Delia, Webber and Stone speak

[paul moy 235]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="AJ"]We made mistakes financially, massive ones. There''s no doubt signings like Mulumbu, Fer, Van Wolfswinkel etc were all on high wages and often for high fees everywhere and they did nothing to help our cause whatsoever, and if anything actually had negative impacts.

The only time we kept the correct ethos was under Lambert where we continued to find young and hungry lower league gems and have them playing at the knife edge of their ability. Other teams are doing the same thing successfully, such as Huddersfield, Bournemouth and previously Southampton (albeit they have sold all their best players and are now struggling in the lower reaches of the Prem...)

We pissed money away on wages we did not need to be paying out and it has left us where we are, financially crippled into selling our best assets.

Like Alex Neil, if we had stuck to our guns we might have been okay![/quote]Except that just is not true. I could overload this with figures but I will stick to the most obviously relevant ones. In the four seasons we were in the Premier League we  finished 19th, 17th=, 17th and 18th in the wage league table. And as The Guardian''s David Conn, who analyses football finance for a living, pointed out, with Norwich City "player wages are significantly linked to performance." So the basic wages were kept in check.Of course you can always point to a very few players who didn''t do well and so claim their wages were wasted. But that could apply to any club in the country. The difference with Norwich City is that our finances are so constrained that any mistakes hurt us more than most.I know Webber has claimed we wasted millions upon millions, but him saying it does not make it true. Some fans seem to think because he is a blunt speaker he must therefore not be spinning. Well, you can speak bluntly and still be spinning. I don''t blame him for painting the situation he inherited and the way the club had been run up to that point in such derisive terms, but overall the facts tell a different story.[/quote]So we were not for instance paying Naismith much at all to ''play'' in the championship ?      Interesting........   

[PurpleCanary 5,587]

[quote user="paul moy"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="AJ"]We made mistakes financially, massive ones. There''s no doubt signings like Mulumbu, Fer, Van Wolfswinkel etc were all on high wages and often for high fees everywhere and they did nothing to help our cause whatsoever, and if anything actually had negative impacts.

The only time we kept the correct ethos was under Lambert where we continued to find young and hungry lower league gems and have them playing at the knife edge of their ability. Other teams are doing the same thing successfully, such as Huddersfield, Bournemouth and previously Southampton (albeit they have sold all their best players and are now struggling in the lower reaches of the Prem...)

We pissed money away on wages we did not need to be paying out and it has left us where we are, financially crippled into selling our best assets.

Like Alex Neil, if we had stuck to our guns we might have been okay![/quote]Except that just is not true. I could overload this with figures but I will stick to the most obviously relevant ones. In the four seasons we were in the Premier League we  finished 19th, 17th=, 17th and 18th in the wage league table. And as The Guardian''s David Conn, who analyses football finance for a living, pointed out, with Norwich City "player wages are significantly linked to performance." So the basic wages were kept in check.Of course you can always point to a very few players who didn''t do well and so claim their wages were wasted. But that could apply to any club in the country. The difference with Norwich City is that our finances are so constrained that any mistakes hurt us more than most.I know Webber has claimed we wasted millions upon millions, but him saying it does not make it true. Some fans seem to think because he is a blunt speaker he must therefore not be spinning. Well, you can speak bluntly and still be spinning. I don''t blame him for painting the situation he inherited and the way the club had been run up to that point in such derisive terms, but overall the facts tell a different story.[/quote]So we were not for instance paying Naismith much at all to ''play'' in the championship ?      Interesting........   [/quote]I was careful to deal with what happened in the Premier League. I left out the position in the Championship. Where Webber may - only may - have a point is the squad he inherited last summer. Which did contain some comparitively high-wage players coming towards the end of their careers. This was a result of the conscious decision made by the board (as the accounts make clear) to keep together most of the relegated squad to try to get straight back up. It might have worked, but it didn''t. Hence Webber finding a squad that needed serious cutting back in terms of numbers, ages and wages.But he only may have a point here because it is impossible to know what strategy Webber would have recommended to the board that summer after relegation IF he had been here then. Easy for him to bemoan the situation he was faced with a year later, but it is perfectly possible he would have agreed that the best chance to get back up was that first one.

[paul moy 235]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="paul moy"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="AJ"]We made mistakes financially, massive ones. There''s no doubt signings like Mulumbu, Fer, Van Wolfswinkel etc were all on high wages and often for high fees everywhere and they did nothing to help our cause whatsoever, and if anything actually had negative impacts.

The only time we kept the correct ethos was under Lambert where we continued to find young and hungry lower league gems and have them playing at the knife edge of their ability. Other teams are doing the same thing successfully, such as Huddersfield, Bournemouth and previously Southampton (albeit they have sold all their best players and are now struggling in the lower reaches of the Prem...)

We pissed money away on wages we did not need to be paying out and it has left us where we are, financially crippled into selling our best assets.

Like Alex Neil, if we had stuck to our guns we might have been okay![/quote]Except that just is not true. I could overload this with figures but I will stick to the most obviously relevant ones. In the four seasons we were in the Premier League we  finished 19th, 17th=, 17th and 18th in the wage league table. And as The Guardian''s David Conn, who analyses football finance for a living, pointed out, with Norwich City "player wages are significantly linked to performance." So the basic wages were kept in check.Of course you can always point to a very few players who didn''t do well and so claim their wages were wasted. But that could apply to any club in the country. The difference with Norwich City is that our finances are so constrained that any mistakes hurt us more than most.I know Webber has claimed we wasted millions upon millions, but him saying it does not make it true. Some fans seem to think because he is a blunt speaker he must therefore not be spinning. Well, you can speak bluntly and still be spinning. I don''t blame him for painting the situation he inherited and the way the club had been run up to that point in such derisive terms, but overall the facts tell a different story.[/quote]So we were not for instance paying Naismith much at all to ''play'' in the championship ?      Interesting........   [/quote]I was careful to deal with what happened in the Premier League. I left out the position in the Championship. Where Webber may - only may - have a point is the squad he inherited last summer. Which did contain some comparitively high-wage players coming towards the end of their careers. This was a result of the conscious decision made by the board (as the accounts make clear) to keep together most of the relegated squad to try to get straight back up. It might have worked, but it didn''t. Hence Webber finding a squad that needed serious cutting back in terms of numbers, ages and wages.But he only may have a point here because it is impossible to know what strategy Webber would have recommended to the board that summer after relegation IF he had been here then. Easy for him to bemoan the situation he was faced with a year later, but it is perfectly possible he would have agreed that the best chance to get back up was that first one.[/quote]They could have at least have had relegation clauses in their contracts to lower wages to sustainable levels. 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

Right operating model, installed too late.

Right playing method, undermined by lack of finances.

Right philosophical approach, PR-poisoned by severe cost-cutting.

Right intentions, dismissed by lack of on-field results.

Right structural investment, transferred externally through necessity.

Right youth focus, forced upon by necessity rather than choice during the fat years.

The advantage now is that there no other option. There is full commitment to ploughing forward regardless, as nothing else is financially or structurally viable.

In my view the process is in any case correct, though others are hardly over-criticising to state it is a belated product of post-hoc circumstance, rather than proctor-hoc design.

Parma

[hogesar 9,766]

Some great posts Purple.

[Len 74]

Delia, Webber, Stone and Purple have spoken. I''ve got a feeling that a Mick Dennis encore cannot be too far away.

[PurpleCanary 5,587]

[quote user="hogesar"]Some great posts Purple.[/quote]To be clear, hogesar, I am not at all anti-Webber. He seems like the right man for the job, and I believe the long-term strategy (leaving aside the fact, as Parma says, that we don''t now have much choice) is right. But that doesn''t mean he will not sometimes indulge in spin to suit his own purposes. The problem, whether he realises it or not, is that in effect slagging off the way the club was run before he arrived, exemplified by this dubious allegation of wasting countless millions of PL money, has been taken as gospel by a vocal section of the fanbase. Probably unwittingly, he has waded in on one side of a long-running debate!

[PurpleCanary 5,587]

[quote user="Len"]Delia, Webber, Stone and Purple have spoken. I''ve got a feeling that a Mick Dennis encore cannot be too far away.[/quote]Mick Dennis admits I am a far better writer. He knows better than to try to follow me, especially when I have said all that needs to be said...

[Bill 1,788]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="hogesar"]Some great posts Purple.[/quote]To be clear, hogesar, I am not at all anti-Webber. He seems like the right man for the job, and I believe the long-term strategy (leaving aside the fact, as Parma says, that we don''t now have much choice) is right. But that doesn''t mean he will not sometimes indulge in spin to suit his own purposes. The problem, whether he realises it or not, is that in effect slagging off the way the club was run before he arrived, exemplified by this dubious allegation of wasting countless millions of PL money, has been taken as gospel by a vocal section of the fanbase. Probably unwittingly, he has waded in on one side of a long-running debate![/quote]Can anyone really point to a club in the PL in recent times who has not bought a player(s) who has not ''delivered'' ?That we have sold players suggests that players we bought had value. We are not selling players to make ends meet, more a case of adjusting to not having an extra £30m a season.And how many clubs who have been relegated from the PL without debt - more so those with ''hinvestors''. Whatever money we may have pee''ed up the wall we still had enough to lure Webber from a possible PL club to one that was supposedly (according to some) bankrupt and heading for L1.And for every failed igning I can point to Holt, Martin, Hoolahan, Maddison who were signed for relative peanuts. That is football. if we had some genius who was able to only sign the latter then ... we wouldn''t have him as he would be elsewhere earning millions with his ''gift''.We are coming up to a year off getting dumped into LI and being stuffed 7-1 in our first game. No one would have predicted a league title, 3 promotions, 4 years in the PL over the next seven years.We are debt free, have kept a fantastic support, have a fair number of young prospects coming through and a fairfew good uns already playing. If that isn''t good enough then maybe you should go find someone else..... maybe down the A140 and see what they have been up to for the past 9 years.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

Reading this again - and In the interests of avoiding charges of hypocrisy and hindsightery - the Masterclasses identified, evaluated and advocated much of what is now being implemented on and off the field and in terms of the philosophy and direction of travel suitable for the DNA of the club.

This was done years ago and is consistently emphasised throughout the 19 chapters. A greater awareness of European trends, of modern football playing philosophies, data gathering and analysis, plus necessary business oversight and the avoidance of interior Chinese walls did not require exceptional foresight.

The real issue has been for some time what the playing level will look like around November 2018. This is when the true price paid will become apparent.

Parma

[......and Smith must score. 1,362]

Wasn''t the Daily Mail up for it ?

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Canary Wundaboy"]Her ownership ideal belongs in the past, it won''t bring the club success now or in the future.[/quote]Two promotions to the Prem and four seasons there in the last eight years suggests otherwise... [/quote]

Those were McNasty''s promotions and stays in the EPL. Nothing to do with Delia. She took NCFC to second bottom of L1 before McNasty dragged the club up.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Big Vince"][quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Canary Wundaboy"]Her ownership ideal belongs in the past, it won''t bring the club success now or in the future.[/quote]Two promotions to the Prem and four seasons there in the last eight years suggests otherwise... [/quote]

Those were McNasty''s promotions and stays in the EPL. Nothing to do with Delia. She took NCFC to second bottom of L1 before McNasty dragged the club up.[/quote]If success is "nothing to do with Delia" then the same rule must apply with failure Vinnie.

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Big Vince"][quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Canary Wundaboy"]Her ownership ideal belongs in the past, it won''t bring the club success now or in the future.[/quote]Two promotions to the Prem and four seasons there in the last eight years suggests otherwise... [/quote]

Those were McNasty''s promotions and stays in the EPL. Nothing to do with Delia. She took NCFC to second bottom of L1 before McNasty dragged the club up.[/quote]If success is "nothing to do with Delia" then the same rule must apply with failure Vinnie.[/quote]

Failure has everything to do with Delia. That is the kind of person she is. The only time she fails to fail is if she gets lucky with someone who is able to run the club successfully on her behalf (ie. when she stays in the kitchen) and lets that person get on with it.

Success on the other hand had everything to do with Mr Chase. That was the kind of person he was. The only time he failed to succeed was when those moron supporters hounded him out because they preferred L1 to the San Siro.

Well, they got their wish when Delia came along, didn''t they?

[TIL 1010 4,801]

Yet again can i point out that his short term unsecured loans with the club were unable to service forced the fire sale of Ward and Newsome and his demise was caused by Barclays Bank about to knock at the door.

[TIL 1010 4,801]

[quote user="TIL 1010"]Yet again can i point out that his short term unsecured loans with the club were unable to service forced the fire sale of Ward and Newsome and his demise was caused by Barclays Bank about to knock at the door.[/quote]Which the club not with.

[hogesar 9,766]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="hogesar"]Some great posts Purple.[/quote]To be clear, hogesar, I am not at all anti-Webber. He seems like the right man for the job, and I believe the long-term strategy (leaving aside the fact, as Parma says, that we don''t now have much choice) is right. But that doesn''t mean he will not sometimes indulge in spin to suit his own purposes. The problem, whether he realises it or not, is that in effect slagging off the way the club was run before he arrived, exemplified by this dubious allegation of wasting countless millions of PL money, has been taken as gospel by a vocal section of the fanbase. Probably unwittingly, he has waded in on one side of a long-running debate![/quote]

No, I quite like Webber too. But it is pretty clear he is somewhat over stating the position of the club before he came in, and previous decisions. Which, as you say, is to his advantage so why wouldn''t he? It''s also something that a decent amount of supporters will easily buy into because there is a large section who continually believe we aren''t being run well for one reason or another.

He''s probably not bothered it''s been taken as gospel either because it might buy him extra time. Again, hard to blame because doing anything you can to buy time in football now is a must.

[lake district canary 4,551]

It must be human nature I guess.   If you are not keen on someone for some reason, they get the blame when things go wrong, but get no credit when things go right.   Human nature.....or maybe just bigotry.

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="TIL 1010"]Yet again can i point out that his short term unsecured loans with the club were unable to service forced the fire sale of Ward and Newsome and his demise was caused by Barclays Bank about to knock at the door.[/quote]Which the club not with.[/quote]

Well, Delia stood on the brink of administration in the autumn of 2009.

So I leave you to choose the worse of the two: Barclays knocking at the door or pending administration.

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point; whereas Delia took the club to tier 3 for the first time in 49 years.

[TIL 1010 4,801]

[quote user="Big Vince"][quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="TIL 1010"]Yet again can i point out that his short term unsecured loans with the club were unable to service forced the fire sale of Ward and Newsome and his demise was caused by Barclays Bank about to knock at the door.[/quote]Which the club not with.[/quote]

Well, Delia stood on the brink of administration in the autumn of 2009.

So I leave you to choose the worse of the two: Barclays knocking at the door or pending administration.

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point; whereas Delia took the club to tier 3 for the first time in 49 years.[/quote]Munby as Chairman and Doomcaster as Chief Executive fell on their swords back in 2009 but of course back in 1996 Chase was the autocratic one man band running the club from top to bottom and of course you are forgetting he was a minority shareholder therefore easier to shift.

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Big Vince"]Well, Delia stood on the brink of administration in the autumn of 2009.

So I leave you to choose the worse of the two: Barclays knocking at the door or pending administration.

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point; whereas Delia took the club to tier 3 for the first time in 49 years.[/quote]At least she stayed and sorted it out, she didn''t run away........

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="lappinitup"][quote user="Big Vince"]Well, Delia stood on the brink of administration in the autumn of 2009.

So I leave you to choose the worse of the two: Barclays knocking at the door or pending administration.

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point; whereas Delia took the club to tier 3 for the first time in 49 years.[/quote]At least she stayed and sorted it out, she didn''t run away........[/quote]

Chase had the hide of a rhino, but he was hounded out after a concerted campaign so you can hardly accuse him of running away.

[lake district canary 4,551]

[quote user="Big Vince"]

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point[/quote]To the point that he nearly bancrupted the club. I''m very grateful for the success we had then, but let''s not pretend it was good business sense to do it. Also, Leeds all but bancrupted themelves to get their success around the same time and that set them back twenty years - and they still haven''t got back to the PL, whereas we have, several times.  Yes, we''ve been successful in the time since Chase left.  Hard to accept, isn''t it, Vince? 

[Mello Yello 2,303]

Chase was a rubbish cook......apparently......

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Big Vince"]

At least with Chase the club had unprecedented success up to that point[/quote]To the point that he nearly bancrupted the club. I''m very grateful for the success we had then, but let''s not pretend it was good business sense to do it. Also, Leeds all but bancrupted themelves to get their success around the same time and that set them back twenty years - and they still haven''t got back to the PL, whereas we have, several times.  Yes, we''ve been successful in the time since Chase left.  Hard to accept, isn''t it, Vince? 

[/quote]

But we haven''t been successful since Chase left - that''s the whole point. Chase had a top flight accomplishment rate of 90% plus two FA Cup semi-finals and a last 16 in the UEFA Cup, not to mention other European qualifications when English clubs were banned due to morons from Liverpool.

Delia on the other hand has a top flight accomplishment rate of 22.72% plus nothing in the cups and nothing in Europe.

Chase wins hands down.

[TIL 1010 4,801]

Delia has a Wembley victory under her belt but Chase has not.

[nutty nigel 7,647]

Delia and Sir Arthur[:)]

[TIL 1010 4,801]

Actually Nutty if Wembley was not being rebuilt back in 2002 Delia would have two Wembley appearances under her belt and if you count 1973,1975 and 1985 there is one person standing out like a sore thumb as not achieving that feat.

[Big Vince 323]

[quote user="TIL 1010"]Delia has a Wembley victory under her belt but Chase has not.[/quote]

Delia''s record is as follows:

Champions Leagues: Nil

Europa Leagues: Nil

EPLs: Nil

FA Cups: Nil

League Cups: Nil

FA Cup semis: Nil

League Cup semis: Nil

Top 6 EPL finishes: Nil

Top 10 EPL finishes: Nil

European Qualifications: Nil

So that is 10 different categories of success where Delia has recorded a NIL achievement.

What has she been doing for 22 years?

[TCCANARY 263]

[quote user="Big Vince"][quote user="TIL 1010"]Delia has a Wembley victory under her belt but Chase has not.[/quote]

Delia''s record is as follows:

Champions Leagues: Nil

Europa Leagues: Nil

EPLs: Nil

FA Cups: Nil

League Cups: Nil

FA Cup semis: Nil

League Cup semis: Nil

Top 6 EPL finishes: Nil

Top 10 EPL finishes: Nil

European Qualifications: Nil

So that is 10 different categories of success where Delia has recorded a NIL achievement.

What has she been doing for 22 years?[/quote]1 Mr Clutch Cup.