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General The Board & Senior Management

 
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Billyox said:
He who laughs last laughs longest
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In truth, I don't feel like laughing much. The whole situation isn't very funny.

Just catching up on this thread (post holidays and everything has zipped along at pace) and we all sound as a confused, ignorant and open to conjecture as much as the folks on The Dub are. If you can applaud the club for one thing is that they have plugged a few rumour leaks. No one seems to know very much at all.

My main issue is the risk to our League 1 status. The attitude from the SMT seems to be that because we have enough players including a lot who showed some capability at Championship level and some who were involved in our last promotion, that's enough to be competitive in League 1. Football doesn't really work like that. You need new players in to freshen squads up and to play different formations, you need to rid yourself of unwanted players, you need to have quality in the squad and not just quantity and you need to have balance - we're going into this season with one number 9 and GO'D who made two sub appearances in the whole of 2025-26 plus one option at RW who is either wantaway or could be be sold or both.

Throw in that you've decided that a complete rookie, who is more used to UCL matches than Burton away, is to lead them into this campaign when you had someone with close to 200 matches managed instead who knows this division as a player and a manager in the building already seems madness to me. This point isn't talked about enough. Someone with some miles in the tank in this situation as manager/head coach, I'd feel a little more comfortable. Someone who can elicit a siege mentality, -us-against-them attitude. Ramsey could be that although I feel Bloomfield certainly would have been.

It is the lowest and most disconnected I've felt for some time with the club. A few good performances and results may just help that. For me though, all I can see is a season of struggle. I'd take staying up right now.
 
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unification said:
In truth, I don't feel like laughing much. The whole situation isn't very funny.

Just catching up on this thread (post holidays and everything has zipped along at pace) and we all sound as a confused, ignorant and open to conjecture as much as the folks on The Dub are. If you can applaud the club for one thing is that they have plugged a few rumour leaks. No one seems to know very much at all.

My main issue is the risk to our League 1 status. The attitude from the SMT seems to be that because we have enough players including a lot who showed some capability at Championship level and some who were involved in our last promotion, that's enough to be competitive in League 1. Football doesn't really work like that. You need new players in to freshen squads up and to play different formations, you need to rid yourself of unwanted players, you need to have quality in the squad and not just quantity and you need to have balance - we're going into this season with one number 9 and GO'D who made two sub appearances in the whole of 2025-26 plus one option at RW who is either wantaway or could be be sold or both.

Throw in that you've decided that a complete rookie who is more used to UCL matches than Burton away is to lead them into this campaign when you had someone with close to 200 matches managed instead who knows this division as a player and a manager in the building already seems madness to me. This point isn't talked about enough. Someone with some miles in the tank in this situation as manager/head coach, I'd feel a little more comfortable. Someone who can elicit a siege mentality, -us-against-them attitude. Ramsey could be that although I feel Bloomfield certainly would have been.

It is the lowest and most disconnected I've felt for some time with the club. A few good performances and results may just help that. For me though, all I can see is a season of struggle. I'd take staying up right now.
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Sorry you are feeling that way @unification but I totally understand it.

The two points in bold are absolutely spot on and the best summaries I have seen.

@JOHN BOY was also saying he felt the same. I'm hoping a few wins and momentum help turn these feelings around.
 
unification said:
In truth, I don't feel like laughing much. The whole situation isn't very funny.

Just catching up on this thread (post holidays and everything has zipped along at pace) and we all sound as a confused, ignorant and open to conjecture as much as the folks on The Dub are. If you can applaud the club for one thing is that they have plugged a few rumour leaks. No one seems to know very much at all.

My main issue is the risk to our League 1 status. The attitude from the SMT seems to be that because we have enough players including a lot who showed some capability at Championship level and some who were involved in our last promotion, that's enough to be competitive in League 1. Football doesn't really work like that. You need new players in to freshen squads up and to play different formations, you need to rid yourself of unwanted players, you need to have quality in the squad and not just quantity and you need to have balance - we're going into this season with one number 9 and GO'D who made two sub appearances in the whole of 2025-26 plus one option at RW who is either wantaway or could be be sold or both.

Throw in that you've decided that a complete rookie who is more used to UCL matches than Burton away is to lead them into this campaign when you had someone with close to 200 matches managed instead who knows this division as a player and a manager in the building already seems madness to me. This point isn't talked about enough. Someone with some miles in the tank in this situation as manager/head coach, I'd feel a little more comfortable. Someone who can elicit a siege mentality, -us-against-them attitude. Ramsey could be that although I feel Bloomfield certainly would have been.

It is the lowest and most disconnected I've felt for some time with the club. A few good performances and results may just help that. For me though, all I can see is a season of struggle. I'd take staying up right now.
Click to expand...

Excellent post which probably sums up how a lot are feeling but just can't be arsed to put into words. I was able to keep a bit of hope going into the Leyton Orient game, had not watched us in any PSF but went to the game Saturday, I realise it was only one very early season cup game but I thought it was an absolute horror show which has killed what little enthusiasm I had for the season, that team we put out playing like that is going to really struggle, nothing much to it going forward.

People haven't really got angry because its been the close season, but a bad start and a couple of player sales is going to change that, be interesting where its directed at given the fact everyone but Ramsey is in hiding.
 
unification said:
In truth, I don't feel like laughing much. The whole situation isn't very funny.

Just catching up on this thread (post holidays and everything has zipped along at pace) and we all sound as a confused, ignorant and open to conjecture as much as the folks on The Dub are. If you can applaud the club for one thing is that they have plugged a few rumour leaks. No one seems to know very much at all.

My main issue is the risk to our League 1 status. The attitude from the SMT seems to be that because we have enough players including a lot who showed some capability at Championship level and some who were involved in our last promotion, that's enough to be competitive in League 1. Football doesn't really work like that. You need new players in to freshen squads up and to play different formations, you need to rid yourself of unwanted players, you need to have quality in the squad and not just quantity and you need to have balance - we're going into this season with one number 9 and GO'D who made two sub appearances in the whole of 2025-26 plus one option at RW who is either wantaway or could be be sold or both.

Throw in that you've decided that a complete rookie, who is more used to UCL matches than Burton away, is to lead them into this campaign when you had someone with close to 200 matches managed instead who knows this division as a player and a manager in the building already seems madness to me. This point isn't talked about enough. Someone with some miles in the tank in this situation as manager/head coach, I'd feel a little more comfortable. Someone who can elicit a siege mentality, -us-against-them attitude. Ramsey could be that although I feel Bloomfield certainly would have been.

It is the lowest and most disconnected I've felt for some time with the club. A few good performances and results may just help that. For me though, all I can see is a season of struggle. I'd take staying up right now.
Click to expand...
well sumised
 
unification said:
In truth, I don't feel like laughing much. The whole situation isn't very funny.

Just catching up on this thread (post holidays and everything has zipped along at pace) and we all sound as a confused, ignorant and open to conjecture as much as the folks on The Dub are. If you can applaud the club for one thing is that they have plugged a few rumour leaks. No one seems to know very much at all.

My main issue is the risk to our League 1 status. The attitude from the SMT seems to be that because we have enough players including a lot who showed some capability at Championship level and some who were involved in our last promotion, that's enough to be competitive in League 1. Football doesn't really work like that. You need new players in to freshen squads up and to play different formations, you need to rid yourself of unwanted players, you need to have quality in the squad and not just quantity and you need to have balance - we're going into this season with one number 9 and GO'D who made two sub appearances in the whole of 2025-26 plus one option at RW who is either wantaway or could be be sold or both.

Throw in that you've decided that a complete rookie, who is more used to UCL matches than Burton away, is to lead them into this campaign when you had someone with close to 200 matches managed instead who knows this division as a player and a manager in the building already seems madness to me. This point isn't talked about enough. Someone with some miles in the tank in this situation as manager/head coach, I'd feel a little more comfortable. Someone who can elicit a siege mentality, -us-against-them attitude. Ramsey could be that although I feel Bloomfield certainly would have been.

It is the lowest and most disconnected I've felt for some time with the club. A few good performances and results may just help that. For me though, all I can see is a season of struggle. I'd take staying up right now.
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Agree with most of that bar your support for MB - we were going nowhere fast under him though inclined to agree big risk with AR especially when he had tje rugged pulled from under him days after climbing on board
 
ubermeistervonmeat said:
Agree with most of that bar your support for MB - we were going nowhere fast under him though inclined to agree big risk with AR especially when he had tje rugged pulled from under him days after climbing on board
Click to expand...

I’m neither here nor there over Bloomfield. We showed some glimpses of improvement with him and had some stinkers too (Norwich at home).

However take the names away and given the scenario we are in would you choose

A. A head coach who has managed nearly 200 matches including many at this level and had a career win rate % above 41%, or;

B. A newbie to the managerial game who has had a three match caretaker spell as his only experience.

In this instance, I’d have the experienced candidate every day of the week.
 
unification said:
I’m neither here nor there over Bloomfield. We showed some glimpses of improvement with him and had some stinkers too (Norwich at home).

However take the names away and given the scenario we are in would you choose

A. A head coach who has managed nearly 200 matches including many at this level and had a career win rate % above 41%, or;

B. A newbie to the managerial game who has had a three match caretaker spell as his only experience.

In this instance, I’d have the experienced candidate every day of the week.
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On Ramsey, it would be hard enough if he didn't have all this other stuff to deal with. I'm fully behind the guy as we all should be.

Now in the grand scheme of things this doesn't matter a great deal, but I have a slight concern that he seems pretty wedded to a style of playing that I'm not convinced we're very suited to. Possession heavy, front footed, building from the back sounds great but got to say we didn't look at all comfortable with it against Orient once they worked it out and started to shut us down. You could see Cumming was exasperated with the lack of options and just didn't know what to do. Ended up just hoofing it down the middle.

It will definitely take time to get the team playing how he wants, but I hope he's adaptable in his approach to how we play. I think he might need to be.
 
londonyellow said:
On Ramsey, it would be hard enough if he didn't have all this other stuff to deal with. I'm fully behind the guy as we all should be.

Now in the grand scheme of things this doesn't matter a great deal, but I have a slight concern that he seems pretty wedded to a style of playing that I'm not convinced we're very suited to. Possession heavy, front footed, building from the back sounds great but got to say we didn't look at all comfortable with it against Orient once they worked it out and started to shut us down. You could see Cumming was exasperated with the lack of options and just didn't know what to do. Ended up just hoofing it down the middle.

It will definitely take time to get the team playing how he wants, but I hope he's adaptable in his approach to how we play. I think he might need to be.
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I don’t think we have the players to play the way he wants in a 4-2-3-1, puts Goodrham to far forward, he is better breaking from midfield, and isolates the player on our weakest (by a long way) position of centre forward. Would rather go for a 4-3-3, bringing Goodrham deeper to help out in the midfield and get the wingers further up the pitch to give us more of an attacking threat, we had very little against Orient.

If Ramsey proves to be inflexible and his preferred style doesn’t work then it’s going to be painful, we don’t exactly have a lot of options to change things up playing staff wise.
 
holdsteady said:
I don’t think we have the players to play the way he wants in a 4-2-3-1, puts Goodrham to far forward, he is better breaking from midfield, and isolates the player on our weakest (by a long way) position of centre forward. Would rather go for a 4-3-3, bringing Goodrham deeper to help out in the midfield and get the wingers further up the pitch to give us more of an attacking threat, we had very little against Orient.

If Ramsey proves to be inflexible and his preferred style doesn’t work then it’s going to be painful, we don’t exactly have a lot of options to change things up playing staff wise.
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I'm not sure we have a keeper to play the way he wants either, as much as I rate Cumming as a 'traditional' goalkeeper / shot stopper. His distribution can be mixed, although he's quite good with his rolls and throws. Not so much with the ball at his feet.

I dunno. Maybe I'm making too much of the "elite footballer becomes a manager and can't make the less talented players do what he wants" angle. It does seem to feel like a bit of fresh air to the players. We'll see.
 
londonyellow said:
I'm not sure we have a keeper to play the way he wants either, as much as I rate Cumming as a 'traditional' goalkeeper / shot stopper. His distribution can be mixed, although he's quite good with his rolls and throws. Not so much with the ball at his feet.

I dunno. Maybe I'm making too much of the "elite footballer becomes a manager and can't make the less talented players do what he wants" angle. It does seem to feel like a bit of fresh air to the players. We'll see.
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Being absolutely frank with you, I think Cumming lacks a great deal when it comes to distribution. As in, he doesn't have much in the way of vision at all.
 
Manorlounger said:
Being absolutely frank with you, I think Cumming lacks a great deal when it comes to distribution. As in, he doesn't have much in the way of vision at all.
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And sadly his kicking generally is woeful.

I’ll happily go over 4.5 kicks that get dragged to the left and straight out of play on Saturday
 
Yellowarmy said:
That's alot of opinions before a ball has been kicked. Maybe, we should wait a month and see what happens.
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It would be a strange and somewhat dull forum if we weren't allowed opinions in advance of the season. Personally I think it's a valid concern. As I said, 'we'll see'.
 
Billyox said:
Yeah must be really hard for them picking up £5k+ each week
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I've never really agreed with this logic. Just because you're paid handsomely doesn't mean you should not be able to feel upset/frustrated at your working environment. Football is a short career and it's well within a player's right to want to play under positive working conditions, where they know exactly what's going on and what is expected of them.

Money is not everything.
 
90syeIlow said:
I've never really agreed with this logic. Just because you're paid handsomely doesn't mean you should not be able to feel upset/frustrated at your working environment. Football is a short career and it's well within a player's right to want to play under positive working conditions, where they know exactly what's going on and what is expected of them.

Money is not everything.
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The latter (money) can make the former (environment) much more bearable...................... 🤷‍♂️
 
If you earn a lot of money but you are being bullied, your workplace practices are unsafe, you are under ridiculous pressure and being asked to give up your whole life for a job then I get you might still be unhappy.

But a footballer, keeping fit with his mates while doing part time hours while earning good money having to be a bit patient on a possible transfer is hardly that, it’s pretty much the job.
 
Billyox said:
How much does happiness cost
Are we allowed to sign them
Can we register them
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Dunno, but it's a waste of money whatever. Happiness only serves to make people miserable
 
holdsteady said:
If you earn a lot of money but you are being bullied, your workplace practices are unsafe, you are under ridiculous pressure and being asked to give up your whole life for a job then I get you might still be unhappy.

But a footballer, keeping fit with his mates while doing part time hours while earning good money having to be a bit patient on a possible transfer is hardly that, it’s pretty much the job.
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This isn't what was being referenced.

It was a poster saying someone's Dad said their son was unhappy at the state of affairs at the club.
 
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