Alan Irvine

[ReadingOwl]

Ahhh wondered how long it would take for people to start pointing the finger at Irvine...

Those players are to blame...not Irvine

Conversly, I wondered how long it would be before people started saying the emporers new clothes still look mighty fine to me. You should not criticise etc, etc. If your expectations were and are, so low (we were beyond saving, by, anyone) - then why didn't you give me the job? I could fail also, but on less money.

His objective was to keep us in this division. If he doesn't he will have failed, end of. No excuses. What we do then is a different topic.

The salient question is - if he offered to walk away at the end of the season, having failed, with no financial implications, would you expect the Club to persuade him to stay? I wouldn't, on current performance. Why should I? You tell me why I should have faith?

It is not going to happen and thus, we have to take the pragmatic view that we cannot as a club, change anything.

It doesn't mean that we can't critcise or else we are being disloyal.

Or do you just want us to repeat how lovely his clothes are?

[i used to be sc_owl]

Yeah the debt is a problem, but why is it crippling ?

We pay £500,000 to service it.

Granted, that 500k could be used on a solid championship player, but it is hardly holding us back to the extent of it being "crippling"

IIRC, the above sentiments are also echoed by our chairman

Agreed.

[Glaser]

His objective was to keep us in this division. If he doesn't he will have failed, end of. No excuses. What we do then is a different topic.

I am one of his most ardent of supporters, but, Lee assured us at the time he was the man to keep us up and said we had the squad and now the manager, to be maintaining our championship status.

Henceforth, if we are to be relegated, Lee has failed in his summation of squad and manager, or Alan has failed in his brief.

But.... was the brief realistic ?

Aims are only that.... expectations can be achieved.

[i used to be sc_owl]

I am one of his most ardent of supporters, but, Lee assured us at the time he was the man to keep us up and said we had the squad and now the manager, to be maintaining our championship status.

Henceforth, if we are to be relegated, Lee has failed in his summation of squad and manager, or Alan has failed in his brief.

But.... was the brief realistic ?

Aims are only that.... expectations can be achieved.

I think the pre season briefs were pretty unrealistic i.e. play offs.

However, the brief to Alan Irvine to keep us up was realistic.

If we go down, then everyone at the club has to take some of the blame.

[Arthur Bach]

I am one of his most ardent of supporters, but, Lee assured us at the time he was the man to keep us up and said we had the squad and now the manager, to be maintaining our championship status.

Henceforth, if we are to be relegated, Lee has failed in his summation of squad and manager, or Alan has failed in his brief.

But.... was the brief realistic ?

Aims are only that.... expectations can be achieved.

All we hear all season is that The Championship is the league where anybody can beat anyone else.

Except Sheffield Wednesday.

[DJMortimer]

Yeah the debt is a problem, but why is it crippling ?

We pay £500,000 to service it.

Granted, that 500k could be used on a solid championship player, but it is hardly holding us back to the extent of it being "crippling"

IIRC, the above sentiments are also echoed by our chairman

We've had 4 chairmen, 7 managers and god knows how many players since we were relegated in 2000. Apart from a brief spell in League One, the vast majority of that time has been spent in the lower reaches of the Championship, precisely where our finances suggest is most likely for us to be. Is that a coincidence? Depending on who you believe about the budgets of ourselves and our peers throughout these years, we may actually have overachieved more often than we've underachieved on that basis.

[Glaser]

I think the pre season briefs were pretty unrealistic i.e. play offs.

However, the brief to Alan Irvine to keep us up was realistic.

If we go down, then everyone at the club has to take some of the blame.

But was it ?

Was Laws punching above his weight before and has the season previous to this, where we massively over achieved, set us up for an even bigger fall ?

Have we (and Lee) let that season cloud our judgment of how good we and Brian actually were / are ?

That might have been our "blip" season, yet we have used that as a sole indicator of the squads potential

[ReadingOwl]

All we hear all season is that The Championship is the league where anybody can beat anyone else.

Except Sheffield Wednesday.

Excellent.

Less words and more concise than my posts. Derby, Coventry, Bristol all spring to mind. Hardly unbelievable results, wins, were they? All post Laws.

But he did do better at Reading - by one goal. Credit where credit is due.

F******G shambles.

[Max]

We've had 4 chairmen, 7 managers and god knows how many players since we were relegated in 2000. Apart from a brief spell in League One, the vast majority of that time has been spent in the lower reaches of the Championship, precisely where our finances suggest is most likely for us to be. Is that a coincidence? Depending on who you believe about the budgets of ourselves and our peers throughout these years, we may actually have overachieved more often than we've underachieved on that basis.

Don't beat around the bush DJM, blame someone.

We all need someone to blame.

It all has to be someone's fault.

Blaming people, and arguing about who to blame, is the only solution to this mess, with three games to go and our survival still in our hands.

Stop trying to pretend that this might be more complicated.

Blame, argue, blame, argue, blame, argue... relegation.

[Wise_Owl]

Yeah the debt is a problem, but why is it crippling ?

We pay £500,000 to service it.

Granted, that 500k could be used on a solid championship player, but it is hardly holding us back to the extent of it being "crippling"

IIRC, the above sentiments are also echoed by our chairman

We paid $565,000 in 2009.

That is 1,400 season tickets @ £400 apiece - no concessions - that we need to sell just to service the debt.

It equates to 15% of our annual loss in 2009.

It is the main reason we are such a hard sell investment wise.

Furthermore, the only reason the servicing costs are so low is because the Co-op realise that to charge any more would sink us as a business. This favourable arrangement comes at a price; that price being that the bank have the right to place certain restrictions on the club to protect their "investment" in us. We will pay the interest we can afford, and the bank are in a prime position to dictate the terms. The parked debt will not remain parked forever, should we ever make any headway into repaying the massive liability we have built up through years of financial negligence (IMHO) [/saloon bar etc]

The debt IS a monumental problem for a club of our limited resources and modest profitability. I can't work out why anyone would claim otherwise.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Wise_Owl

[mcmigo]

We've had 4 chairmen, 7 managers and god knows how many players since we were relegated in 2000. Apart from a brief spell in League One, the vast majority of that time has been spent in the lower reaches of the Championship, precisely where our finances suggest is most likely for us to be. Is that a coincidence? Depending on who you believe about the budgets of ourselves and our peers throughout these years, we may actually have overachieved more often than we've underachieved on that basis.

Our average league finishing position in the league since 2000 is, amazingly, 22nd in the Championship. We are bang on average this season. Irvine and Laws this season are simply achieving what the clubs average position is.

Laws massively overachieved in at least 2 of his 3 seasons here.

[i used to be sc_owl]

But was it ?

Was Laws punching above his weight before and has the season previous to this, where we massively over achieved, set us up for an even bigger fall ?

Have we (and Lee) let that season cloud our judgment of how good we and Brian actually were / are ?

That might have been our "blip" season, yet we have used that as a sole indicator of the squads potential

Well, teams have done it before through luck, hard work, organisation and determination and on budgets similar to ours.

I don't think it was realistic for us because we were terrible away from home under BL, despite having a great home record last season IIRC.

A realistic aim for this season would have been top half, with anything below 16th-17th unacceptable IMO.

People can bang on about budgets all the time, but it's not the be all and end all unless we are talking about differences of many millions.

[Glaser]

Don't beat around the bush DJM, blame someone.

We all need someone to blame.

It all has to be someone's fault.

Blaming people, and arguing about who to blame, is the only solution to this mess, with three games to go and our survival still in our hands.

Stop trying to pretend that this might be more complicated.

Blame, argue, blame, argue, blame, argue... relegation.

Lest we forget, inactivity and a lack of words, will do wonders

Don't you think after the piteous season that we've had, we are entitled a grumble and a moan ? ?

[Glaser]

The debt IS a monumental problem for a club of our limited resources and modest profitability. I can't work out why anyone would claim otherwise.

Well that "anyone" happens to be the chairman of our club

Doesn't paint it in the picture as you just have (most eloquently might I add), but then again, his job is to maintain calm, so it would not be in his best interests

[Wise_Owl]

Lest we forget, inactivity and a lack of words, will do wonders

Don't you think after the piteous season that we've had, we are entitled a grumble and a moan ? ?

If you entered a Formula One campaign in a rusty Austin Princess, with a £2,000 budget for the season, and Maureen Rees as your designated driver, and didn't manage a single podium finish, would it entitle you to a moan about how your team had underperformed?

[scram]

We paid $565,000 in 2009.

That is 1,400 season tickets @ £400 apiece - no concessions - that we need to sell just to service the debt.

It equates to 15% of our annual loss in 2009.

It is the main reason we are such a hard sell investment wise.

Furthermore, the only reason the servicing costs are so low is because the Co-op realise that to charge any more would sink us as a business. This favourable arrangement comes at a price; that price being that the bank have the right to place certain restrictions on the club to protect their "investment" in us. We will pay the interest we can afford, and the bank are in a prime position to dictate the terms. The parked debt will not remain parked forever, should we ever make any headway into repaying the massive liability we have built up through years of financial negligence (IMHO) [/saloon bar etc]

The debt IS a monumental problem for a club of our limited resources and modest profitability. I can't work out why anyone would claim otherwise.

Absolutely bang on

It'sridiculous to suggest the debt isn't hampering us considerably

[Wise_Owl]

Well that "anyone" happens to be the chairman of our club

Doesn't paint it in the picture as you just have (most eloquently might I add), but then again, his job is to maintain calm, so it would not be in his best interests

It's unlikely he's going to focus on the debt while he is, we hear, trying to sell the club and its merits to interested parties and persuade disgruntled and disinterested fans to buy into the Wednesday dream.

Whether or not he will admit it publically, we have been landed with a gargantuan burden that has brought this great club to its knees.

Any idiot can start an avalanche, but it's a hell of a lot more work to push all the snow back up the mountain.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Wise_Owl

[Glaser]

If you entered a Formula One campaign in a rusty Austin Princess, with a £2,000 budget for the season, and Maureen Rees as your designated driver, and didn't manage a single podium finish, would it entitle you to a moan about how your team had underperformed?

If, at the start of that F1 season, we were told that we might get a podium finish, or at least get close to one, due to teams like Ferrari and Mclaren "cutting their clothes" and us getting the "cream of the crop" new tyres and helmets for poor old Maureen ..........yes

Edited April 12, 2010 by Glaser

[Max]

Lest we forget, inactivity and a lack of words, will do wonders

Don't you think after the piteous season that we've had, we are entitled a grumble and a moan ? ?

Of course I do. And I'm as pissed off as anyone else.

But this is ridiculous.

We've got three games left. And it's still in our hands.

Beyond that, it's rumbleing obvious simply from the very fact that no one can agree what has caused this season that there is not one single cause.

So many things have come together for this season to happen, and we can dissect it all and work out to the hundreth of a percentage exactly what element caused which part for weeks on end in the summer.

But what use is it now? Doesn't it usefully deflect from the part those of us who are able to can play in the coming weeks? We're not down yet, and while we complain about the players rolling over and seemingly having accepted our demise, are we any different? Where's the fight on this board to stay up?

All we've seen for 3 weeks now is the same arguments rehashed over and over again - Laws is to blame, no Strafford is to blame, no Irvine is to blame, no the debt is to blame, no the players are to blame, no the band is to blame, and so on - where does this get us? There's no answer. There's no single thing which has caused this. This is a club of 20,000+ people, and we're saying that one single thing has caused everything to fall apart, and we are wasting our time arguing about it?

[Glaser]

It's unlikely he's going to focus on the debt while he is, we hear, trying to sell the club and its merits to interested parties.

Whether or not he will admit it publically, we have been landed with a gargantuan burden that has brought this great club to its knees.

Any idiot can start an avalanche, but it's a hell of a lot more work to push all the snow back up the mountain.

love the analogy !!

Just got a picture now of DA bellowing really crassly* (*and slamming down newspapers) on a piste, whilst Lee and Nick are at the bottom awaiting the snow with a beach spade and bucket apiece !!!!