Wrex

Yes not a great example. But my point is that having a high quality academy benefits the club, no doubt about that, but it's another one of those things where perhaps the money would be better invested elsewhere seen as we only have a limited amount of funds.

They get the first pick of the best talent though. It's like saying that Eton is the best school in England and makes huge profits so a school in Burslem should copy them

There isn't really much you can do if a youth player wants to sign with a Premier League academy. The rules are set. We get a small compensation fee. Nothing we can do about that. However, that does beg the question of why bother pumping money into an academy? We're surrounded by massive clubs, multi-million pound academy operations, including the experts up the road at Crewe. Why would any bright prospect choose us? Even if we do everything right. Of course the best talent we get will leave us. So what does that leave us? Lads at 16/17/18 that were passed up by the top academies at 8 years old, at 10 years old, 12 years old? Still not good enough. Not wanted at 13, no thanks at 14. They were aware of them at 15 but weren't interested. That leaves us with thin gruel in terms of relatively late developers. Personally I'd go with the Brentford, Accrington, Wycombe etc approach and sacking off youth development and putting that money into the first-team and a B/reserve team of 17-24 year olds who've been spat out from academies but can still be those late developers.

The postponements were the one mistake Flitcroft actually owned up to (probably means they were Crosby's idea)

Ah, you mean like Father Ted's A Song for Europe? It all makes sense now, all that talk of is being promoted "too early" and how much it cost us to go up. We're trying to get relegated to save money!

Told to sign a striker?

Say what you like about Flitcroft, but he is certainly the best and worst director of football we've ever had.

Doesn't really mesh with the image they were portraying of him being the busiest man at the football club does it? But yeah, it's part of the job description to waffle on talking a load of <ovf censored>, so we'll let him off for that one. His sales pitch likely helped us to bring Devine, Arblaster and Darren Moore to the club. So you can't lay into him too much for talking a good game when results on the pitch are poor. He's also the man tasked with putting Carol's "Championship ready" vision into action and he has done a lot of genuinely good stuff, even if a lot of it is behind the scenes that we don't see. His explanation of what went wrong in the January transfer window. Well that's how it goes sometimes. It's good to hear an explanation at least. Fact is the striker situation is a shambles, but I'm sure the recruitment team worked as hard as any other manager / sporting director in the country. We failed, but hey, maybe if we'd have got that ex-Championship or top six PL2 striker and he hit a few goals then we wouldn't be sitting here with Darren Moore on a five year contract.

Here is the form table

17 points from 21 games. We have gained 15 points from our last 21 league games.

As things stand we're going down. The team we need to catch are Charlton, managed by... Nathan Jones. Even if he did us another favour then Cheltenham will certainly overtake us. Their manager? Darrell Clarke. Doesn't seem that difficult does it, this appointing decent manager lark?

Doesn't make me feel any better about our relegation knowing that if I was a betting man then I'd have made nearly a grand off a £100 sure thing.

You must have misheard him. I didn't hear him say it, but if he did then he's wrong

Kian Harratt | DATM | HTAFC DOWNATTHEMAC.PROBOARDS.COM Animal cruelty and betting on his own team to lose are just the tip of the iceberg apparently. So glad we never went back for him.

I think it's safe to say the letter has not gone down well. If Carol could not be dissuaded to change her mind on Flitcroft then I'd have recommended her to have at least redrafted the article. Firstly to be a lot more succinct and a lot more contrite, asking for support and forgiveness for errors rather than citing Dave and her own achievements. Paragraph 1 - acknowledge the disappointment of this season, the seriousness of the situation, and assure fans everyone at the club is dissatisfied with his things have gone and are working hard to improve. Paragraph 2 - explicitly state why things have gone so wrong. Yes, injuries, yes bad luck times, but specifically address the January transfer window. Say what happened. We don't need names or specifics, just say whatever it was... an experienced striker was in the building but x/y happened, a backup option had a last minute offer somewhere else, we were used by an unnamed player to get a new contract at his current club, an agent tried to screw us at the last minute, <ovf censored> whatever it was. Something to help us understand that we did the right thing but it just didn't happen for us. Paragraph 3 - state her position (Flitcroft stays), mention the overall progress of the last five years. Promise that progress will continue regardless of where we finish this season. Mention the hidden expenses of running the club and fixing the stadium. Paragraph 4 - plead for unity, ask for patience and forgiveness for errors (that have actually been explained in paragraph 2, not just glossed over), say how important the fans are, ask them to back the team and the new manager in the remainder of the season I dunno, just not a long rambling letter that said how the fans should be grateful for her, that Dave is wonderful and achieved so much and that fans should stop being mean to him

Glad we didn't go in for him

When a woman falls for a man that is a bit of a wrong 'un then there's no amount of reasoning that will get her to see otherwise. Especially when she doesn't really think the people giving their opinion are worth listening to. We're <ovf censored>.

No. But fair enough for Carol fronting up with a defence of her position, even if it is one that most fans disagree with. Flitcroft can point to the achievements that Carol has detailed and although things have very much not gone to plan this season, I concede that it is not an easy job to run a football club, particularly one with limited resources. I can only hope that whatever division we are in next season ( I strongly suspect League Two) that a quality manager is given quality players to make us competitive for mid-table / promotion (delete as appropriate).

Colin was BD so he had to go. BD - Before Dave (Flitcroft)

I'm assuming Uche's wages and fee would have gone towards whoever it is that we couldn't persuade to sign yesterday

Flitcroft is responsible for anything that touches the pitch i.e. player recruitment We can let him off for fat fans sitting in front of little blokes. Not his department.

Only the seven goals to keep you awake in that match

I don't know what you mean by "hold us to it"

A loan is only of any consequence from the start date to the end date. If we were making a contribution to his wages then it was from 16 January to 1 February.

This transfer window in a nutshell