49ers do what

[L72 131]

10 minutes ago, compo said:

The good old days are long gone but one thing we haven’t had since 2012 is someone/persons who knew how to run a football club we’ve stumbled along like amateurs you only have to look at transfer dealings money paid handsome wage packets seldom if ever get this back for some reason I see to many contracts being allowed to run down new owners first priority,Be Professional run it like a business not a benevolent fund .

I think we all know the "good old days" are long gone, we're certainly not going to be signing Gascoignes or Laudrups. 

 

But I think at minimal we expect our football club to be run properly, and actually properly looked after i.e giving the football department the proper foundations and structures that it needs to succeed.

 

Spending within our means etc isn't a problem, so long as we're still successful and resourceful in other ways, actually having a player trading model that works for instance.

[buster. 5,598]

56 minutes ago, L72 said:

So you're saying it's our fault for wanting a winning football club?

 

And not the fault of poor owners and decision makers who couldn't deliver that?

 

It has been said numerous times, it's very simplistic - Put the right people in the right positions, if you're actively able to buy low, sell high, identify a constant source of young talent, while delivering results on the park - then it takes care of itself. 

 

Cheaping out and not putting this foundations in place means that we typically overpay, hemorrhage money on staff and coaches, sign poor players, spend money on other projects like NEH instead of consolidating the league from a winning position.

 

It all adds up to being poorly run, on the fault of Dave King and the Three Bears etc, who themselves became spivs, looks at us, we're a joke where the only way out is being taken over.

 

Stop trying to lay blame at us, if it's somehow the supporters fault for wanting a Rangers to be proud of, stop trying to connect dots that aren't there.

 

Dave King, The Parks etc ran us into the fucking ground. Their decisions, their incompetence and poor judgement.

No 

I don't at all absolve board members past and present from their obvious and fundamental part in this.

 

However, the support need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to recognise the need and priority to become sustainable.

 

We also need to prioritise our existence as we said we would post 2012 when most welcomed the spivs with open arms, twice in quick succession. A more gullible support, I don't know of.

 

[der Berliner 4,145]

49 minutes ago, buster. said:

The only joined up and consistent part of the last 3 decades is our propensity to lose money.

 

Generally, the mindset of the support is to go along with it, ask for more and ask for it, now.

 

How do we become sustainable under the new owners?

... in this day and age, qualification to the Champions League.

 

Not that it wasn't said before (and not aimed at you, buster): Handing the Scum title after title for the best part of five years (and the respective CL income), despite having a team that challenged them well enough, was the biggest let-down of the board, but mainly managers and players. It would have been even more disastrous had we not done extremely well in the Europa League - which surely (pleasantly) surprised the board and investors as much as it did us.

 

In the cold light of reality, though, we have been back for 9 years now, and despite the supposedly monumental gulf in terms of money, we had teams that were able to challenge them quite well. Especially last season. And there comes a point when expectations have to be met at a club like ours. I would have been with the "please, be patient" arguments 5 years ago. After nearly a decade, though, you do expect changes for the better. That said, my bone of contention is more with the management teams and the line-ups, not to mention horrendous injury records not seen during the four decades before. We fully dismantled our team of last season, went into the new one understaffed in quality and quantity, and consequently toiled along much worse than before. No matter what sort of people come in, we have to get back on track instantly.

 

A wee while ago, I stumbled over my old school stuff in a 40-year-old box. In there was a wooden school ruler who had - in good boy's fashion - the name of my favourite football teams of the time. And alongside of Rangers and BFC Dynamo, there was Nottingham Forest. (Probably) Mainly because I once went to a European Cup game between BFC and Forest. I had hardly thought about Forest for the best part of three decades, since they vanished into the lower league of the English game, while Rangers star shone brightly after Souness' arrival. Since I also skipped much interest in the EPL after quitting Fantasy League football 7 or 8 years ago, I was quite surprised to see Forest up in the EPL, in 5th place, mind you. Reading all the above, you do wonder what sort of spirit* kept the Forest folk from keeping their loyalty throughout the decades in the lower tiers, quite a few of which who saw the fall (after earlier European success) aren't around any more. And while I am happy for them Forest chaps, you do hope that our tide will turn much faster than it did for them.

 

* That's actually a question of loyalty, one that keeps those people who support their local minnows till the end, despite knowing how bad they are and that they will hardly ever win anything in their entire existence. (Which makes quite a few of them e.g. celebrate the odd draw or win against us like their cup final.)

[L72 131]

3 minutes ago, buster. said:

No 

I don't at all absolve board members past and present from their obvious and fundamental part in this.

 

However, the support need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to recognise the need and priority to become sustainable.

 

We also need to prioritise our existence as we said we would post 2012 when most welcomed the spivs with open arms, twice in quick succession. A more gullible support, I don't know of.

 

So you think we should wake up, smell the coffee, and accept mediocrity?

 

That we should just be happy we exist? Then what's the bloody point mate?

 

Our expectations of challenging for this league aren't farsighted, take on board for example what @der Berliner just said - the gulf hasn't been this massive chasm, and most seasons its us being our own worst enemy that has cost us.

 

You might be happy to be run of the mill just existing, I and many others are not.

 

Anyone taking on this football club has to realise success is expected, and competent able owners would be able to deliver that without spending an exorbitant amount of money.

 

We aren't to blame in anyway.

 

Dave King, The Parks, Bisgrove, Specky Robertson etc, all contributed in turning us into a shit show.

[Rousseau 11,644]

Once again we're getting entrenched in a binary argument, when both are valid, IMO.

 

On the one hand, it's certainly true that we are an impatient lot, that are generally unwilling to go through the necessary rebuilding phase and get hooked on a quick fix. We are financially unsustainable. Despite knowing it was front-loaded, we overspent stopping their 10IAR and yet most were still expecting us to keep spending. 

 

On the other hand, I do think the solution can be as simple as getting the right appointments and the right structure in place. I do think a good coach solves most of it. 

 

I have been of the opinion that we've been dragged one way and the next in terms of planning and rebuilding because we've had too many voices in the boardroom - exacerbated because the fans are too impatient to see anything through unless it bares immediate fruit. 

 

I'm hoping the takeover will solve most of these issues.

[L72 131]

2 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

Once again we're getting entrenched in a binary argument, when both are valid, IMO 

 

On the one hand, it's certainly true that we are an impatient lot, that are generally unwilling to go through the necessary rebuilding phase and get hooked on a quick fix. We are financially unsustainable. Despite knowing it was front-loaded, we overspent stopping their 10IAR and yet most were still expecting us to keep spending. 

 

On the other hand, I do think the solution can be as simple as getting the right appointments and the right structure in place. I do think a good coach solves most of it. 

 

I have been of the opinion that we've been dragged one way and the next in terms of planning and rebuilding because we've had too many voices in the boardroom - exacerbated because the fans are too impatient to see anything through unless it bares immediate fruit. 

 

I'm hoping the takeover will solve most of these issues.

It's a problem that affects most businesses in the world at the moment, certainly within the western world anyway.

 

Too many overhead opinions and decisions, when in reality it could all be streamlined down to a very simplistic approach, which has been said by Cammy, myself, and even you there.

 

Putting the right people in, having the right foundations etc.

 

While you say we're impatient, we were all prepared in 2012 for a proper rebuild, using the youth and the academy to bring us back to the top with young lads that would be sellable assets or stellar talents for the Prem by then, when the spivs failed, we were patient again as Dave King and Co promised to rebuild us properly, but this is where poor ownership comes to the fore, and nullifies the fault of the supporters - you said it yourself there, they frontloaded us, paying over the odds, desperately trying to stop that one thing, instead of building us up properly.

 

We've been patient. We're passed that with the incumbents, they have ruined it all.

 

To the point we're waiting on a takeover.

 

King&Co are as much spivs as Green, Ashley, Letham etc before them.

[Rousseau 11,644]

Another point: I do think Celtic have been very lucky with a couple of good managerial appointments, and I also think that they will be on the dip over the next couple of years. Rodgers usually implodes once he has a couple of seasons to bring in his own players, which he doesn't have a good record with (last time he jumped before it got bad). They would need another stupendous managerial appointment.  

 

I'm actually quite pleased to see them punt £11m on players. They won't get all of them right and it will quickly cut into their cash pile. 

 

This is the time. Get our plans in place and see it through. 

[CammyF 9,324]

37 minutes ago, buster. said:

No 

I don't at all absolve board members past and present from their obvious and fundamental part in this.

 

However, the support need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to recognise the need and priority to become sustainable.

 

We also need to prioritise our existence as we said we would post 2012 when most welcomed the spivs with open arms, twice in quick succession. A more gullible support, I don't know of.

 

We don't need to wake up to anything. All we need to do is cast an envious glance over to the East End of the city. 

 

Are you suggesting that the 49ers are akin to the Spivs? What makes you believe that? 

 

This board are taking us into the same choppy waters SDM took us and that's not the fault of the fans.

 

It's ALL on the board and not the fans and to suggest otherwise is naive and bordering in insulting. 

 

The quicker they are gone the better. 

[buster. 5,598]

1 hour ago, der Berliner said:

In the cold light of reality, though, we have been back for 9 years now, and despite the supposedly monumental gulf in terms of money, we had teams that were able to challenge them quite well. Especially last season. And there comes a point when expectations have to be met at a club like ours. I would have been with the "please, be patient" arguments 5 years ago. After nearly a decade, though, you do expect changes for the better.  

I get that DerB. You talk of 9, but it may as well be 99 years of f**King Up. If we haven't sorted out the fundamental issue, then it remains there needing to be fixed.

 

There is no getting round it, we need to become sustainable.

 

The question is how do we do it?

Then there is timescale and my guess is that the support aren't going to like the probable answer.

 

 

There are many known unknowns going into next season. We will have to wait and see what they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CammyF 9,324]

Being sustainable is a fundamental barometer of how the board are running the club. 

 

Last accounts showed an income of circa £95M - that alone should see us as a sustainable business. 

 

The huge question is whay aren't we? The simple answer (unless someone more intelligent than me can point it out) is we are overspending, losing money through poor decisions and somehow, unable to plug the hole. 

 

All of the above is the responsibility of the board to fix, and even after slashing player wages, we are still losing money.

 

We have a simple choice. 

 

Stick / support a board who've shown over a number of years they are incapable of running a football club or we push / support the sale of the club.

 

Option 1 will see us either go out of business or become another Motherwell.  Option 2 may see the same outcome, but we'll never know unless we try it. 

 

The only opportunities in life that you should regret are the opportunities you didn't take.