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TeemuVanBasten

Is there a loss of support for the project?

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I can't help but feel that we're a bit of a confused and conflicted fan base at the minute.

But I thought people were always clear that the project involved us investing heavily in youth development and associated facilities, bringing through players and then selling them to ensure the club is self-funded. 

Most of you were on board with that?

The problem is, that isn't compatible with also being a well drilled route one side like Burnley is it. You don't sell a Ben Godfrey for £25m by telling him to hit long balls to big target men, bypassing the midfield in the process. You have to produce players who can play.

So we could play the Dyche (or Hodgson at Palace) way, but that doesn't enable a conveyor belt of footballing talent does it?

Is it Farke who needs to be called into question? He's expected to bring through young players who can play football. Is it actually the project which needs to be questioned? 

I don't see how this 'project' is compatible with the football needed to stay up. 

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The project..deary me. Try winning some points... if Farke can't do it find someone who can. Sick of winning the championship and looking like mugs in the top flight. Not acceptable.

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This project is perfect for a top level championship team as we have seen but it is not compatible with the current premier league. Our best hope of this project working went out of the window when the new super league was cancelled, that would of enabled a levelling of the playing field and our project would of been a success in the new premier league. 

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1 minute ago, Kenny Foggo said:

The project..deary me. Try winning some points... if Farke can't do it find someone who can. Sick of winning the championship and looking like mugs in the top flight. Not acceptable.

I am not necessarily 'pro project' as I believe it is all about enabling ownership by Tom Smith, who has no money, I believe that the club should find new ownership. 

I'm just pointing out how fans seem conflicted at the moment. There are no Emi's in the Burnley squad, yet we needed the £35m we got for him to finance the model. 

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Just now, Herman said:

No problems with it to be honest. Just hacked off with the results.

Was going to say,  the project has enabled us to spend the most in one window in our entire history,  completely redevelop our training complex and create solid foundations for developing young players moving forwards.

The fact we've had a crap start to the season doesn't detract from any of that for me.

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This is an interesting post. Perhaps without injecting (and losing) many millions of pounds every season you have to accept that trying to play decent football and compete in the top flight will always be a tough ask.

We can point to the Burnley's of today as an example of a team doing it right... but are they not just the Stokes and Wigans of yesterday? What happens when they eventually succumb to relegation. Will they bounce back as they did last time? Who knows.

All I do know is Stoke fans could hardly tolerate the football when it was getting them results, it was untenable when it wasn't, similar to Hughton here. 

If it's a choice between the project and the football served up by Dyche, I'll go with the former.

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Just now, Wonarso said:

This is an interesting post. Perhaps without injecting (and losing) many millions of pounds every season you have to accept that trying to play decent football and compete in the top flight will always be a tough ask.

We can point to the Burnley's of today as an example of a team doing it right... but are they not just the Stokes and Wigans of yesterday? What happens when they eventually succumb to relegation. Will they bounce back as they did last time? Who knows.

All I do know is Stoke fans could hardly tolerate the football when it was getting them results, it was untenable when it wasn't, similar to Hughton here. 

If it's a choice between the project and the football served up by Dyche, I'll go with the former.

It's not though. Why do you think that? Do you genuinely believe there are only two approaches and two styles of football? 

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Not an issue with the "project", .

The biggest issue for me is simply are we good enough, a lot of players performed badly today, I'm still not sure if we are a half decent squad who haven't got it together yet or if we just aren't good enough. I'm beginning to fear the latter.

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13 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Was going to say,  the project has enabled us to spend the most in one window in our entire history,  completely redevelop our training complex and create solid foundations for developing young players moving forwards.

The fact we've had a crap start to the season doesn't detract from any of that for me.

We did, but we also let out/sold £33m(+) worth of a genuinely European-quality talent (in my opinion) with proven ability in the English top-flight.

I bought into Farke’s rallying ‘ten cup finals’ call ahead of Project Restart and have turned up to four of this season’s five games to give my support and I felt yesterday’s ‘outburst’ was uncalled for…especially having seen today first hand - it’s over to him now to get a tune out of the squad he’s got that we’re being told is in a far better position to stay up than the last abysmal effort…

The one saving grace I’m clinging onto about the four-year contract if it does go sour is that we’re so tight on wages it’s probably not a massive amount to pay off - I’d be staggered if he’s on more than £1m a year given we were only going to be bumping Buendia up to around £35,000 a week.

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You saw the limitations this window. Instead of signing what we needed to be competitive this season- we signed young talent to sell on the season after next. It has left us lightweight again. 
 

we didn’t go the extra mile for Ajer - and we sold our best player to fund the window. The opposite of what Brentford did and look at them 

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16 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Was going to say,  the project has enabled us to spend the most in one window in our entire history

Is this bit actually true? As in, net transfer spend? 

It is for gross, but got a feeling it isn't for net spend due to Emi proceeds, Hughton second summer with Fer, RVW and Hooper would dwarf it? 

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2 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

You saw the limitations this window. Instead of signing what we needed to be competitive this season- we signed young talent to sell on the season after next. It has left us lightweight again. 
 

we didn’t go the extra mile for Ajer - and we sold our best player to fund the window. The opposite of what Brentford did and look at them 

The Ajer decision is looking poor.

13 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Someone need to tell Brentford they're doing it wrong. They need to play turgid stuff to get points in this league.

Are you saying that their model is similar to ours? As they have no youth academy, so clearly it is not. 

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Just now, TeemuVanBasten said:

The Ajer decision is looking poor.

Are you saying that their model is similar to ours? As they have no youth academy, so clearly it is not. 

No. I'm saying that the idea you need to play like Burnley when you have comparatively fewer resources compared to the rest of the EPL to win points is demonstrable nonsense.

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5 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Is this bit actually true? As in, net transfer spend? 

It is for gross, but got a feeling it isn't for net spend due to Emi proceeds, Hughton second summer with Fer, RVW and Hooper would dwarf it? 

The accounts will look good when published in November 2023!  Mind, carry on like this and we'll be heading for League 1 again.

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4 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Is this bit actually true? As in, net transfer spend? 

It is for gross, but got a feeling it isn't for net spend due to Emi proceeds, Hughton second summer with Fer, RVW and Hooper would dwarf it? 

According to Transfermarkt.com it's close but it's this one by a couple of million euros, whether those loan fees are accurate though I have no idea.

Out of interest. Do you believe if we were to go down this season we would be in a stronger position to return to the prem next year than we were last season? Related to your post, I'm trying to decide that, even if we do have a dire season this year - that we are still a club moving in the right direction.

The off field infrastructure upgrades suggest so.

2 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

The accounts will look good when published in November 2023!  Mind, carry on like this and we'll be heading for League 1 again.

Take heart that many were saying the same thing two season ago, perhaps even 12 months ago!

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Formations, line ups, marking, tactics, substitutions, attitude, fitness, positional awareness. None of it costs anything. We have the players. The squad has been upgraded. The "project" is working in that sense. But the managerial side which makes it tick has not been upgraded. Its like putting a BMW engine into a Dacia.

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1 minute ago, Tumbleweed said:

Formations, line ups, marking, tactics, substitutions, attitude, fitness, positional awareness. None of it costs anything. We have the players. The squad has been upgraded. The "project" is working in that sense. But the managerial side which makes it tick has not been upgraded. Its like putting a BMW engine into a Dacia.

This sums it up pretty well 👍

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30 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

I can't help but feel that we're a bit of a confused and conflicted fan base at the minute.

But I thought people were always clear that the project involved us investing heavily in youth development and associated facilities, bringing through players and then selling them to ensure the club is self-funded. 

Most of you were on board with that?

 

The self-sufficiency project is the only financially viable one we have now, given our owners' lack of mega-money. I don't believe it  necessarily forces us to play in one style or set of tactics  or with a particular type of player. That seems to be more of matter of choice, based on a long-term perspective of what will work best eventually. We could, for example, if we wanted to develop or buy youngsters in the bruising style of a Chris Wood and sell them on for pots of money.

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I'm emotional and angry, so it's difficult to give a level headed answer tbh. But I'm so sick of this, I wouldn't care if we hoofed it up top for a season and managed to stay up or at least win a game. This stinks and I wouldn't even want another promotion if I knew in advance that it would be another humiliating ride like this! I hope we get it sorted but I'm afraid DF is not the man to do it any more... I've got respect for him, but tactically he's just not cutting it at this level.

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I think we wasted too much time getting the best possible deals rather than the right deals, so much of the business was done towards the end of the window. Consequently despite being the first promoted, some 4 months ago, we seem to have a team of complete strangers in terms with how they gel.

It will be really interesting to see what we do with Todd Cantwell. We can kiss goodbye to £40m.

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I haven't lost any faith in the project. This is the project that has taken us from mid-table obscurity in the Championship to being a yo-yo club in little more than four years, so it's actually doing its job in the sense that we've developed the club massively. Progress isn't linear, and even if we do go down we'll still be far stronger than we were five years ago and have a great chance of going straight back up (hopefully stronger) if we don't panic and try to rip up the blueprint. 

No club will ever develop consistently in a straight line without setbacks here and there, and we seem to be taking several steps forward at a time then a couple back, before a few forward again. 

If you look at the four-and-a-bit years of the project as a whole, it's actually working extremely well. You just need to have faith that whilst things aren't going well and the backward steps are being taken, it is still generally moving in the right direction and there will be larger strides forward in the future.

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44 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

I think we wasted too much time getting the best possible deals rather than the right deals, so much of the business was done towards the end of the window. Consequently despite being the first promoted, some 4 months ago, we seem to have a team of complete strangers in terms with how they gel.

It will be really interesting to see what we do with Todd Cantwell. We can kiss goodbye to £40m.

Good point. Would we have signed Huckerby under the model? Sometimes the targeted players must be secured. Ajer may have been such an example

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1 hour ago, ROBFLECK said:

I wouldn't even want another promotion if I knew in advance that it would be another humiliating ride like this! I hope we get it sorted but I'm afraid DF is not the man to do it any more... I've got respect for him, but tactically he's just not cutting it at this level.

This is where I pretty much am at the moment. It's up to Farke to prove us wrong, he's has done so before, I'm not convinced that he can again. 

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1 hour ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

I haven't lost any faith in the project. This is the project that has taken us from mid-table obscurity in the Championship to being a yo-yo club in little more than four years, so it's actually doing its job in the sense that we've developed the club massively. Progress isn't linear, and even if we do go down we'll still be far stronger than we were five years ago and have a great chance of going straight back up (hopefully stronger) if we don't panic and try to rip up the blueprint. 

No club will ever develop consistently in a straight line without setbacks here and there, and we seem to be taking several steps forward at a time then a couple back, before a few forward again. 

If you look at the four-and-a-bit years of the project as a whole, it's actually working extremely well. You just need to have faith that whilst things aren't going well and the backward steps are being taken, it is still generally moving in the right direction and there will be larger strides forward in the future.

Youre completely right of course. As a club we've improved in pretty much every aspect over the 4 years and even the most important I.e the playing squad is for my money better (even if we haven't necessarily seen it yet).

That doesn't mean fans can't be critical of results in isolation of course, and unlike the Liverpool or Man City game today's game is more fair to level criticism at. 

If a poor start to the season is enough for fans to want the throw the entire project away then they're probably not deserving of all the good weve had from it. 

Certainly, and most pertinent, we didnt lose today because of the project. We lost because of simple, poor defensive errors. 

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The self sustainable model is always to balance the books hence journalists and pundits asking “What is the point of Norwich City”We could be an accountancy firm with a football team - totally risk averse buying gimmicky training toys,low cost loanees and aspiring players from European leagues with no PL experience.
Nobody is saying go massively into debt but surely investing in a player or two with PL experience would be worth a gamble otherwise this cycle of built in failure will continue but we will always balance the books whatever league we are in. 
As many reporters have said “The fans deserve better”

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1 hour ago, canarydan23 said:

No. I'm saying that the idea you need to play like Burnley when you have comparatively fewer resources compared to the rest of the EPL to win points is demonstrable nonsense.

I said:

"But I thought people were always clear that the project involved us investing heavily in youth development and associated facilities, bringing through players and then selling them to ensure the club is self-funded"

Now you are comparing us with a club who spends £0 on players under 18. They have no academy. Very strange comparison. 

So this means that you don't believe in our model/project? You think we shouldn't have invested in academy infrastructure, and should adopt the B team model of Brentford?

That's fair enough, but please make sure your arguments make sense, you don't seem to know what you are talking about. Brentford have a completely unique model in British football. 

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1 hour ago, Capt. Pants said:

We can kiss goodbye to £40m.

We were never going to get anywhere near that for Cantwell.

He's a £15m player tops, equal quality to Jamal Lewis.

£40m for Cantwell was always just silly talk, and Webber threw that figure around to dissuade offers as we couldn't afford to lose a second playmaker in the same window.

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