We Must Avoid Relegation.

[alexmick]

Dave Artell has stated that 'the whole club's future depends on staying up'. 20th November. BBC Sport.

From great expectations at the start of the season, to this. Talk of relegation. These are worrying times. Mind you, the warning signs have been there for the past five seasons to my mind. It would be interesting to work out exactly what our loss ratio has been since we left Wembley with the Football League Trophy (2012-13 season). Bet the figures are dreadful.

[MikeSB]

Dave Artell has stated that 'the whole club's future depends on staying up'. 20th November. BBC Sport.

From great expectations at the start of the season, to this. Talk of relegation. These are worrying times. Mind you, the warning signs have been there for the past five seasons to my mind. It would be interesting to work out exactly what our loss ratio has been since we left Wembley with the Football League Trophy (2012-13 season). Bet the figures are dreadful.

Mick, we know what he means but its not actually true as most clubs don't disappear like the Tranmere's, Wrexham, Chester and many others and some get bigger gates than many in L2 including us...But it is difficult to get back in once you are down and its not popular to say this but the board must carry the blame because we have wasted millions on the academy and it must be almost gone now. A slim academy is fine and Dario managed it on a shoe string until he and the board got blind drunk with ambition that it would provide PL standard players for ever and they the board would not be asked to put one penny in. In fact as we know one director at least, thought it was his own personal piggy bank.

The First team must always be the priority and when directors say its not and its the academy, then I give up...No really professional club would starve that at the expense of a Iffy training facility that has no guarantee it will produce the goods and anyway there are thousands of players out there looking for clubs and lots of them will be better than ours..But when you tie all your money to one tree then they will be blind to all the possibilities.

I am still annoyed that when we sold Dean Ashton for all that money, we then went on a death spiral and we signed hardly anybody as the money was reserved for the academy and so on and so on....escaped relegation on goal difference that year, then nothing changed and we got relegated the season after....

Lessons will be learned said Mr Bowler......have they?

[ruocul]

Yes it is very worrying, and based on recent results we must be one of the favourites to go down. It raises so many questions.

Are the Board of Directors to blame? Most certainly. They have blindly stuck to the principle that we would carry on selling players to Premiership teams, and based on that carried on giving priority to the Academy and its category 2 status. 750k on the Academy and peanuts for the 1st team, all based on a prayer and a whim. They simply did not consider there were massive changes in the Premiership. The fact that Sky were giving the clubs billions for viewing rights. Why should the top clubs pay millions for an unproved league2 kid when they can go out to Europe and buy the top players. The fact that the top clubs were scouring the whole of the globe and buying the best kids for millions, and then paying them £10-15,000 p,w. But to be honest if you think the Board are going to change if we survive you are kidding yourselves.

Has the manager done a good job this season? Certainly not. It was abundantly clear as early as the Bolton game that our midfield (the engine roorm) was so physically weak it was virtually non-existent. But he only changed it on Saturday. Sorry, there is no excuse for that. I like the man and greatly admired him as a player, but he really has to improve. He has to get some strength in the midfield and that is not going to come through young boys.

Will the majority of the supporters support the Academy being downgraded? I seriously doubt that. They actually convince themselves that "our boys" are far better than they actually are. In my section they are on their feet clapping wildly when one of them makes a 5 yard side pass.

Will the Board of Directors make a change in Management if results don`t improve soon? Haven`t got a clue.

[alexmick]

The board and the fans do have to give Artell a little more time. The last guy was given plenty of leeway to turn things around. Three and a half seasons, to be precise. Of course, we cannot allow that amount of time for the present manager to get his act together, but it was only a few months ago (especially after he had kept us in this division, when everything looked lost last January), that everyone seemed happy and confident in how things were going. I am saying this, because I think that we have to be fair on the guy, who is getting an awful amount of stick right now. As I have said before, I feel that the problems at the club, go far deeper than the management team.

[MikeSB]

Yes it is very worrying, and based on recent results we must be one of the favourites to go down. It raises so many questions.

Are the Board of Directors to blame? Most certainly. They have blindly stuck to the principle that we would carry on selling players to Premiership teams, and based on that carried on giving priority to the Academy and its category 2 status. 750k on the Academy and peanuts for the 1st team, all based on a prayer and a whim. They simply did not consider there were massive changes in the Premiership. The fact that Sky were giving the clubs billions for viewing rights. Why should the top clubs pay millions for an unproved league2 kid when they can go out to Europe and buy the top players. The fact that the top clubs were scouring the whole of the globe and buying the best kids for millions, and then paying them £10-15,000 p,w. But to be honest if you think the Board are going to change if we survive you are kidding yourselves.

Has the manager done a good job this season? Certainly not. It was abundantly clear as early as the Bolton game that our midfield (the engine roorm) was so physically weak it was virtually non-existent. But he only changed it on Saturday. Sorry, there is no excuse for that. I like the man and greatly admired him as a player, but he really has to improve. He has to get some strength in the midfield and that is not going to come through young boys.

Will the majority of the supporters support the Academy being downgraded? I seriously doubt that. They actually convince themselves that "our boys" are far better than they actually are. In my section they are on their feet clapping wildly when one of them makes a 5 yard side pass.

Will the Board of Directors make a change in Management if results don`t improve soon? Haven`t got a clue.

Hi Luckour, I agree with all that and especially fans reaction if we downgraded the academy and I accept its probably me but we did have some local lads playing way back as Mick said and we signed a lot of players too like Frank Lord and so I don't care about our academy or who comes through it and you know why? Because THEY don't care for the fans and are only here because they think, no indeed expect it to be a stepping stone to more money and the fact that some academy graduates that have had millions spent on them at the obvious detriment of the First team, won't sign contracts and so stuff em I say. And they expect me to cheer and clap them for one decent pass as you said? No way..

But the Board will have to act soon because the money must be close to running out and can't see anyone including Dario putting in replacement money to keep it going at that level and so it will have to happen one day unless we sell another Multi million pound player and that has not happened for a few seasons and as you say the PL don't need to take the chance as they do have money to burn now...One could argue that if they have so much money then paying a few million for a decent prospect would not be a problem but these clubs have 20-30 players standing idle anyway that are ready to go into the team and so why bother with a L2 academy graduate no matter how good they are with other youngsters and that is something the board cannot understand! Not just that,all PL and CC clubs have Cat1 academies with no doubt all promising youngsters in them...

We don't know if this sort of stuff is being discussed at board level. We would hope so but they are not saying and to me that is disgusting when they will claim they are part of the community and are fans and so come on Mr Bowler, tell us what your plans are for the next 5 to 10 years?