RevidgeBlue

What sort of proper manager does that? He should be insisting the pitch is sorted AND there's a workable transfer budget. It reminds me a bit of Mowbray trying to dissuade the owners from spending or wanting to sell Rothwell to our major rivals for promotion.

I think he's here until the end of his contract come what may but we'll see I guess.

1-1 right on HT though. They might draw a bit of confidence from that. It would be really funny if they beat the Red Scum.

Perhaps VI knows his job is safe whatever happens and (like Suhail and Gestede) isnt bothered whether we stay up or go down. Therefore might as well do the pitch.

You'd have thought everyone from the Oxford end would be well on the way by then.

Matlock Town

It suppose it all depends whether there was ever a January pot available in the first place. If there was then you're robbing Peter to pay Paul and VI should have none of it. If there wasn't then I suppose you could say it's a clever ploy by him to put pressure on them to spend money on the pitch by him pretending he's being reasonable. Overall I still think he should be condemning the situation with the pitch without offering to sacrifice transfer budgets in return. We've seen it all before. It all smacks to a bit to me of Broughton coming out and justifiably or otherwise taking responsibility for various cock ups behind the scenes without there being any actual recriminations for him. Here it seems to me like they've spent some time agreeing their response behind the scenes in advance and he's come out pretending to be annoyed but then suggesting a solution which is no actual skin off their nose. Either that or he doesn't want to be blamed with anything to do with the pitch but doesn't want to upset them enough to lose his job either.

That's all it is for me. "Nothing to do with me guv" as far as the fans are concerned and a "Don't worry here's how you can sort it out - I wont complain" message to his employers.

Im sorry I dont agree. VI had barely been in the place 5 minutes before RG said the play offs weren't the priority. There's no way whatsoever imo Ismael was told one thing before joining only for them to say the complete opposite immediately afterwards. He's never stopped banging on about how "aligned" he is with the "project" or "transition" since he joined and no-one with half a brain cell could believe it would possibly work. I dont think he's stupid. Now, he's probably realised the current situation with the pitch is completely beyond the pale, even by Venky's standards. So he's come out with some mild criticism which will make him look better with some of the fanbase, but suggested a solution which won't hurt or impact the owners in any way but which will make the situation for the Club worse overall. I.e. deducting the cost of any pitch improvements from the transfer budget. From his point of view those two things should be completely separate and non -negotiable.

Said this on the other thread but on what planet is that him signing his P45? He's basically said "The pitch needs sorting out but it's ok guys, I don't mind if you take it out of the January transfer budget instead". I'm sure he's aware spending on the pitch would have no FFP implications. Fuck off Ismael with the rest of them.

Sorry, he's let himself down massively, and made his criticism relatively worthless, by giving them an "out" saying that as far he's concerned they can knock the cost of any pitch improvements out of the January transfer budget. I'm sure he knows the cost of expenditure on the ground doesn't count towards FFP calculations. Fuck off Ismael and take the rest of them with you.

Well said.

The owners are not on record per se as refusing it, if I recall, at the time Waggott suggested (maybe to the Fans Forum) the total cost of a root and branch replacement would be in the order of £2.4m and that he would explore the possibility of sponsorship to defray the cost. As always under his stewardship nothing actually happened and I think a few bits of the pitch were relaid with modern high tech mesh based turf instead. We dont know if he and / or Pasha ever actually asked the owners to stump up the full amount, but whose fault it was is immaterial, it was never actually done. Fast forward a few years, and Waggott was still here when the first of the three postponements/abandonments occurred so it was clear the issue was far more pressing. We've had anecdotal evidence on here from Mike Graham that Waggott was in favour of some sort of excess storage tank but again nothing was done. At the Club they've all known about the problem for a number of years and done nothing whatsoever about it whether it be a proper replacement or a cheaper alternative.

Still not a peep out of the Club regarding the latest abandonment nor the merest hint of an apology to the supporters from both Clubs who spent time and money on a water day. Even the Politbureau are obviously having a tough time trying to spin this one.

What a great post.

There's a lot of pitch drainage experts suddenly on the forum! 🙂 There's been a lot of talk about whether hugely complicated and expensive technological solutions are needed and I don't know the first thing about engineering principles or pitch drainage but as as a lay person Id be hugely surprised if: a) After 30 years of neglect the existing drainage system didnt need a good clean and some maintenance. and b) similarly Id be surprised if the bottom half of the pitch wasn't so compacted due to never being replaced that a huge amount of water never reaches the drains in the first place when it rains. Thirdly, even if it's not just the above, I can't believe that in this day and age there isn't a relatively simple solution available to the problem. The cost is irrelevant, it has to be done in the same way a stand would have to be repaired if it was deemed unsafe. Fourthly even if said remedial work is relatively time consuming and/or can only be carried out in the close season I refuse to believe that temporary measures can't be put in place until it's sorted permanently like covers for the pitch and a pump to remove any excess drain off and/or rent some proper water removal machinery of the sort used by high end golf Clubs or Cricket Clubs. Not a few hand operated fucking mops. Anything else is just excuses.

Not until the 6th round.

I think any tie against someone not in our Division has a bit of curiosity value, the easier ( on paper) the better for me. I think the worst possible ones are draws against other Championship Clubs we play routinely anyway. Particularly if you'd expect them to beat us (away at Coventry/ Boro etc)

The most worrying thing about it is that whilst Gallagher was on a fair old wedge totally out of kilter with his ability, Gueye must be on a fraction of that already. So any attempt to cut down on that even further doesn't inspire confidence that anyone who can make a positive difference will be brought in.

Call me old fashioned, I want a tie we can actually win, not a day trip out to a shiny new stadium or a home tie where we'll get battered!

In fairness, I mean if the decision to stop showing Rovers "for free" in Blues Bar but still allow it in other areas of the ground you have to pay a fortune to get into didnt tell you that.........

Yeah I know, I was being facetious because he's about 108 now. I wouldnt be surprised by someone cheap of that ilk as a short term stop gap though.

He's trying to justify his original opinion that the Ipswich game should have finished and his attributing of the blame on the ref and Mckenna despite clearly being wrong. Especially in the light of the latest postponement.

Along with new owners, CEO, Director of Football, Head Coach and at least half a squad. Apart from that - it's all good.

Wonder if they tell them said specialist allegedly said the drains were only working at 60%?