Football Ventures

[ianofcleveleys]

30 minutes ago, Zico said:

I only know him because he was the subject of the very first post on the transfer gossip thread when linked with us when he was still at Liverpool

Iles said in a Buff podcast last week that he was on £16k per week. In a listing I saw on X we were 5th on wage bill, Derby and Pompey well above us, Oxford close behind us in 6th

[wakey]

1 hour ago, desperado said:

Somebody said earlier they are “confused as to how anyone could want Evatt gone”, which even for someone who has backed him and still thinks he’s the right man is too narrow minded.

I suspect most know (hopefully Evatt himself included) what his failings have been and some, understandably, believe those are too great or he’s too stubborn/not good enough to address this. I think most balanced people get this.

But equally those entrenched on the opposite side to me, surely can see, as @gonzo highlights above, that there is a good chance Sharon’s decision to keep Evatt is the right one?

She’s closer to him and the club than any of us are. She’s not been a successful businesswoman by shirking tough decisions. She sees continuity, sustainability, progression and loyalty as key components to success. She talks eloquently about the chaos she sees around her in the upper (and lower) echelons of the football pyramid, her decisions could ensure that these elements are kept well away from our door, we’ve had enough of that over the last 20 years.

She acknowledges she’s a winner, she wants success, she wants championship football, not being there after 5 years is not what she envisioned.

She wants the 15500 ST holders and 35k+ fans who watch us to be rewarded with promotion next year.

Surely we can all put an element of trust in her with the decisions she’s making to get us there?

good post - I think there's a small minority of fans who are adamantly stay or go, the rest of us by this stage probably just lean one way or the other.

We all want success, so hopefully we get off to a flyer and keep everyone (most) onside.

With the caveat that there will be a handful of twitter clowns who hope we fail just to say I told you so.

fwiw my take is his limitations have been exposed, and I'm more hopeful than optimistic he can learn from it. Fingers crossed. 

[DazBob]

14 minutes ago, wakey said:

fwiw my take is his limitations have been exposed, and I'm more hopeful than optimistic he can learn from it. Fingers crossed. 

That's where I'm at.

Of course, when the season kicks off I'll be fully behind him and the players out there on the pitch.

I just can't stop myself from thinking that all opposition managers will have watched that play-off final and have the perfect blueprint on how to stop us playing.  Evatt, of course, will know this too so it's up to him to have something up his sleeve to counter it.  That's what makes decent mangers good/great.

I'm sure everybody hopes at the end of next season it seemed ludicrous that getting rid of him was even a thought in anyone's head.

[Marc505]

15 hours ago, Traf said:

She says it's Coleman's fault we didn't go up.

I've only just had chance to listen to it in full... I thought you were joking 😂

[desperado]

13 minutes ago, Marc505 said:

I've only just had chance to listen to it in full... I thought you were joking 😂

I don’t interpret it that way.

She’s racking her brains on the spot for an answer to injuries playing their part. She identifies Baxter.

Let’s be honest which club isn’t going to miss their number 1? Right at the top end you’ve had City and Liverpool lose theirs this year and have been affected. It’s not laying the blame at the door at Coleman, she doesn’t mention him.

As we know a keeper isn’t just about the saves they make/don’t make and errors they make/don’t make, the presence a number 1 has and how that makes the defence stable is relevant to.

I think she has a point

[JimmyRiddle]

The issue for me is however well we play, however many we put past a team in a given match: everyone deep down doesn't know what performance the next week will bring, and IMHO neither does Evatt.

So even if he sorts it out, and makes us more consistent, and difficult to beat when not playing well, how long it will take for trust in the team to return will be interesting to see??

Would be a good start to beat some of the bigger teams early doors, but if we don't then the knives will be out.

Edited June 6, 2024 by JimmyRiddle

[Tonge moor green jacket]

9 hours ago, DirtySanchez said:

How many spent £750k on a player in January? 

This idea that we are fifth or sixth highest wage players is just a nonsense 

Spending that amount in January doesn't confirm anything in terms of overall budget, as not every team will have deemed it necessary to spend big on a striker.

It was also explained, that the board felt it was worth the outlay given our good chances of promotion at the time, but the inference being that that money wasn't in the initial budget.

Whether our budget was 1st, 5th or 15th is only part of the overall picture anyway and as we all know, is never a guarantee of anything.

[desperado]

1 minute ago, JimmyRiddle said:

So even if he sorts it out, and makes us more consistent, and difficult to beat when not playing well, how long it will take for trust in the team to return will be interesting to see??

Would be a good start to beat some of the bigger teams early doors, but if we don't then the knives will be out.

Think you answer your own question.

Beating Wycombe/Lincoln at home, Charlton/Shrewsbury away won’t. 

Beating Wigan, Blackpool, Wrexham and Birmigham would go some way to instilling some faith, trust and belief in both the fans, players and manager.

That said I’ll be straight on calling people out, if we do make a good start including some of those big games, then we have a blip in a game and lose/draw one, then the doubters are straight on with Evatt out.

Whatever happens we aren’t going unbeaten, we aren’t winning every game, we are going to lose games and that would happen if we had the real Pep as manager.

[Marc505]

20 minutes ago, desperado said:

I don’t interpret it that way.

She’s racking her brains on the spot for an answer to injuries playing their part. She identifies Baxter.

Let’s be honest which club isn’t going to miss their number 1? Right at the top end you’ve had City and Liverpool lose theirs this year and have been affected. It’s not laying the blame at the door at Coleman, she doesn’t mention him.

As we know a keeper isn’t just about the saves they make/don’t make and errors they make/don’t make, the presence a number 1 has and how that makes the defence stable is relevant to.

I think she has a point

I didn't interpret it that way either tbh, was just having a laugh 😀 She's not going to go and throw individuals under the bus especially in a public piece like that. Does underline what a huge asset to us Baxter is, though.

Excited for pre season again now to see what we do, pointless being down about it all. Starting to look at it the other way regarding the strength of the league as well, at least we're an experienced side at this level now and it will make for some huge fixtures.

[VividDreamer]

10 hours ago, DirtySanchez said:

How many spent £750k on a player in January? 

This idea that we are fifth or sixth highest wage players is just a nonsense 

Even though the chairman confirmed it yesterday? 

[VividDreamer]

2 hours ago, woolli said:

The clue is in his name!😉

How very passive aggressive

[desperado]

4 minutes ago, Marc505 said:

I didn't interpret it that way either tbh, was just having a laugh 😀 She's not going to go and throw individuals under the bus especially in a public piece like that. Does underline what a huge asset to us Baxter is, though.

Excited for pre season again now to see what we do, pointless being down about it all. Starting to look at it the other way regarding the strength of the league as well, at least we're an experienced side at this level now and it will make for some huge fixtures.

Yeh me too now.

I think I’m finally over the tipping point of the “can’t bear to think about BWFC and what happened to absolutely buzzin for next season” scale.

Something that hasn’t been discussed a lot, is how together the squad was last season, how the large majority trust Evatt and that above all other teams in L1 there’s no club with players who have progressively performed at that level going from 9th to 5th to 3rd. Keep them together, motivated with a sprinkling of key new signings together with a more flexible Evatt (yes I know, I know 😂) then I believe promotion is more than within our grasp.

Right when are them fixtures out, I want to start planning my trip to Crawley away on the 10th August 😂

[Marc505]

6 minutes ago, desperado said:

Yeh me too now.

I think I’m finally over the tipping point of the “can’t bear to think about BWFC and what happened to absolutely buzzin for next season” scale.

Something that hasn’t been discussed a lot, is how together the squad was last season, how the large majority trust Evatt and that above all other teams in L1 there’s no club with players who have progressively performed at that level going from 9th to 5th to 3rd. Keep them together, motivated with a sprinkling of key new signings together with a more flexible Evatt (yes I know, I know 😂) then I believe promotion is more than within our grasp.

Right when are them fixtures out, I want to start planning my trip to Crawley away on the 10th August 😂

I need the tick for Crawley, standing in the car park doesn't count on the 92! 

[FrancisFogarty]

2 hours ago, SatanGreavsie said:

Not defending how it ended up, but let's keep some perspective. For all that, though, he will need to prove he can keep the right direction going and move on. If it's lacklustre by mid December then...

But you know what, I do suspect both he and the board are well enough aware of that.

That's right, but for him to keep the right direction and move on we have to either get new signings that play his way, or he has to change to his way. Like you say, if it's even slightly lacklustre by mid season we will be having this discussion again.

[mattbwfc19]

28 minutes ago, desperado said:

Yeh me too now.

I think I’m finally over the tipping point of the “can’t bear to think about BWFC and what happened to absolutely buzzin for next season” scale.

Something that hasn’t been discussed a lot, is how together the squad was last season, how the large majority trust Evatt and that above all other teams in L1 there’s no club with players who have progressively performed at that level going from 9th to 5th to 3rd. Keep them together, motivated with a sprinkling of key new signings together with a more flexible Evatt (yes I know, I know 😂) then I believe promotion is more than within our grasp.

Right when are them fixtures out, I want to start planning my trip to Crawley away on the 10th August 😂

June 26th is fixture release date

[SatanGreavsie]

21 minutes ago, Marc505 said:

I need the tick for Crawley, standing in the car park doesn't count on the 92! 

Did the cup game there. It's the shithole's shithole.

[JimmyRiddle]

1 hour ago, desperado said:

Think you answer your own question.

Beating Wycombe/Lincoln at home, Charlton/Shrewsbury away won’t. 

Beating Wigan, Blackpool, Wrexham and Birmigham would go some way to instilling some faith, trust and belief in both the fans, players and manager..

I agree, and tbh, the weird ones like Carlisle as silly as they are they do happen. Wigan however!

I think it will be coming out on top in tight games, or not losing sometimes. If we had drawn at Pompey & Derby for example, who knows. Resilience and consistency are key now for me, not total football.

Unfortunately for us we have the teams at the top and our 'local' teams making quite a lot of games high emotion ones, so we will see.

[Marc505]

52 minutes ago, SatanGreavsie said:

Did the cup game there. It's the shithole's shithole.

I'm sold!

[radcliffe white]

1 hour ago, Marc505 said:

I need the tick for Crawley, standing in the car park doesn't count on the 92! 

Going back to sing the national anthem in that pub again😀

[Johnnyrotten]

2 hours ago, DazBob said:

That's where I'm at.

Of course, when the season kicks off I'll be fully behind him and the players out there on the pitch.

I just can't stop myself from thinking that all opposition managers will have watched that play-off final and have the perfect blueprint on how to stop us playing.  Evatt, of course, will know this too so it's up to him to have something up his sleeve to counter it.  That's what makes decent mangers good/great.

I'm sure everybody hopes at the end of next season it seemed ludicrous that getting rid of him was even a thought in anyone's head.

This is tongue in cheek, but all that certainty the opposition managers will have could be erased at a stroke on day one - start 4-4-2, Jones and Iredale as full backs, 2 wingers which could be JDC and Williams assuming no new signings in those positions.  How bad could it be?  Its worth the "risk" just to confuse the buggers 😀

[Marc505]

45 minutes ago, radcliffe white said:

Going back to sing the national anthem in that pub again😀

That was bizarre!

I still can't work out if we were all welcome in there or not 😂

[Johnnyrotten]

3 hours ago, Marc505 said:

I've only just had chance to listen to it in full... I thought you were joking 😂

It was obviously just a throwaway comment from Sharon, to be taken with a pinch of salt.  But quite amusing that it implies that whilst our top scorer, captain, vice captain and keeper all had a spell out through injury and/or playing for Australia, the only one of the 4 we missed was Baxter.  So make that 4 players saying "thanks very much for that vote of confidence" 😃

[Johnnyrotten]

2 hours ago, mattbwfc19 said:

June 26th is fixture release date

I'm sure its always been a Thursday for decades, not sure I like that change to tradition!  Seems a bit later than normal - fixtures needed before I can commit to September hols. 

[DirtySanchez]

3 hours ago, VividDreamer said:

Even though the chairman confirmed it yesterday? 

As in a poor excuse for not getting promoted 

[DirtySanchez]

2 hours ago, SatanGreavsie said:

Did the cup game there. It's the shithole's shithole.

And a fair old trek from the centre