A Time for Reflection

[Jim]

The Chansiri era on the pitch has had it’s ups and downs but we’ve been as competitive in the championship as we ever have been since we left the premier league.

 

I don’t know much about the running of the club but I’ve read posts on here that have been critical of this under Chansiri and I dare say that he’s made mistakes and he may even have alienated certain factions? That said I think his heart is very much in the club and the project and sometimes when you are so committed to something and therefore desperate to succeed, mistakes are invariably made?

 

The main bone of contention are ticket prices but personally I think the EFL’s P&S rules have contributed to this somewhat? I believe if the rules weren’t as they are then the prices would be more acceptable. That said we could’ve been more pro-active with regards to revenue if we had bought and sold in the transfer market more?

 

For the first time in his tenure he has a proven operator as a manager in this country and at this level and someone who is very good at wheeling and dealing in the market and hopefully the Chairman will let him have a free reign. If he does I expect the success that he and the fanbase crave may not be too far away from happening?

[dorian gray]

7 hours ago, DuttyTeabags said:

The odds are stacked against us in terms of commercial income streams and we fell out of the Prem at just the wrong time as TV revenues started to rise exponentially. 

 

Mismanagement of expenditure in mid to late 90's. Paying top 3 wages with lower mid table performance and income. Took on 16m from Sanderson and then blew it on likes of de Bilde, Sibon, Hinchcliffe, Blondeau, Scottish pair, Jonk etc. I honestly believe if Big Ron had been given job he would have sold off the dross, stabilised the club in mid table with addition of astute signings like Emerson Thome and then pushed on from there. Dave Richards in his drive for revenge on Ron not only fkd the club then but also in not supporting di Canio. We would have built around the 2 Italians which would have meant the chance of top 6 / Europe. 

 

Cue a decade and a half of hand to mouth, where arguably due to financial constraints we did as well as we could hope for.  Cue Stuart Gray, astute loans and frees saw us in much better shape than we'd been. DC money arrives, we buy Bus, Melo and Vermijl from Man Utd. Not the type of signings which Gray scouting network would bring so sounds like the 'advisors' were already at work. 

 

DC mistake number 1. Wrong advisors. 

DC mistake number 2. Listening to advisors who pushed CC and told him to let Gray go. 

DC mistake number 3. Buying a bunch of overpriced over the hill Prem bllcks (see released and Rhodes). 

 

In essence, a complete replay of late 90's financial and recruitment imprudence which has led us to here. 

 

Due to the location of Hillsborough outside of the city, plus the relative lack of financial / economic prosperity / growth in Sheffield (see how Manchester has reinvented itself) we will always struggle from a commercial revenue streams POV. We are a 2 club city, and whether or not we like it SUFC do have the upper hand in terms of proximity to city centre. 

 

In short, we need to reset the wage bill, try and remove some of the other big earners from the balance sheet and bolster squad with hungry quick loanees which will be much easier with our second half season performance and Bruce relationships / reputation. We can't bleed the fanbase much more than currently so may have to accept we'll lose one fan favourite if paid offers come in. 

 

Hopefully promotion soon, a few seasons in the Prem to stabilise the club and make much needed incremental improvements to the stadium. 

 

It's a shame HS2 rail link couldn't be persuaded to stop closer to Hillsborough but it follows the M1 and with Hillsborough North West makes no sense. 

 

Let's just nail next season and go from there!! 

I think you find that sheffield united are a sheffield supported football club, whilst wednesday's support is from a much wider area indeed.

the village I grew up in was 16 miles from hillsborough, and only 5 from barnsley, but there far were more wednesday fans in it than barnsley ones.

my sister lived in south kirby (west yorkshire) and one day I was with my nephew and saw a number of lads with blue and white scarves on, I asked him if they were featherstone rovers fans?, he replied 'no sheffield wednesday'

sheffield wednesday are not 'just' a sheffield football club, if you tried to travel the A61 on the saturday of big game, you'd see that.

I don't think I know any piggy fans from outside sheffield's boundaries, I know many wednesday fans who are.

WAWAW?

Edited May 6, 2019 by dorian gray
W

[DuttyTeabags]

10 minutes ago, dorian gray said:

I think you find that sheffield united are a sheffield supported football club, whilst wednesday's support is from a much wider area indeed.

the village I grew up in was 16 miles from hillsborough, and only 5 from barnsley, but there far were more wednesday fans in it than barnsley ones.

my sister lived in south kirby (west yorkshire) and one day I was with my nephew and saw a number of lads with blue and white scarves on, I asked him if they were featherstone rovers fans?, he replied 'no sheffield wednesday'

sheffield wednesday are not 'just' a sheffield football club, if you tried to travel the A61 on the saturday of big game, you'd see that.

I don't think I know any piggy fans from outside sheffield's boundaries, I know many wednesday fans who are.

WAWAW?

Valid but my point was more about commercial revenue streams, such as conferencing etc. City Centre based has a much better chance of diversified revenues 

[fred mciver]

Yeah, but not much time.

 

For a change , we gotta get a great start to new season so recruitment has to be fast and effective.

 

Brucey made a good start getting rid of non performers outta contract.

 

Let's hope he can find next Norwood and McGoldrick if under FFP soft embargo.

Edited May 6, 2019 by fred mciver

[dorian gray]

9 hours ago, S36 OWL said:

I think DC has finally realised that to get out of this division you need an experienced manager with experience of getting teams promoted from the championship . 

 

1 hour ago, EcclesallOwl said:

 

Every manager in the top 6 has either no or little experience of the championship and the two promoted have never been promoted from the championship before 

ok so you don't necessarily 'have to' have a manager with 'championship' or 'championship promotion experience', but it can seriously be an advantage if and when 'the ship hits a rock'.

under carlos we had just the one idea and method of how to play, it worked for a certain length of time, but when it was stopped, that was it, no plan B, no back up, no alternatives. 

I watched the opening 15 minutes of the sunderland at southend game at the w/e, and sunderland were employing 'the emperor's new clothes' of needlessly playing it about at the back, trying to look for an upfield opening, whilst being hunted down by a 'ball hungry' southend forward line.

the sunderland backs were struggling to control the ball before being shut down, their m/f was dropping deep to enter into the 'deep ball playing' game.

then with no alternative other that to play it forward in the hope of creating something they shifted it 30/35 yards back to the keeper. I thought 'kin 'ell, where have I seen this shyte before I wonder?

[RichSheffWeds]

What the pigs, Norwich, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Burnley have all proved is that it’s not just about money.

 

Its really about the right recruitment of the players with the right attitude and mindset to be part of a team.

 

Both Norwich and the pigs sold a star player at the start of the season and still prospered. 

 

Given we cannot compete financially with parachute payments etc, we need to learn those lessons, sell a couple of big name players and re-invest in team players where personal ego’s are less important than the group as a whole. 

 

Get the right motivated players in a system they understand with no big time Charlie’s and you have the ingredients for success. 

 

 

 

[dorian gray]

54 minutes ago, DuttyTeabags said:

Valid but my point was more about commercial revenue streams, such as conferencing etc. City Centre based has a much better chance of diversified revenues 

I think if you taking just that into consideration then easy access would trump city centre, so a new ground built outside the city but with fantastic transport links would be desirable. sadly we have, what we have, and no more.

but what we have could have 'perhaps' been marketed and used better.

[prowl]

11 hours ago, CalmJimmers said:

So as another season comes to a close, I think it’s time for a good look in the mirror, as a fan base and club.

 

So to us, as a fan base and club. It will be 20 years next year that we were last in the top flight, and near 30 years since we managed any real success. Why? Why in that 20 years have United gone up twice and we haven’t once? Why have Huddersfield, Brighton, Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea, Cardiff all managed but not us? Poor financial management that we are still feeling? An arrogance in the last 5 or so years that we’re above United so it’s alright? A reluctance to sell players when stock is high and reinvest? Poor academy products so a lack of affiliation to the club and selling on assets? Poor recruitment? An inability to move with the times?

 

For me, I think financially we were without a pot to wee wee in for so long when football was going so commercial that we got left behind and we’re playing catch-up still. I also think as a club we have an arrogance that holds us back a little. We don’t sell because we are too big to be a ‘selling club’ (hate that phrase with a passion). We are also sparing to those that cannot take us further and are terrified of letting them go - Hooper, Lee, Hutchinson are all injury prone with evidence staring us in the face and some still don’t want to move them on, Forestieri hasn’t been the same for near on two years, some wanted George Hirst to dictate terms to us so we could keep him. The amount of times we have been done by letting player’s contracts run down because we are scared of letting them go has burnt us - Brunt, Antonio etc.

 

Are we stuck too in the past, inflexible and fearful to really progress? Or have we just been unlucky?

I don't think the fans are the problem in this area. That's directly down to DC. He thought we could be a family, sign players and they become part of the family, you don't sell your children, you don't sell your players. Not a good way to operate. Sell them when they are at peak value buy others, rinse and repeat. Progress.

 

Our recruitment has been terrible, we've overpaid for players, paid too much in wages, in effect been a soft touch. Even worse than that, after the first season when we did buy some good player, we bought the wrong ones in the susequent seasons. Some were good players but they didn't play in the positions we were weak in or they just couldn't play in our system. I don't know if that was down to DC or the managers but it was disasterous, the one thing I'm certain of it wasn't the fans fault.

 

I'm not saying the fan base is perfect because we aren't but in this particular area we are guilt free.

[dorian gray]

3 minutes ago, prowl said:

I don't think the fans are the problem in this area. That's directly down to DC. He thought we could be a family, sign players and they become part of the family, you don't sell your children, you don't sell your players. Not a good way to operate. Sell them when they are at peak value buy others, rinse and repeat. Progress.

 

Our recruitment has been terrible, we've overpaid for players, paid too much in wages, in effect been a soft touch. Even worse than that, after the first season when we did buy some good player, we bought the wrong ones in the susequent seasons. Some were good players but they didn't play in the positions we were weak in or they just couldn't play in our system. I don't know if that was down to DC or the managers but it was disasterous, the one thing I'm certain of it wasn't the fans fault.

 

I'm not saying the fan base is perfect because we aren't but in this particular area we are guilt free.

he's had to fetch the likes of bruce in with 'serious management experience' as he, carlos and jos had 'virtually' none, and i'm being very kind when I say 'virtually'.

[dorian gray]

28 minutes ago, RichSheffWeds said:

What the pigs, Norwich, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Burnley have all proved is that it’s not just about money.

 

Its really about the right recruitment of the players with the right attitude and mindset to be part of a team.

 

Both Norwich and the pigs sold a star player at the start of the season and still prospered. 

 

Given we cannot compete financially with parachute payments etc, we need to learn those lessons, sell a couple of big name players and re-invest in team players where personal ego’s are less important than the group as a whole. 

 

Get the right motivated players in a system they understand with no big time Charlie’s and you have the ingredients for success. 

 

 

 

i'd keep westwood, palmer, (lees and hutch perhaps) bannan, (lee why not?), (fletcher we have to, can the same be said of rhodes too? as no one will take those wages on), not sure if i'm missing anyone? if not the rest can go.

Edited May 6, 2019 by dorian gray

[Costello 77]

No need for introspection.

I did what I've done for years after the last match...yawn...loud belch and chuckle at myself for still being on the treadmill.

Then I think of summer...and all the wild Wednesday related fantasy signings that we'll make and unlikely scenarios that will make us a superpower....

Don't grow up.... it's a trap!!

[OWLERTON GHOST]

14 minutes ago, dorian gray said:

i'd keep westwood, palmer, (lees and hutch perhaps) bannan, (lee why not?), (fletcher we have to, can the same be said of rhodes too? as no one will take those wages on), not sure if i'm missing anyone? if not the rest can go.

Good five a side squad that .......

[dorian gray]

1 hour ago, OWLERTON GHOST said:

Good five a side squad that .......

that's what i'd be lookin' at, undoubtedly the club will have to be more realistic about it all and keep way more, but we haven't half assembled some overpriced, overpaid, neer do wells.

Edited May 6, 2019 by dorian gray
e

[Jon Newsome]

12 hours ago, S36 OWL said:

I think DC has finally realised that to get out of this division you need an experienced manager with experience of getting teams promoted from the championship . 

 

Not always true though, Farke and Wilder had never achieved that until this season. Nuno at Wolves the year before, Jokanovic when he was at Watford, Benitez at Newcastle, Wagner at Huddersfield. It can be done with a foreign manager, the fact that we chose 2 that couldn't get us there is our own fault. I am happy to have an experienced English manager though, it's what we need as a club right now.

[Bleeder]

3 hours ago, dorian gray said:

for me, we are still short of coming to the point of being where we were under stuart gray when dc took over.

he had the nucleus of a side, in need of seriously developing it's attacking options, but the final games of gray's tenure were to bloody the noses of both the champions and runners up on their own turf, watford being 'lucky' to escape with a draw.

gray's side needed capital investment to explore those attacking options.

whilst bruce must ship out 'driftwood' to 'trim the budget', to allow him to spend on 'better attacking options', and shore up the m/f and defence too.

time and money wasted, prices raised to £40 odd a game, and a bus full of 'nigh on worthless' footballers in need of 'moving on'.

it has been run badly, very, very badly.

 

Not too far off the mark unfortunately..

[SallyCinnamon]

5 hours ago, TheEnchanter said:

I think a lot of our fans are stuck in the past. There's now a couple of generations that have never seen this club in the Premiership and in that time have only seen about 5 top half Championship finishes. You do have a different perspective of the club as a whole if that's all you've known. 

 

I think maybe some of the younger folk don't care that much or have a connection with the legends of the 90s. They've never seen them play. Can't relate. I think a lot of people are waiting to see where the new legends are going to come from. The ones we can speak about in 20-30 years time again. Overall its a very success starved situation but a lot of other clubs are in the same situation.

 

This.

[SallyCinnamon]

I do think Wednesday like Leeds, Forest and even Derby to an extent really struggle with expectation.

 

We are big clubs and with that comes a great level of expectation. As a fanbase we had it so good in the early to mid 90s. Since then it’s been pretty desperate at times and as a fanbase we can turn impatient and very toxic quite quickly. 

 

These past two seasons we’ve seen a new side to Wednesday fans which I really don’t like. I’m guilty of it myself. We were close to glory and because it’s not gone our way we have really struggled to accept it and get over it. The fact United have done so well hasn’t helped either. Hillsborough has been a very uncomfortable place at times recently.

 

I buy into the belief that players struggle with the expectation and sometimes hide. It takes a certain character to play at Hillsborough, Megson highlighted this. As soon as the initial high of money and the influx of continental players started to die down under Chansiri this current group of players went into their shell and underperformed. 

 

I think finally we have a manager who understands how to achieve success at a club like ours. I just hope he can execute it. 

[Brando17]

21 hours ago, CalmJimmers said:

So as another season comes to a close, I think it’s time for a good look in the mirror, as a fan base and club.

 

So to us, as a fan base and club. It will be 20 years next year that we were last in the top flight, and near 30 years since we managed any real success. Why? Why in that 20 years have United gone up twice and we haven’t once? Why have Huddersfield, Brighton, Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea, Cardiff all managed but not us? Poor financial management that we are still feeling? An arrogance in the last 5 or so years that we’re above United so it’s alright? A reluctance to sell players when stock is high and reinvest? Poor academy products so a lack of affiliation to the club and selling on assets? Poor recruitment? An inability to move with the times?

 

For me, I think financially we were without a pot to wee wee in for so long when football was going so commercial that we got left behind and we’re playing catch-up still. I also think as a club we have an arrogance that holds us back a little. We don’t sell because we are too big to be a ‘selling club’ (hate that phrase with a passion). We are also sparing to those that cannot take us further and are terrified of letting them go - Hooper, Lee, Hutchinson are all injury prone with evidence staring us in the face and some still don’t want to move them on, Forestieri hasn’t been the same for near on two years, some wanted George Hirst to dictate terms to us so we could keep him. The amount of times we have been done by letting player’s contracts run down because we are scared of letting them go has burnt us - Brunt, Antonio etc.

 

Are we stuck too in the past, inflexible and fearful to really progress? Or have we just been unlucky?

fearful or just not good enough

[Brando17]

21 hours ago, CalmJimmers said:

So as another season comes to a close, I think it’s time for a good look in the mirror, as a fan base and club.

 

So to us, as a fan base and club. It will be 20 years next year that we were last in the top flight, and near 30 years since we managed any real success. Why? Why in that 20 years have United gone up twice and we haven’t once? Why have Huddersfield, Brighton, Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea, Cardiff all managed but not us? Poor financial management that we are still feeling? An arrogance in the last 5 or so years that we’re above United so it’s alright? A reluctance to sell players when stock is high and reinvest? Poor academy products so a lack of affiliation to the club and selling on assets? Poor recruitment? An inability to move with the times?

 

For me, I think financially we were without a pot to wee wee in for so long when football was going so commercial that we got left behind and we’re playing catch-up still. I also think as a club we have an arrogance that holds us back a little. We don’t sell because we are too big to be a ‘selling club’ (hate that phrase with a passion). We are also sparing to those that cannot take us further and are terrified of letting them go - Hooper, Lee, Hutchinson are all injury prone with evidence staring us in the face and some still don’t want to move them on, Forestieri hasn’t been the same for near on two years, some wanted George Hirst to dictate terms to us so we could keep him. The amount of times we have been done by letting player’s contracts run down because we are scared of letting them go has burnt us - Brunt, Antonio etc.

 

Are we stuck too in the past, inflexible and fearful to really progress? Or have we just been unlucky?

great post