Guitar Ray

If it was as simple as that there’s no way we’d be replacing Crosby and his staff with Darren Moore and his, we’d have no choice but to go for a cheaper option. Also, Flitcroft himself said we missed out on countless targets, 9 strikers(?), the vast majority not down to money. In fact in the last 2 January windows we’ve hung on for players until the 11th hour only to see the deals fall through leaving us up 💩creek because we’ve had no contingency plan in place. That’s rank bad planning. There will have been strikers out there to fit any budget, there are rumours that Uche is on a fair wedge plus we seemingly paid money for Loft who the DoF said we’d been monitoring for months. Carol would’ve had little if any say in either deal other than perhaps deciding they were both very nice chaps with all the right values before she signed the cheques.

Hopefully take a bit of heart from the clean sheet last night and build from that. If, and it’s a big if, we can score first then the atmosphere won’t get killed stone dead like it has in recent home games which should help the players no end, at least until the last 15 - 20 minutes of the game when everyone will be clenching their buttocks if the score remains a goal or 2 in our favour…..

Must be carrying a knock surely? One of the few who actually looks as if they’re arsed.

Thanks for clearing that up, it’s really put a spring in my step, 2 in 26 sounded so depressing.

Just because players are contracted doesn’t mean they’ll remain with us next season. Highly likely our better players will leave and very likely some of the under-performers will be transfer listed or released. Time is always of the essence. Signing players is a bit of a lottery as we’ve seen forever, unless we only sign experienced pro’s to mitigate the risk, but even then there’s no guarantee. The scrutiny will be no different than at the start of any other season. Fans will form opinions pretty quickly chance what. Obviously, if Flitcroft is still heading up recruitment then fans will have a less balanced view and so any negative perceptions will probably take root a bit quicker than would be the case than if someone else was doing the recruiting.

My honest opinion is that if Carol said he’s out of the picture fans would accept that, reluctantly maybe. It’d then probably boil down to recruitment again, which if it was 💩 folk would inevitably think he’s still involved. However, if our recruitment was good fans would reasonably believe he can’t possibly be involved. Personally I bear the guy no ill will, I just think based on the evidence we can see he’s bad at his job, or a crucial part of his job at least. In most normal lines of work he’d have that responsibility taken from him and handed to someone else.

He’s not going to be doing much legwork without his boss giving him the go ahead though is he.

I disagree, nobody would seriously object to Flitcroft being assigned pot cleaning duties. Recruitment is the main issue, footballing “philosophy” another. Take those things away and I don’t think folk would care if he oversaw the kids, or training facilities or whatever. For me it’s a common sense way of making a positive change given that the owners are seemingly entrenched in their defence of the DoF. Just to add, maybe those who attended the recent meeting could add a bit more detail here. Were the club saying that the DoF is essentially unaccountable?

I take it you’re not a member of any of the “select” groups? From what I know any/all of these organisations are open for anyone to join. If you’re not a member then why not join? If you are a member then why not get in touch with the respective head honcho and ask your questions or express your views? I wasn’t at the meeting but it’s quite obvious what was discussed, unless you’ve got a totally different set of gripes than all the fans I speak to, in which case you could still address these to one of the fans groups for them to get answers on at any future meeting.

True, we will still be crap, but let’s not forget that we should now be in the process of at least drawing up a list of targets for next season, made all the more difficult by the fact we don’t know what league we’ll be playing in, although we can all probably guess the answer to that. As it stands our DoF will be overseeing this process, which doesn’t give me any confidence.

Apologies, having re-read what I wrote I’ve not been clear, I meant the current Head of Recruitment, whose name currently escapes me, possibly being part of the same problem rather than Moore. The point being made was that the current head could report to Moore directly rather than Flitcroft, who on the available evidence should be completely removed from the recruitment process. This would give Carol a way of keeping her DoF in a job but hopefully go some way to appease fans, given the main issue in the stands is the state of the first team squad. Sadly I can’t see it happening anytime soon and we’ll pay the price for the clubs lack of action by having an inferior product on view next season.

Add a couple of strikers to our current squad and we’d do well in that league I think, but of course our squad will break up so we’re starting afresh with all the unknowns that entails.

Why not start it yourself. Get theesen picketing outside the club shop next home game.

There’s a few good days out in the league below. Notts, Harrogate, the London clubs, Saddlers via Brum, to name a few. If Chesterfield get promoted that’s another one.

Many a true word said in jest……sadly.

Report directly to Moore, but in fact he may be part of the same problem. Who knows? But fans aren’t crying out for change other than the DoF, so the easiest way for Carol would be simply to make the change at the top and keep the infrastructure in place.

I too passed up the free drink offer, however my reasons were very different to your own. I now only drink alcohol on match days due to soft drinks and warm beverages not blurring my vision or numbing my senses enough.

The owners don’t have to listen to the fans, they simply have to use their own faculties. Simply open their eyes to the league table, reflect on performances over 2 seasons and why those performances have on average not been up to league 1 standard. We’ve replaced managers, that hasn’t worked, so that leaves the players and the DoF, who recruited the players and the managers. Fans shouldn’t actually need to protest it’s so blindly obvious where the blame for our failure lies. If Carol is looking for a soft option then simply employ a head of recruitment to go with our large collection of middle managers and announce with a big fanfare that Flitcroft has no dealings on that side of things going forward.

We don’t know what the club have offered wage wise, if the numbers being mentioned on here are true then some of our players are on a damn good screw. If we look at other teams in this league it’s hard to believe we can’t compete wage wise. Anyway, it’s how the budget is spent that’s the issue, most obviously we’ve had enough money to pay off and replace 2 managers and numerous staff, not just coaching staff but the likes of Garlick, Speed and Co. who will all have received remuneration packages. On the surface it looks like we’re extremely wasteful with whatever money we have available for wages.

I prefer to believe the story that he was attempting to drink from a glass but missed the target.

It’s patently obvious he’s not up to the job. As much as we’ve highlighted our poor transfer dealings this January the real damage was done in the summer when players are actually readily available. We needed 2 strikers yet ended up having to re-sign James Wilson. Worse still, we recruited players to play a rigidly imposed style of play which left us with no flexibility to change and even less willingness to change. We gambled on recruiting “top” young talent on loan and as luck would have it two of these players came good, which inevitably meant they’d depart in January leaving a gaping hole, which we decided to fill by gambling again on yet more “top” young players. Unfortunately, it looks like we lost the bet this time. If you’ve attended any of the meetings you’ll know that Flitcroft talks the talk but one look at that team out on the pitch will tell you he doesn’t walk the walk. Ultimately Carol can dig her heels in as much as she likes but the guy is done for. It’s just a matter of when not if.

Every chance Ripley, Garrity & Chislett will be gone. Chislett can’t even get into the starting 11 right now and he’s one of the few actual goal scorers in the squad. Other teams would’ve already been looking at Garrity simply because of his goal return from midfield, in a poor side at that. Ripley is a decent keeper at this level, despite in all likelihood having consecutive relegations on his CV.

Fairly routine victory for the opposition. We moan about strikers but the problems run right through the team.

Basically do not allow David Flitcroft anywhere near player recruitment or dictating the football philosophy of the club. I’m assuming Carol will not sack the guy. Let him look after the kids, training facilities and any other stuff, and sink a few pints on match days in hospitality, which seems to be the norm.

The vast majority will turn up, that’s not guesswork it’s based on recent history at that level where the home average floated around 4500 with the biggest part of this being made up of home fans as the away followings are generally dire. I asked where you got 3000 from? I’m still waiting on the answer to that one, but you’ve now changed tack and it’s become 3-4K so I guess that says you were wrong first time. You’re also guessing we’ll be in the lower half of the table before a ball has been kicked.