Originally Posted by
MikeSB
OK, I'll bite as its boring just reading and not contributing as this board is almost dead anyway with almost no reports any more of our games like last night. Anyone notice the attendance? 970 and maybe that is more alarming for the board than anything. If you haven't got the fans support then who needs a million pound a year academy?
AlexLeicester made some good points about Management and the Squad but you cannot absolve the Board policy of thinking that coaching and academies can necessarily produce suitable players and Luckour has already made the point that if 10 years coaching cannot produce even players good enough for L2 then surely its time for a rethink? Yes it did work at one time and I was reflecting on games like at Exeter who have a p*ss poor ground and who are Exeter anyone and yet they beat us easily? Why?
Of course the season is not over and we could well go on a decent run that would take us up the table and I don't think we are that bad to get relegated just yet. But the signs have been here a while. Is it 5 years now since we sold a player for a decent sum and so who is in the current squad is going to get the annual costs of the academy, never mind the obvious loss on fans not turning up and so the Board will probably see how things go as they have no other choice but some decisions will need to be made soon on the academy and how to bring the fans back in...
I've said many times and got into bother that you can only coach what talent you have at any one time and that coaching per se can never produce a text book player no matter how many hours of coaching they get. The mistake is calling it a 'production' line and the 'next crop' coming through. OK fair enough, its a point of view I don't share because there are literally thousands of players and academy players from all over the world that you can see NOW instead of seeing whether 5 year olds will be good enough in 12 years time. And you can develop such players as Dario did in his early days before the academy idea took route.
I hope we can arrest this 8 losses in 9 games thing as its a pernicious spiral that can lead us to non league but I'm a bit pragmatic in that even non league is not a disaster as lots of clubs get attendances way above ours and they get to play more local opposition to as who really thinks L2 is a decent standard anyway compared with non league anyway? And they all still have academies you know where local kids can get a chance of making the grade but without the millstone of a million quid a season...
Where next? God knows! Just my take on it and I haven't been to any matches this season and so you are entitled to shoot me down any time you like...I have a bullet proof shirt on anyway!
ATB to everyone..
Mike
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