I don't think it's about the manager. It's about the owners

1. Why would proven players join a club which displays so little outward ambition and now routinely embarrasses itself at the highest level?

2. Why would proven or even ambitious managers do the same?

3. We've only had two successful managers in our entire Premier League history. Both chose to leave because of lack of ambition (ie. lack of money). What does that tell us?

4. Why would a CEO/DoF/Sporting Director or whoever with proven contacts and success at Premier League level join a club which cannot compete financially?

5. How seriously are loan signings (eg. Gilmour) likely to take a club which continually hamstrings every single manager at this level? What consequences are there for them if they play badly when the media will just ridicule the club, not the player? But what alternative is there to loan signings when we have so little money in the first place?

All the first five points are part of a completely self-fulfilling prophecy. But it's worse than that, because:

6. How does the club even find cheap rough diamonds given the new Brexit rules - which if they'd been in place, would've prevented Buendia and Pukki from joining us?

I think point 6 is likely to destroy us over the medium term. It makes effective recruitment hellishly difficult for any club without a sugardaddy. To anyone citing Brentford: a) they have an absolutely loaded owner and b) we'll see how long they can last.

There was a chronic lack of belief in this season's squad from the very start: and from their manager too. Thrown under a bus, he tried changing strategy, which didn't work. Nothing could've done. No doubt his replacement came in with plenty of hope, and was probably left dumbstruck by the lack of quality or basic class of almost all the squad.

But that doesn't mean it's Webber's fault either. He could only play with the cards he was dealt by the owners. Who are wonderful people and have done an extraordinary amount... but their lack of resources are why we are where we are.

We can't keep papering over those cracks forever. I agree with others that this is a poor, poor squad with zero playing identity, next to no big characters or key individuals and isn't good enough to bounce straight back as things stand. And the abuse Gilmour got at Palace all those months back was, if you ask me, a proxy for something much bigger. There's only so long we can go on like this.

If a football club isn't trying to be as successful as it can possibly be - and its guardians actively block any possibiity of anything else - what's the point of it? The whole of the football world woke up to that reality in our case this season.

So while talkBOLLOCKS can get f**ked, their ridicule ended up vindicated. And then some.

Posted By: thebigfeller on May 22nd 2022 at 21:14:11

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