We can afford to sack Adams

It depends on what Sparks sees as more important, his reputation by firing another manager and the opportunity to come out of hiding in 12 months and say “see, told you it would come good” or the huge hole in the budget to fill when season ticket sales collapse.

 

Don’t know whether city have to pay up the remaining 2 years of Adams contract or whether there are clauses he has to achieve to make it easier to break. If not then city would surely be hugely reluctant to take on the cost of paying a manager for 2 seasons garden leave in effect if that’s the case. This is understandable if we operate within our means. If Rupp doesn’t underwrite the finance for such a change then the impact will be on ST next season. Either way financially it is damaging and reflects badly on Adams and Sparks as expectations were ramped up at the start of the season and we are significantly underachieving at present. 2/3 of the games nearly done and we are where we are in the league for a reason.

Adams complains most weeks that we don’t take our chances. We need better players certainly attacking players. Average age of the 6 attackers is 30/31. The youngest is injury prone and none of them bar Cook on occasion have a history of scoring heavily So what does Adams expect. It’s his recruitment in the last 2 windows.
We are in a real pickle one that it’s difficult to see a solution for without incurring cost and the need for financial support from Rupp.

 

You've come out with that word again. Hysteria.

Why hysteria?

 

Hysteria is a bit strong Roger. I’m sure Ryan’s intention are the best, but he was very vocal in the summer about the upcoming season, he did a good job in starting to tidy up the stadium, the marketing was good, season ticket sales and sponsorship was strong and there was a real feel good atmosphere.

The reality is different, recruitment has been poor, we can’t buy a goal and the strikers signed are as bad as predicted by most, the football is dreadful and I’d argue the league position is falsely high when you look at the games in hand the teams below have. Add in that the manager is saying the same daft stuff week in week out about chances, xG, how we’re playing well and generally doing what he’s done before and getting people’s backs up, well to me it feels like as fans we’ve been led up the garden path a bit.

We have no right to promotion but in any other business transaction if the reality was so far different from the promises I’d be asking for a refund. That’s the problem, fans and local businesses have backed the club and they haven’t kept their side of the bargain in following up their big promises last summer. Ryan said anything but promotion is failure, why should the same fans and businesses back a failure again this coming summer? I’d like Ryan and Stefan to answer that.

 

What bit of the Bradford City fans don’t like Adams don’t you understand mate?

You can’t compare the Parky days with Adams because we don’t like him. It was always different times and situation Parky was in.

 

I doubt Adams is on such a big contract paying it up would make a material difference. IIRC I saw quotes that Parky was on £50k a year the season we got Wembley. Like failing to pay for a decent striker or two in the summer, the drop in walk up tickets alone will make that look a false economy.
The reputational harm to Sparks and the club from sacking a third manager in 15 months will be more damaging.

 

I don't think it's hysteria, it's anger, and it's totally justified imo. The anger or 'hysteria' if you want, wasn't there with Parky because the club at that point hadn't made statements at the start of the season about 'anything less than promotion will be seen as failure' and 'we don't accept mediocrity at this football club'. The expectations for this season were set by the club, so it is understandable wouldn't you agree, that people feel cheated right now?

 

Just posted similar without seeing your post. If the club can't accept that they have created this situation, we have a problem.

 

Parky won 1 in 21 and I was still backing him.
The usual suspects wanted him out.

I was still behind him because of the success he had brought in keeping us up. Getting us promoted. Taking us to a cup final. He had lots of credit in the bank and had demonstrated he understood what it took to take the club forwards on the pitch and although He was a bit one eyed like Adams didn’t chuck players under the bus in public. IE cleverly managed the club.
He wasn’t perfect but had a plan that you could see being implemented on the pitch and that plan took a team of players to deliver more as a group than their ability perhaps suggested. Adams is the opposite of this.

I understand you wanting to defend the club. I want to defend the club. It’s my club too. But Adams management at city has done nothing to suggest he is capable of taking us forwards to date whilst alienating fans with bizarre post match comments. I can’t imagine the players are a happy group. Would you warm to a manager who treats errors from some players by lambasting them in public yet others who maybe he has worked with and brought to the club seem to be viewed differently when making crucial errors. You can’t have that it creates division within a group.

 

I'd be onto the phone to Lee Johnson if I was Sparks. Whether he'd want to join us is another thing.

 

Add to that, Mike, a deluded, arrogant manager who has made no effort to connect with the fans and is disliked for his unfortunate personality.

 

I’m sure your going about the long winless run during our first season in league 1 .......... now at any point was the team not trying ???? Was the team getting humiliated time after time ???? ............. I tell why there was no hysteria........ it was all down to folk turning up and seeing that team was battling away and at some point it would change and it eventually did ................ so please stop comparing this mess to PP team he had not point took the fans for idiots unlike this fella

 

That is because PP was always honest with his assessments and the fans, Adams has an aggressive confrontational personality that never accepts any fault on his own behalf, He is not open and honest with us, If he is so unliked by the fans he is almost certainly unliked by the players in private,

 

The challenge for Sparks is this, Stick with Adams who is unpopular and the season finish on a damp squid and see season tickets fall by possibly half?
OR sack Adams and seek a new better manager who if improves results and builds a relationship with the fans who will then look forward to a new season and buy the season tickets again.
I know what I would do and look to the future with a new man

 

I wonder if wetherbywhalers assessment of 'hysteria' , is one of a personal nature or reflective of the club?

If it's in nature, the latter, you have an inkling of the immediate future

 

Can someone please answer a simple question?

If I'm shit at my job and therefore get sacked I get no compensation. Why then if a football manager is shit at his job and gets sacked do we have to pay the useless turd?
Doesn't make sense.

 

Sacking Adams would not cost a a massive lump sum, It can be done 2 ways, An agreed lump sum lower than the full amount OR paying his monthly wages till the end of his contract or until he gets another job, Obviously it would be better for the budget to just pay his wages rather than a lump sum,

 

It's one of life's great mysteries.

 

Not too sure on your last sentence the reputational damage to the club and Mr Sparks will be far greater after all his bluster, not correcting your mistakes and appearing to settle for a mid to lower table finish doesn't portray an image
of a forward thinking club with ambition