What exactly is wrong with Sheffield Wednesday?

[Michaeltheowl]

I’m very concerned about the big picture here, not just at present but on a timescale that runs over decades.

We seem keen enough to blame the covid, the 6 point deduction, etc, for Wednesday’s present woes, but to be honest we’d be blind if we failed to detect  some serious, long term, underlying problem here.

The covid has only been with us for 20 months, and has affected every club, not just Wednesday, but almost none of the other clubs have failed to pay their players and slid down the league into a position wholly disproportionate to Wednesday’s true station.

How do we account for the difference between them and us?

The 6-points deduction is another straw that we cling to. But promotion class clubs routinely pull 30 or even 40 points above the relegation zone! Routinely! Every season!

To them, 6 points is nothing. It only requires an extra 2 ... two... wins, over forty-six games!

But in a disturbing contrast with these promotion- deserving clubs, Wednesday couldn’t do it.

And how do we account for that?

Nor does luck come into it. Arsenal has been in the top flight for 100 years. Everton for 70. Good boardroom management is just that.. good management. They know what they’re doing!!

We can’t blame the lack of a fan base either. Ours is a Premier League level fan base!

So what on earth is wrong? We haven’t seen the Premiership for 20 years! 
What is wrong, in my humble opinion, is in the boardroom. They handle the finances, they recruit the team managers,  and on a historical timescale Wednesday has consistently failed to build a team far more important than the one on the pitch... the Chairman and Directors who control the whole smash.

Any company will succeed if it is consistently run by polished experts who know what they’re doing. But if not, it will decline and fail.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between  the Arsenals and Evertons of this world, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Manchester United for example, has a team of directors which includes men like Bobby Charlton, working together with polished executives who know how to run a football company, and are just as good at that as Charlton was on the pitch. They look on their club as a serious entity, not a toy to be owned by a rich kid somewhere as his plaything.

Wednesday’s chairman, by contrast, is very good at canning tuna fish.

I’d like to hear your views.

 

[@owlstalk]

 

If we win our game in hand we are in the playoffs and it's still only September

[WAWAW]

Losing Harry Catterick is where it all started.

[Jim]

The fan base

[@owlstalk]

 

It's gone rapidly downhill since Jim hounded Garry Monk out

[Daniele Giovanni]

25 minutes ago, Michaeltheowl said:

I’m very concerned about the big picture here, not just at present but on a timescale that runs over decades.

We seem keen enough to blame the covid, the 6 point deduction, etc, for Wednesday’s present woes, but to be honest we’d be blind if we failed to detect  some serious, long term, underlying problem here.

The covid has only been with us for 20 months, and has affected every club, not just Wednesday, but almost none of the other clubs have failed to pay their players and slid down the league into a position wholly disproportionate to Wednesday’s true station.

How do we account for the difference between them and us?

The 6-points deduction is another straw that we cling to. But promotion class clubs routinely pull 30 or even 40 points above the relegation zone! Routinely! Every season!

To them, 6 points is nothing. It only requires an extra 2 ... two... wins, over forty-six games!

But in a disturbing contrast with these promotion- deserving clubs, Wednesday couldn’t do it.

And how do we account for that?

Nor does luck come into it. Arsenal has been in the top flight for 100 years. Everton for 70. Good boardroom management is just that.. good management. They know what they’re doing!!

We can’t blame the lack of a fan base either. Ours is a Premier League level fan base!

So what on earth is wrong? We haven’t seen the Premiership for 20 years! 
What is wrong, in my humble opinion, is in the boardroom. They handle the finances, they recruit the team managers,  and on a historical timescale Wednesday has consistently failed to build a team far more important than the one on the pitch... the Chairman and Directors who control the whole smash.

Any company will succeed if it is consistently run by polished experts who know what they’re doing. But if not, it will decline and fail.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between  the Arsenals and Evertons of this world, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Manchester United for example, has a team of directors which includes men like Bobby Charlton, working together with polished executives who know how to run a football company, and are just as good at that as Charlton was on the pitch. They look on their club as a serious entity, not a toy to be owned by a rich kid somewhere as his plaything.

Wednesday’s chairman, by contrast, is very good at canning tuna fish.

I’d like to hear your views.

 

I think what is wrong with Wednesday is having fans like you, when it's hot and sunny "boo hoo, it's too hot" and when it rains "boo hoo, I miss the sun" that in a nutshell explains it

[Guest Saff]

You are right.  The decisions made in the boardroom will ultimately decide your clubs fate.

 

Do you have upgraded/modernised training facilities.

 

Do you have an identity in your style of play that goes right through the playing/age levels at the club.

 

Are you up-to-date with data analysis which all the clubs work from now?

 

Do you have Grade 1 academy status?

 

Have you maximised your revenue streams to generate as much income as possible to put back into the playing staff?

 

 

If you nail all of the above.  You'll probably be alright.

[Jim]

7 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:

 

It's gone rapidly downhill since Jim hounded Garry Monk out

 

It started to go rapidly downhill the day that useless tw@t was appointed

[Elvin Parsnip]

Not signing Cantona and employing Rubbish managers and nearly always going for the cheap option managers after Big Ron’s second stint such as Wilson , Yorath, Jewell , Shreeves etc - if you look at our list of managers since Pleat it’s pathetic reading - only Bruce stands out and unfortunately for us he got offered his dream job - not getting Houllier or Walter Smith if it was ever really on the cards was our start of the slow slide - probably because the board were not wanting to spend and cream money out of the club - Chansiri could have got a good manager but was conned into Carlos who did ok but I’m pretty sure if a decent Bruce type manager had been given the money Carlos had to spend they would of got us up within two seasons 

[Guest Andy W]

There are 92 clubs, and all bar 6 or so will win things consistanley, occasionally a club will have a good season in the league or a cup, but predominantly those 6 or so win stuff

As football now centres around money, success for most would be premier league, again very few are going to get there, fewer manage to stay there.

We certainly don't fall in the 6 ish, so premier league at best is our aim.

As we are mismanaged from top to bottom, we will never get back but try and pretend we will.

Our level for the foreseeable is where we are now , if not lower.

So, we dream of PL and miss the fact that we can't realistically get there, our expectations should be far lower then we might meet them

 

[Birley Owl 1867]

This topic has been done to death

[Owling with laughter]

41 minutes ago, Michaeltheowl said:

I’m very concerned about the big picture here, not just at present but on a timescale that runs over decades.

We seem keen enough to blame the covid, the 6 point deduction, etc, for Wednesday’s present woes, but to be honest we’d be blind if we failed to detect  some serious, long term, underlying problem here.

The covid has only been with us for 20 months, and has affected every club, not just Wednesday, but almost none of the other clubs have failed to pay their players and slid down the league into a position wholly disproportionate to Wednesday’s true station.

How do we account for the difference between them and us?

The 6-points deduction is another straw that we cling to. But promotion class clubs routinely pull 30 or even 40 points above the relegation zone! Routinely! Every season!

To them, 6 points is nothing. It only requires an extra 2 ... two... wins, over forty-six games!

But in a disturbing contrast with these promotion- deserving clubs, Wednesday couldn’t do it.

And how do we account for that?

Nor does luck come into it. Arsenal has been in the top flight for 100 years. Everton for 70. Good boardroom management is just that.. good management. They know what they’re doing!!

We can’t blame the lack of a fan base either. Ours is a Premier League level fan base!

So what on earth is wrong? We haven’t seen the Premiership for 20 years! 
What is wrong, in my humble opinion, is in the boardroom. They handle the finances, they recruit the team managers,  and on a historical timescale Wednesday has consistently failed to build a team far more important than the one on the pitch... the Chairman and Directors who control the whole smash.

Any company will succeed if it is consistently run by polished experts who know what they’re doing. But if not, it will decline and fail.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between  the Arsenals and Evertons of this world, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Manchester United for example, has a team of directors which includes men like Bobby Charlton, working together with polished executives who know how to run a football company, and are just as good at that as Charlton was on the pitch. They look on their club as a serious entity, not a toy to be owned by a rich kid somewhere as his plaything.

Wednesday’s chairman, by contrast, is very good at canning tuna fish.

I’d like to hear your views.

 

 

There’s plenty of clubs of similar size to Wednesday who haven’t managed to sustain Premier League or top flight football who up until approximately the 60’s and 70’s were mainstays of the top flight.  But footballs changed. Clubs who traditionally were viewed as lower division clubs now have the ambition of top flight football and sustaining it. Crucially the on s who have made it and look like making it have owners with plenty of money and actual nous.
 

Clubs who think they have a right to be there can’t adjust to being challenged and struggle to accept it.

 
Those clubs like you mention have been lucky to a certain extent. They’ve had decent leadership in place at the right time and escaped relegation to the 2nd division/Championship. Some by questionable means.

 

But the point is they’ve had year on year on year of top flight football: Recent Premier League income is a hundred million plus. Year on year. 

 

They can afford the best players, the best training facilities, build bigger stadiums and scoop up young players on ridiculous money to play in their U23’s but at the same time stopping them playing for a potential rival.

 

Wednesday like a good few others could quite easily have been one of those clubs. But they missed the boat and I can’t see them.or others like them ever again achieving past glories.
 

 

[Ellis Rimmer]

From what I can see we are somewhat cursed and seem to make wrong decisions at pivotal times

 

Stuff like joining the alliance instead of football league, doing the stadium up instead of backing the squad in the 60s, don't sign Cantona, don't back Di Canio etc etc

 

What if we just stayed in Sheffield city centre, no formation of United, join the football league straight away, win that a few times extra, back the team in the 60s etc, dominate in the 70s, take Cantona off Leeds in the early 90s, too good for Di Canio in the late 90s!

[Guest LondonOwl313]

3 hours ago, Michaeltheowl said:

I’m very concerned about the big picture here, not just at present but on a timescale that runs over decades.

We seem keen enough to blame the covid, the 6 point deduction, etc, for Wednesday’s present woes, but to be honest we’d be blind if we failed to detect  some serious, long term, underlying problem here.

The covid has only been with us for 20 months, and has affected every club, not just Wednesday, but almost none of the other clubs have failed to pay their players and slid down the league into a position wholly disproportionate to Wednesday’s true station.

How do we account for the difference between them and us?

The 6-points deduction is another straw that we cling to. But promotion class clubs routinely pull 30 or even 40 points above the relegation zone! Routinely! Every season!

To them, 6 points is nothing. It only requires an extra 2 ... two... wins, over forty-six games!

But in a disturbing contrast with these promotion- deserving clubs, Wednesday couldn’t do it.

And how do we account for that?

Nor does luck come into it. Arsenal has been in the top flight for 100 years. Everton for 70. Good boardroom management is just that.. good management. They know what they’re doing!!

We can’t blame the lack of a fan base either. Ours is a Premier League level fan base!

So what on earth is wrong? We haven’t seen the Premiership for 20 years! 
What is wrong, in my humble opinion, is in the boardroom. They handle the finances, they recruit the team managers,  and on a historical timescale Wednesday has consistently failed to build a team far more important than the one on the pitch... the Chairman and Directors who control the whole smash.

Any company will succeed if it is consistently run by polished experts who know what they’re doing. But if not, it will decline and fail.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between  the Arsenals and Evertons of this world, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Manchester United for example, has a team of directors which includes men like Bobby Charlton, working together with polished executives who know how to run a football company, and are just as good at that as Charlton was on the pitch. They look on their club as a serious entity, not a toy to be owned by a rich kid somewhere as his plaything.

Wednesday’s chairman, by contrast, is very good at canning tuna fish.

I’d like to hear your views.

 

Comes down to money mainly for me.. we were a mess when we came down in 2000 and there were no parachute payments, have to remember how bad we were in 2000-2003, just a few very old players like Pressman and Walker holding it together and the rest all garbage. Basically between 2000-2010 was a write off because despite the size of the club we had no money to actually do anything so could never be competitive.

 

2011-2017 we had a stabilising owner in Manderic and then DC splashing the cash and we actually improved our league position every season for 6 years in a row. He then pulled funding at the critical time.. we’d have gone up eventually if we’d kept spending, shuffled the pack and sold some players and recruited better. 2016-17 recruitment was a disaster bar Fletcher and Reach.. other clubs would have recognised that and then corrected it. We just kept the same squad for another 4 years while we continually deteriorated. Then DC has obviously had financial issues last couple of years which has hamstrung us.

 

Have to keep spending and improving unfortunately.. we had a good opportunity 5 years ago as a club on the up after a lost decade but we wasted it.

[alanharper]

4 hours ago, Michaeltheowl said:

I’m very concerned about the big picture here, not just at present but on a timescale that runs over decades.

We seem keen enough to blame the covid, the 6 point deduction, etc, for Wednesday’s present woes, but to be honest we’d be blind if we failed to detect  some serious, long term, underlying problem here.

The covid has only been with us for 20 months, and has affected every club, not just Wednesday, but almost none of the other clubs have failed to pay their players and slid down the league into a position wholly disproportionate to Wednesday’s true station.

How do we account for the difference between them and us?

The 6-points deduction is another straw that we cling to. But promotion class clubs routinely pull 30 or even 40 points above the relegation zone! Routinely! Every season!

To them, 6 points is nothing. It only requires an extra 2 ... two... wins, over forty-six games!

But in a disturbing contrast with these promotion- deserving clubs, Wednesday couldn’t do it.

And how do we account for that?

Nor does luck come into it. Arsenal has been in the top flight for 100 years. Everton for 70. Good boardroom management is just that.. good management. They know what they’re doing!!

We can’t blame the lack of a fan base either. Ours is a Premier League level fan base!

So what on earth is wrong? We haven’t seen the Premiership for 20 years! 
What is wrong, in my humble opinion, is in the boardroom. They handle the finances, they recruit the team managers,  and on a historical timescale Wednesday has consistently failed to build a team far more important than the one on the pitch... the Chairman and Directors who control the whole smash.

Any company will succeed if it is consistently run by polished experts who know what they’re doing. But if not, it will decline and fail.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between  the Arsenals and Evertons of this world, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Manchester United for example, has a team of directors which includes men like Bobby Charlton, working together with polished executives who know how to run a football company, and are just as good at that as Charlton was on the pitch. They look on their club as a serious entity, not a toy to be owned by a rich kid somewhere as his plaything.

Wednesday’s chairman, by contrast, is very good at canning tuna fish.

I’d like to hear your views.

 

 

I'm not convinced that Chansiri is any good at canning tuna fish either, tbh. 

[Hitcat]

Nothing. It's all Wicked.

[legendaryswan]

As ever its the naive decisions and poor judgement at the top, it cascades then, all the way to the bottom.

Until thats reversed, nothing will change, anyone else would fire the advisor, in cold blood.

But not our leader, so wel just plod on into the next crisis, until he realises, things need to change, and to win in sport, you have to hire winners, in every department

[Morepork]

To anyone seeking to answer this question…..War and Peace is 600,000 words, you won’t answer this in any less!!! 

[Lawrie’s Left Peg]

55 minutes ago, Morepork said:

To anyone seeking to answer this question…..War and Peace is 600,000 words, you won’t answer this in any less!!! 

How about one 3 letter acronym RAC (Richards, Allen, Chansiri)

Pretty much covers everything poo & about this club. 

[Morepork]

1 minute ago, Lawrie’s Left Peg said:

How about one 3 letter acronym RAC (Richards, Allen, Chansiri)

Pretty much covers everything poo & about this club. 

 

How about "CAR" crash.......