Quote: DSJ1983 "To be fair it was obvious that the Covid situation has really done us as a club, can’t see what AP could have done about that. He tired to gamble cutting costs on backroom staff for a few years now and that’s hasn’t paid off and the ultimate last throw of the dice was the ‘young and unproven’ recruitment strategy for this season that failed miserably. The numbers don’t add up he’s had to cut back somewhere, he’s ultimately made some terrible decisions though under that pressure.
Still don’t get the anger and hate towards him, but it’s obvious we need a change of ownership now. He’ll always be playing catch up and the atmosphere will just get more and more toxic the further we slide down.
I just don’t see who’s going to buy what’s essentially just a squad of poor players. Get off to decent start to the season, keep steady crowds and maybe we become a more attractive proposition to someone. We really need some clarity on the ‘investment’ situation, we’ve obviously decided to put more money into backroom stuff again from whatever the ‘capital injection’ has been made available to the club but I’m guessing this will need to be paid back at some point.'"
I think that the anger, hate and toxicity is largely down to two points that you mention: terrible decisions and sliding down the table. As fans we can only watch these things unfurl and are helpless at preventing them as we're not involved in the actual running of the club. So questions get asked about those that are running the club when things go wrong. And when things continue to go wrong, that's what generates the anger. I'm not saying I agree with it all but I can understand why it's built up as it has.
One other thing that I think has caused the toxicity and stuff is that there seems to be a lack of accountability and transparency from the club, particularly our owner. Today's case in point, AP bemoans the huge medical bills that the club have incurred but won't hold his hand up and admit that a big part of the reason we have such high bills is because he reduced the backroom medical staff in the first place. Instead he's making it sound like it's been bad luck and the improvements to the staff now occurring are forward thinking and savvy moves.
Will be interesting to see what comes out of the fans forum in a few weeks regarding things like the investment, lease agreements, the Covid loan etc but I fear it will largely be all smoke and mirrors.
