (or doesn’t do) and be happy to clap at every opportunity. And just remember if we do go down it will be the fault of people who were less than 100% behind the team irrespective of performance or results.

Thanks for your measured response Yankee. I too enjoyed the Palace game. I found myself sitting in the sunshine after 30 minutes saying to myself "I don''t care if this finishes 0-0 its a good game." but it doesn''t alter my sentiments and would have written the same piece on Friday Night as all the points remain the same and McNally was basking in his second sponsorship deal of the week. Poor old AN was still out of his depth in the transfer market and we still had the bloke Burnley didn''t want asking what he should do to help out. Wolfie was still a thorn in Delia''s side and we were still being "rumoured" with some pretty indifferent strikers. I''ll still be there every week. I''ll still be supporting the team. I''ll still kick the cat when we lose and I''m listening on Radio Spud........and I''ll still think that the supporters deserve better.

So reminiscent of the responses two years ago when anyone dared to question the club''s ambition......keep your fingers in your ears and keep repeating "La-la-la-la - I can''t hear you"

It seems our Board has convinced itself that we can''t compete financially at this level and they are still devastated by having to take a hit on Wolfie (a chance would be a fine thing!). Then we have a Chief Exec concentrating more on sponsorship deals than building the team to a point where we can compete. Add a Recruitment Manager who arrives far too late and from a club who, by all accounts, were glad to see the back of him. Now drop in a Manager who has never had to play the transfer market before in his short time in Scotland and who has little or no idea who might be available and if they are suitable. In all a recipe for disaster when we are left with a team who were relegated last time they were in the Premier League, who have had virtually no improvements made except Brady for Olsson (if that is an improvement). We seem to be drifting around players who are available considering low bids and wages and hoping for a break. Paul Lambert was far from perfect as he proved at Villa but he did have one thing right. Get your business done early and get them bedded in before the season starts. This needs someone to get a grip and that someone should be the Chief Executive Officer. Somehow there seems to be an air of resignation around that we are not going to get anyone in of consequence and will loose some of those we already have. Neil Doncaster once said we had "budgeted for relegation" - this feels very much like the same. No real money spent, go down with parachute payments and we just might have a bigger bank balance in three years time than if we had tried a bit harder to recruit quality and stay up.

...anyway - he didn''t say WHICH Monday he was referring to.