My point was, its not uncommon for staff to work their way up into such a position

Anyway, enough debate about poorly managed sports clubs, im off to watch Sheffield Wednesday

There not one bit of criticism of KF that’s unfair. He creates his Own problems with his arrogance and unnecessary involvement.

A CEO of any company does not come out an make unnecessary statements andfeel the need to wind up the opposition or brag.

By his own admission our CEO “ searched the whole of Australia and found the best coach” He also is involved in the recruitment of players , who are not fit

Do you really believe Price is involved in the recruitment of players !!!Our CEO can’t help himself being at the forefront of every positive and has a desire to be the vocal point of the club, which for me illustrates arrogance.

Our wonderful CEO who can’t help himself but comment, has said nothing in the last few weeks because he knows!!!. It’s in time’s of crisis and difficulty you hear from a CEO not when the goings good.
Weve heard nothing from KF and he’s a culpable as anyone

No experience as a CEO and it shows now.

Jobs for the boys

This is the giveaway. It's the old "empty vessels make the most noise" adage.

People who constantly have to make public statements reminding people about how big their ambitions are, are either trying to convince themselves, or buy themselves time.

The classic sign of someone who is out of their depth and trying to buy favour with their audience (board/shareholders/public) is this cycle:

1. Talk of great dreams of the future that will excite their audience
2. Share the audiences frustration when the dreams aren't being delivered, and vow that you will do whatever it takes to put things right. This also suggests to the audience that it's someone else's fault, and you're on their side in trying to get to the bottom of the problems.
3. Return to 1.

You see it from politicians as well.

The problem with this approach is with each repeat of the cycle, when the results don't live up to the expectations they have created themselves, fewer and fewer people believe them.

KF is getting more heat from fans now than he did a couple of years ago, because we've had a few repeats of this cycle. When we hear the same "media lines" from KF again at the end of this season about how performance was unacceptable and we have to do better in 2021, our goal is to be one of the biggest sporting brands not just in SL but in sport, even more will start to be sceptical.

Then you get guys like Andy Gatcliffe, who had less to say for himself, but he improved the club a lot so he didn't need to talk anything up.

Our recruitment has been a bit hit and miss to put it mildly, a couple of gambles on overseas signings but fundamentally the lack of prop cover for Coops and Hilly has been evident for a couple of years now and from what I can see Latu is not looking like the answer.
Who exactly is leading the recruitment dept and who are they answerable and what were their objectives set in their last assessment review ?

Is it only me who think we actually lost out letting Tasi go for Latu....and George King for Tasi.

We haven’t been stagnated in the props in the last 3 seasons, we seem to have actually gone backwards, and that’s more alarming.

The whole team has gone backwards Duckie.

The golden rule still applies that the pack wins the game and the backs decide by how much.
If the best spine in SL by some distance is ineffective behind a injury/suspension hit pack...it only strengthens that rule if thumb.

Tasi turned out to be a waste of space but at least George King could be relied upon to give it his all.

Again, Duckie, with the ridiculous boasts! How do you make out that your misfiring spine is the best in the League "by some distance"? Let look at them shall we?

For Wigan:

1) French or Ashton. Good prospect though he is I doubt anyone but a on-eyed fan would put Ashton above French at the moment.

2) Widdop/Austin or Hastings/Leuleuai. Hastings over either of yours by a substantial margin and then either of yours for the 2nd slot.

3) Clark or Powell. Clark by a distance.

I make that 2 each.

For Saints:

Coote or Ashton. Again, no disrespect to Ashton who's a fine young player but Coote easily.

Lomax/Fages or Widdop/Austin. Lomax comfortably with either of yours over Fages

Clark or Roby. Clark again but by a narrower margin. Roby up until recently.

2 each again.

I don't think there's too much that would be regarded as contentious above so where is this "by some distance" you allude to? That's, as I say, before we even get to the fact that on evidence thus far your spine doesn't seem to be working as a combination by which measure you'd be a comfortable 3rd of 3.

Our CEO will be in the concourses before the Cas game answering fans questions, say one thing about KF, he isn't frightened of putting himself in these situations when it would be easier to hide away.

Is the CEO role a true CEO role? KF, like Radlinski and Rush are running the club under the guidance of Leneghan, McAnus and Moran/Middleton. Moran, and especially Middleton will be equally involved / culpable as KF in any performance of the club I would say. A little more difficult to criticise those guys though I guess given their financial support of the club.

I like a lot of things KF has done, but his success in the role for me will be determined by the clubs actions in resolving the current run of form. He either backs the coach or sacks the coach, if he backs him his success is tied to Price's, if he sacks him, his success is tied to how the new coach performs.

I'd also like an answer to the question of who is involved with player recruitment, and how the process works at the club. Both Price and KF will be involved i'm sure, but it would be interesting to know how they are involved.

To be fair, I didn't include Ratchford as no one seems to agree on his best position, including your own coach. His best performance this season came in the halves and even Duckie would like to see him remain there. I have to say I rate Ratchford highly but you looked a better team with Ashton at fullback and Stef in the halves. If we count him as fullback, I've seen nothing from him this season to suggest he's a better option than French (the Man of Steel ratings thus far would tend to support this view) so nothing really changes for me regarding the above assessment. If you count him in the halves, again nothing changes as the two best from that list would be Hastings and Ratchford so he would only be displacing one of your own. Ditto Saints.

I'm aware that everything is subject to opinion, of course, but I've tried to look at it in an even handed manner and, agree or disagree with the assessment, I think you would agree there's nothing contentious in there? My point being, even allowing for some movement through difference of opinion, there's no way any of the 3 clubs could make the claim that their spine is better "by some distance"..

Its a difficult thing to asses and rank. My own view is that depending on how Widdop performs Warrington have the better spine, and that's more because of the collective unit, rather than individuals being compared vs other clubs.

I don't rate Powell all that highly if I'm honest, nor Leuluai (defence aside), Bevan has started well and Hastings is the best half in the comp IMO, while I think Ratchford, Austin, Widdop and Clark are all of a very high quality, with no obvious weaker player.

Similarly at Saints, Coote, Lomax & Roby are all high quality and I agree Coote and Lomax are probably ahead of their counterparts at Warrington, but Fages (again defence aside) I don't rate as highly as the other 3.

As a collective 4 I preferred the Warrington spine at the start of the year, I wouldn't go as far to say they were far better though. We need to see how Widdop turns out to see if my belief rings true.

Not an unreasonable assessment mate. As I said, opinion and club bias will play a part in it (I think the 'as a collective' part of your assessment falls down for example as I feel that is exactly what you don't have. You seem to have a collection of quality individuals rather than a collective unit). Either way I think we're both agreed that any claim that one is "by some distance" better than the others is just nonsense.