Most liked posts in thread: We will be all right

Well that is a detailed response. Before I reply, can l confirm that all I want, is for this club to succeed. Success is primarily measured in results. So lets have a look at a number of issues.

• Fact that throughout 2018, we have now become the worst performing club out of 92, based on the number of points we have accrued.
• Whatever else, that must be a baseline.
• We are playing chaotic, disjointed football, which every game we go into, we are now the underdogs.
• Just reflect back to the Macclesfield debacle. They are the bottom of the 92 ladder, and have only won a single league game all season. That was humiliating!
• We have gone through 4 (5 if you count Abbott’s brief tenure) coaches in one season. Despite a range of styles, level of experience, the results are still exceptionally poor.
• Our defence from being one that was watertight with Ben Williams run of clean sheets being exceptional, has become so porous as to be a joke (even with a reasonable keeper).
• The sales of Season Tickets for 2018/2019 has dropped by over 20%! However you dress that up, it is an unmitigating disaster.
• The players we have signed are a mere shadow of previous squads. Some may on ‘paper’ be decent players, however the individual components are not gelling. One must question the recruitment policy. The system of the ‘committee’ is not working. The Director of Football heads this system and they are the one who makes the primary decision. The old saying, too many cooks spoil the broth, comes to mind.
• In respect of January, then which players are likely to say, based on the current performance and salary structure, ‘hey I want to sign for Bradford City’! The buck stops with the current group, who have to demonstrate to any recruits, that this is a team worth joining.
• The current group of players have been recruited from May onwards. Several months have elapsed. The debacle of the pre season, the fitness coach and indeed the appointment of the then Coach, were not the responsibility of the supporters.
• If we were no ‘poorer’ than our rivals in January, then how come we have totally collapsed?
• Blackpool and Charlton plus Coventry despite the turmoil are as teams performing far better than us, based on factual evidence!
• McCall has to accept some responsibility as does Grayson, Abbott and Collins. The continuity factor is the Director of Football, which is a fact.

The owners have progressed matters in respect of the pitch, which had previously been neglected. They have introduced the scanning system for entry to the stadium, which speeds it up a little. Some seats have been replaced. I understand that there may have been some improvements with the training facilities. Credit where credit is due, but the reality is that any owners should/could have undertaken these tasks.

Frankly I am not concerned about the owners background. I do not dislike them personally, I have never met them. However I do dislike what is happening to the team I support. The conduct and behaviour of the owners seems to be the primary factor which is slowly degrading the performance, credibility and joy of being a supporter. They are the universal factor, players, managers and staff have both gone and come, yet things continue to deteriorate.

I think that both Rahic and Rupp need to go further than say ‘Sorry’, and accept that their mode of operation has not worked and that progress which had occurred previously has now become rapid regression.

You have to question how a club like Accrington with a small fan base, basic (and unsatisfactory in respect of the open terracing) small stadium can succeed, when we are in a massive ‘tail spin’.

A bit like @Park bantam you have put a caveat in your final sentence. You say ‘I await the usual reaction’. That is a loaded comment in the fact that you seem to infer that responses are lesser, if they take a different point of view. I can see what you are doing, and through it. A mature honest and open debate is what we need. At times it will be difficult , but then being a City supporter is exceptionally painful at the moment.

 

You started this thread off.

You stated, ‘We will be comfortably midtable by May’. Quite honestly I have seen nothing to suggest that this will be the case. The evidence is that we are not making progress. If you admitted that things were going backwards, it would demonstrate insight and honesty.

You seem to have adopted an approach similar to the vocal owner, of denial and keep on with the same mantra, and it will come right (eventually).

If you said something to the effect of, ‘hands up I got it wrong, this season is all about survival, and all I want to do is to survive and see positive change for the future’ then you would be more credible.

When your final comment is that this a bore fest, then it suggests that you have lost credibility and now try to blame BT as every thing is not happy. I think the term reality check is one you need to think about.

I genuinely hope your optimistic prediction, only posted a couple of weeks ago, comes to fruition, but adopting a myopic form of denial ........ is just that!

 

Does anybody else recall the 2006/7 season when we were last relegated from League 1? For those who don't recall it, a certain Julian Rhodes was so confident in the quality of the squad that he believed we could afford to sell Windass and JJ in the January window to raise some money and do it without too many consequences.

In the first week of October twelve years ago, we were lying just in the play-off positions. When JJ and Windass were sold in early January, we were in the top half. When Colin Todd was then sacked, we were just below half way. When the season ended we were 22nd and relegated to League 2. And we stayed there for several years.

Now the facts around the two seasons are very different but our club doesn't have some privileged right to remain in League. I don't understand yet where this confidence comes from some fans that we will be 'all right' at the end of the season. We might be ultimately be safe but a few fans saying it'll be alright on the night is no guarantee that it will be. There is huge mountain still to climb and no real chance to reinforce the squad for another 3 months. Our squad currently isn't good enough. Despite the extra effort we showed against Sunderland, the squad is demonstrating all the qualities of one which will be in the relegation dog fight for the remainder of the season. Shit really does happen in competitive sport and we are not immune from it.

 

In most businesses a 20%+ drop in sales of the prime product, would lead to the CEO resigning or being sacked.