Webbers full interview, out now

[Ulfotto 623]

Basically on the “fans gave up quote”. Surely it is an unwritten rule of any football club is you can’t criticise the fans because you are effectively turning on your audience like a film director telling people they didn’t understand the film and then wondering why no one turns up for the sequel.

you can think it but you can’t say it. Or you can say it once! It is unlikely to you get the chance to say it again.

That said and I don’t in any way condone the comments. I think it is likely to be in relation to the Palace away game which was the half way point of the season where the away fans were celebrating scoring a non exist goal. Gilmour was being abused and Dean Smith bite back a bit in the media. 

[king canary 7,578]

3 hours ago, Bucks said:

Maybe I am being generous, but I do sincerely believe that absolutely no-one would have wanted or expected the outcome we all had to endure.

Positivity beats negativity hands down in my book and in the knowledge that Webber isn't going to be replaced any time soon, we should at least respect that decision and try to start the new season with a clean slate as regards our collective attitude to the board etc.  A continuation of the malaise which has set in between the club and its fanbase would create a huge obstacle for the manager and playing staff going into a challenging campaign and it is unfamiliar and unwelcome at a club like our own.

I suspect everyone at the club will be working hard to correct what has happened on and off the field of play.

 

I've no doubt Webber neither wanted nor expected this outcome but it is what it is.

I get your point about a clean slate but that has to come from Webber too- if he actually wants a clean slate and a positive atmosphere going forward, maybe don't do an interview where you place a portion of the blame for relegation with the fans within the first 2 minutes.

[hogesar 9,618]

33 minutes ago, king canary said:

I've no doubt Webber neither wanted nor expected this outcome but it is what it is.

I get your point about a clean slate but that has to come from Webber too- if he actually wants a clean slate and a positive atmosphere going forward, maybe don't do an interview where you place a portion of the blame for relegation with the fans within the first 2 minutes.

I just have this possible perception of Webber working his ar*e of to get signings in the summer. Then the disappointment they're not working out followed by feeling he had to roll the dice and sack someone he had a good relationship with.

He then spends extra nights doing meetings trying to find or help facilitate external investment into the club, nights away from the family, feeling burnt out. Has some potential investment that can't be spoken about yet. Has to put up with him and the owners getting flack from the national media for "not trying" alongside local media twisting the knife. He then has some more out of hours phone calls trying to work out how genuine investment interest is.

He does a small interview promoting his personal charity involvement and the local press snapshot the 90% bit without context.

Him and Zoe are then working over the weekend to try and help move things along. Norwich lose again and he has our fans outside calling him a c*nt in front of his family.

If everyone else on here is able to hold themselves to a much higher standard in the same scenario then credit to you all but I'm going to call you a liar on it. Money youre being paid is irrelevant. Id be far more direct towards some of our supporters.

That doesn't make it right but for me its understandable.

[Taiwan Canary 142]

oops

Edited May 28, 2022 by Taiwan Canary
wrong thread

[komakino 272]

21 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I just have this possible perception of Webber working his ar*e of to get signings in the summer. Then the disappointment they're not working out followed by feeling he had to roll the dice and sack someone he had a good relationship with.

He then spends extra nights doing meetings trying to find or help facilitate external investment into the club, nights away from the family, feeling burnt out. Has some potential investment that can't be spoken about yet. Has to put up with him and the owners getting flack from the national media for "not trying" alongside local media twisting the knife. He then has some more out of hours phone calls trying to work out how genuine investment interest is.

He does a small interview promoting his personal charity involvement and the local press snapshot the 90% bit without context.

Him and Zoe are then working over the weekend to try and help move things along. Norwich lose again and he has our fans outside calling him a c*nt in front of his family.

If everyone else on here is able to hold themselves to a much higher standard in the same scenario then credit to you all but I'm going to call you a liar on it. Money youre being paid is irrelevant. Id be far more direct towards some of our supporters.

That doesn't make it right but for me its understandable.

With Webber it's as much as what he says then what he does. 

I'm sure he has worked very hard over the last few seasons, but graft means little if you make mistakes and bad judgement calls. 

He's there to make signings in conjunction with the manager of the day to make a positive difference on the pitch, with future sell on potential to boot given the model he is working under. 

Many of his signings have not worked out at the highest level and both himself and Farke found the top level one too many, with the latter being disposed off in unusual circumstances, as it appeared that Webber had nobody in the frame. 

Similar to McNally before him, he was given too much rope and to a degree has burnt himself out too. The board must take some blame for that. 

However, unlike McNally, Webber tries to make it too much about him. I don't blame him using the club to further his career - although that now seems unlikely - but he is a PR nightmare as he alienates fans and public alike with not taking enough personally responsibility and using corporatism and management speak to divert criticism. 

I can see Webber's next move outside of football, as I think he has reached his ceiling. Another football club would not allow his current behaviour and reign in his hostility as an order. 

He's given himself a mountain to climb in every sense. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by komakino

[Bucks 14]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

I've no doubt Webber neither wanted nor expected this outcome but it is what it is.

I get your point about a clean slate but that has to come from Webber too- if he actually wants a clean slate and a positive atmosphere going forward, maybe don't do an interview where you place a portion of the blame for relegation with the fans within the first 2 minutes.

I think some of the language he used was surprising and unnecessary. Whilst it is true that certain sections of the fanbase were very, very negative at an early stage, he should really have known better than to bite. Appealing to their better senses at an earlier stage of the season could perhaps have been more productive.  It's obviously an industry where you will always get a minority of idiots with their own narrative, or unrealistic expectations of where their club should sit in the Football League. Some of the behaviour directed toward him after games, was as cowardly as it was despicable and there are right and wrong ways to go about protesting. Difficult not to react to the aggressive nature of what you are experiencing I imagine, when your wife is there to witness it too.  

All in all an ugly series of events, and perhaps some clarification is required to correct the generalist way in which his criticisms appear to have been interpreted.

21,500 season tickets sold demonstrates the desire to support a campaign which would see Webber et al putting right some of what has gone wrong in the past 12 months.

The other way of looking at it, is to remind yourself that it is just football...and nobody died. 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Bucks

[king canary 7,578]

33 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I just have this possible perception of Webber working his ar*e of to get signings in the summer. Then the disappointment they're not working out followed by feeling he had to roll the dice and sack someone he had a good relationship with.

He then spends extra nights doing meetings trying to find or help facilitate external investment into the club, nights away from the family, feeling burnt out. Has some potential investment that can't be spoken about yet. Has to put up with him and the owners getting flack from the national media for "not trying" alongside local media twisting the knife. He then has some more out of hours phone calls trying to work out how genuine investment interest is.

He does a small interview promoting his personal charity involvement and the local press snapshot the 90% bit without context.

Him and Zoe are then working over the weekend to try and help move things along. Norwich lose again and he has our fans outside calling him a c*nt in front of his family.

If everyone else on here is able to hold themselves to a much higher standard in the same scenario then credit to you all but I'm going to call you a liar on it. Money youre being paid is irrelevant. Id be far more direct towards some of our supporters.

That doesn't make it right but for me its understandable.

I get that to an extent but I'm sure like most people you've worked in customer facing jobs. Often the customers can be absolute **** and make your life difficult. However you don't say that to said customers, you **** and moan about them to you colleagues, friends, partner etc. Just basic really.

[king canary 7,578]

15 minutes ago, komakino said:

I can see Webber's next move outside of football, as I think he has reached his ceiling. Another football club would not allow his current behaviour and reign in his hostility as an order. 

Totally agree. I said even back in the days of the 'if you didn't enjoy that performance go support someone else' quote in his first season that fanbases of bigger clubs would crucify him for that. You can't be both the public face of a football club and be unable to reign in some of your worst instincts like that.

[hogesar 9,618]

48 minutes ago, king canary said:

I get that to an extent but I'm sure like most people you've worked in customer facing jobs. Often the customers can be absolute **** and make your life difficult. However you don't say that to said customers, you **** and moan about them to you colleagues, friends, partner etc. Just basic really.

I know. I get it. I'll caveat it with disrespectful people I've previously told I dont want their business,  go find someone else. I guess thats similar to his go and support someone else quote. Also he is an employee.

The primary difference is its football and football is different. People are tied to it. I dont deny Webber has said things that have made his life more difficult for him and angered certain fans. I'm just saying on a human level I can understand it.

I also think some of the same fans dont appreciate that he is not only under constraints financially that make his job considerably harder but also that unlike McNally he has one eye on the long term future of the club beyond his time here. And despite that he's called selfish and egotistical.

Edited May 28, 2022 by hogesar

[king canary 7,578]

38 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I know. I get it. I'll caveat it with disrespectful people I've previously told I dont want their business,  go find someone else. I guess thats similar to his go and support someone else quote. Also he is an employee.

The primary difference is its football and football is different. People are tied to it. I dont deny Webber has said things that have made his life more difficult for him and angered certain fans. I'm just saying on a human level I can understand it.

I also think some of the same fans dont appreciate that he is not only under constraints financially that make his job considerably harder but also that unlike McNally he has one eye on the long term future of the club beyond his time here. And despite that he's called selfish and egotistical.

I actually think his reaction outside the City Stand is more understandable from a human level. Having a bunch of people in your face calling you bad words and saying you're **** at your job is likely to get a reaction, even if he could have handled himself better.

I don't think it really applies to this interview though. It also begs the question, who is screening this stuff at the club? I can't believe nobody picked up 'hey maybe considering your strained relationship with the fans it might not be great to kick the interview off by saying they gave up?' It kind of lends some weight to the sense that Webber is somewhat unaccountable and basically allowed to do what he wants.

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,891]

49 minutes ago, hogesar said:

unlike McNally he has one eye on the long term future of the club beyond his time here. And despite that he's called selfish and egotistical.

Lewis, Godfrey and Maddison all came to the club during McNally's time. I don't think it's a stretch to say that without the income from their sales we'd have been neck deep in the brown stuff. That's not to stay McNally got everything right (quite clearly) but I think he had more vision than you give him credit for imo.

Personally, I do think Webber is selfish and egotistical. That said, they are traits that have probably got him to where he is today - a very well paid, high profile individual; his elbows are no doubt as sharp as his tongue. They are traits that you 'put up with' when things are going well, much like fans will put up with less entertaining football as long as the results are good. However, when the results aren't quite as good, fans will naturally be less forgiving. Like wise, when we have another awful season in the top division, fans are going to get a little tired of Webber blaming everybody, including the fans, but somehow excluding his own part in our journey.

You are lucky enough to go to the home games Hoggy, something that I am envious of living 200+ miles away. But you have had to pay the privilege to watch some truly awful performances this season and, quite understandably, the crowd generally haven't been that vocal at times. But even with the turgid nature of our season, you and the other fans still came and never really ever turned on the team, apart from the odd boo which was half-hearted at best and probably more of an expression of general dissatisfaction. To my mind, it is not right that he criticises you and others that go in their thousands, get nothing to really get behind and then get little digs as to the level of your support. I am, in fact, defending you. And no. I've not been drinking. 😉

OTBC

Edited May 28, 2022 by Disco Dales Jockstrap

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,891]

 

11 minutes ago, king canary said:

I don't think it really applies to this interview though. It also begs the question, who is screening this stuff at the club?

I can only conclude that he must 'screen' his own stuff otherwise I can't see how either 'The Times' interview or the club one would have gone out in the form they did.

OTBC

[nutty nigel 7,509]

1 hour ago, komakino said:

With Webber it's as much as what he says then what he does. 

I'm sure he has worked very hard over the last few seasons, but graft means little if you make mistakes and bad judgement calls. 

He's there to make signings in conjunction with the manager of the day to make a positive difference on the pitch, with future sell on potential to boot given the model he is working under. 

Many of his signings have not worked out at the highest level and both himself and Farke found the top level one too many, with the latter being disposed off in unusual circumstances, as it appeared that Webber had nobody in the frame. 

Similar to McNally before him, he was given too much rope and to a degree has burnt himself out too. The board must take some blame for that. 

However, unlike McNally, Webber tries to make it too much about him. I don't blame him using the club to further his career - although that now seems unlikely - but he is a PR nightmare as he alienates fans and public alike with not taking enough personally responsibility and using corporatism and management speak to divert criticism. 

I can see Webber's next move outside of football, as I think he has reached his ceiling. Another football club would not allow his current behaviour and reign in his hostility as an order. 

He's given himself a mountain to climb in every sense. 

It's my understanding that Webber has always had a list of managers that he would consider for our club. He certainly didn't sack Farke and then make a list. That's too amateurish to be believable yet you seem to believe it like the rest of the fairytales you continually post.

As I understand it Dean Smith was the highest person on that list that was available. The fact he wasn't available when Farke was sacked makes no difference. Farke wasn't sacked to appoint Dean Smith, he was sacked to appoint the highest ranked manager Webber could get from his list. That narrative changed the next day.

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,891]

1 minute ago, nutty nigel said:

As I understand it Dean Smith was the highest person on that list that was available. The fact he wasn't available when Farke was sacked makes no difference. Farke wasn't sacked to appoint Dean Smith, he was sacked to appoint the highest ranked manager Webber could get from his list. That narrative changed the next day.

I seem to be in the minority on here in actually liking Dean Smith. I hope he is given time, like Farke was, to build his team.

OTBC

[nutty nigel 7,509]

Just now, Disco Dales Jockstrap said:

I seem to be in the minority on here in actually liking Dean Smith. I hope he is given time, like Farke was, to build his team.

OTBC

Jury's out for me but he starts next season with a clean slate Disco.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,510]

It just occurred to me that I completely missed what the headline was that started Stuart Webber's boycott of Archant? 

[king canary 7,578]

1 minute ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It just occurred to me that I completely missed what the headline was that started Stuart Webber's boycott of Archant? 

It was the 'do you actually want this job?' one post his interview about mountain climbing.

[Mat McGoo 0]

The man is utterly DELUDED!!!! He's got to go. " I'M AUTHENTIC"  wow yes you are Stuart...... IN A BAD WAY. 

[OnDaBall 137]

I must admit when I read the soundbites of the interview I thought 'oh dear', but having watched it all, I actually thought he came across quite well.

However I do think it's ill advised to blame the fans in anyway, after all we only react to what we see on the pitch, also obviously the decision was made to not discuss it, but I'm sure one of the main things lots of us would like to know is was there a succession plan when sacking Farke, because the way it was done led us to believe someone was lined up, but obviously that wasn't the case?

[canarybubbles 1,915]

23 hours ago, hogesar said:

I just have this possible perception of Webber working his ar*e of to get signings in the summer. Then the disappointment they're not working out followed by feeling he had to roll the dice and sack someone he had a good relationship with.

He then spends extra nights doing meetings trying to find or help facilitate external investment into the club, nights away from the family, feeling burnt out. Has some potential investment that can't be spoken about yet. Has to put up with him and the owners getting flack from the national media for "not trying" alongside local media twisting the knife. He then has some more out of hours phone calls trying to work out how genuine investment interest is.

He does a small interview promoting his personal charity involvement and the local press snapshot the 90% bit without context.

Him and Zoe are then working over the weekend to try and help move things along. Norwich lose again and he has our fans outside calling him a c*nt in front of his family.

If everyone else on here is able to hold themselves to a much higher standard in the same scenario then credit to you all but I'm going to call you a liar on it. Money youre being paid is irrelevant. Id be far more direct towards some of our supporters.

That doesn't make it right but for me its understandable.

This is all a bit 'poor persecuted Stuart'. He's quick enough to dish it out, but when some criticism comes back, he turns into a precious little wounded snowflake. It's part of his job to put up with twenty fans with a bedsheet. If he wants the job, then he speaks to the local press because he's an employee and that's part of his job. If he doesn't want the job - 'I can walk out any time I want' - then walk, Stuart. There are other Directors of Football. Many of them will have less talent, but equally they won't have your pettiness and egoism which are splitting our club in half. 

[hogesar 9,618]

33 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

This is all a bit 'poor persecuted Stuart'. He's quick enough to dish it out, but when some criticism comes back, he turns into a precious little wounded snowflake. It's part of his job to put up with twenty fans with a bedsheet. If he wants the job, then he speaks to the local press because he's an employee and that's part of his job. If he doesn't want the job - 'I can walk out any time I want' - then walk, Stuart. There are other Directors of Football. Many of them will have less talent, but equally they won't have your pettiness and egoism which are splitting our club in half. 

If this investment goes ahead and Webber played a significant role in it I promise you all this will be forgotten and he will be seen as progressing the club rather than splitting it.

[TheRock 155]

On 28/05/2022 at 08:51, Bucks said:

You really have twisted what he said haven't you!??? 

Having to deal with 26,000 experts like yourself week in week out must be an absolute nightmare. 

Webber didn't want what happened to happen, but he ultimately takes the rap because that is his job and what he is paid for.

He's probably working with one of the most vague strategic briefs in the league because of the owners and their investment limitations and their desire to keep the club almost as a family heirloom, yet expecting or wanting to maintain Premier League status.

 

 

 

I didnt twist what he said at all,  I quoted it exactally how he said it... 🤭😉

How can the current owners keep the club if they cant afford to run it without relying on Premier League revenue, which soon dries up after the parachute payments end? 😂

[Big Vince 318]

On 26/05/2022 at 12:28, WD40 said:

"Even at the end of the game against Spurs (a 5-0 defeat on the final day of the season), the majority stayed and applauded the team off. The majority of supporters respect that everyone's trying their hardest."
 

He has the audacity to call the local media liars (for reporting factually on his comments in times interview) and then goes and tells this bald faced lie. The majority of fans stayed? They all applauded did they? He’s a hypocrite. Collect your P45 at the front desk. 

There was a Luton removals van outside the directors' entrance at 7.15 this morning.