I disagree that we have been using the model you say. If we had, we would have signed O Grady, Brayford and Coady in the summer of 2014 but instead, we missed out and got Higdon, Alcock and James Wallace. I don’t buy for a moment that any of them were our first choices.
We’ve still had several targets and had to take 2nd or 3rd choice sometims. Done was plan B after we lost out on Doyle.
Ps. If Jordan Stewart and Andy Taylor made Blackwell's list of left backs, you have to wonder who the other 3 were.
Done was about Plan D after O Grady, Doyle and S Davis.
I do wonder how many times Clough ended up with fourth or fifth choice and how much we suffered from it. Maybe his last list was only first choices and he said 'if you want to go up, sign these, otherwise don't bother signing anyone but don't expect promotion'.
There is something fundamentally wrong at the club but none of us can really put our finger on what; nor are we likely to be able to without knowing the detail of how our club is run and the detail of how some of the successful clubs are run, as a benchmark.
In my industry I sometimes come across people who haven't ever worked for an effective organisation, they just get qualified and set up on their own and some get it more or less right, others are miles off but think they are doing a good job. Because they've never seen what a good job looks like.
I think we're like that as a club. No one at board level has ever worked for a successful club so they can pat themselves on the back and say 'we're doing a great job' without really comparing to or analysing a successful club. They keep doing what they think is a good job and wondering why it isn't successful. And no one is ever in the job long enough to learn from their mistakes.
On another thread I've discussed with Pommpey the financial situation as I think, generally speaking, KM has lost a lot of money and has, to an extent, backed the managers financially. I don't think it's a simple as there not being money invested.
It's far more complex than that and stems from the repeated failures to find a manager that can turn us around and/or give them sufficient time to do so. If there is a financial failure, it's the lack of realisation of how much it costs to sack a manager; not just compensation but the number of players that have to be shipped out each time we do it - the cost of paying them off and the cost of replacing them.
The board allowed Clough to spend over £2m in transfer fees and commit the club to high wages for several players for two and a half years in the JTW. And players that were fiercely loyal to him. If you do that, you have to understand that if you sack him, you have to allow to get rid of these players and replace them. And include the cost of doing so in your budget. We didn't so Adkins struggles and gets the sack. Now we go again, players to pay off, players to buy Where's the money coming from?
I think the board may be secretly accepting that we probably won't go up this season. Their aim, in my opinion, is to get the club running at break even so it doesn't matter to them when we go up, they're not losing money so it's less of a priority. Even if we're running at break even we should still be able to compete with most L1 clubs financially.
I'll be disappointed if we don't go up but even more disappointed if Wilder gets the boot and the blame but I suspect the board have bought in a Bladey blade in the hope that we, the supporters, will give him time and tolerance and they won't have to sack him to sell season tickets.
Edit: actually it's not on another thread, it's on this one.