Most liked posts in thread: Clubs Mindset

12 managers in 5 years and 3 CEOs in that time. Sometimes the man at the top hiring and firing has to take the blame. Oh and we wouldn’t be in the 4th tier had he not come with his conman friend. That’s how Rupp is to blame. Obviously individual games Hughes and the players have to take the blame like on Saturday. But we were in the 4th tier when Hughes came in and the 3rd when Rupp came in, so it’s not hard to see who’s fault it is which division we find ourselves in.

 

I think Rupp's biggest mistake is that he tends to listen to these people who purport to be experts, if you remember, Rhodes had done 'due diligence' on his replacement, given that statement was from Rhodes, enough to start alarm bells ringing.

 

Honestly we would all love it if there was some person out there who was willing to buy it and pump millions into it but there is nobody ?????

whatever you think about Rupp and don’t get me wrong he’s one of the reasons we are down here he simply cannot be blamed if we don’t go up this season

a half decent manager would have walked this league with that squad and the reason we haven’t is simply down to Hughes ............. had the Bradford City who magically appeared from Doncaster away onwards turned up like that for the home game against Doncaster onwards then I doubt we would have been thinking about the playoffs ................. we would have been challenging Orient and in all honesty there is not one team that I have seen this season that have impressed me ............ the likes of Northampton looked good because we allowed it to happen and you could add a fair few clubs into the bracket and a fair few of them are in the lower reaches of the division

Hartlepool and Rochdale will grace the national league next season and they took 4 points from us
Crawley took another point

so out of 9 points we should have had we ended up 2 you add them 7 points to our total
and we stand 3rd with a game in hand now can you blame Rupp for that ?????

 

Possibly. I know he's commented before that the gap in talent between PL and L2 isn't as big as most people think. Its a statement of the bleeding obvious that Hughes has experienced and achieved more in the game than any of us, but I personally disagree. Or at least, he wouldn't be the first top player to make the mistake as a manager of assuming capability with lesser players that came naturally to him. I actually applaud the attempt to 'play football'. Other teams at this level have done it, and done it well. But I think he's taking it to an extreme that doesn't work. I don't think he needs to abandon his principles, but a few tweaks would help in my view. I don't think he's a million miles away, but on the other hand our home form hasn't been good enough all season long, and I worry that the reliance on Cook (who may not be here next season) will expose a reality that shows we're further away than people might think. Either way, he should be backed to go again.

If we're in L2 next season, which I expect us to be, I think the keys are:

1. A slightly smaller squad with more emphasis on quality. We've gone from too small a squad, to too large a squad without enough outright quality. Trim the overall numbers by 3 or 4, and bring in a couple of real difference makers.
2. Drop the passing out goalkick routine. Play out from the back generally, go backwards and sideways in open play to recycle possession, I'm fine with all that. But playing out from goal kicks does nothing but invite pressure and leave us exposed when we prove to be unable to play around the opposition press. And then we're completely disjointed for the counter attack. It builds confidence and momentum for opponents, not us.
3. More urgency and intensity, especially at home, and to keep the pedal to the floor until we have a 2 goal lead, not sit off with a 1 goal lead. Far too risky and the number of dropped points in injury time is proof.

All of this is do-able and we have a really good platform to build on in the summer. But if we just do the same things, we'll have a similar season. Maybe even worse, without Cook.

 

Congratulations to Stuart, who achieved promotion to the Premier League with Sheffield United tonight.

He and Heckingbottom done good.

 

Again absolute tosh, look at clubs like scunthorpe, thats real failure. Rupp has done ok by us , got us a big name manager and backed him. Bowyer had just
Got morecambe up when we signed him. Not sure how that qualifies as losers, at the end of the day the club needs to balance its books. Its difficult for us as we seem to be a lot of clubs cup final and the jitters set in, like saturday and Harris ‘its mega playing there’.

players want to play as high as they can, unfortunately we are a L2 club and will only in the main attract L2 standard players regardless of who is in charge, but we got smallwood who was a championship player, he has been a bit underwhelming but that aint Rupps fault.

 

Whilst I have some sympathy for your point of view, Rupp made it clear that he wanted to put right the Edin fiasco. However he has his limits financially ie what he is prepared to dish up if necessary. He could have sold us to the crypto kids, but didn’t. I can only think he is a decent person as most would have taken the money and run. We can only hope he changes his mind about investing in us but we can’t force him out.

 

wow, Millwall with a £26.4 million loss over 2 years. Its sheer madness. No other business would be allowed such losses.

 

You trying to change Fordy's MINDSET. Good luck with that.

 

Come on Fordy, this is city.after this weeks results, you just know they will go and get a result at Northampton and raise all our hopes again, only to blow it at Crewe.

 

Maybe we could kidnap Hughes and tie him to a radiator then tell the players just to go out and play football how they would like to perform.....genius eh..?

 

bet you’d love it to happen wouldn’t you imagine being a so called supporter wanting failure to cheap point score

as for huge massive investment by the owners etc I bet you could point to a hell of a lot of club with no investment who are being run within there budget and continue to outdo us I ain’t no fan of Rupp he fooked up in letting that clown Edin do what he wants but if we do fail this season the blame lies with Hughes .............. he got everything he needed to get us up and if we don’t make at least the top 7 then it’s down to him and him alone

 

How can you actually blame the owner for THIS season when Hughes probably got what he needed ????
Pissing around at the back was that down to Rupp ???
Bringing in sub standard loan players was that down to Rupp ???
Now don’t got me wrong he’s fooked up and got suckered in by a complete Khoont but so did 17k others because I didn’t recall folk questioning the board when Parky Fooked off that when questions should have been really asked.
Still unless somehow a millionaire is out there to take us over then it is what it is and in all honesty you can say that there are owners out there willing to take it on but who ?????
Nobody
The club was in the same posistion from 2007 to 2013 and I can’t recall anyone interested back then so why would they do it now

 

• not many clubs have a stadium that is 25K + capacity (we are the 37th largest ground in the country, that is home to a football team)
• out of those clubs one is in League Two.
• within that 37 Charlton is is the closest club in terms of size that is in the league above, they charge £285, £425 and £625 for Zones 3,2 and 1 respectively.
• compare that to us at £198 and £378.
• their average league attendance is 13,350. Their current sales numbers for season tickets is 6000. Ours is over 14,000 (higher than last seasons total too.)

The club is very savvy to actually use its size well, large crowds attract more people, more sponsorship and ultimately more season ticket revenue.

and to answer your point, not all clubs are big enough and low enough to have that in place. Accrington Stanley charge £285 for a season ticket but do so as the spaces are very limited!

 

We have sold 3 assets in the past 18 months to my knowledge . A goalkeeper Daryl Ombang joined Leeds , Sahil Bashir a midfielder joined Brighton and most recently i believe another one has joined Wolves.
All 3 helped the academy turn over a good profit. We only need 1 of them to do a Mcburnie , if all 3 make it we are quids in with all the add ons.
Assets come in many shapes and forms. As a business man, i thought you would know that Fordy.
But i will agree with you on 1 thing. We have under performed this season. This squad is capable of a top 3 place.
The reason we are scrambling for the playoff's is the average home form, far too many drawn games. I would rather have lost a couple more , if we had won the others.

 

The selling of young lads from the academy is literally peanuts in the grand scheme of things and people are seriously still bringing up the McBurnie sell on etc like it should be funding a new squad every season?? That money will be long gone. Did any of us actually notice an improvement of the quality of player we signed once that money came in? Nope.

I’m not sure what people expect from Rupp over and above what he is doing? We clearly have a very healthy budget this season and we have one of the most experienced managers outside of the Premier League but look at the clubs we are competing with. Barrow, Sutton, Crawley etc etc. Ive had a look over some of the proposed wealth of the owners in League 1 as a starting point as that is where we want to be competing. Interestingly the clubs who have owners worth a couple of 100 of million are the clubs struggling ie: MK dons, Morecambe, Cheltenham and Forest Green. There are a couple of exceptions like Oxford and Bristol Rovers who have far richer owners but are struggling this season.

There are a couple of teams with billionaire owners, Barnsley, Portsmouth etc and they are at the top end of the league as you would expect. Then you have the middle set of clubs like Shrewsbury and Fleetwood (owner built an £8mill training complex) who don’t have overly wealthy owners but are clearly well run but will also never really compete outside of league 1 apart from maybe a fluke season. My overall point is that while we shouldn’t settle for mediocracy I think we are probably at the ceiling of where we can be with Rupp as an owner. The budget would improve if we went up a division but that would just be as a result of an increase in revenue. We all want to get back to where we think we belong but football ownership in the last decade alone as resulted in some very very rich people investing in clubs lower down the pyramid. We need someone to come along to do the same before we can really kick on IMO.

 

Absolutely right the players must share some responsibility
However I think they are far from comfortable messing about (for want of a better phrase) at the back they know they aren't good enough to do it
Notice Lewis indecision/reluctance to throw/pass the ball backwards across his area last Saturday
That's down to Hughes and his tactics am afraid he needs to realise these players are L2 for a reason and adapt its cost us a lot of points this season
Leave Doris alone she does a great job

 

If the manager is backed to overhaul the squad, and keeps enforcing tactics that the players can't carry out, where does the fault lie....?

 

I agree with the majority of what you have said. If we don’t believe that MH can improve or has the nouse to solve the problems you have so eloquently outlined, then what is the point of keeping him here? Like you the very thought of changing our manager fills me with dread. If it is a money issue, ie Wright, when we couldn’t compete with Plymouth, then Rupp needs to think about this because as you have also highlighted league 2 is about to become League 1 in waiting, and we could easily find ourselves in the bottom half of the table next season, which is probably where we would be this season but for Cookie, who was the previous managers addition.