I was quitting if adkins got another yr no way could I sit through that again but here we are hurtling to that very same spot
Pigs and us….
- Thread starter Grayblade
- Start date
Longshortandtall
Vital Reserves Team
Will never give up on the Blades its in my DNA, my Dads RIP and now my daughters. As a long standing season ticket holder with business experience I'll continue to question where I feel the Club is going wrong.
We are on a downward trajectory again in the usual SUFC Boom bust cycle. Money talks in football and I'm afraid the owner despite his best intentions is financially floundering as a consequence of his vanity project United World. The JTW will tell us whether PA has the where with all to take us forward. The manager was badly let down in the last window where due to Board dithering we failed to get in a DM and 2 wingers. They have to be a minimum requirement in January yet the early signs are not good as SJ once again is making noises about not being consulted. The absence of an off field management structure with a Sporting Director based in Sheffield at its heart puts added pressure on the team manager who is finding out that the 9th placed EPL stalwarts are no longer fit for purpose.
It was said in Court the off field operations under McCabe were a shambles and consultants would be brought in to re shape the Club. Yet all we have is a CEO administrator with very little visible change in structure. While ever we continue to operate with a bottom end championship off field model then this will be reflected on the footballing side as the current on field malaise and 17th place confirms.
Our only hope is that the search for new investors proves fruitful in the next few months. The early signs are not good with suggestions potential investors have been rebuffed because they wanted too big a piece of the Club.
PA has to decide now whether to stick or twist. Stick, keep the structure the same with UW and we low ball the manager with a poor JTW hastening his departure. League 1 will beckon. Twist put UW on hold and devote all resources to SUFC. Restructure with a new Chairman and SD and provide SJ with the funds to re shape the squad.
A pro active owner would twist.
We are on a downward trajectory again in the usual SUFC Boom bust cycle. Money talks in football and I'm afraid the owner despite his best intentions is financially floundering as a consequence of his vanity project United World. The JTW will tell us whether PA has the where with all to take us forward. The manager was badly let down in the last window where due to Board dithering we failed to get in a DM and 2 wingers. They have to be a minimum requirement in January yet the early signs are not good as SJ once again is making noises about not being consulted. The absence of an off field management structure with a Sporting Director based in Sheffield at its heart puts added pressure on the team manager who is finding out that the 9th placed EPL stalwarts are no longer fit for purpose.
It was said in Court the off field operations under McCabe were a shambles and consultants would be brought in to re shape the Club. Yet all we have is a CEO administrator with very little visible change in structure. While ever we continue to operate with a bottom end championship off field model then this will be reflected on the footballing side as the current on field malaise and 17th place confirms.
Our only hope is that the search for new investors proves fruitful in the next few months. The early signs are not good with suggestions potential investors have been rebuffed because they wanted too big a piece of the Club.
PA has to decide now whether to stick or twist. Stick, keep the structure the same with UW and we low ball the manager with a poor JTW hastening his departure. League 1 will beckon. Twist put UW on hold and devote all resources to SUFC. Restructure with a new Chairman and SD and provide SJ with the funds to re shape the squad.
A pro active owner would twist.
Grayblade
Vital Football Hero
Good post LST. I’ve got to admit that I’m more nervous about our future now than I’ve ever been mainly because we’ve never been in a position before where we’ve splashed so much cash on players with so little chance of getting more than a fraction of it back. Our only hope is for other investors to come onboard but seeing the mess that we’re in will discourage them and I fear that it will also discourage PA backing the manager in the next window.
Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
By one half it was but that "shambles" saw us progress and we had no outstadning loans. That first £10m from the Prince helped.
Longshortandtall
Vital Reserves Team
When PA first took sole charge there was an energy about him probably because we'd just been promoted to the EPL. That seems to have gone now as the downward spiral of the last 18 months shows no sign of abating.
It was a sign of intent to appoint SJ on possibly the highest contract in the championship but to fail to equip him with the tools to do his job is negligent.
The signs were there that the players had fallen off a cliff before the season started. CW has admitted he couldn't get anymore out of them yet there was this blind optimism not based on any football knowledge amongst the Board that only a few tweaks were required for us to mount a promotion challenge.
My biggest concern is that PA like CW shows no sign of being able to deal with adversity relying on a CEO who managed CW's exit poorly and a Technical consultant spread across 5 clubs with little grasp of what is happening day to day at BDTBL.
I used to work for a FTSE 100 company who changed structure every 6 months to keep people on their toes. It is frustrating to see us drifting into obscurity. PA's asset is depreciating every day he has to decide soon whether he cuts his losses and sells or bites the bullet and shifts his resources to us at the expense of the other 4 clubs. Interesting few months coming up.
Longshortandtall
Vital Reserves Team
The shambles saw us progress to a Court case where neither party was putting any money into the Club and we were days away from a transfer embargo. Employees were dismissed at the whim of the owner because he didn't like them not because of their ability. In one case one had his money stopped. Partnership agreements were breached. KM refused to allow consultants in to check how the finances were being managed because he'd negotiated a deal with a third party behind his partners back. If thats not a shambles I don't know what is.
We've had this discussion before the Assets were outside of the Club they are now back under SUFC's control. PA has put considerably more than £10m into the Club,.
Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
That has nothing to do with the fans at all, we just have to accpet the Prince is in charge now. You know I'll not give Mr McCabe a bad name but I accpet others might be different.
Longshortandtall
Vital Reserves Team
The way a Club is being run has everything to do with the fans as it reflects on our success or failure and profile in the game. Whilst Kevin McCabes intentions may have been honourable it is clear his management style was archiac and it reflected on his poor business acumen where football matters were concerned.
Its not about KM V PA for me its about whether the Club's potential is being maximised through good business practice. I'm afraid IMO I see little change under the Prince and the same mistakes are beginning to repeat themselves. One easy example to quote was our inability to get transfers over the line in the Summer when we clearly hadn't understood the new rules with regard to overseas transfers. You can change the man at the top but if you don't change the structure and way of operating below little will change.
Grayblade
Vital Football Hero
Yes there was always change where I was. I also worked for a FTSE 100 company and from the late 80's onwards and we all had to accept that constant managerial and structural change was part of the deal. I held down a senior exec's position for 12 years and we all had several different titles and job specs in that time. I knew that my personal race was run when we employed numerous young graduates as senior managerial trainees. Several of my older colleagues were made redundant within a year and I was eventually put in charge of the 'Investors in People' zproject. I stayed until we'd received full accreditation and left on Christmas Eve after 30 years service so I guess I knew how Derek Dooley felt.
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Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
The way the owners went to court had nothing to do with the fans,,,,there was no vote. We then had to accept the verdict.
I was a shareholder but didn't get asked either.
Magnetnotmaggots
Vital Squad Member
I was there for the 4th division too
But the times were different then.
Sheffield was split down the middle, Red or Blue, in spite of how crap we were. Now both clubs are practically unrepresented North of Hoyland and South of Dronfield.
All we needed was a boardroom with some vision and we could have had a go at anybody.
But other clubs are not twice as big as us anymore, they are ten, twenty and thirty times the size, and that's Sheffields fault.
Sheffield the city, Sheffield its people, Sheffield its politics, Sheffield its politicians, they've all conspired to make every single thing within the city small time and insular, the football clubs included.
Now we're left needing a multi billionaire so that one day we might catch up with Brighton, Watford or Bournemouth FFS
And the one thing not coming to Sheffield is a billionaire, they'd piss their pants in the car rather than stop whilst passing
Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
Yes times are different we are the the Vhampionship and live to fight another day Magnet. You kept with us then and I know you will now mate....we have all invested too much.
Dunno what it is about sheffield apart from the loony left council but I agree everything in it screams small time whilst just about everybody else moves forward and improves we just go backwards and both clubs are the same
Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
In my time we have gone forward 9 times and back 9 times so leaving us in the same league that we were in in 1957. Not really gone "backwards" is one way to view it Bully.
It’s a mindset chips we have reached the premier league 3 times now and every time we failed to kick on the first time we sold Deano and didn’t replace (small time) the 2nd Colin bought players for the future rather than the now (not one started the last game against wigan) instead of consolidating and the last time which was our biggest opportunity instead of bringing in the quality we needed the board went against the manager and he had to lower his expectations and gamble on untried players (yet again small time) the list of quality players sold that goes all the way back to the 60s far outweighs the quality players brought in,it’s nowt to do with where we were when anyone started watching to now,plenty started watching when we were in the 4th so by that mentality we’re flying at the minute,it’s about the missed opportunities to kick on and press home any advantage we have had because of small time thinking
Chips1889
Vital Football Hero
Bully, I know mate, I was there. And will be again God willing. I only ever went to a game to see us win the match and cheer to goals and promotion was never in my mind.......I only dreamt of wiining the F A Cup......and still do. I'm just a big kid.
Grayblade
Vital Football Hero
Evidence of that was the first season back in the Premier League where despite averaging over 30k again and being half way up the average home attendance table, the presenters pundits and 'experts' clearly lumped us in with the likes of Bournemouth and Burnley. They always saw us as a small town club punching above it's weight whereas all things being equal we should be seen as potentially on a par with most of that division bar a select group. It's wasn't till after lockdown that our level and quality of support got mentioned. It's like we we're invisible or irrelevant.
Even this season where despite being shite we're the best supported team in the division it never gets a mention. I've hear presenters wax lyrical about other clubs's fans but never us. Then again let's face it, it's not just Sheffield the city that thinks small time. McCabe and then Wilder practically rammed the plucky little Sheffield United ideology down the media's throat. We laugh at the deluded Pork but I tell you what if they had achieved what we did under Wilder the whole world would have known about it....plus the usual mandatory lies chucked in for good measure.
tomytony
Vital Champions League
Well, as we are told all too frequently,CW is one of our own so his perpetuating the myth was not unexpected.
.Some revel in the 'against all odds' scenario ( it was CW's mantra and helped ( deliberately??) build his achievement in the eyes of the world) but that was tarnished as his pluckiness, up for the fight style fell off a cliff when the going got tough.
Next comes rationalisation-it's always someone/something else's fault eg every result going against us,West Ham, covid covers the last 3 PL relegations, how 'unlucky' we are- a well used one for years as we know.
It's easier to accept these outside factors than looking internally at how WE could have done better at the time. That way though is fraught with problems because you don't learn anything, you don't adapt for the future and, as we saw for at least a decade you REPEAT those same mistakes.
That approach erodes credibility and expectations lower year on year with future forays into any degree of success leave us grateful for eg getting to the cup quarter finals-If you live on a handful of grit then a stale bread roll is manna from Heaven- and that probably suits the owners too because, as we have seen on our last 3 forays into the PL, the investment needed is too risky for them to support the club properly and languishing lower down is less costly, has less expectation and comes at little cost to them.
This is re-enforced by the gates we get- relatively speaking they don't drop off a cliff as we fall lower down the ladder so, as we saw last time, gate receipts stay level and, after the initial hiatus ( covered by parachute payments) we are back in our comfort zone.
It's a never ending cycle repeated on a 12 yearly basis- so, hang on to your hats, 2033's looking promising- for those of us still around.
Blade for Life
Vital 1st Team Regular
The thing is in terms of finanical clout we are small time and have been in all the time i have supported the club. If you take out the crowd size everything else is done on a shoe string. Take the facility at Shirecliffe, parts of that were in a state of bad repair and have been for a couple of seasons but we were a Premiership club !. The way we penny pinch and lose out on good players, just for the sake of a couple of million. Our wage bill (lowest in the Premier).
Until we get the finance side right and we can afford to be more professional in our approach, to every aspect of running the football club, we will always be seen as small time. It sort of mirrors the city of Sheffield as a whole to be honest.
Rod Currie
Vital Football Legend
You make some good points Bully.I'll quote mi dear departed owd DAD again,A married BLADE is never short of owt to moan about.
UTB
