[Albion] Tony Blooms vision for the club (aka Olive Branch II)

[junior]

I wonder what Tony Blooms vision is for when we might win a football match.

 

[Weststander]

If he were to listen to the boo boys right right now, Tony would fire Graham Potter and install a fire fighter manager to dig us out of trouble. Else what would be the point?

So who would you get then. The just relegated Eddie Howe?
Mark Hughes? And say this new manager keeps us up. We all celebrate. But what next season? We start firefighting again, and if the manager is struggling, we fire them again.

Surely it’s fairly clear that even with this approach we would be in Groundhog Day every season and be relegated eventually. Our wage budget simply cannot compete with most clubs in the division.

But this is what some here want I think. What a lack of vision. How short term.

Or as Tony is trying to do. Have a vision. Try and beat the bigger clubs by playing the long term game (those who play poker will be familiar with this ethos). Change the playing culture at the club from top to bottom, have a technical director overseeing and ensuring we have the same footballing philosophy at all age groups. Start a production line of talent. That doesn’t require hundreds of millions of pounds. Buy cheap exciting talent and blood them. If the haters actually had a look you can see this starting to bare fruit already (Lamptey, Ben White, Molumby, Alzate, Sanchez, Ostigard, Connolly would all go for millions and millions pounds already).

This transition is obviously not going to be easy. And you’d have to be fairly short sighted to not see that. But the rewards are clear. Either continue being a yo yo club a la Norwich or West Brom, or try and become an English Ajax.

As Tony and the club have said many times, top 10 is a LONG term goal. And it’s not going to be easy. I think there’s a big subset of fans who understand this. However there are short term fans who clearly don’t.

If you don’t buy into Graham Potter or Dan Ashworth and what’s going on at the club, rather than direct and hurl abuse online to GP every week (and anyone who dares go against group think) you should be honest enough to take it up with Tony Bloom, as it’s his vision for the club.

So do you want to be West Brom and fire and hire a firefighter? Or do you want to be different and try and build something special that could see us become an English Ajax?

I whole heartedly agree with all your points.

Just one revision for me. Sometimes in this brutal money league, some short term transfer/spending pragmatism is required to ensure that that we don’t join the clubs who lost that £105m of broadcasting income from relegation (I know there’s parachute money, but many clubs do not bounce back up).

I’d love TB to bring in a quality striker and LB in January, they might be loanees. If their pay is higher, so be it. I bet Lallana is on great money, so it shouldn’t cause dissent in the camp.

 

[GT49er]

He (Molumby) made his debut under Hughton FWIW, as did White and Connolly.

That is stretching a point stretchier than the most stretched piece of stretchy elastic ever! Run of games was it? Within a hundred miles of a league game? In a game that mattered? No, a few minutes In a meaningless cup match or two that we didn't want to win anyway.
Probably ticked the box that said 'you must play a youth player or two at least once a season'.

 

[AstroSloth]

The thing is if we had the performance we had last night under Hughton, people would be absolutely fine with it.

"Happy with the chances we created."
"Really limited Arsenal"
"Only lost 1-0 to Arsenal"

But because it's Potter people aren't happy with it
He did something unconventional and we still could/should have got a result. Yet that isn't good enough these days apparently.

 

[A1X]

Or do you want to be different and try and build something special that could see us become an English Ajax?

Ajax who have famously gone whole years barely winning games.

 

[Whitechapel]

My biggest fears of relegation are the exodus of the real quality players at the club and the fact of going back into the most competitive league on the planet and fighting to get out of it. How long will it take to get back into the EPL?

I think we’re actually perfectly prepared to bounce back.

How many players do you think we’d actually lose if we went down? White, Lamptey, Bissouma, Lallana, Welbeck, Trossard are the only ones we’d 100% lose IMO. Dunk, March, Propper, Veltman, Ryan & Maupay are possibilities too.

Sanchez
Webster - Dunk - Burn
Yapi - Molumby - Alzate - March
Gross
Connolly - Zeqiri​

With the likes of Clarke, Saunders, Longman, Gwargis etc waiting on the wings. Add a few signings in to that squad and we’d challenge at the top of the table. The problem we have is we have a lot of players of an equal quality and that quality is unfortunately a smidge under PL level

 

[vagabond]

I whole heartedly agree with all your points.

Just one revision for me. Sometimes in this brutal money league, some short term transfer/spending pragmatism is required to ensure that that we don’t join the clubs who lost that £105m of broadcasting income from relegation (I know there’s parachute money, but many clubs do not bounce back up).

I’d love TB to bring in a quality striker and LB in January, they might be loanees. If their pay is higher, so be it. I bet Lallana is on great money, so it shouldn’t cause dissent in the camp.

[emoji106]

Someone laid out the facts yesterday that for all of Tony’s talk about not being keen doing business in January, we tend to do quite a few deals in this window historically.

Completely agree an incoming goal scorer does seem such a logical move. Be it permanent or on loan.

Once we start taking chances, everything changes.

 

[vagabond]

That is stretching a point stretchier than the most stretched piece of stretchy elastic ever! Run of games was it? Within a hundred miles of a league game? In a game that mattered? No, a few minutes In a meaningless cup match or two that we didn't want to win anyway.
Probably ticked the box that said 'you must play a youth player or two at least once a season'.

Absolutely correct, Hughton wasn’t prepared to play these players in the Premier League.

People can hate GP all they like, but you can’t deny he’s not afraid to blood our young players.

 

[Weststander]

[emoji106]

Someone laid out the facts yesterday that for all of Tony’s talk about not being keen doing business in January, we tend to do quite a few deals in this window historically.

Completely agree an incoming goal scorer does seem such a logical move. Be it permanent or on loan.

Once we start taking chances, everything changes.

[MENTION=9708]Farehamseagull[/MENTION] ? They were absolutely correct, yet someone dismissed it as bullsh*t.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Credit where it's due, TB has always been prepared to take a punt on a manager outside of the easy option of the usual suspects in the English Serial Loser Manager's Club, and back them to the hilt way beyond the point where many chairmen would not. Total respect to the bloke for that

 

[um bongo molongo]

I recall both DA and TB saying that relegation is a distinct possibility in the long-term game. That is why GP is safe IMO, as well as the fact that a study some time ago by some Norwegians proved that changing manager made a short-term difference but not long-term: regression to the mean as the stattos say. Compare Watford to Norwich, for example.

The thing I struggle with them though is the long-term aim to be a top 10 side paying well below top 10 wages and (seemingly) unwilling to pay significant amounts for players. The latter may be mitigated if we actually sell anyone for a decent price (Southampton and Leicester have shown that you can divest then recirculate the transfer fees) but that doesn't get over the first problem. There is an almost perfect correlation between clubs' wage bills and their PL position - the odd outlier like Burnley 2 seasons ago excepted.

That suggests to me that English Ajax is at best a VERY long-term goal; they have been at it for decades. Meantime we have to put up with one home win in a year, distinct possibility of relegation, and frustration of watching pretty patterns producing FA. And that is just the short-term; whilst we might do a Norwich in Championship, we might also do a Sunderland.

I don't hurl abuse at TB - no-one can possibly do that after he has put in £250+m and seen the club rise to PL - but I do question the methodology to achieve the aim. And I don't think insulates criticism of GP playing tinker man; not playing strikers; and not training to avoid conceding from corners. Those are his problems.

The wage point is the big one for me. We’ve spend 200M + in transfer fees over 5 years, on mostly pretty average players at this level (or worse than that in the case of Locadia and Ali J). You have to wonder whether we’d be better to put an extra £20M a year in to the wage budget and spend less on fees (eg fewer, but truly top class players, playing alongside the cheaper youth)

 

[Billy the Fish]

As said I have no idea what's wrong, but I find it hard to believe making it right will take wholesale Allerdycing.

This is the biggest straw man argument going and one that the OP relies heavily on.

Literally not one person is suggesting that we sack Potter and bring in a hoofball merchant like Fat Sam.
Other managers exist who can play nice football and manage on a small budget

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Man U fans were calling for OGS head a few weeks back when they were a few places above us. Now look. Same Arsenal. Same Burnley. Same .... If we were completely out of our depth in games I’d worry. But we’re not. We are having a bad run but who doesn’t. Stay calm. Potter and Bloom will keep us up.

 

[andy1980]

Absolutely correct, Hughton wasn’t prepared to play these players in the Premier League.

People can hate GP all they like, but you can’t deny he’s not afraid to blood our young players.

Thats the problem. He does everything well except win games. That is what will get us relegated. I can't see what will change, as he seems to be trying everything and nothing is working.

 

[WhingForPresident]

That is stretching a point stretchier than the most stretched piece of stretchy elastic ever! Run of games was it? Within a hundred miles of a league game? In a game that mattered? No, a few minutes In a meaningless cup match or two that we didn't want to win anyway.
Probably ticked the box that said 'you must play a youth player or two at least once a season'.

If we're claiming Potter has given a 'senior debut' to Sanders (League Cup) and Molumby (couple of seconds as a sub) it's valid. If not then the OP's points are even less valid, either way works for me.

 

[WhingForPresident]

Absolutely correct, Hughton wasn’t prepared to play these players in the Premier League.

People can hate GP all they like, but you can’t deny he’s not afraid to blood our young players.

Christ you're hypocritical. Sanders hasn't even played in the PL and Molumby came on as a time-wasting sub with 30 seconds on the clock, but you'll happily claim those ones.

 

[GT49er]

If we're claiming Potter has given a 'senior debut' to Sanders (League Cup) and Molumby (couple of seconds as a sub) it's valid. If not then the OP's points are even less valid, either way works for me.

We're not. We're talking about Alzate, Connolly, Sanchez (and Lamptey for that matter) playing regular PL matches under Potter

 

[warmleyseagull]

Man U fans were calling for OGS head a few weeks back when they were a few places above us. Now look. Same Arsenal. Same Burnley. Same .... If we were completely out of our depth in games I’d worry. But we’re not. We are having a bad run but who doesn’t. Stay calm. Potter and Bloom will keep us up.

In most other seasons, we would be in bottom 3 with 13 from 16. It works out at around 31 points for the season, unlikely even in this weird season to stay up.

You are right: things can change quickly - we had a very good 9 match summer, for example. And there is the post match despair that has to clear the head before getting too down.

But the bad home run has now lasted a year; this alone will send us down. Not being out of depth doesn't equal winning; Sheff U are also competing in many of their games and they are doomed already.

There is no point in not staying calm, but I cant agree with final sentence; we need some luck; some payers finding form; and some transfer activity as well as P&B, however much we trust them.

 

[WhingForPresident]

We're not. We're talking about Alzate, Connolly, Sanchez (and Lamptey for that matter) playing regular PL matches under Potter

So you’re just basing your entire perspective on yesterday’s completely rotated side.

And who’s just talking about academy players? Part of the plan is also to be smart with recruiting talented young players and give them a chance here. And that doesn’t mean “play them every match”. There’s a clear development plan at work (hence our loaned players).

Lamptey
Ben White
Webster
Alzate
Molumby
Connolly
Maupay
Sanchez
Sanders

All given senior debuts under Potter. Note that 6 of the above were here during Hughton’s reign.

 

[vagabond]

Man U fans were calling for OGS head a few weeks back when they were a few places above us. Now look. Same Arsenal. Same Burnley. Same .... If we were completely out of our depth in games I’d worry. But we’re not. We are having a bad run but who doesn’t. Stay calm. Potter and Bloom will keep us up.

[emoji123]