What would you do ?

[Rocky 3]

On 3/17/2020 at 4:32 PM, dorset lion said:

I just googled the squad that got us promoted, 17 players that we had signed, one or two of them still on our books and not one of them either able to get into our team, any other PL team or start regularly in our Championship team. All released on a free, for a nominal fee or will be when their contracts finally expire.

They were the recruits of our 4 previous managers, all draining club coffers and under FFP restricting our ability to sign the sort of players that other PL clubs want to sign.

Basically I think this club was damaged beyond repair, it was in need of a complete rebuild and the biggest mistake Smith made if your only viewing this as a footballing problem was in getting us promoted.

The flip side of that though is wherever we are next season we will have PL cash, very little deadwood within the squad and a youngish squad of potential talent.

If Smith is still here in 12 months and we are mid table in the Championship then I think he has failed.

The club has no doubt gone through a tough time with Xia.....and lucky to be alive.

but, i don't see the irreparable damage, you mention....However, i do see a long drawn out rebuild, if we keep getting the signings wrong.....or miss out on player opportunities, we should and could be signing.

sure in theory, it should get better as we sign players that give us something as opposed to duds.

but the bottom line  is our ability to sign prudently will  be our salvation...or destruction, if we get it consistently wrong.

 

[dorset lion 391]

On 3/19/2020 at 7:10 PM, Rocky said:

The club has no doubt gone through a tough time with Xia.....and lucky to be alive.

but, i don't see the irreparable damage, you mention....However, i do see a long drawn out rebuild, if we keep getting the signings wrong.....or miss out on player opportunities, we should and could be signing.

sure in theory, it should get better as we sign players that give us something as opposed to duds.

but the bottom line  is our ability to sign prudently will  be our salvation...or destruction, if we get it consistently wrong.

 

It wasn't just Xia though, half of our recently published annual losses of £60 odd million was money owed to Lerner.

When I say irreparable I mean no quick fix, that this is going to be a long process. You can only sign what is available within your budget and as no signing is guaranteed to succeed and every club signs numerous flops then having to sign a dozen in one summer was always going to see us struggle.

[Rocky 3]

On 3/21/2020 at 1:52 PM, dorset lion said:

It wasn't just Xia though, half of our recently published annual losses of £60 odd million was money owed to Lerner.

When I say irreparable I mean no quick fix, that this is going to be a long process. You can only sign what is available within your budget and as no signing is guaranteed to succeed and every club signs numerous flops then having to sign a dozen in one summer was always going to see us struggle.

There is not going to be a quick fix,granted, but the pace of that fix will be determined by our ability to sign good players......that does not mean cheap signings or expensive signings, it means good signings.....John Mcginn was a good signing, for the money, there is more than one four leaf clover in a field.....we have had periods in our time, when we was much better at it than this.... we must work harder and smarter, in finding players.

We must also be clear with ourselves what type of players will make a difference....we have too many lightweights in application....we need a few heavyweights in character and desire to win.

Lerner proved to be a poor owner, but until MON started wasting his money, he was better than he turned out to be.....if there is one way to p*ss off an owner its squandering money on poor signings....martin signed about half a dozen decent ones out of 38....then when he realised, he wanted more money......as they usually do....the drawbridge came up, and the rest is history