|
Post by MadridStokie on Jan 3, 2018 9:39:44 GMT
The board are rabbits in the headlights. They had two decisions to make - 1. Let Hughes go in the summer and appoint someone for the future. They bottled it. 2. Move for Pulis when sacked at Albion. They couldn’t bear to do it. We now know what was suspected - there is absolutely no plan B available. Hughes has said as much. As grim as it is I think the board has got to try and dig themselves out of their dead-end: 1. Admit they’ve messed up (to themselves). 2. Put their hands into Bet365s pockets and sanction several signings even if they no longer trust Hughes. 3. Tell the fans they’re backing their man with their money and ask the fans to get behind the team until May as the club now recognises we are on a relegation battle. 4. Start belated succession planning now and hope for the best. The club needs leadership and if the plan is ‘give him until Coventry’ it’s an abdication of duty. Coventry can prove nothing. The problem is clearly though that the board are not prepared to invest. As that analysis from Robin Grey shows, the board were not prepared to invest in the playing squad even on the back of very good finishes in the league. They crave self sufficiency. Therefore even if they decide to stick with Hughes, how the heck are we going to attract the quality of player we need to turn the starting 11 around - we always end up gambling on players (I think) because we cannot attract the right quality due to our lower wages and lack of preparedness to compete on the transfer fee. We should have sought to push on when we had such good finishes and a feel good factor. Instead we generally kept chancing our arm with loanees, free transfers and players looking for a way out of the team they played for (and you can list a large number of these - Bojan, Muniesa, Affelay, Arnie, Shaq, Allen, Diouf, Jese, Choupo and on and on). Yes we spent big on Imbula, Berahino and Wimmer but you get the feeling that those players did not have other options and we took a gamble. In some cases the gambles worked and/or worked for a while. But you cannot keep gambling on playing personnel and expecting it to pay off. Most agree that Hughes is not getting the best out of the current players (either due to stubbornness with frustration, training methods etc. etc.) but any manager is going to struggle to compete year in year out in the Premier League if we are not constantly adding the right quality players to the team. The other problem the board have now is that any manager out there knows the business model for SCFC so we are going to end up having to take a chance on a different manager (like with players). We are not going to attract a top quality manager, it will have to be someone already out of work or looking for a way out of their current club. So I am not feeling very positive about our immediate and medium term future. And my feelings can only be changed if the board come out and make a statement about their future intentions which give me a reason for feeling positive. Self-sustainability is not something that would make me feel positive (other than I would then have to accept that we are going to end up at best a yo-yo team between Prem and Championship, at worst a Championship team which could end up skirting with League One). Any analysis would be interesting but I bet over the last 20 years or so there has not been any team who has succeeded at self-sustainability in the Prem and remained in the Prem.
|
|
|
Post by elystokie on Jan 3, 2018 9:43:16 GMT
The board are rabbits in the headlights. They had two decisions to make - 1. Let Hughes go in the summer and appoint someone for the future. They bottled it. 2. Move for Pulis when sacked at Albion. They couldn’t bear to do it. We now know what was suspected - there is absolutely no plan B available. Hughes has said as much. As grim as it is I think the board has got to try and dig themselves out of their dead-end: 1. Admit they’ve messed up (to themselves). 2. Put their hands into Bet365s pockets and sanction several signings even if they no longer trust Hughes. 3. Tell the fans they’re backing their man with their money and ask the fans to get behind the team until May as the club now recognises we are in a relegation battle. 4. Start belated succession planning now and hope for the best. The club needs leadership and if the plan is ‘give him until Coventry’ it’s an abdication of duty. Coventry can prove nothing. This assumption that Pulis would have saved us, given that his own team that he'd built was heading South at a rate of knots absolutely creases me up. Even if he had Kemp by his side it'd be highly doubtful, without him he's fucked.
|
|
|
Post by realstokebloke on Jan 3, 2018 9:45:47 GMT
In comparison to relegation the cup is unimportant and we are very likely to lose to Manure whoever the manager is. Accepting that we therefore have 3 weeks to recruit a new manager and sacking Hughes now will not seriously affect our league position. If we are to sack him before the summer it is this week or never. If we are going to make a change it's the perfect time to do it. The window has just opened, we've two free hit games spaced well apart before a massive home game against Huddersfield in 17 days time. Plenty of time for a new man to see a couple of games, assess what is needed and bring in the required players. That assumes that the new man is lined up to arrive almost immediately post Hughes departure. Still a massive "who" though.
Plus, if their manager budget matches the player expenditure, we'll be shopping in the bargain bin - and not at Aldi or Lidl, they're waaay too Continental.
|
|
|
Post by hinckpotter on Jan 3, 2018 9:48:40 GMT
It's times like these you wish you could say fuck off stoke and support someone else. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that! Why can't the board open their fucking eyes! " Dithering dick heads!
|
|
|
Post by march4 on Jan 3, 2018 9:51:01 GMT
As soon as it hit the media that the board were considering Hughes position his position became untenable.
He is now a lame duck.
Who will take any notice of a man living on borrowed time - no one.
|
|
|
Post by vahl on Jan 3, 2018 9:51:11 GMT
The most boggling thing is that this ever famous self-sustain model has been in effect for multiple seasons now and yet, we've spent the best part of £50m on seasoned, first-team players. It makes absolutely no sense.
I can accept that we didn't have the required quality ready to step up and play for the first-team so we had to go and fill the gaps, but that approach seems to be.. well... the only approach we have.
I assumed the Academy & Development Squad (u21) would have had silly money thrown at them, in terms of recruitment and coaching, when the self-sustain model was first banded about a few seasons back - because if that's your bread & butter then you protect and invest to make it prosper. Don't you? Or have I missed something? I feel like it.
|
|
|
Post by scfc5 on Jan 3, 2018 10:36:00 GMT
The most boggling thing is that this ever famous self-sustain model has been in effect for multiple seasons now and yet, we've spent the best part of £50m on seasoned, first-team players. It makes absolutely no sense. I can accept that we didn't have the required quality ready to step up and play for the first-team so we had to go and fill the gaps, but that approach seems to be.. well... the only approach we have. I assumed the Academy & Development Squad (u21) would have had silly money thrown at them, in terms of recruitment and coaching, when the self-sustain model was first banded about a few seasons back - because if that's your bread & butter then you protect and invest to make it prosper. Don't you? Or have I missed something? I feel like it. In theory yes, but there are no guarantees at what will be produced from the academy. Can you say that there hasn't been significant investment there? I think there probably has, but I don't really know. The difficult task is the balance between the need to spend money on the first team to stay in the Premier League and trusting the kids to come through. Too far the wrong way and you get to where we are now, with underinvestment in the starting 11. Edwards will make it by the look of things, but that is about it. Possibly Ngoy, Verlinden and, further down, Campbell, but they play in positions where it is harder for a manager to take a risk and throw them in, unless you are Pochettino. However, few are as brave as he was in blooding a young side at Southampton, and, to some degree, at Spurs. A manager at this level, with the risk of relegation always a few bad results away, is far less likely to take a gamble and play them unless he really has no choice (e.g. Edwards), possibly because the board have (misguidedly) said that they view them as already good enough and will not sanction further spending as a result. We still needed that £50m to stand still, but no team can survive its 3 biggest signings being partial or total failures and its other stars, such as Bojan, being jettisoned and forgotten (I know there were reasons why he was, but the principle of binning a player you invested in and relied on is what I mean). That comes back to failures in recruitment. Imagine now if Imbula was performing as he should be. He would be exactly what we need in midfield, as would Wimmer at the back and Saido up front, but they have failed, and anyone (seemingly other than our recruitment team) would know that a player who has gone to Porto for big money and flopped so badly that they want rid at the first opportunity was simply too big a risk for a club like us to take. I still maintain that the failings at our club are primarily down to recruitment policy, rather than necessary the amount of money spent, albeit we would always want more spent. Where the blame lies for that is anyone's guess but it surely must be some amalgam of Cartwright and Hughes (noting Cartwright is a Stoke City man but Cruickshank and scouts are Hughes men).
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 10:38:35 GMT
Do we know yet when/if any meeting is likely to be taking place to try to move us on out of this shambles ??
|
|
|
Post by terryconroysmagic on Jan 3, 2018 10:42:36 GMT
Our Board make the trees in the Lord of the Rings look decisive.
What time are the lads having their little chat?
|
|
|
Post by likelyladgalizmo on Jan 3, 2018 10:52:26 GMT
Swing that axe Peter please.
|
|
|
Post by cymap on Jan 3, 2018 10:53:09 GMT
|
|
|
Post by davesviews on Jan 3, 2018 16:57:31 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time.
|
|
|
Post by thegift on Jan 3, 2018 16:59:07 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Means absolutely nothing and tells us nothing more than what we already know. Come on dave you can do better than that
|
|
|
Post by bayernoatcake on Jan 3, 2018 16:59:17 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Sack Scholes 👍
|
|
|
Post by cobhamstokey on Jan 3, 2018 17:00:29 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Think they can drag it out till 30th so they don’t have to part with any money Dave? :0)
|
|
|
Post by essexstokey on Jan 3, 2018 17:00:43 GMT
dave do signings depend on hughes going or will we try and make do?
|
|
|
Post by chigstoke on Jan 3, 2018 17:00:50 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Hopefully hughes, carto and scholes all sacked then They need hurry up. Giving him the Coventry match is only making things worse.
|
|
|
Post by cobhamstokey on Jan 3, 2018 17:02:43 GMT
He must feel like a dead man walking Dave. No sack but not backed either. Surely an impossible situation.
|
|
|
Post by essexstokey on Jan 3, 2018 17:02:55 GMT
Have we even identified players to come in to get us out of this mess dave
|
|
|
Post by estp1863 on Jan 3, 2018 17:06:26 GMT
Who does Coates expect to get Dave when official sources have just given any possible replacements in Coates' tiny pool a public no vote of confidence?
|
|
|
Post by benjaminbiscuit on Jan 3, 2018 17:07:02 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Sack Scholes 👍 It’s quite disgusting treatment of a senior employee by the club , hanging him out to dry to detract for, the real culprit and culprits . Decisim inertia at its most appalling worst . The well run myth we’ve pedalled exploded in their face in the most spectular £100m revenue losing style and the architect still hiding with his pen and his £12m summer profit
|
|
|
Post by nutterpotter on Jan 3, 2018 17:09:06 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. Any transfer news, Dave? Or are we waiting to sort out this managerial mess before pursuing targets? If so, we are screwed.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 17:09:31 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. The funny thing is, that I'm pretty sure that Coates once was quoted as saying that the Board are constantly monitoring manager replacements. This was in a reply to a question asking if the Board were considering, and looking for a manager replacement. This was some time ago and I've not an earthly chance of actually finding the quote. Coates did add, that this "monitoring" was just part of the routine duties of the executives - just in case an incumbent manager got poached or resigned unexpectedly. I have a feeling that our transfer team have been about as successful in this duty, as their other duties which include buying/selling players. Maybe someone else on here can remember that quote?
|
|
|
Post by estp1863 on Jan 3, 2018 17:11:29 GMT
Are the vultures circling yet Dave? Any news on possible outgoings or do we need to advertise our mess a bit longer
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 17:14:02 GMT
He is obviously staying on, we have bottled it big time.
|
|
|
Post by nott1 on Jan 3, 2018 17:14:07 GMT
Look up the word imminent.
|
|
|
Post by cobhamstokey on Jan 3, 2018 17:15:59 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. How do you think the whole situations been handled Dave? Isn’t Hughes been used as a scapegoat by Scholes and Cartwright who are equally as responsible. Surely PC can see that?
|
|
|
Post by davesviews on Jan 3, 2018 17:22:05 GMT
The board are again having meetings to try and push the club forward.Decisions still need to be made on what's best for the club at this moment in time. How do you think the whole situations been handled Dave? Isn’t Hughes been used as a scapegoat by Scholes and Cartwright who are equally as responsible. Surely PC can see that? I think that a statement from the board would help.
|
|
|
Post by hinckpotter on Jan 3, 2018 17:25:23 GMT
But there isn't one! Why?
|
|
|
Post by skip on Jan 3, 2018 17:26:51 GMT
SCFC PR machine in full effect.
|
|