Has there been any talk of a meeting between Wilder and COH to discuss the summer and next season ? This will be quite interesting to see if one occurs like it did with the Prince. The Prince at least was more hands on (apart from when he was told to distance himself by his family) I reckon it will just be Wilder and Bettis.
Of course there will be talks between COH and Wilder about plans for the summer and beyond. According to Wilder, these have been happening regularly throughout the season - they will clearly want involvement in shaping the future plan given that they've put a huge sum of their own money into our club. Rosen was pictured at our last home game.
The problem is that this probably won't get us very far. I suspect that Wilder can run rings around them in terms of knowledge of football and how to run a club. I doubt they have the capability to properly challenge his views, or even to establish firm metrics for success in a business that they don't properly understand.
There's a lot of clamour for a DOF, to address this blind spot. I personally find that risky, in terms of trusting the ownership to make such a crucial appointment at this stage. I would much rather they spent some short term money on bringing in a few wise football heads on a temporary consultancy basis, who can properly challenge Wilder and Bettis, and then lock themselves away to make a start on the job on properly developing their vision, a strategy through which this can be achieved, and a plan to take us there. That done, everybody in the room who wants to stay will need to sign on to it, and to their personal role in delivering it.
Without proper thought into a plan, simply replacing the manager, or taking a blind stab at a DOF appointment is simply rolling the dice - it will effect change, but who knows in what direction.
If they haven't got the stomach to take on a full strategy review, then keep it simple and start with the obvious short term wins:
- what do we need to do and who do we need to involve to deliver marked improvement in fitness and endurance of our playing staff this summer(easily achievable and measurable)
- what short term steps can we take to improve recruitment success ( trickier, but doable)
- how do we get the coaching structure right such that we can defend properly, attack properly, and maintain this effectivess during tactical and on field personnel change ( absolute basics)
We can't effect the required structural changes at the club overnight, but we surely need a vision and a plan to do this over time, as well as doing some obvious things to plug our glaring gaps and deliver significant on field improvement in the short term.
For what it's worth, I think that Wilder can bring a great deal to the short term stuff, but much less to the longer term. If that's true, then there are some fairly easy and obvious routes through which the owners can achieve both, and I expect that this is what will happen. I think he will leave his current role next summer ( barring an absolute disaster in the first half of the season, which seems unlikely ( famous last words)). But if this happens as part of a considered and planned move in the right direction, then that would be so much better for the club than an impulsive knee jerk ( gratifying as this may feel to some in the short term).
