Rhodes speaks

A sensible approach in my view.

All the glory hunters can now desert the club because it doesn't have 'ambition'.

I'm looking forward to watching City progress in a sustainable way. I hope we get to league one sooner rather than later but I'll focus on beating Mansfield first.

 

Will that be Jenkins still then? As the new CEO?
I reckon it would have gone through if the government didn’t pull the plug on pilots and fans getting back into the ground
Surely it needs to be this side of Xmas as he mentioned negotiations will take place with wood and McCall and it won’t be him who does it?

 

You think this football club has glory hunters? What glory would that be then?

 

Hopefully part of an effort to get fans to trust the club again. The fact that every interview, press release, signing, gossip and so on is interpreted negatively by many points towards a serious trust issue between the club and a section of the support. Originated in the Rahic era and needs to be mended for the club to move on.

 

Little bit worried about holding off with Wood as we could have a Mezza situation again

 

Progress up the leagues at all or any costs. It sounds exciting but when the wheels come off it's very distressing.

 

i think these glory hunters have picked the wrong club to support. 3 good seasons out of the last 10? Maybe more? Come on.
Fans just want a decent position for a club of our size. Not year on year regression.
Also it’s nice to be in the black but I don’t think fans will take staying in the black year on year and finishing 9th in league two each season

 

Its a depressingly predictable statement. The only mentions are of surpluses, deficits and balancing the books. He's running a football club and says next to nothing about the fortunes of the team on the field.

“You’ve got to given Stefan credit,” said Rhodes. “I know people will argue he should have been more hands-on or whatever.

“But we had that bad period which started from when we lost at Wembley in 2017. We lost the best part of £2 million and Stefan put in an interest-free loan to cover it. "

He says this as though someone robbed the safe in the dark of night. That loss was because the football club - on Rupp's watch - was being monumentally mismanaged. 'Hands on'? How about just having a competent grip of what's going on in the organization he's accountable for?
“He put in an interest free loan. He couldn’t do much more than that.”
Other than fund it himself, as many other owners do - seeing as he was accountable in the first place? As a result of it being an interest free loan, the McBurnie windfall was therefore swallowed whole, rather than being a tool to propel the club forward again.

This isn't a self-sustainable model - its flying by the seat of our pants. You can't call a model 'self-sustainable' and then laud the owner for bailing the club out when it finds itself in a hole through its own mismanagement.

There's nothing in there whatsoever that talks to an executable plan for taking this club forward. Nothing.

“We need to get through this season financially okay and then we can start to build again. But obviously it won’t be with me.”

COVID perhaps makes that inevitable. But this season is going to be grim, and forget any idea of a promotion push. It's clearly not part of the thinking this season.

“All ambition means is they expect the owner of a football club to chuck their own money at it. "

This is a complete misrepresentation and shows a real disconnect with what many fans want. Fans want to see a plan for progress. A strategy. In fact - many fans have argued that we should have been lowering the budget and investing more in scouting, coaching, recruitment instead. Ambition, would manifest itself as a CEO talking about how the club will actually move forward and start to compete more effectively. Ideally, it would involve the owner investing cash - not to prop up overspending on player wages, but to grow the fabric of the club. That doesn't have to be the case though - a capable owner and CEO, would put what we have to better use. A highly capable owner/CEO would attract investment from elsewhere. Its hard to be surprised that so many of our own fans struggle to see beyond a mantra of 'keep it cheap, be grateful you've got a club' when our CEO has the very same mentality, and indeed - a contempt for any fans who aspire to more!!

Everything about that interview brings to life why we'll never move forward with Rhodes at the helm. Thank god he'll be gone soon. And lets hope his replacement has a vision and the means to take the club forward.

 

It does worry me that if they're waiting for the pandemic to be over to make the change then that won't be until 2023!

 

Nobody is arguing for progress at all costs. Or even progress. Just a plan for progress!

 

At least McCall is only here till end of the season too, should be a clean sweep.

no mention of how he screwed up appointing Bowyer and how he is leaving us with possibly our worst squad ever.

 

A clean sweep is what we need. A completely fresh outlook and strategy from the top down. The reason we never go anywhere is because we keep looking back, not forward.

 

We could but to be fair Julian talks a lot of sense in this interview - I would guess holding off on any contracts (exactly the same with McCalls position) is until the new man is in place so he can exert his own presence in the way forward and the future development of the club. This doesn't prevent discussions taking place behind the scenes.
There is still so much doubt as to what will happen this season (I still think there will be twists and turns relating to Covid) but I just hope we dont hide behind this factor - we have to be prudent but the club needs to show a vision of better days to come, getting the balance right of being prudent and showing suitable ambition is a difficult one to strike. It would be good to know a timeframe the club is working towards for the reigns to be handed over - this transparency would enable the fans to understand the position better and the decisions currently being made with perhaps a little less aggravation towards the club

 

You can see why he doesn't bother speaking before Season Ticket sales. It doesn't get much more grim than that.

 

Good post @Faithful Bantam I just think you're being harsh and over critical with regards Julian, his intention was never to stay long term, he was Stefans appointment once he uncovered Rahic debacle, we needed someone in quickly and as we all know Rupp wouldnt have known where to turn so Julian was brought in short term.
He had someone lined up, I'm sure you lads on TCA know all about it, he was let down and had to start again looks like he may have found someone, as you say new guy at the helm let's hope he brings his vision as you say.

 

In the context of the short term recovery job he was given - that's fine. But he's talking about progress over a 10 year period. We're in a worse position now than we were 10 years ago - financially similar, but with a worse squad.

Bottom line - it needs a significant change in leadership, strategy, ambition and execution to change the fortunes of this club. I appreciate that running a football club is hard - harder than its ever been. But I have loftier expectations than simply not going out of business.

 

Baldwin's six month notice with the EFL fits that timeline..

 

Three good seasons in 10? How about seven or eight good seasons in the last century?

 

I'd suggest your not alone, but the situation Rahic left us in was never going to be sorted overnight, as Julian says he was brought in to steady the ship and give the club some stability going forward.
A simple comment like "“Obviously, we have to get out of League Two at some point and hopefully that will happen. I’m not necessarily saying this season but hopefully" does not mean we arent trying and get out of this league as has been quoted above, I'm sure that is the intention of McCall and his backroom staff.