New chairman and Lerner ramblings

[dave.woodhall]

Supports Man City doesn't he?

I think one of our most significant problems has been Lerner inattention with his hand on the tiller. With his complete detachment from any sort of control and with a person who seems to want to deliver the systemic cleanse the club needs to rid the rotten core, be that an attitude of complacency or whatever the case may be, may well be the shot in the arm the club needs long term.

it is just as likely to be a complete disaster.
I can't see anything in this guys background to believe this is anything but a caretaker situation.

Let's cut out the sandwiches at half time, continue to employ N'Zogbia and Gabby, then appoint another leech. That should balance the books. Might need to buy a new boardroom table so that we can get all this crowd around it.

We now have four (or maybe five) directors. It's hardly a crowd.

There appear to be several people sharing the job that Paul Faulkner did.

Not really - Tom Fox directly replaced him and Steve Hollis will be a part-time chairman. 

[saunders_heroes]

How low have we sunk and such like.

Well, we have haven't we?

[kippaxvilla2]

Ah Dave that is confirmed now is it.  I would imagine he will be pretty full time for a few months though, to drive change and all that.

[dave.woodhall]

Ah Dave that is confirmed now is it.  I would imagine he will be pretty full time for a few months though, to drive change and all that.

I don't know; I'm surmising from what others have said and the fact that Fox is a full-time CEO.

[saunders_heroes]

Part time chairman?

[Martin Wadsworth]

How low have we sunk and such like.

Well, we have haven't we?

Don't fall for that old chestnut.

[Martin Wadsworth]

Supports Man City doesn't he?

I think one of our most significant problems has been Lerner inattention with his hand on the tiller. With his complete detachment from any sort of control and with a person who seems to want to deliver the systemic cleanse the club needs to rid the rotten core, be that an attitude of complacency or whatever the case may be, may well be the shot in the arm the club needs long term.

it is just as likely to be a complete disaster.
I can't see anything in this guys background to believe this is anything but a caretaker situation.

Let's cut out the sandwiches at half time, continue to employ N'Zogbia and Gabby, then appoint another leech. That should balance the books. Might need to buy a new boardroom table so that we can get all this crowd around it.

We now have four (or maybe five) directors. It's hardly a crowd.

There appear to be several people sharing the job that Paul Faulkner did.

Not really - Tom Fox directly replaced him and Steve Hollis will be a part-time chairman.

I would have to consult the family tree to confirm that. Who did Wijeratna replace?

[dave.woodhall]

Part time chairman?

It's standard business practice, even in football.

[dave.woodhall]

I would have to consult the family tree to confirm that. Who did Wijeratna replace?

He's not a director.

[paul_e]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

Not true, this has been arranged for at least 6 weeks, the original statement makes that clear, the timing is a coincidence and nothing more.

I really hope this guy succeeds but there is a lot of corporate speak about 'phases, shake ups, troubled organisations etc and precious little about how we are actually going to improve our lot on the pitch and given Randys appalling record regarding appointments I'm still nervous about what will happen next.

What would you expect a guy who outright states he's not a football man to say in this regard?

The fact that Lerner is stepping back further (is this possible) is a good thing

It's not so much stepping back, it's more replacing the need to hunt him down to ask about finances with walking down the corridor to speak to Hollis instead, that's my view, Hollis will have an overall budget and he'll have total control from there.  I suspect the only involvement from Lerner now will be regarding a buyout and an annual review, which is fine, we need to remove the complexity that is him having to be involved and not wanting to be.

I agree that a football man on the board would be a good idea and I like the idea of Brian Little being the choice for that, hopefully something will come of that pretty quickly.

On the first point au contraire - I am of the firm belief that Saturdays shenanigans expedited the announcement and that is what I was referring to.  I reckon he would have been looking at things for time immemorial if things hadn't come to a head - and this was further enhanced by poor Remi's second almost plea for a statement, two weeks after asking for one in the first place.

With regard to your second point, there is a big PR play to be had at the very least.  We the fans have been watching absolute shit, dross, lack of ambition, lack of application on the football pitch for 5 years.  All we wanted to hear was something about getting the team back to the upper echelons of British football you know that sort of ambitious type thinking that you want to hear as a football fan - granted we know all what he says in public has to go on in the background to run as a proper business.  But at least try and give us something to get excited about in an opening statement?

As regards the 3rd point, if you seriously think he hasn't already stepped back in the last five years then I have no idea how to answer this point.

I just don't see that we had fox already say at the trust meeting that there'd be news about the chairman soon, it's all opinions but I just don't think they'd have done it like this, especially when the FA cup stuff was largely addressed on the pitch on Tuesday anyway.  I just think that coming into the club in that role you'd want a good run where nothing is said so you can get a feel for things with no pressure, 6 weeks seems reasonable for that.  I do agree that the request from Remi for something to be said seems relevant but I'm sure he'd met Hollis and knew what the plans were all along so I'll judge that as more a way to get the fans off him and players for a few days.

I see what you're saying about the PR stuff but I just don't think you can do that when you're talking about a sport where everyone wants a statement about everything and then as soon as they get one says "don't tell me show me"  I've always found the demands for a statement odd because it's invariably just that we're not playing well and fans are angry, but no amount of statements can resolve that anger as well as a few wins can so it's a completely pointless process.  Can you imagine the reaction if he'd said "we know things are shit but I plan to be top 6 within 5 years", after the initial piss taking about not knowing anything about us that would be a statement that got referred back too for the rest of his time here and used a stick to beat him with whenever the opportunity arose.  Look at the examples: "we know what we're doing", "false narrative", "proud history, bright future" all of these get rolled out regularly to take the piss, any message such as you describe would just be another on that list.

3rd point, crossed wires, that's exactly what I'm saying, he's clearly already stepped back but he did it without bringing in someone to fill the gap, after 5 years he's eventually rectified that, this is why I'm genuinely perplexed that so many people want to have a pop at the guy before he's even got his name on the door.  If he can't find a buyer then this is the next best thing because it means we'll have some hands on management at the very top.  I know very little about Hollis, I know the companies he's worked for and I know he has a good reputation (based on a bit of googling) but that's it so I have no idea if he can fix our problems but I do know that at least now there's a chance they'll get fixed.

[brian green]

My reply to his e mail to me was worthy of Darren Woolley himself.   Good luck. You are going to need it.

[Martin Wadsworth]

I would have to consult the family tree to confirm that. Who did Wijeratna replace?

He's not a director.

I know that but whose work has he taken over?

[aj2k77]

I would have to consult the family tree to confirm that. Who did Wijeratna replace?

He's not a director.

I know that but whose work has he taken over?

No one's before him we didn't have a chief commercial officer. Possibly a role that should have been filled 10 year ago, again.

[Martin Wadsworth]

I would have to consult the family tree to confirm that. Who did Wijeratna replace?

He's not a director.

I know that but whose work has he taken over?

No one's before him we didn't have a chief commercial officer. Possibly a role that should have been filled 10 year ago, again.

Eric Woodward was Commercial Officer.

[aj2k77]

Never heard of him, are you sure?