The dream is over............

What went wrong? Ashton left and went onto bigger things, whilst Eales thought he could run the show by himself. Clubs been going downhill ever since. First all the backroom staff left, followed by the players, followed by the transfer policy. Writing was on the wall a long time ago but fans chose to ignore the early signs whilst some of our better players remained. Eales' investment must be applauded, but Ashton was the one who ran the club so well after Eales' arrival. Eales' running of the club leaves much to be desired unfortunately.
 
Come on...dont be ridiculous, theres an easy way that we could afford to keep these players and treble their wages.... Eales should have stumped up more cash put of his own back pocket.....

It frustrates me so much, people who call for more and more money to be spent need to think back to the mid 90s when the club were unable to pay staff and they were getting by on food parcels etc, yes this season has been a downgrade on the last couple but there was always half a chance this would happen, not many clubs continue on an upward curve indefinetely.

As long as we dont go down, having a few seasons of mediacrity in League 1 is by no means a disaster.

Agree with this entirely.

The only way we could have kept the team that the OP suggested is if we had a Bournemouth-style oligarch at the helm, willing to pour millions of his money each and every season into the club.

But Eales never promised to be that kind of owner; To believe that he was isn't really a dream, it's a delusion.

Eales made a bad appointment in Clotet, which temporarily reversed what was a great recruitment and funding strategy. And it's left us struggling and worrying about relegation from League One rather than pushing for the playoffs.

But keeping Roofe, Lundstram, O'dowda, Johnson etc. was never a realistic proposition for the club with our current owner. Our realistic ambition was to find the next generation of similar players.....which was something that Clotet failed to even really attempt.
 
Roofe, Lundsram, Maguire, Wright, Mullins, O’Dowda, Hylton, Sercombe, Kenny, Dunkley, MacDonald, Skarz, Johnson.....
What the FCUK have we done......................
I actually truly believe that we could have had a team that could have held their own in the top 10 of the Championship.......
.
Appleton in change....
Eastwood in goal,
Nelson partnering Chey or Jake Wright in the centre of defence....
Johnson at left back, creating chances for fun...
MacDonald or Callum on the wing in front of Kenny at right back.
Ledson in the middle with Lundstram, (Sercombe close to starting)
Maguire with the free roll making way for O’dowda or MacDonald when his legs give way..
Roofe and Hylton scoring the goals up front.....
.
We could have trebled their wages and still been better off than with wasting money on “most” of the current crop of players we have signed...
We had it all, and it all disappeared before we could stop it.....
.
I have spent many, many years thinking what could have been since our exploits in 1983/84 and 1984/85 seasons to know that everything can be taken away so quickly, we even should have participated in Europe in 1986/87, but that is another story, 1995/96 put us back on the map with promotion to the 2nd tier, 2006 condemed is to the unthinkable, 2010 put us back to normality, 2016 raised the bar with our expectations, I just hope it’s not another 30 years before we can enjoy the success we all want....
Get over your self and into the real world. Idiot.
 
Get over your self and into the real world. Idiot.
First post but I had to..... seriously do you think calling other members "idiots" and to "get over themselves" just for posting their views is ok? Lincolyellow just made a comment to start a thread surely in these times we should all be listening at what everyone has to say and coming together as supporters not slagging each other off !
 
Agree with this entirely.

The only way we could have kept the team that the OP suggested is if we had a Bournemouth-style oligarch at the helm, willing to pour millions of his money each and every season into the club.

But Eales never promised to be that kind of owner; To believe that he was isn't really a dream, it's a delusion.

Eales made a bad appointment in Clotet, which temporarily reversed what was a great recruitment and funding strategy. And it's left us struggling and worrying about relegation from League One rather than pushing for the playoffs.

But keeping Roofe, Lundstram, O'dowda, Johnson etc. was never a realistic proposition for the club with our current owner. Our realistic ambition was to find the next generation of similar players.....which was something that Clotet failed to even really attempt.
I don't get all the endless slagging off of Eales. He's been the best owner we've had for 25+ years. He may well have got most of his money back, but in so doing he gambled £££millions of his own wealth to get us back to L1 and I don't see a queue of people ready to do that . I don't know the bloke but he has been very transparent about what he can/cannot do. He clearly cannot/will not spend more to get us in, and keep us in, the Championship so he is looking for other funders. And in so doing why should he give a rolling update on negotiations that are probably covered by a confidentiality clause anyway! The real villain, as ever, in all this is Kassam. Unless/until we get away from him, the club will never progress beyond where we are now .....
 
We’ve had a great couple of years and they’ll come again I’m sure. Realistically we are a pretty small club with a pretty small core support and an ambious but financially limited owner. And no stadium. Dreams of the championship for anything more than a season or two are pie in the sky imo until a number of things change.
 
The hopes we had were much to high;
Way out of reach, but we have to try.
The game will never be over,
Because we're keeping the dream alive. :)
 
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