The stadium is the big issue ( hardly a snokescreen)I do agree with you but it’s also a bit embarrassing that a group of billionaires and experienced C-level execs boasting extensive football CVs with spells at Manchester United & Inter Milan are being schooled in how to run a football club by a pair of American Hollywood actors.
The new stadium is their saving grace. Without that story running in the background (which they’ve leaned on regularly as a smokescreen for their failure to lead the club properly to date), their tenure has been nothing shy of an embarrassment so far and they are either invisible or talk complete shite in unchallenged environments. I do cut some slack to Thohir and Bakrie because they are what we thought they were - money men. I don’t care what their motives are, they’ve invested in us in places it’s needed all the same and we’re reliant on them. They’ve stood up to that. The problem is they’ve asked the clangers to run it for them. Manning is going to have to prove to be much more than a coach for us because the people above him will not get him any further. They are still the same people who felt Karl Robinson was the future of OUFC until he crashed them in to rock bottom and for that reason alone I still feel a proper football person in there as a DOF would do us the world of good. They will hopefully have learned an awful lot and we’ll be better for it but they have a huge amount of ground to make up with the fan base. Wrexham fans, by comparison, will pay whatever the asking price is for their ST’s because there’s a trust there, an enjoyment and a fear of missing out.
I think you miss a lot of other long term investments.
The training facilities seem to be exceptionally good at this level.
The youth team made the QF of the Youth Cup for the first time ever.
The Women's team has been in the Top 2 all season.
We all know that the first team has massively underachieving and it would be awful to go down, but the owners seem to be getting a lot of the investment right