What exactly is wrong with Sheffield Wednesday?

[DNS]

Getting relegated from the Premier League is ultimately the root of all our problems. We've never recovered from it and spent the following years jumping from one bad decision to the next. 

[Pieman]

16 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 respect of your bigger point, of course it. The long term management of this club is and has been woeful for decades. Yet, as you make the point, we have dozens of genuinely class football people, who have worn the shirt and have real affection for the club. Waddle, Palmer, Megson, Turner... But we never re-engage them in some capacity, to build a strong, diverse back room team.
 

We also do not seem to employ subject matter experts from the business world. We are a circa £25m business; I work for a $40bn business, who publish their annual accounts 10 days after year end. Any average FD could manage our balance sheet in minutes…A board should have 5,6,7 competent professionals with potentially more, long term non-exec directors. Even a megalomaniac like Channers should know this; however, this issue has been prevalent way before he pitched up…

 

 

[Shetland Owl]

I believe it was when Ron Atkinson was sacked in his second stint with the club

[Gob_Bluth]

9 minutes ago, DNS said:

The Premier League is ultimately the root of all English footballs problems

 

Corrected that for you 

[Rogers]

17 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.

 

Wednesday didn’t move with the times; things changed after the first few Premier League seasons; big money rolled in, foreign stars, big sponsorship deals; we didn’t handle any of this well. 
 

We were stuck in the 80s, the old club shop, overly reliant on money from

ticket sales, programmes, and pies, poor commercially, and even worse at boardroom level.  Local thinking.

SWFC as a car

1930s - Rolls Royce - state of the art 

1960s - Rolls Royce - in good nick and a classic

1980s - Rolls Royce - still running, but starting to rust 

1990s - Rolls Royce - still running, rust patched over and still looks great 

2000s - Rolls Royce - still running but starting to break down and costing money

2010s - Rolls Royce broken down and useless

2018 - Rolls Royce has engine replaced with mini metro engine; chassis is too heavy for it to travel at any decent speed and handling is terrible 

 

[Ante's Bubbly]

17 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.

 

 

In the last game? Goalie should always, always wear a cap/hat or have one available when the sun is in your eyes. We watched BPF shielding his eyes every time the ball came forward. We were at home and everybody knows that the sun can be dazzling at that end. You shield your eyes, no problem, get your hands ready to catch the ball and guess what you can see sweet f.a. 

 

Over the long term? We should not have sacked Derek Dooley on Christmas Eve. We had our worst run in the 2nd tier then, finishing no higher than 10th before going down to the 3rd tier for the 1st time in our history. 

 

Seriously? There have been lots of reasons for our ups and downs in the last 3 decades, but most of the downs have involved people coming into the club more for their own personal benefit than the club's. The prestige, recognition and other little ego boosting perks, meant more to too many, than doing good things for the long term benefit of the club. Hopefully that has begun to change already, but it's hard to imagine how anybody could get our current owner out, so let's hope he steps back now and manages to get some real money back into the coffers to offset what he has wasted. Milan Manderic could have got us into this division a lot cheaper than Chansiri has, while still showing respect for the fans, the club's history, the sport, the EFL, other teams etc and without all the fuss.

[Cypriot Owl]

22 hours ago, Elvin Parsnip said:

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 

Bruce and decent don't belong in the same sentence

[Eastcoastowl]

On 22/09/2021 at 19:59, 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.

 

Are you blaming Chansiri for the last 20 years? 

[fatzooma]

On 22/09/2021 at 20:14, WAWAW said:

Losing Harry Catterick is where it all started.

I firmly believe this!

[Truth is out there]

On 22/09/2021 at 21:03, Birley Owl 1867 said:

This topic has been done to death

Welcome to the after-life

take your pick of the circle you ‘prefer’’

Limbo,

Lust,

Gluttony,

Greed,

Anger,

Heresy,

Violence,

Fraud,

Treachery,

Chansiri

[steelcityowlsfan]

Whether you choose to believe it or not, the points deduction got in their head and affected them. 
 

Even though we had it in our own hands at the end the damage was done and we were too fragile to grasp that one more win to see us safe. 
 

Sadly there still seems to be some mental weakness with the team but hopefully this season Moore can coach it out of them? We will see. 

Edited September 24, 2021 by steelcityowlsfan

[Truth is out there]

18 hours ago, Pieman said:

I’m respect of your bigger point, of course it. The long term management of this club is and has been woeful for decades. Yet, as you make the point, we have dozens of genuinely class football people, who have worn the shirt and have real affection for the club. Waddle, Palmer, Megson, Turner... But we never re-engage them in some capacity, to build a strong, diverse back room team.
 

We also do not seem to employ subject matter experts from the business world. 

 

 

Aye, let’s employ ‘experts’

The 4 former players you cite have achieved (next to) SFA as gaffers & 2 of em have barely done the job.

Palmers experience of Grantham’s current travails at the bottom end of a league might come in handy?

Perhaps Waddle could be engaged to share his experience of flogging  (dodgy) pizza?

Laws could (continue to) blather on on the wireless, and Meggo ? 
Well he could continue to be lauded as the ‘Messiah’ awaiting the second coming , or even t’ The Rapture’

[sherlyegg]

On 22/09/2021 at 19:59, Michaeltheowl said:

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,

Man U are £4.5m in debt.

[sherlyegg]

Just now, sherlyegg said:

Man U are £4.5m in debt.

£450m...i mean

[Gob_Bluth]

2 hours ago, sherlyegg said:

£450m...i mean

 

That's debt leveraged on them from their owners though, not debt incurred through the running of the club.

 

Much like what the new Burnley owners are planning to do with Burnley, be interested to see what happens when it's tiny Burnley rather than Global brand Man Utd

[Geedee]

The principle thing that is wrong with Sheffield Wednesday is that we are a large provincial club but we are not big enough. We are probably still  one of the top 20 clubs but we are not one of the top 10 and have not been for all of this century. Consequently the best we can hope for is a good cup run and a shot at premiership status.

 

I dont think that is good enough for many in the elite football on demand times we now live in.

[Lincs Owl]

On 22/09/2021 at 20:14, WAWAW said:

Losing Harry Catterick is where it all started.

It is actually.  I remember shortly after he left, I stood on a windy wet Kop watching us lose 2-1 at home to Everton and thinking it was all over for us and the good days were over.  I was only 13 then and I was right.  Sixteen years later we were having to beat Southend to avoid division four.   Meanwhile Everton under Catterick were twice winning the league, and once the FAC. 

Over the last 60 years we've been either the unluckiest 'big' club in Britain or the worst run.  I'm going for worst run.  

 

[bigash_swfc]

We need to get men behind the ball, instead of playing wingers without a target man.

 

When we play wide wingers, without a target man, it's like carrying passengers. We might do better when Windass is fit.

[Guest LondonOwl313]

4 hours ago, Geedee said:

The principle thing that is wrong with Sheffield Wednesday is that we are a large provincial club but we are not big enough. We are probably still  one of the top 20 clubs but we are not one of the top 10 and have not been for all of this century. Consequently the best we can hope for is a good cup run and a shot at premiership status.

 

I dont think that is good enough for many in the elite football on demand times we now live in.

Our fans would be happy with that initially after the last 20 years.

 

Can imagine if we got settled in the Prem and finished 12-16th every season like a Newcastle everyone would moan we couldn’t compete at the top end of it. That’s kind of how everyone was between 1996-2000

[hasthagotanycheese]

On 23/09/2021 at 11:13, room0035 said:

Effectively the big problem with SWFC over the last 7 years is one man who does not know what he is doing.

 

You wouldn't put someone who couldn't drive in charge of a bus full of kids.

 

But we freely give people with money a free reign to do what they want with a community asset that SWFC once was. There are so many issues at all levels of the club that a competent experienced footballing business man could sort, but instead our owner surrounds himself with yes men and women instead of the right men and women to run the club.

 

We will continue to stumble from one disaster to the next until proper leadership is in place in all areas.

 

Team management at all age level, marketing management, sponsorship management, day to day running of the club etc. 

 

We should not be losing £15-20m a season and going backwards.

Post of the day for me this.

 

Mel Morris was saying that he had personally lost north of 200 million in chasing the dream and getting Derby County into the mess they are in right now. You have to believe that Chansiri's losses must be in the same ballpark as that.

 

It all boils down to having having a proper plan & employing people who know exactly what they are doing. Only Wednesday ( & now Derby ) could find owners with seemingly unlimited resources but with zero knowledge of the business they invested in and who were unwilling or unable to employ the right people to make that business successful.

 

We have a former Coca Cola salesman as our COO and a Manager with currently zero/nil/nada promotions on his CV. And yet we as fans expect this set up to be somehow good enough to get us out of the 3rd Division?

 

Nothing will change until DC drastically alters his approach to running the club or finally runs out of money and has to sell up.