Mattyblue

Sounds wholly plausible. Is this really a club geared up for the Premier League?

It is all ‘ifs’ because no one on here has an idea of what really goes on at the club. ‘Finance available’ means bugger all if it is at a level that can’t attract better quality players, just like these ‘improved contract offers’ mean bugger all if the players concerned don’t think they are worth signing.

So we fall away and it’s all on the manager, nothing to do with the owners?

I’d take those comments with a pinch of salt. A lot of protection of these owners goes on in public from Waggott down.

Yes it has been average outside those two months, but so what, points on the board are points on the board. However, this form carries on and we finish 9th (and it could well happen), then I would imagine it will be a parting of the ways, and he won’t be able to say he hadn’t had a good bite at it. However, the buck, as always, is with these owners. They turned down the chance in January to make a potential transformative season much more likely. The ire of this board needs turning to them, not the Average Joe doing the best he can in the dugout.

Thing is DE, I don’t give a toss to what managers say, all generally a lot of claptrap repeated ad nauseum and facilitated by weak local media. Very daft to get riled by it. All about results, shite last season. Much improved this season, and that’s all that matters. If he is here next season and it’s back to a stale 15th, then fair enough, give him pelters - but surely that speaks to the detached ownership letting things drift once again, and letting a team and manager revert to mean, instead of being proactive. If you were happy to call him out throughout last season because the results were crap (I don’t remember folk saying, ‘you can’t call it a crap season yet, wait and see to where we finish in May’ then), but can’t give him praise when sitting 4th in March, qualifying it with ‘wait till May’, then that says it’s got personal and no longer objective.

I’m not talking about his abilities. I’m talking about him as a ‘benign’, person, just a standard ten a penny football manager from where I’m standing. Just bizarre to me that he seems to rile some of you on here to such a degree considering the chancers and scumbags we’ve seen down here this past decade.

Well obviously it’s about where we finish in May. But I just don’t see what else you expect from these players and this budget. Was last season crap? Yes, shite. Would he have gone at a normal club? Yes. Did even he think he was going? Looked like it. However, of course this season is better. I take every season on its merits, however some of you have backed yourselves into a corner and lost all sense of perspective and when it comes to TM, no idea why as he is a fairly benign figure from where I’m standing.

Do you think we should be doing better than 4th with his budget then?

Crap then, are they?

The Rao family want to make a ‘really good football club’, since when?

I’ve no particular issue when games are priced between £20 and £25. Fairly standard. Though, the £20 to £25 prices are largely for night games that many floating fans can’t make anyway. Category B games start at £25, but are £30 in the JWU, Cat A up to £36. Very expensive for this area and second division football.

Not a lot more to be said re his playing career, just unbelievable really, especially considering he didn’t play the majority of his career on spin paradises like those in the sub-continent. But in recent years, I found him a fantastic commentator on Sky. Always up for the craic with his colleagues, but when it came to explaining the craft of spin (and in particular leg spin) bowling to a layman like me was fantastic. (oh and he game me a wave at The Gabba in 2017) ‘Bowling Shane!’

Not sure you can glean much from Peterborough away from home, they get spanked pretty much every game.

As a business it is wholly reliant on cash injections from the owners to continue to operate. In what way is that ‘financially sound’ ?

Good job you aren’t in charge of rehab down Brockhall…

You don’t need to go at full pelt in youth games to do that. Indeed he will be instructed to do the exact opposite.

What do you think the point of a rehabilitating 28 year old senior pro playing in youth games is for then, if not just to get minutes under his belt and avoid a relapse?

Nobody is suggesting he starts games from what I’ve read. But as the likes of JRC and Butterworth have played when miles off the pace, it’s not out the realms of possibility that a half paced Dack can sit on the bench and maybe have a 10/15 minute cameo..

I grasp that you haven’t rated his performances and think he’s off the pace. However, performances don’t matter one jot at that level for a rehabbing player, it’s all about nursing him back, even if that is at half pelt.

You know the old phrase… ’It’s a results process, structure and identity business’.

What rigger seems to be struggling to grasp is the fact that U23 games for senior pros are purely for rehab. Who knows he may never be the old Dack again, but even if he does get back to that level, you won’t be seeing it on a Monday night at Leyland…

So why are they pointing out that Hudds are 3rd if results and outcomes aren’t important? 🤷‍♂️

No issue with your second paragraph, there is a place for a suite of marketing strategies, and trying to increase ST holders, the bedrock of any support base is vital. Though there’s also a place for an actual no strings cheap game to get a real big crowd in just like in the 2001 run in. However, your first paragraph, what they’ve tried this season are strategies they know don’t work. Bundles, but this time a bundle restricted to one section of one stand. Bring a mate, failed in the past and is a bizarre way of discriminating against fans who don’t know any ST holders. The Final Five is pretty much a quarter ST, but is pro rata substantially more expensive than a half ST, working out at £24 a game in the JW, so why would you sign up for that as a floating fan? If you can’t make just one of the five you are well out of pocket, so you’ll just continue picking your games. I would have launched a proper quarter ST, priced at half ST levels (pro rata) to attempt to capitalise on the success of the half STs. Plus, a targeted game in the run in at £10 a ticket, no strings, ‘Operation Fill Ewood’. Seems very simple to me, but the club always seems to come up with these convoluted and half arsed offerings that make little impact…

The ratings for Corrie and EastEnders have collapsed over the past five years… so put them out of their misery!