The Board get a lot of credit and criticism in equal and fair measure in my opinion

They've got some big decisions right in recent years including the Gunn sacking, and the Lambert and Neil appointments but for each of those was necessary as a result of a pretty terrible decision in the first place. Neither Gunn nor Adams should ever have been anywhere near the Manager's job (and haven't been near one since) and Hughton should have been fired long before he went.

We are of course a Club that prides itself on being a family and therefore not as ruthless as others, for example Southamption who got rid of Atkins when we never would have considered it. Most of us would probably go along with this but that does mean the fans don't turn until they've really had enough and by then it's often too late, as in the case of Hughton and to a certain extent Worthington and Gunn.

It does however lead to accusations of favouring certain individuals. Some appointments such as Ricky Martin's could quite easily have been filled by bringing in someone with the external experience of the Premier League that we simply don't have within the Club but would admittedly cost far more.

To be fair, the Board maintain a very healthy dialogue with fans throughout good times and bad and despite the changes in its composition over the last 20 years. They deserve a lot of credit for that too. That sense of togetherness tends to overide any sense of dissatisfaction with their efforts when fans of other Clunbs might complain a lot sooner.

Their comparitive failure in the transfer market this summer has to be balanced against what we all thought was a terrific summer's business in 2013. Some articles had us second only to Barcelona in the analysis of the players we brought in, some of whom are still costing us money.

Ultimately though, it was proved to be a bit of a disaster and while we got the policy of buying hungry, young players from lower leagues to get us up a couple of leagues, another string in the Board's bow, I think the recruitment has been one of their two weakest areas, we never really sorted it out after Ewan Chester was fired, then re-employed, then Barry Simmonds was here for sixw months and now Lee Darnborough who hardly set the world alight at Burnley. This hasn't helped our business this past summer, but pretty much everyone acknowledged we needed to get defensive cover in and we totally failed in this regard.

The second is the Academy which has rarely produced any players approaching regular places in the first team or significant trasnfer fees that other Clubs have been able to factor into their model. Although we might see that improve in coming years, the changes made to its management just as we'd won the FA Youth Cup and seemed to be getting somewhere cannot have helped.

Whatever mistakes they may have made I'd still rather stick than roll, we still have our club despite the peril it was in six years ago and that we are where we are has to go down to them.

I'm not sure I'd swap everything they give us just to be another billionaire's toy and end up like Villa or QPR, or worse still, Blackpool. Football is as boring as it's ever been in any case and whatever joy would come from being a mid table subsiduary of some global masterplan would be quickly balanced by the sense of departure from the values this Board give us.

One day they'll be off, but we need to be careful what we wish for.

Posted By: Chalk Hill Bitter on October 27th 2015 at 11:37:09

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