The consequences of Doncaster

By November 2005 and the debacle at Wolves it must have been clear to the board, as it was to the rest of us, that Worthington had lost the plot and had to go. Indeed what has always mystified me is why they waited until Plymouth in 2006 to act.
I think the reason is this: in November 2005 the board faced a stark choice - persevere with Worthington, or sack him (in the process spending all - and possibly more - of the remaining football budget) and replace him with? Well we couldn't have signed anyone already in a job - there was no money left to pay off his previous employers. And whichever free agent we got would have had a transfer budget of precisely zero to play with when the window opened. So the first manager's first act would have been to sell Ashton. No wonder the board delayed.
I suspect that this also explains the startling lack of transfer activity during Summer 2006. Having seen the panic blowing of all the budget on Earnshaw and two pointless loan signings, as soon as the bright start to 2006/7 fizzled out they acted.
A lot of this would have been avoided if they had concntrated less on catering and more in football: in particular what we must assume is something like £1 million could have been saved by not proceding with the totally unjustifiable signing of Hughes.

Posted By: Creosote Ah Um, Jul 22, 11:00:27