What more can the board do?

[robbiez666]

Blimey.

Where did you read that?

Happening. Keepers only and you have to show you have no senior keeper fit.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Happening. Keepers only and you have to show you have no senior keeper fit.

FIFA directive in March this year. Allowed this season then it ends.

 

[judge]

Happening. Keepers only and you have to show you have no senior keeper fit.

Wasnt that the original intention of the rule anyway ?

 

[robbiez666]

Wasnt that the original intention of the rule anyway ?

I'm not quite sure as you can still get emergency keeper loans out side of the loan windows.

 

[alcoblade]

To my mind, the board need to give managers two full years including four transfer windows before they even consider sacking them. Unless they threaten to relegate us like Weir...

Players need time to grow and managers need to be reassured that quick fixes like Barry Robson, Paddy McCarthy, et al are less desirable than up and coming younger players who need more time. It's not a clear cut argument but the fact we lacked a striker for so long after Ched, and a defender for so long after Harry, shows some bad short term thinking.

Many people on here and in the boardroom will be wanting Adkins out if we don't go up. I think that will just perpetuate the cycle.

I agree. However, Adkins can stop the club's habit of purchasing players proving not good enough for the higher leagues and start buying those proving too good for this league.

It would be cheaper and more effective, I'm sure.

UTB

 

[alcoblade]

not sure when all the contracts expire (be interested if anyone has a summary of that to hand) but it strikes me we have pretty much had a clear out recently and it's been a failure. I remember McCabe quoting Charlton as the model to follow on that aboyt two years ago and looking at it now, with the exception of Howard, Collins and academy players, all of our inflated squad have been signed in the last two years. Not getting my hopes up that that will be the answer.

There's about 10 up at the end is this season, and we should let the lot go.

UTB

 

[JohnDenver]

I dont think many people will want adkins out if we dont go up this year
Its obvious the guy is being asked to make a silk purse out of a bunch of wankers

Hope that's true but they'll come out the woodwork I suspect.

 

[Worksop II]

Pre season they got rid of Clough, which the majority wanted

I dont think this is accucarte, some wanted him out, I would have said the majority were suprised by him being sacked.

Even though I for one didnt care either way

Dont seem to have made a lot of difference, except we sell Jamie, to pay off Clough

 

[alcoblade]

Get a proper football man on the board. The McCabes have got every major football decision wrong in the last ten years, Jim seems a nice bloke but knows nothing about 'soccer' and The Prince is an absentee NFL fan who takes advice from others.

A director of Football would be a start.

What examples of decisions should you expect a DOF to take, and why wouldn't you want the manager to make them?

A DOF is a sure fire way of burning an extra £250,000 a year. I can't see what else it would do for us?

UTB

 

[Worksop II]

I can't see what else it would do for us?

Another shield for McCabe

 

[Barney]

In my opinion, we had 2 routes to promotion:

1 - Pay up the dross, most of whom are in their final years. Rebuild a smaller, more quality squad picking young, hungry, and the best from this division and the one below.

2 - Risk it with the huge immoderate squad, clinging on to the hope that if Adkins could have signed much better quality than he has, and in the correct positions, and earlier, we might just have scraped promotion as a result of how poor this league is. The clear out can then be done in the championship, allowing for a higher quality rebuild of the squad which doesn't set us back years.

Adkins has chosen his own little strange path. With poor quality players signed in the wrong positions. For that reason, I think the board have gone on the cheap once again, and Adkins should be held accountable for the failings of this season. I expected much more from him.

If he can't even get one of the most basics of football recruitment correct, he deserves every bit of criticism he gets. He's getting away with things the majority of managers wouldn't.

 

[alcoblade]

In my opinion, we had 2 routes to promotion:

1 - Pay up the dross, most of whom are in their final years. Rebuild a smaller, more quality squad picking young, hungry, and the best from this division and the one below.

2 - Risk it with the huge immoderate squad, clinging on to the hope that if Adkins could have signed much better quality than he has, and in the correct positions, and earlier, we might just have scraped promotion as a result of how poor this league is. The clear out can then be done in the championship, allowing for a higher quality rebuild of the squad which doesn't set us back years.

Adkins has chosen his own little strange path. With poor quality players signed in the wrong positions. For that reason, I think the board have gone on the cheap once again, and Adkins should be held accountable for the failings of this season. I expected much more from him.

If he can't even get one of the most basics of football recruitment correct, he deserves every bit of criticism he gets. He's getting away with things the majority of managers wouldn't.

For the umpteenth time, you cannot blame the manager for not having the finances to "clear out the dross". We can barely afford the squad we have. We certainly can't afford to pay them all off and start again.

Your vendetta against the manager is obvious, but at least stick to blaming him for the things under his control.

UTB

 

[Houston_Blade]

As I've said before you can't fault the investment made by the various board members, what I think they could do better is communicate a clear and concise message about what they are doing, what the situation is financially and what they can do to get us where we need to be.

Ambiguous comments like "well run club", "game changing investment"'and "don't have to sell our best players" are PR messages made to get the eternal optimists even more optimistic.

Jim Phipps going on Twitter is also not the board communicating better, it's Jim trying to do his bit to make the board look approachable but ultimately the coded comments he posts are twisted and trolled by all and sundry.

McCabe normally comes out once every 6 months and makes a sweeping statement that can be read in a a number of ways, he needs to stop with this unless he's got something good to say.

A clear statement that McCabe acknowledges mistakes made and a plan of what they are going to do rectify it (then subsequently sticking to this plan) would be a good start.

 

[Barney]

For the umpteenth time, you cannot blame the manager for not having the finances to "clear out the dross". We can barely afford the squad we have. We certainly can't afford to pay them all off and start again.

Your vendetta against the manager is obvious, but at least stick to blaming him for the things under his control.

UTB

Where have I blamed him for the immoderate squad?

He hasn't signed the right amount of quality in priority order. He's signed poor quality in the wrong order.

How simple can it be?

 

[alcoblade]

Where have I blamed him for the immoderate squad?

He hasn't signed the right amount of quality in priority order. He's signed poor quality in the wrong order.

How simple can it be?

So you don't blame him for not clearing them out?

You've previously dedicated an entire thread to that point.

UTB

 

[Barney]

So you don't blame him for not clearing them out?

You've previously dedicated an entire thread to that point.

UTB

I blamed him for assessing the squad, which remains to this day one of his biggest mistakes. I haven't explicitly said anywhere he's to blame for all the dross in the squad, I blamed him for the absence of even an attempt to sell some on, just as the board should have attempted to move some on before Adkins was appointed. It's lazy incompetence on the part of both manager and board.

 

[Bladesman]

Instead of dicking about and trying to get better deals (Brayford, O'Grady, Hammond etc) make the money available straight away. 2 seasons running we've delayed bringing people in because "we couldn't get it over the line". These players have eventually come, so what was stopping it going through straight away? The delays with our transfer business have been costly

Agreed it's all done too late in the season.

 

[alcoblade]

I blamed him for assessing the squad, which remains to this day one of his biggest mistakes. I haven't explicitly said anywhere he's to blame for all the dross in the squad, I blamed him for the absence of even an attempt to sell some on, just as the board should have attempted to move some on before Adkins was appointed. It's lazy incompetence on the part of both manager and board.

By assessing the squad, surely you mean "decide who to get rid of or keep"? His assessment of them would then depend enormously on his ability to do anything about it.

He could of course, have immediately said what we all know - "this squad isn't nearly good enough and despite being the most expensive in the division, is well short of what's required". And then watched his demoralised players continue, safe in the knowledge that they're going nowhere until their contracts expire.

Adkins will know what we all know, he's just not at liberty to publicly state it.

UTB

 

[PeteBlade]

They could not sell any of our good players in January.

While we have any left!

 

[MobileBlade]

Blimey.

Where did you read that?

Here it is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31992432

 

[MobileBlade]

So next season we wouldn't have been able to get Hammond in. Not entirely sure what was emergency about it, we've got plenty of central midfielders

Or Edgar.

 

[PeteBlade]

There will be one major change next season that will move the goalposts for every club in the Football League - no more emergency loans.

This scares me as it seems to be how we structure our entire season.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

Putting aside my overwhelming feeling of negativity for a moment I can be positive about our manager. Mainly on the basis of his past achievements and that I actually feel he's been worth quite a few points to us this season when the useless lot playing for him would have otherwise failed.

We must at all costs hang on to Nigel and give him plenty of time to turnover the playing staff. He's recognised some of the obvious things we've been talking about for at least 3 years such as lack of size, power and ability to attack and defend set pieces.

I think he's made his mind up about a lot of the players either way now. Hopefully he will be backed to a level that will at least allow him to upgrade some positions.

 

[Silent Blade]

Here it is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31992432

Cheers. Smaller clubs will suffer from having a small squad unless they are lucky with suspensions and injuries etc

 

[PeteBlade]

The board could help themselves by not making silly statements that they either cannot or will not be able to stick to.

A lot of anger comes from their own words turning out not to be accurate.

 

[Harry's Game]

What examples of decisions should you expect a DOF to take, and why wouldn't you want the manager to make them?

A DOF is a sure fire way of burning an extra £250,000 a year. I can't see what else it would do for us?

UTB

a proper football man on the board would be able to push the managers case when the transfer deadline approaches, and not Twitter on about "not demeaning the club" when it comes to important transfer deals.

Even more pressing if the loan system is being kicked into touch.

 

[alcoblade]

a proper football man on the board would be able to push the managers case when the transfer deadline approaches, and not Twitter on about "not demeaning the club" when it comes to important transfer deals.

Even more pressing if the loan system is being kicked into touch.

That's an expensive role for such a "soft" remit.

UTB

 

[judge]

Think they have to be held accountable
The one thing holding us back has been our amateurush transfer dealings

We appear to have an open door policy on our contracted players and a tunnel vision aproach to potential incoming deals

This worked with brayford and i respect them.for that but players dropping divisions and taking pay cuts is as rare as rocking horse shit these days

It think with every one fully fit we need a commanding keeper a commanding centre half and assuming hammond finds his feet another central midfielder

Most of the squad is much of a muchness with a lack of personal motivation seeming to be prevalent

So in short the board need to give the manager what he wants ( from the start) and if he doesnt meet his target he gets sacked
Which to be fair the board did exactly that with clough

No room for sentiment in football ,does anyone on this board disagree that promotion through the play offs should be the minimum requirement to keep your job at this club ?

 

[LoughboroBlade]

Or Edgar.

He's on a season-long loan, not an emergency loan.

 

[MobileBlade]

He's on a season-long loan, not an emergency loan.

True. My mistake