by URZZZZZZZZ »
30 May 2016 15:39
I saw this on Football 365, it's probably worth putting here too...
I'll begin this post by saying that I don't agree with all of this, but I'm trying to see the reasoning that the Thais may have used for some of their recent decisions.
The Stadium Re-Development
I don't quite understand the fans' complete uproar about this. Comments on social media like "they're only in it for the land/property" are completely unfounded. What we do know is that Narin (50% shareholder) explicitly came out and said football clubs cannot make money, and therefore be a viable business, on just the football alone. Therefore they identified that there is great potential in the land surrounding the stadium, and set in motion plans to vastly increase our turnover without having to rely on the fortune of a promotion push. I agree that the ice rink is a tad strange, but fundamentally this is a sound business move. The frustration for fans, who in my experience are always looking for instant results, is that there will need to be a period where less is put into the playing side of the business to offset this.
The Management
I'll start by saying that in my opinion and with the beauty of hindsight the Thais' biggest mistake was to get rid of Adkins. I know he wasn't everyone's cup of team, but the stats suggest that our league form has waned drastically since his departure. Mistake number two was to allow themselves to be bullied by Steve Clarke during his tenure. The sacking of four key playing staff members (including the Kit Man ffs) gave him a god complex, and I've heard from several people involved with the club that he was a most unsavoury character. A lot of pro Clarke fans reference the fantastic couple of months at the start of the season as reason why we shouldn't have let him go. However for me this should only be further used to highlight his ineptitude, as the collapse that followed it was nothing short of spectacular, and serious questions must be asked about his man-management and signings.
Now onto Brian. My first reaction when he was appointed was one of disappointment, but following a bit of a think about his previous stint in charge, I figured if he can only be half as successful then we will be onto a winner. Those last few months were tough to watch (thank goodness we had a cup run again), and I feel awfully sorry Brian as there were an awful lot of factors that were taken out of his hands. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen him given the whole of next season to build a team and have a good go, BUT I do think sacking him yesterday is a better decision that to panic in December and get rid of another manager then.
The Academy & looking forward
Even prior to the Thais purchase, the club made a conscious decision to focus a huge amount of resource into the Academy. A sound business model that I'm sure we're all hoping will begin to bear fruit next season with the emergence of some of the young players who have been out on loan. I expect that the appointment of youth football specialist Brian Tevreden as DoF will see a big push towards this side of the football business, with approaches similar to Southampton's the model. Going back to the Brian sacking I imagine the Thais see it as a futile exercise to have a team whose core is from a heavily invested Academy managed by someone who doesn't specialise in youth football. This theory on face value is hard to argue with really, isn't it? If you owned a McDonalds and you had one candidate who manages a Kwik Fit and one that manages a Burger King, you'd clearly always going to go for the candidate with the most relevant experience.
Apologies, that did turn into the ramblings of a mad-man, but I just feel it is sometimes worth playing devil's advocate on things like this. Despite what may be read online, believe it or not, the Thais do want what's best for this club. Some decisions may come across as odd from time to time, but it's worth mentioning that they are constantly surrounded by good people who have been running the club for a long time. Let's have a bit of patience and see where this journey takes us, you never know in 12 months time we may be about to visit Wembley, or better still planning a Premier League campaign!