Colin Garlick

[Fosse69]

23 minutes ago, valeparklife said:

So what's the point of a CEO if the owners make all the decisions?

Seems a waste of a wage.

I agree Smurthwaite got us relegated.

But as CEO, and apparent 'football expert' why was Garlick not fervently arguing that signing a load of French and Dutch lower league players would be suicidal. As we all knew. He went along with it.

If that was me, I'd have resigned. I wouldn't want that decision against my name.

CEOs do not control the amount of money to be invested/spent.

[Joe B]

I'm trying to articulate this as concisely as I can.

Garlick can't be blamed for Norman.

However, his job title has a remit for football operations. Our recruitment process and managerial appointment process have been below par. As a consequence, the question needs to be asked; does Garlick have any influence in these matters?

If not, change his job role and appoint someone who can provide executive oversight and direction for these sort of matters. Carol is new to the industry.

I don't think this is a knock against Colin, who I like. I'm not declaring that he should be hounded out, just trying to figure out the structure. Trying to find the middle ground between declaring him useless OR absolving him of anything that has ever gone wrong at the club. 

[Fosse69]

15 minutes ago, CAVALIER said:

Really? You’d resign if your boss asked you to do something you didn’t like? Unemployment rates would be worse than ever if everyone did that all the time

A CEO would if he was given an impossible task, otherwise his reputation would be harmed by his/her failure.

[geosname]

23 minutes ago, valeparklife said:

So what's the point of a CEO if the owners make all the decisions?

Seems a waste of a wage.

I agree Smurthwaite got us relegated.

But as CEO, and apparent 'football expert' why was Garlick not fervently arguing that signing a load of French and Dutch lower league players would be suicidal. As we all knew. He went along with it.

If that was me, I'd have resigned. I wouldn't want that decision against my name.

Because the CEO is an employee just like the tea lady.

It's sometimes comes down to a decision between doing as instructed and feeding your family or doing what you want.

[ELDERBEZZA]

43 minutes ago, Fosse69 said:

1 hour ago, valeparklife said:

We have better owners yes, that's not even up for debate.
But we were also a L1 club, with L1 players and L1 revenue. To suggest we're in a better place now is absurd.

But it was Smurf that got us relegated not Garlick

And he's still creaming money off us,the crook!

[jjvale_03]

Never had much faith in CG, and I'm certain there's a stack of people who would do a far better job as a well paid CEO of an EFL club.

And reading between the lines there's the problem. Perhaps a few of the 'Senior Leadership Team'  bought over from Synectics and elsewhere (The local newspaper for example) have eyed up that role and put CG in the corner doing the filing...?

There's clearly an imbalance between the off field and on field activites and the success of those two areas. I want to put it down to naivety/inexperience from the owners but it may also be a diffusion of responsibility on the football side if there's too many people trying to get involved and nobody owning the decisions. 

[mr.hobblesworth]

The problem in all this is that Colin Garlick doesn't have a crystal <ovf censored> ball. The recruitment processes and managerial appointments that so many are now decrying were lapped up by the majority on here in the close season and prior to that. The fans wanted Aspin; as much as I hate Smurtwaite, Aspo would have never got near the doors if it weren't for the fans wanting him in. On paper, and in practice until this autumn, Askey was a good appointment. People were pleased with the vast majority of the squad and I can't remember us going in to a season with such optimism since maybe 1993. You can't preempt what's happened since the Kings Lynn game and to try and lay blame for it is unfair.

[Bycarsbill]

For once, you and I are in total agreement on this one.  And, it's not going to be totally Colin Garlick's decison anyway!

[Fosse69]

3 minutes ago, jjvale_03 said:

Never had much faith in CG, and I'm certain there's a stack of people who would do a far better job as a well paid CEO of an EFL club.

And reading between the lines there's the problem. Perhaps a few of the 'Senior Leadership Team'  bought over from Synectics and elsewhere (The local newspaper for example) have eyed up that role and put CG in the corner doing the filing...?

There's clearly an imbalance between the off field and on field activites and the success of those two areas. I want to put it down to naivety/inexperience from the owners but it may also be a diffusion of responsibility on the football side if there's too many people trying to get involved and nobody owning the decisions. 

I assume the Synectics staff were brought to improve the commercial aspects of the club. The mechanics of running  a football club is a different subject, I would like to see a diagram of the structure, especially the scouting / recruitment area.

[Joe B]

14 minutes ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

The problem in all this is that Colin Garlick doesn't have a crystal <ovf censored> ball. The recruitment processes and managerial appointments that so many are now decrying were lapped up by the majority on here in the close season and prior to that. The fans wanted Aspin; as much as I hate Smurtwaite, Aspo would have never got near the doors if it weren't for the fans wanting him in. On paper, and in practice until this autumn, Askey was a good appointment. People were pleased with the vast majority of the squad and I can't remember us going in to a season with such optimism since maybe 1993. You can't preempt what's happened since the Kings Lynn game and to try and lay blame for it is unfair.

I didn't mind a few of the signings but I wasn't massively pleased at the 'keep the first 11 as similar as possible' approach, as there's no evidence that squad continuity leads to success at this level (did point this out but was told football isn't played on spreadsheets).

I felt there were too many 'depth' signings and as a consequence stagnation of an old team. I was vocally disappointed with Robinson, and received stick for doing so. It was all very safe.

That aside, surely the CEO should be held to a higher standard than the fans when it comes to judging signings? The fanbases' view on the signings is irrelevant; it has transpired that most of them aren't very good, and some have been downright disastrous. The signings aren't made for fan approval, but to improve the side, and they, bar Rodney, have demonstrably not done this.

I simply don't buy 'well, the average fan liked it, so therefore Colin is justified, even if it all went Pete Tong'. The decisions should be judged on wins, and not whether the fanbase, following a quick google, acquiesces or not.

Again - I'm not saying Colin is at fault here, just there's a bit of confusion as he's apparently been mis-labelled by his employers as to what his job remit is.

It's genuinely not that big of a deal, but the discussion is merited as to what exactly Colin does, and who made the mistakes in the summer. We can't make the same mistakes again. Another summer like that and we will have major problems, especially with the salary cap.

 

[Jacko51]

3 hours ago, valeparklife said:

We have better owners yes, that's not even up for debate.

But we were also a L1 club, with L1 players and L1 revenue. To suggest we're in a better place now is absurd.

League One players???  We had a squad made up of overpaid foreign imports who had been brought in by an owner who had been seriously conned by some random agent.  As examples we were paying silly wages to a player from the Norwegian third division who never started a league game for us. We were paying nearly two grand a week on a two year contract to a Portuguese midfielder whom we had to pay off after the first year - he played less than 20 games.  We signed a centre-forward from Portugal on a two year contract.  His claim to fame appeared to be that he was the first baby in Portugal to be born through IVF!  The owner told us he would top scorer in League One - he left after a month having been on the pitch for precisely 17 minutes in a Vale shirt.

After being told by the owner that he was astonished with the quality of applicants for the manager's job he appointed a complete unknown whose command of English was limited and was assisted by a crazy red haired Irishman.  Bruno had left his previous club after only a month having not won a game and the one before that after six weeks.  He was, however, mates with Mourhino who was going to lend us loads of Manchester United players.  That worked out well.

The owner was noted for his interesting accounting practices, including directing some of the clubs income to himself as sole trader businesses (legal but immoral) and then lending the money back to the club.  This resulted in the accounts showing a huge director's loan which had to be paid by the new owners.

This was the chaos that Colin Garlick walked into.  So yes, we are in a better position now than when he took over.  Anyone who suggests otherwise is not looking at the bigger picture.

[mr.hobblesworth]

13 minutes ago, Joe B said:

I didn't mind a few of the signings but I wasn't massively pleased at the 'keep the first 11 as similar as possible' approach, as there's no evidence that squad continuity leads to success at this level (did point this out but was told football isn't played on spreadsheets).

I felt there were too many 'depth' signings and as a consequence stagnation of an old team. I was vocally disappointed with Robinson, and received stick for doing so. It was all very safe.

That aside, surely the CEO should be held to a higher standard than the fans when it comes to judging signings? The fanbases' view on the signings is irrelevant; it has transpired that most of them aren't very good, and some have been downright disastrous. The signings aren't made for fan approval, but to improve the side, and they, bar Rodney, have demonstrably not done this.

I simply don't buy 'well, the average fan liked it, so therefore Colin is justified, even if it all went Pete Tong'. The decisions should be judged on wins, and not whether the fanbase, following a quick google, acquiesces or not.

Again - I'm not saying Colin is at fault here, just there's a bit of confusion as he's apparently been mis-labelled by his employers as to what his job remit is.

It's genuinely not that big of a deal, but the discussion is merited as to what exactly Colin does, and who made the mistakes in the summer. We can't make the same mistakes again.

 

You were happy as Larry and your post history backs that up. There's nothing wrong with that, we all were. Even the bookies fancied us, I think. My point, that I'm not making very well, is that it's easy to call mistakes after the event. You can't guarantee that something will work out in football, there are no certs, everything is a calculated gamble. I mentioned the fans' general approval as people now seem to be saying that there were glaring errors made in the summer, and there weren't. Appointing Askey wasn't deemed a mistake last season, nor was it in the first part of the season. Yet now people are criticising Garlick for that appointment. Weighing up everything, there is no way of realising beforehand that Mills was going to be a disaster. Everything about the signing seemed positive. Now people are saying how stupid it was of Askey/ Carol/ CG to sign him. And so on.

[Jacko51]

1 hour ago, Joe B said:

The questions about Garlick are nothing to do with him being here for relegation, which is a pointless argument as that was Norman's doing.

The questions reside in the fact that his job remit includes a facet of the football club which is severely underperforming, and to identify underperformance you need to analyse everyone responsible for that facet.

If the answer is 'he doesn't handle that sort of thing', then change his job role and bring in someone who will handle that sort of thing (an experienced manager or otherwise).

Debate's been bogged down in minutiae.

Joe, admit it, you have never liked Garlick because you thought he was in cahoots with our previous owner.  You said as much at that meeting with him at the Smallthorne WMC. 

[Jacko51]

1 hour ago, valeparklife said:

So what's the point of a CEO if the owners make all the decisions?

Seems a waste of a wage.

I agree Smurthwaite got us relegated.

But as CEO, and apparent 'football expert' why was Garlick not fervently arguing that signing a load of French and Dutch lower league players would be suicidal. As we all knew. He went along with it.

If that was me, I'd have resigned. I wouldn't want that decision against my name.

They were signed before he arrived at the club.  He was appointed in October 2016 - all those players had arrived in the summer of 2016 so I can't see how he should have resigned when he hadn't even been appointed.

[valeparklife]

1 hour ago, geosname said:

Because the CEO is an employee just like the tea lady.

It's sometimes comes down to a decision between doing as instructed and feeding your family or doing what you want.

False.

The CEO is paid to make decisions on the future of the club/business.

How many tea lady's do you know that make strategic business decisions?!