David Flitcroft Out

[JS Valiant]

18 minutes ago, Playa Amodores said:

No Rory, we just want transparency and ethics. No more BS.

Quite agree, if the League Table was based on BS from Owners, Directors of Football. Managers and Players then we would be 10 or More points clear.

Regarding giving Credit to Flitcroft for the Academy, give some to Will Ryder and his staff.

Actually the players gave more effort for Ryder against Stevenage than they did for Moore, some even appeared to Down Tools.

All Reasonable Vale Fans just want Effort, Hard Work and Honesty from the Club not all this BS about Presidents and Campuses.

In my opinion thinking back and I thought at the Time, that Video Carol,Flitcroft and Clarke did in Spain. the Pre-Season after Promotion just seemed a bit too over confident and Cocky and look how we have struggled since, stayed up because of Teams being worse than us and not learning at all from it.

There is still a third of the season left, 48 points to play for, I just hope the Management can make the Players want the Club to remain in League One,as much as the Fans do.

[JoeB2]

Anyone who wants to see the potential impact of relegation, take a read of this thread from Accrington's chairman: 

Long story short:

- Relegation disastrous

- Cost the club £1m a year

- ST prices up to meet shortfall

- Playing budget cut to meet shortfall

The decision of Carol and Flitcroft to faff about creating 'Championship Ready' infrastructure before we had an established squad of steady League 1 players, with a manager to match, will end up destroying all of the long-term plans they were so excited for.

It smacks of inexperience, a chairwoman and a DoF both in their roles for the first time, trying to replicate what the big clubs do without a proper grasp of the risks. A bloke who was working 2 days a week until recently was given full control of the football operations. Yes men (or family/friends) everywhere. More critical employees like Garlick jettisoned without ceremony.

Prices will go up, budget will go down, and attendances will drop to reflect this - creating a vicious cycle.

There isn't going to be a T-Zone and Campus if revenue is down £1m+ and there has to be cuts everywhere. We won't be able to build a data-driven recruitment model with top-class facilities and links with the top academies.  

Food for thought for those serenely accepting relegation and thinking we'll come 'straight back up'. We simply have to stay up and reorient the entire club to improving our league position next year. Stuff your campus.

Edited February 19 by JoeB2

[robf]

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

[smithie]

2 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

I could read 1000 posts and it couldn't be put better. 

 

[JS Valiant]

3 minutes ago, smithie said:

I could read 1000 posts and it couldn't be put better. 

 

Yeh totally agree !

Come on Carol, please listen to the Fans !

[MBE]

34 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Anyone who wants to see the potential impact of relegation, take a read of this thread from Accrington's chairman: 

Long story short:

- Relegation disastrous

- Cost the club £1m a year

- ST prices up to meet shortfall

- Playing budget cut to meet shortfall

The decision of Carol and Flitcroft to faff about creating 'Championship Ready' infrastructure before we had an established squad of steady League 1 players, with a manager to match, will end up destroying all of the long-term plans they were so excited for.

It smacks of inexperience, a chairwoman and a DoF both in their roles for the first time, trying to replicate what the big clubs do without a proper grasp of the risks. A bloke who was working 2 days a week until recently was given full control of the football operations. Yes men (or family/friends) everywhere. More critical employees like Garlick jettisoned without ceremony.

Prices will go up, budget will go down, and attendances will drop to reflect this - creating a vicious cycle.

There isn't going to be a T-Zone and Campus if revenue is down £1m+ and there has to be cuts everywhere. We won't be able to build a data-driven recruitment model with top-class facilities and links with the top academies.  

Food for thought for those serenely accepting relegation and thinking we'll come 'straight back up'. We simply have to stay up and reorient the entire club to improving our league position next year. Stuff your campus.

I read Andy’s thread.

He’s clearly fed up and wants out but nobody wants to buy the club however you have to applaud him for his  transparency.

Big takeaway for me is 1 million loss of revenue in L2. If that during Carol’s alarm bells nothing will.

[mr.hobblesworth]

19 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

 

Agree with everything you've written but I do wonder if it's a case of one or the other though? I presumed they were prety much separate projects. I don't know if we can blame things like the campus, 'championship ready' infrastructure and the like on us not having a complete squad. Won't they be different budgets, staff etc?

[Vtid]

24 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

Starting Tommy Mac as a regular because we had no other strikers I thought was bad. Now we’re relying on someone who’s younger, less experienced & not as good ability wise just yet in Baylee Dipepa. It’s an utter shambles. It’s like we haven’t learnt but at the same time gotten worse 

Edited February 19 by Vtid

[MBE]

18 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

Spot on Rob. I do think we are quite arrogant and ignorant as a club typified by our DoF which is what’s turning fans off and making some feel disconnected. Our approach in the transfer market is a reflection of our arrogance.

Points are Sanity

Our projects are Vanity.

I know as a club where we are focused.

[robf]

5 minutes ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

Agree with everything you've written but I do wonder if it's a case of one or the other though? I presumed they were prety much separate projects. I don't know if we can blame things like the campus, 'championship ready' infrastructure and the like on us not having a complete squad. Won't they be different budgets, staff etc?

They may be but I think the other reason to mention it was in the open letter there were loads of mentions of the infrastructure projects in order to justify David Flitcroft's role. However, surely his first priority, regardless of budgets, is to make sure the playing side is fit for purpose. 

We're having a new door fitted at this very moment. If they came to me and said - we've removed the old door and taken it away, we've tidied up but unfortunately we've not fitted the new door, then while they've done some other useful things, they've failed in their fundamental first and most important task*

*important note - I sincerely hope this won't be the case today - or there will be no five star review from me! 

[Valiant in Brum]

Ask Luton which they prefered to be prioritised.

[Bobnewtonian]

5 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

Your post will get a zillion likes but it probably is over simplistic. Undoubtedly mistakes have been made in the transfer window, however lets take a look at what has gone before (albeit a simplistic one) and we can see  why the new owners wanted to do things in a different way with more emphasis on the infra structure than in previous years...

 

We've had a successful local business man as an owner with success on the pitch : end result though we couldn't pay our tax bill and went into administration.

We've had a fans consortium as owners (myself and and others lost thousands of pounds trying to back this event) end result was zero success on the pitch and administration.

We've had a non local successful business man as an owner end result was zero success on the pitch (almost ended up in non league) and threats that he was going to put us into administration.

 

Its hardly surprising then that the new owners (quite rightly in my opinion) wanted to take the club in a different direction. Improve infra structure and community work, improve pitch, change our playing style to a possession based game to help attract better youngsters and to sell players on at a profit rather than ending up in a financial mess. They have also tried to increase our fan base by the introduction of youth and community teams and raising  the profile of the club by having RW as president. Without increasing our fan base we will always be between top half of league 2 and middle of league 1. On 16th Dec we were in all the cup competitions (including a league cup quarter final) and a reasonable league position having been involved in some decent games, yet we still got less that 6000 home fans through the gate on a Saturday. This isnt enough to progress without the owners dipping more into their pockets and makes the development and sale of players even more important than it would be for a club with a larger fan base.

Its the execution of this change that isn't currently going to plan but I think that the owners require some credit for understanding and at least trying to execute that change.

But of course it is a result's business and better signatures as you describe in January would have gone some way to improve our results no doubt. But we ve just paid big money for probably the biggest named manager out there so lets hope he can get a couple of home wins and get a bit of momentum going as we go into the last 10 games.

Never give up.

 

[JoeB2]

6 minutes ago, Bobnewtonian said:

.On 16th Dec we were in all the cup competitions (including a league cup quarter final) and a reasonable league position having been involved in some decent games, yet we still got less that 6000 home fans through the gate on a Saturday

We'd also won 1 in 12 league games and were one of the worst League 1 teams throughout 2023. It was 10 days before Christmas, and 3 days before said quarter-final which had inflated ticket prices (again, just before the most expensive period of the year).

Our average attendance last year was 7,500+. Surely that is sufficient evidence that success on the pitch leads to higher attendances? 

Edited February 19 by JoeB2

[Railwayman]

52 minutes ago, robf said:

I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as:

• Infrastructure improvements - great to have
• A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have

In order of priority:

1) First-team squad
2) Infrastructure

I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan.

The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. 

Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation.

Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. 

Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so.

You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window. 

Absolutely spot on

[Bobnewtonian]

9 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

We'd also won 1 in 12 league games and were one of the worst League 1 teams throughout 2023. It was 10 days before Christmas, and 3 days before said quarter-final which had inflated ticket prices (again, just before the most expensive period of the year).

Our average attendance last year was 7,500+. Surely that is sufficient evidence that success on the pitch leads to higher attendances? 

You've just taken a couple of sentences in isolation though ... my point is that given what's gone before the club needs to do things in a different way. less than 6000 on a Saturday v Wigan given where we were as a team isn't going to allow us to progress as a club without selling players on for a profit to supplement it.

The 7500 average the season before is skewed by the away followings, I m speaking about home fans.