Derek Adams' views on his time at VP

We know Brighton and Brentford have a plan and have stuck to it.
There are numerous interviews out there.
Of course, the level of detail they go into is debatable.
A lot of the information is confidential.

 

In reality, the Stockport one just detailed the make up of their squad. Players at different ages, getting different contracts.
You could look at their squad list for that.

 

Generally all clubs have a wonderful plan until the proverbial hits the fan. Sometimes clubs will hit that magic home run and have a period of sustained progress but more often than not you end up back in your natural habitat e.g. Forest Green and to a larger extent us under BFG. I'd summarise by saying there are no guarantees in football, like an business, but rule of thumb the clubs run by the smarter cookies do have a plan or strategy that surpasses football, that being that the club is first and foremost a business. Brentford and Brighton spring top mind. They will endure lean times, its a given, but they have the best chance to bounce back because of the way they are run. Their success is built on long term fixed startegies that they don't deviate from. That includes how they pick managers, how they recruit players, how they recruit other on and off field staff.
We are in the bottom half of league 2 because our plan is simply to survive and as such it's harsh to blame the likes of Sparks for our plight. He is essentially fulfilling the remit of his boss, that to make sure the club is self sustaining without any monetary or very little if any ownership influence. Fact we've tried every kind of approach in such a short space of time, gone for managers who want full control to having a recruitment team shows a CEO trying desperately to make something work, but ultimately with having little experience in the role or having an owner in a similar vein who shows no enthusiasm to even wanting to own a football club we are pretty much hand to mouth.
So @Park bantam just to prove you wrong from last night, i don't hate on Ryan Sparks. Despite his David Brent impersonations he's hamstrung by his lack of experience and owner who quite frankly doesn't want to be here. Heck even Alexander said in the interview last night that he hadn't even spoke to Stefan Rupp yet, what sort of business owner balls deep into a company to the tune of around £10 million wouldn't have conversation with the guy they potentially want to take manage their business for the next 2 1/2 years?
So folks, there's your long term plan in a nutshell. Our owner doesn't have one bar breaking even.

 

I find Uncle Derek's comments rather funny, I would say back in the day of Julian & Mark we had a far less stable club than we have now and they were honest enough to tell us that, but it didn't stop Phil Parkinson dragging the club from possible relegation fodder to a game away from becoming a Championship club.
Parky set his stall out with regards HIS responsibilities IE developing a successful football team and allowed Julian & Mark to get on with the financial side of providing the best player budget they could, we never heard him make excuses when we went through that bad patch, saying the reason for our bad run is we don't own the stadium or our own training facilities he got on with the tools Julian & Mark provided, excuses after excuses ultimately blaming fans for not having patience to allow him to see the job through.

 

I looked at the Stockport forum in the summer and their fans seemed to think a lot would change this year. Sounded like Madden and Sarcevic would be available if bids came in, they moved on aging guys like Hussey and Challinor said the squad needs to get younger. Looks to have hired well this summer and stuck to the managers plan.

Looks like Sarcevic has moved his way back into plans as a 10 rather than deeper mid role he has last season. He is the only outfielder over 28 years old that has started over 70% of their games so far this season. (Edit - and Ryan Croasdale, 2 players over their prime years starting often).

 

It gets better

Where do Morecambe FC train?
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Lancaster & Morecambe College

After over thirty years of a successfully active partnership, Lancaster & Morecambe College (LMC) has become the main training base and match day venue for the Morecambe Football Club (MFC)'s Category 3 Academy.10 Nov 2021

Morecambe train at a school.

https://www.morecambefc.com/news/2023/october/design-our-training-ground-containers/

 

I refer the right honourable to my last sentence. Shouts of hear hear from the back benchers.

 

There is business and their is sport. The business side of Bradford city is growing steadily so whatever they are doing is working. The football side of the club is stalled due to underachievement of recent managers. Finding a successful formula on the pitch can then lead to continuity in other words we have to get it right on the pitch before we can do anything else

 

Precisely, couched as their “long term plan” or similar. Not one “ what if” plan B in there I could see. So it’s based on utopia. Looks nice…..

 

Yes correct, different budgets. The ground HAS to be kept up to a certain standard for two reasons.

One is H&S/ Fire certification the other is the landlord will require certain upkeep and maintainance standards to maintain HIS asset to a saleable standard.

 

Bradford city is primarily, especially in the eyes of the fans , a football club not a business. Perhaps the eye as been taken of the ball pardon the pun and too much focus is on the business side. it seems a lot of hard work going out and sourcing all the commercial partnerships the minority of which will simply be you scratch my back ill scratch yours type of partnerships.

sort out the football side of things, ie get us promoted and the business side will take care of itself.

 

Agreed that it should be flexible. I review my forecasts every three months.
Costs and Performance are variable.

 

It should be reviewed regularly. If Sparks target was £8.3m Revenue and we've done it, he's unlikely to settle for that the year after. He might go for £9m and set the Sales Manager guy on with seeing where the extra £700k is coming from.

 

Without a benefactor the business side is vital

 

We should be succession planning though.

This is the type of football we play (that runs through the whole club), here's a list of Manager's who play a similar way.
Review the list of Manager's every 3 months. How are they progressing? Has anyone new come on the scene?

MK Dons didn't wake up one morning and just picked Williamson out of the air.
They had been watching his progress and it will have influenced the decision to sack GA.
Williamson's style is MK Dons all over.

 

He's done well on that front. When he first came in there was none of that at the club, there were no targets as such to hit, something that was told to me. The commercial side at last have performance indicators and targets for staff to hit.