'I have upwards of 40 messages in my inbox, which this message is intended to address. I am sorry I cannot respond to all personally and I am sorry for the length of this missive.
Every Blade has his or her own view on the football so far this season. Some are patient. Some are not. Some teeter between hope and despair. And, frankly, given the inconsistency of the results, the diabolical nature of the competition in L1, the apparent weakness of the league this season ('it's there for the taking') and the fact that we have been in this league now for a fifth season (too say nothing of the environmental issues in the league such as the standard of officiating), the range of sentiments we are experiencing as a Blades family is all too understandable.
Personally, I think we -- the board, the management, the players, and the fans -- need to step it up, if we are going to get where we want to go this season: Automatic promotion. I am not blaming any one. I am just saying we all can do better.
In the spirit of taking responsibility for what I can take responsibility for on a personal level as your co-chairman, I thought I might take a minute to talk a little about what the board has done and is doing to improve matters.
I start by acknowledging that, as a board, we are far from perfect. The board is, however, committed and continues to operate in a manner that allows the top football professionals at the Club (both on the touchline and in the front office) to make the decisions about who wears the strip and how the football resources will be applied. Which positions do we need to strengthen? How quickly can we shrink the squad to a more rational, economical size, given the injury situation? What strength can we draw from our academy to serve the first team? Which players should be recruited and on what terms (loan, perm, price, etc.)? All such questions are left to our Technical Board (MD, Football Manager, FD, Academy Manager, etc.) to decide, provided they stay within board approved budgets and parameters.
That said, some of the current problems in the side (its size, for example) are byproducts of our trying as a board to be true to our approach, in circumstances where we allowed the Technical Board process to be thoroughly undermined by a gaffer, who was not interested in the process; hence, some of the excesses (recruiting in quantity, signing injured players, etc). We should have seen what was happening (the excesses, any way) and responded to them more quickly. Hindsight is 20:20.
In appointing a new football manager last Summer, we specifically set out to find a gaffer who would help us re-establish a process that would prevent the repetition of the same mistakes. I am very happy with the progress we have made on this particular front and believe the fruits of the Technical Board process will show themselves over time, if we stick to the process.
On the football performance side, we have made a significant increase in the amount of communication between the board and the football management team. This has been very easy to accomplish owing to the open and communicative nature of the football management team. The amount of back and forth is healthy and the substance of the conversation inspires confidence. For those who imagine that the gaffer's position is some how precarious or at risk, nothing could be further from the truth. Our confidence in Nigel Adkins is very high. We have the right man for the job, and the people he has brought with him are quality.
For those who have followed closely, you already know that, on the money front, HRH has put in GBP 13 Million in the last 2.25 years, GBP 3 Million during the most recent close season. This capital injection has enabled the Club to do the things that led to securing GBP 4 Million in cup winnings over the last two seasons (GBP 3 Million of which has been applied to first team football; and about GBP 1 million of which went to the Desso pitch at BDTBL and to state of the art training pitches at Shirecliffe). The prince's investment has also allowed the Club to apply/allocate all (that's 100%) of the proceeds from player sales to first team football. In total, that comes to investment/re-investment of GBP 21 Million into the football club over a three season period. By L1 standards, that is a fairly substantial sum. (For those who imagine otherwise, the Club has not made a distribution of profits to owners, since we came in during the late Summer of 2013. This is so, because the Club operates at a deficit year in and year out.)
During the months ahead, the owners plan to inject further monies into the club to ensure that the Club has every chance of achieving its goal of going up this season in the automatic positions. In all, investment/re-investment during the most recent three L1 seasons, including the current season, will top GBP 25 Million by season's end.
We see Nigel Adkins and the team making progress. Perhaps the most important, visible change so far is that we are playing every game to win. True, we are getting stung on the counter attack too frequently, and we're conceding goals too easily, but we are not setting ourselves up negatively for matches and the substitutions have consistently evidenced an intent to score. Are there issues still to be addressed? Yes. Do we have confidence that NA is the right person to address them? Absolutely.
At the board level, we love the Club. We back that up with substantial resources and an approach that leaves the footballing decisions to our very highly qualified, and carefully vetted front office and touchline football professionals. We all want better performances and better results and they will come. Rome, however, wasn't built in a day. We see the problems. The gaffer sees what needs doing. We will do what needs doing and get there.
- What do you think the board needs to do better to help the Club win promotion?
- What do you think management needs to do better to help the Club win promotion?
- What do you think the players need to do better to help the Club win promotion?
- What do you think the supporters can do better to help the Club win promotion?
Surely, we can all stretch a bit more to realise our shared goal. Let's talk to and about each other in a way that assumes that we all want the same thing and desire to do what's necessary to get there. We do not have to agree on everything, but we can safely assume we are in a common cause and talk to each other as friends, rather than as adversaries. Let's get united and be a strength to each other.
UP THE MIGHTY BLADES!