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Big Down Under

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Posts posted by Big Down Under

  1. Posted

    I''ve been defending the board on some posts, before people accuse me of blindly supporting them I thought I would post this to show what I fully think. I originally posted it on WOTB, but have made a couple of changes. I think the board have made 4 big errors in the last few years;1. Employing Peter Grant. With the state of the squad at the time, we

    needed an experienced head to re-build. It was not the time for

    gambling on an unproven manager, and the gamble back-fired badly.

    2. Mis-reading the future of football economics. I remember Delia

    saying in our promotion year that she thought the bubble would soon

    burst on football economics, how wrong was she. Since then we have had

    even more foreign investment, a new TV rights deal that has almost

    doubled the money going into the Premiership, and the Championship

    starting to get speculative investment. The result being prices are way

    higher than they anticipated for even journeymen players, and we are

    enduring a relegation scrap.

    3. Investing too much in the club infrastructure and not enough in the

    team. I think they got the balance wrong, but its a more difficult

    balance to get right than most realise. Given how close the club was to

    bankruptcy, and how much money was wiped off from the ITV Digital

    collapse, who can really blame them for investing in alternative

    methods of generating income. Bear in mind that player prices have

    risen considerably because of point 2, then the error is compounded. We

    should also remember that a lot of the money HAD to be spent, we needed

    a new pitch and press facilities for the Premiership (not through

    choice, we had to spend the money), and the South Stand needed

    replacing. Also, how many clubs DON''T invest in corporate

    hospitality/restaurants/hotels these days? Did they get the balance

    wrong? Yes. But the balance is much tougher than people realise, and

    look at some other struggling clubs who put ambition before prudence

    before saying this is the entire problem.

    4. Not being tough enough on contract negotiations. However much they

    wring their hands and say ''we had to put that clause in there, or else

    the player wouldn''t have signed'' it was their responsibility to support

    the manager and ensure that our best players who we wanted to keep

    would not leave. Over the summer we lost our best players through holes

    in contracts they negotiated. Not good enough.

    If it was down to me, I would sack Doncaster and get in a CEO with a

    football pedigree. I would also recruit a board member with a solid

    football background, our board don''t understand the game fully and it

    shows.

    I have no time for those making personal attacks on our board, however.

    Their main priority has been to ensure our club has a future, and

    bearing in mind they witnessed first hand how close we came to

    bankruptcy in the late 90s and the losing of the ITV Digital money, I

    can''t blame them. Those picking specifically on Delia need to have a

    word with themselves,  she took on the catering/hospitality side to

    great success and has ploughed millions of her own money in with little

    hope of a return. At the end of the day they are fans, and have the club''s long term future at heart. Getting Roeder in was a major achievement for them, he is the best manager we have had for ages and will take us places starting by taking us to mid-table this season.

    Its time for the Turner''s to come to the party. If the 2m they

    ''invested'' over the summer was it, then they bought 2 seats at a great

    club''s board very, very cheaply and we can add a 5th point to the

    above. I can''t believe this is true though, the loan signings we have

    made so far (which will have involved a large fee in all likelyhood) make me confident we have more to spend in January. Also I don''t believe Roeder is a cheap option, he must be on a much bigger package than Grant and this money probably came from the Turners. I don''t

    want statements about how much we have to spend, that will push player

    prices up further. We need to see proof through decent player

    acquisitions because however much better we look now, we need to

    strengthen further if League 1 isn''t to become a reality for us next

    year.

    OTBC

  2. Posted

    Bly, I think its more of an indictment of the state of the game today. With more money pouring into the game than most ever dreamed possible, over half the teams in the football league have been in administration at some point or another. Only teams who have mega-rich board members can compete in an increasingly expensive game. According to Wikipeadia, the most expensive British transfer was Ferdinand to Man U at GBP33m. 35% of that is 11.5m. Wouldn''t we all love to have that sort of money to spend on players!

  3. Posted

    None of us know, but I think Alex is right and Brum would much rather sell to QPR and offload two players in one deal to a cash rich club. If I was Karen Brady I would probably do just what she is doing, she is far more likely to get a good price for Tiny in the transfer window than selling to us now. Why people seem to think this is a stick to beat the board with I just don''t understand.

  4. Posted

    Where on earth did you get the figure of 1m from? The two figures I saw quoted in the press were 1.25m and 2.5m for Tiny and Vine together. We have no real idea what QPR bid, what we bid, what Brum want or even what we have already spent in loan fees. Unless you think Roeder is a liar, we do know that he is happy with the support he got from the board. But that doesn''t tie in with your hysterically negative view of the board, does it?

  5. Posted

    Good grief, so people are criticising the board for both releasing transfer funds and not releasing transfer funds, all in the same breath? Of course the board shouldn''t be deciding who we buy, its a footballing decision which is down to the manager. Criticising the board for signing Big Dave is ridiculous. As for Tiny, we have no idea what we bid or what Brum expect, aside from conflicting newspaper stories about QPRs bids. Get off the board''s backs until we KNOW what is going on.

  6. Posted

    I would much prefer an English coach, but there is nobody suitable. The fact that there are no suitable English coaches is just another sign of the complete mess the FA are making of our game. Another sign is the lack of depth of quality of English players at an international level. I think the FA are mainly completely incompetant, but I think they made the right appointment this time.

  8. Posted

    It was a bad performance, but as others have pointed out we are in a relegation scrap and an away point is an achievement. We need to look to our home games to collect the points, points away from home are a bonus. We shouldn''t be expecting to beat any team in this division at their place, to go to Colchester expecting a win is just pure arrogance. We aren''t a good enough team right now to be so arrogant.

  9. Posted

    What a load of hysteria based purely on speculation. People have picked up on the figure of 1.25m quoted in the press as being QPR''s bid, because it suits their negative view of the board. The other figure quoted was 2.5m for Tiny + Vine, but as that would make it look like Brum just don''t want to sell to us, and therefore our board aren''t at fault, people ignore it.All we know is that Tiny isn''t here, he hasn''t signed for anyone else, and Brum don''t want him. All the rest is pure speculation. We don''t know what we bid, or what QPR bid, or what Brum want.

  10. Posted

    Spot on. We know enough about Roeder now to see he prefers football played on the deck, but we are in a relegation scrap and I was pleased with the way we scrapped today to get a point. We know we can play better, but to play so badly and still get a point is promising. I also hope that GR gets funds in Jan, it seems he has a shopping list and knows what his budget is. We have to remember though that changing managers is expensive, the loans would have been very expensive, and I really doubt Glenn came cheap. People expecting multi-millions will be disappointed. Its a promising sign though that we seem to have agreed wages with Tiny, he wouldn''t be cheap, I think the Turners have already pumped in more then the 2m loan over the summer, I just don''t think they will throw money around as much as some would like.

  12. Posted

    Mr Carrow, I believe that some of the funds HAD to be spent to bring

    the ground up to Premiership code. IE the pitch (drainage requirements)

    and new press facilities. The business case for the infill looked

    compelling, and its full every week. Not being on the board, I have no idea what the business case for the other investnments were, and neither do you. On another thread a user called T stated that it was likely that our spend on players is limited under the terms of our loan agreements. Whether this is true I have no idea, do you? But this is the trouble, none of us really has a clue and whilst it is easy to look at figures and draw conclusions, unless you are a qualified and experienced accountant AND you have connections to the club, the conclusions any one of us comes to are highly likely to be wrong.Its so so easy to be critical, and its obvious that the board haven''t fone a perfect job, but at the end of the day our board have the long term future of our club as their main priority and for that, and for all they have done and continue to do for our club, I''m extremely grateful. The anti board hysteria on here is ridiculous.

  14. Posted

    We don''t know that QPR did bid $1m. The two rumours are that they bid either $1.25m or $2.5m for Taylor plus Vine. Seeing as QPR are wanting to sign Vine permanently and they have cash to spare, which seems more likely? And which bid do you think Brady is more likely to favour? She will be using the next 2 weeks trying to pursuade Tiny to join QPR, she had no reason to sell him to us when she has the chance of getting a better deal from QPR. Also, surely Roeder knows exactly how much money he has to spend in Jan and who he wants to sign. It seems likely to me that this is a joint decision between him and the board. BTW apologies for the $ signs I''m on a US keyboard.
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