McCabe's problem has been the same for years, he always looked after the club, land, hotel, foreign investments etc etc but took his eye off what has happening on the pitch. He seemed to have got away with it when it all clicked and we reached the Prem but we all know what has happened since then, some of it out of his control when the market crashed, but his footballing decisions in the last 5 or 6 years have been catastrophic.
We now have a Premiership set up in the 3rd Division.
Bloody hell Chimmers, I thought I was a harsh Judge. I think the problem many have (apart from Bigger Blades coming on and telling anyone who doesn't circle jerk from dusk till dawn at all things SUFC that they should fuck off the Meadowhall) is that McCabe WAS the perfect owner. His decisions were shrewd, his projects worked and things like the Academy, even though at the time many questioned it, no one questioned the intention and that it may well be a good thing. This continued and we were the very example of how a well run, medium sized club could make the Premiership. Even in relegation you couldn't really fault his stewardship although some of his statements and projects were starting to raise question in the sceptics (I wasn't at the time). Clubs bought in China at the expense of first team investment. Once more you could say it was entrepaneurial rather than stupid. Following relegation however is where it went madly wrong.
In 2007 it was like someone replaced the good man we knew with his crazed egomaniac brother. Suddenly we were lashing money out like water. We bought an utter failure of a manager in. Even then there were many like myself who thought "Kev knows best". McCabe knew the fianances and had run it so well he must have known what he was doing.
Turns out he had taken leave of his senses. Every decision he has made since our Premiership relegation has been nothing short of failure. He has been unlucky (as Darrens post points out) but in the main he has been stupid. World Cup Bids, spending way over our means, sacking managers to look good in front of investors. Employing increasingly dubious managers (although I don't think Wilson was his worst by any stretch).
He has gone from speculate to accumulate, to fire sale Delboy. We have had a catalogue of good players and they have all gone.
If someone as low down the scale as fans on a forum can predict failure by selling Blackman the day it happened then you have to question what the hell is going on. Its short termism on a massive scale. Had we kept Blackman, Quinn and Wilson to the seasons end we would have been promoted, its an almost certainty. So we got a couple of million off the books in wages etc by selling them but what is the cost of not going up? If McCabe is putting a million a month in to keep us alive then surely keeping those players and pumping an additional couple of hundred grand in per month is going to be rewarded with promotion and more money in the coffers next season.
His intentions are no doubt good. He isn't a wicked man in my opinion but he is being utterly stupid. He makes the same mistakes again and again and wonders why.
This is why I laugh when people like Sitwell say you have to do a certain thing or fuck off and watch Geoff Stelling in your armchair. Because if everyone did do that (and on an increasing scale they are) we would end up with no fans, no revenue and no club. So a few can sit there wisely and say "look at what you did everyone". We probably aren't heading for the Conference North, but I don't think we have bottomed out yet either. Blades fans will pull together at the match and will get behind their club, but if we feel we are being short changed then we have every right to question everything from desire of players to McCabe and the decisions he makes. We are all desperate for him to get it right, every one of us. Which is why it hurts when he keeps getting it wrong.
