shambles...

Just gets a bit boring, when people miss out on buying the club but u never seem to hear the f*****g end of it. Didn’t happen, best move on don’t u think.
 
By all means thank DE for this investment since his arrival which swiftly lead to promotion and Wembley finals. However, that investment included the hiring of Mark Ashton, who practically ran the show in bringing in Appleton, installing the transfer model, scouting team and targeting the correct players. Him, along with many other brilliant staff we had during our promotion season have almost all but left or been shafted by DE.

DE is now running things his way, it appears many people are starting to tell the difference. His investment has been welcomed and we should all be thankful, his decision to implement such a fantastic staff setup beneath him shortly after his arrival, too. However, maybe it's time to ask where they've all gone, what direction are heading in now? Why have our club staff numbers completely dwindled? Why is the club lacking in so many vital areas?

We received some decent money in transfer fees and raised the ticket prices to establish a "top 6 budget". That evidently isn't true, I see this income as covering losses or perhaps helping him keep the club running. That wouldn't be an issue as such if he was open and honest about it, and thus the takeover talks would be understandable, but he's been silent for a long period now and fans just want answers. Hopefully the fans forum may bring some...
 
Just gets a bit boring, when people miss out on buying the club but u never seem to hear the f*****g end of it. Didn’t happen, best move on don’t u think.

Only mentioned him because he was mentioned in the message I was replying too, and I actually thought you were referring to Darryl, hence why I replied to you 'alright Darryl'
 
By all means thank DE for this investment since his arrival which swiftly lead to promotion and Wembley finals. However, that investment included the hiring of Mark Ashton, who practically ran the show in bringing in Appleton, installing the transfer model, scouting team and targeting the correct players. Him, along with many other brilliant staff we had during our promotion season have almost all but left or been shafted by DE.

DE is now running things his way, it appears many people are starting to tell the difference. His investment has been welcomed and we should all be thankful, his decision to implement such a fantastic staff setup beneath him shortly after his arrival, too. However, maybe it's time to ask where they've all gone, what direction are heading in now? Why have our club staff numbers completely dwindled? Why is the club lacking in so many vital areas?

We received some decent money in transfer fees and raised the ticket prices to establish a "top 6 budget". That evidently isn't true, I see this income as covering losses or perhaps helping him keep the club running. That wouldn't be an issue as such if he was open and honest about it, and thus the takeover talks would be understandable, but he's been silent for a long period now and fans just want answers. Hopefully the fans forum may bring some...

Nail, head.
 
When Kassam said he would take us on a journey you were expecting a journey to the conference were you? Kassam took us from the championship to the trap door out of the football league while raping us of every asset we had. Eales has taken us from the trap door out of the football league to league 1 and wembley twice whilst investing in a scouting network and players that have given the club some worthwhile assets again.
As for the opening post Charlie has said it all before many times, the smell of bitterness is choking me. I think any genuine fan of sane mind should have a little think about where we might be if IL had sold to Charlies gang. Think about some of the s**t that flies in Eales direction and pause for minute to think how mr rhino skin would deal with it. Things are not as good as they should be at present but they are better than local derbies with Oxford City.
For me Eales biggest contribution to OUFC was buying the club off IL, his second biggest contribution was not selling to Sartori. Both decisions kept Charlie and his side kicks to s**t stirring on here and other social media.

How do you know what would have happened under Satori?

What's your thoughts about Tiger becoming involved?
 
Sad to say, but this club is in a right old state and that state has been looming over the horizon for a while. To re-cap, as things stand, and in no particular order:

1. A new manager is going to arrive not in November/ December, as best practice indicates, but at the end of January
2. The club was ejected from the two serious Cup competitions at the earliest stage by teams at the bottom of League 2
3. After a protracted period with no day-to-day leadership, the club has just appointed a part-time MD with no prior experience of football club management (no fault of his, by the way, as running schools is a more admirable occupation)
4. There has been no commercial or marketing leadership for over a year, and therefore no commercial and marketing initiatives of any kind.
5. The club has allegedly been in and out of takeover discussions for almost a year, and has not denied as much
6. In that time, and not surprisingly, the manager and his entire playing leadership team has left, of their own accord, followed by the chief scout
7. The club is in litigation with its landlord, who has baldly stated that he is going to make life as difficult as possible
8. After two massive price hikes, home crowds are down by over 15%
9. On the pitch, the team has suffered its worst ever result, a 0-7 home defeat to a side in our own league, something even he Kemp side didn't manage

The positive is that we are mid-table in League 1, still have some good players and staff, and if swift, decisive, strategically sensible action is taken at all levels then the tanker can gradually be turned around. But equally, we are a couple more bad decisions and a bit of bad luck away from disaster. Here's hoping that those good decisions start to be made. Whatever all our differences of opinion in the past, I think that we can all agree that the club is entering a pretty important period in its history.

No 7 is a positive not a negative, if you are referring to the service charge arbitration / dispute. You'd no doubt be having a dig if the club weren't challenging this.
 
By all means thank DE for this investment since his arrival which swiftly lead to promotion and Wembley finals. However, that investment included the hiring of Mark Ashton, who practically ran the show in bringing in Appleton, installing the transfer model, scouting team and targeting the correct players. Him, along with many other brilliant staff we had during our promotion season have almost all but left or been shafted by DE.

DE is now running things his way, it appears many people are starting to tell the difference. His investment has been welcomed and we should all be thankful, his decision to implement such a fantastic staff setup beneath him shortly after his arrival, too. However, maybe it's time to ask where they've all gone, what direction are heading in now? Why have our club staff numbers completely dwindled? Why is the club lacking in so many vital areas?

We received some decent money in transfer fees and raised the ticket prices to establish a "top 6 budget". That evidently isn't true, I see this income as covering losses or perhaps helping him keep the club running. That wouldn't be an issue as such if he was open and honest about it, and thus the takeover talks would be understandable, but he's been silent for a long period now and fans just want answers. Hopefully the fans forum may bring some...
Who or how has he shafted staff members
 
Where is the Captain of the ship when it’s sinking? Is he rowing away in the lifeboat with all the dosh?
maybe spending all that cash on a winter break in sunnier climes? perhaps?:eek:
 
The point being made was that anyone can say anything but results speak for themselves. Satori promised the world, but so did Kassam. Whereas DE has improved our league position for each of the completed seasons with us (including promotion) and taken us to Wembley twice. He has funded a playing squad that has seen several million pound plus sales, something we have not seen in a generation. This season has been poor, but another mid table finish will still be pretty good for the 4 years DE has been incharge.

Satori could have turned us into Blackburn, or he could have turned us into Bury. No one knows. But we can judge DE or the last 4 years and he has done far more good than bad in that time.

Did you reply To my question? I had a notification but can’t see it here
 
Which of the above numbered points are inaccurate?

If you could go through them one by one I’d be interested to read your rationale

That’s a genuine request by the way

Don't hold your breath. This is a poster who exists solely to denigrate other posters. He is a sort of unguided thread killer. Every time anyone wants to have a discussion that goes beyond adulation, he kills it by taking it off subject matter and turning it into a feud. It's actually a rather effective tactic. I must remember to use it in my day-to-day job!

In answer to the question about the £4 million that came in last summer, it is precisely because of the staging of transfer fees that we received the second £1.2 million on Roofe and COD. Indeed, we are still receiving further payments on COD. We only got the first two thirds of the Marvin payment, though (according to Boro) so that is why the figure is £4 million, not £5.5 million. There is another chunk on that to come this summer.

All of which is great news, and was precisely the model that Ashton set up. Sell a player a summer, reinvest the proceeds in 4 new, better players and the team is both largely kept together and progresses. Hilariously, apparently the reason we didn't do this last summer was because the market was "over-valued".
Right. So you get £2.5 million for a joker like Marvin Johnson, and then complain that the market is over-valued and sign a bunch of crocks on free transfers whilst hiking the ticket prices. It's certainly a business strategy, for sure, but not so much a recipe for footballing success, which was the original intention of the Ashton model.
 
I think the model may have become a shambles. Its fine you cash in on your assets, and you hold out for a long as possible for the best price. But unless the cash in made available unfront or replacements you have to leave enough time in the window to get decent replaacements and integrate them into the squad before you start the season.

Worse selling so late then recruiting turns has really hit is in terms of early momentum (last season).

It should be agreed at the start of each window which player or players would be allowed to go. Then even if the process drags on until late in the window you could have already bought in the replacements in the correct positions as skills. We don't seem to have been doing this.

At times it seems a fire sale, and I am not sure if this was not one of the reasosns MApp left.

All of that is a comment about how we have been using the system up to this point. It does not cover what the club did in the summer (when we jettisoned the system and bought cheap rubbish).
 
It’s just a model not an exact science, other clubs will/have copied it, worked well for a while and could still work in the future but you need the right people to implement it, are those staff still here.
 
Self inflicted 'shambles' - and no signs as yet that's about to be corrected.
 
I don’t think the Ashton model also took into account players not renewing contracts and having to be let go under their value. Which also results in the turn over being 2/3 going per season rather than the one the model is based on

That is fair. But one reason players do not renew their contracts is because they don't see an ambitious future at OUFC. If the model is to sign ambitious players and management, then the moment they smell that you are no longer ambitious they are going to want away and feel they have been brought in on a false premise.

Of course, there is always the blow-out offer, and the consideration of age and stage (Marvin being older, this could have been his last chance of a big pay day), but generally players like playing, like being promoted and like winning medals.

In any case, losing 2 players a summer isn't such a huge deal in turnover terms. It's the ability to use that money to bring in the 4 or 5 players who actually improve you that determines whether the model is what Ashton wanted, or Barry Fry and Peterborough. As customers, we were sold the former, and then received the latter. As players, they were sold the former and then found themselves in the midst of the latter. I personally don't think that we signed players under the promise that we would sell them the next year. I'm sure that we signed them to become part of a project.
 
I don’t think the Ashton model also took into account players not renewing contracts and having to be let go under their value. Which also results in the turn over being 2/3 going per season rather than the one the model is based on

That is fair. But one reason players do not renew their contracts is because they don't see an ambitious future at OUFC. If the model is to sign ambitious players and management, then the moment they smell that you are no longer ambitious they are going to want away and feel they have been brought in on a false premise.

Of course, there is always the blow-out offer, and the consideration of age and stage (Marvin being older, this could have been his last chance of a big pay day), but generally players like playing, like being promoted and like winning medals.

In any case, losing 2 players a summer isn't such a huge deal in turnover terms. It's the ability to use that money to bring in the 4 or 5 players who actually improve you that determines whether the model is what Ashton wanted, or Barry Fry and Peterborough. As customers, we were sold the former, and then received the latter. As players, they were sold the former and then found themselves in the midst of the latter. I personally don't think that we signed players under the promise that we would sell them the next year. I'm sure that we signed them to become part of a project.

Which is worrying with players like rothwell . Clearly a good player but one we haven’t really see break into first team football and make himself a regular. This is the sort of player we should be able to offer a slightly better extension, and they take it knowing that having sold others on model (let go from loan) they are now going to be the first choice. But as with lunny the hunger to stay and make that spot ur own (even being made captain) is gone ands there’s not a lot the club can do. We don’t get the player, we don’t get the mark up on investment that we should as they are nearing the end, and it means we have to bring in even more players.

I think the branagan signing is spot on, get a large deal under them while they are keen to come here. 3.5 years means that even if he had a great season and a half here we will still get a very large transfer fee. 2 year deals on this type of player that ur relying on improving to sell just isn’t good enough
 
firstly contracts mean nothing. give em 2 years they foxtrot oscar after 1 or let them run down by refusing to sign another...Do you honestly believe the Liverpool lad said give me 3.1/2 year deal and you can make a few quid out of me after 12 or 18 months? The players and Agents dictate everything.
i keep banging the same drum but sooner or later come Jan we will be faced with the same issues only this time we might be in a promotion place and then what? give the player what you promised (he can move on) to a higher club thus risking promotion then what?

people appear to have forgotten that Mapp had already warned that other clubs had caught up/on our model and we were fishing in the same waters hence why he mentioned the need to look overseas
 
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