@davecz said: @Right_in_the_Middle - you are absolutely entitled to have your views and I too have seen us hammered in the non league days but I think today the Chairman's views are more relevant.
To the club yes. But I don't need to change my views based on it either.
The guy is a winner. That’s what he does & how he lives. Whether we think it’s deluded or not is up to us as individuals to pontificate on. I found it quite refreshing and not unexpected.
If it revs us up to have at least a bit more drive & passion than recent weeks then that’s a good thing.
I think it is actually a brilliant email from Mr Couhig senior. He has confirmed that he will back the club and its current coaching staff for the foreseeable. Supporters need to realise that generally Americans view of the world is slightly different to ours, particularly with regard to our national game.
I feel @Last_Quarter's criticism of the level of investment in the squad at the start of the season is unfair. We have to live within our means and you cannot attract top players without paying the going rate. Watford for instance currently have 12 players earning over £1m per year with two of them earning more than our reported budget alone. He signed Championship quality players in Uche, Taf, Horgan and Knight on loan. The first two got injured more or less straight away and our best midfielder has been out most of the season.
Whilst Rob's hopes of staying up are probably somewhat deluded now, you cannot expect him to publicly throw in the towel. I think we all need to judge his tenure of the club this time next year.
Rob Couhig is big on matchday experience and entertainment.
It's one thing losing, but to lose playing in such a basic, dull route one style maybe starting to get to him ??
It maybe a psychological strategy to get players and staff out of there comfort zone ?
Bet he clearly seems annoyed about the constant bleating about referees and other excuses from his staff.
Throughout his tenure as manager, Ainsworth, quite rightly , has received full and wholesome support. Clearly he still retains the Couhigs support but my sense from reading the email, Rob C is not happy. Will be interesting how Ainsworth reacts.
If he's not sacking anyone, walking out or demanding anything, I did not really see the point of it myself. It's sort of saying he bollocked a management team who are completely safe and he is confident we will stay up. Seemed a bit random to me. It will be interesting to see the reaction of posters fully entitled to their views who don't like the reaction they get from other posters reacting to their posts though.
@Wendoverman said:
If he's not sacking anyone, walking out or demanding anything, I did not really see the point of it myself. It's sort of saying he bollocked a management team who are completely safe and he is confident we will stay up. Seemed a bit random to me. It will be interesting to see the reaction of posters fully entitled to their views who don't like the reaction they get from other posters reacting to their posts though.
I'm particularly interested in @glasshalffull reaction to Rob Couhig statement.
@mooneyman I think you misunderstand me a little bit. I've always argued for living within our means and, as I said, our recruitment policy in the summer made sense to me in that respect. What then seems strange is to then suddenly say that relegation is not acceptable when I dont feel we've invested the money we need to guarantee survival, and I imagine that's exactly what GA would be feeling too.
You make a fair point about injuries to key players at the start of the season and we've been unlucky there, but if anything that only affirms my point that we didn't invest widely across the squad to be competitive when injuries inevitably struck.
I'd also point that out that I like the tone of the statement and agree that RC is clearly a winner. I'm just not sure we've given GA all of the tools he needs to deliver on this vision.
@Malone said:
A really curious email.
I had to check the date to make sure it hasn't been delayed as to say he expects us to stay up from this position is baffling.
Then a weird mix of i've not made it clear enough staying up is imperative, yet immediately following it up saying our management are super safe.
Then ticking our media team off.
What's the intention of such a communication?
There's a few aims:
-Kick up the arse all round
-Passifying the more rabid amongst our fans
-Instill a bit of belief in staying up
-Ensure staff and players don't think they can coast until May
How successful any of that is remains to be seen, Several omissions and difficulties are also pretty clear.
Rob Couhig will have chosen those words very carefully and deliberately for his chosen audience. I would be extremely surprised if he hadn't already discussed and cleared the air with the people mentioned as needing to improve, not offer excuses and not act with wonder that WWFC are mixing it with the relative big boys in the 2nd tier.
In some ways it is reassuraning that the club hierarchy also consider the last few performances to have been unacceptable to the extent that a public statement has be made, though using the stick rather than the carrot to improve morale and motivate carries inherent risks. At the very least we need to go out all guns blazing and not have regrets about not taking anything from winnable games from teams around us in the table.
Has to be said if I was the management team I would be furious at that email. A private conversation is bad enough, a public bollocking - not good at all. Maybe the difference between US and UK culture but I would be dusting off my CV.
@DevC said:
Has to be said if I was the management team I would be furious at that email. A private conversation is bad enough, a public bollocking - not good at all. Maybe the difference between US and UK culture but I would be dusting off my CV.
But you dont have a particularly impressive history of "toughing it out" Mr Devc !!
If it ruffles a few feathers then good. Too many underachieving and the last few weeks have not been good enough. People talking about planning for next season in February. At least have a bit of fight. Lots of teams in our position have changed manager and changed mentality to do just that.
Football is not like any other business @DevC so it’s incomparable to any conversation you or I are likely to ever have ....
@Last_Quarter said:
You make a fair point about injuries to key players at the start of the season and we've been unlucky there, but if anything that only affirms my point that we didn't invest widely across the squad to be competitive.
I would be interested to know how you would have spent the budget more widely without increasing the budget or diluting the quality of the best eleven. At the start of the season we had two adequate keepers, three good central defenders in Taf, Stewart and Knight, five good midfielders in Horgan, Wheeler, Gape, Thompson and Adeniran. On paper, a strike force of Uche, Bayo, Kashket, Fred and Samuel would have been expected to score more goals. The only clear mistake I can see was not having a back up for JJ.
The only way the budget could have been better spent was perhaps by not forming a "B" team. However long term I think that may turn out to be an asset.
@Last_Quarter said:
You make a fair point about injuries to key players at the start of the season and we've been unlucky there, but if anything that only affirms my point that we didn't invest widely across the squad to be competitive.
I would be interested to know how you would have spent the budget more widely without increasing the budget or diluting the quality of the best eleven. At the start of the season we had two adequate keepers, three good central defenders in Taf, Stewart and Knight, five good midfielders in Horgan, Wheeler, Gape, Thompson and Adeniran. On paper, a strike force of Uche, Bayo, Kashket, Fred and Samuel would have been expected to score more goals. The only clear mistake I can see was not having a back up for JJ.
The only way the budget could have been better spent was perhaps by not forming a "B" team. However long term I think that may turn out to be an asset.
Well for a start you can look at those striking options there.
Bayo is 38 and is having little influence at this level.
Samuel isn’t a goal scorer.
Kashket has missed several sitters this season which has resulted in him being dropped recently.
Uche has had rotten luck with injury but has obvious quality and Fred has the quality but is clearly low on confidence.
I remember that game at Bootham Crescent quite clearly. It was a bitterly cold night & I think we were 6th in the league at the time. It was a well-won point in difficult conditions when the locals thought these “Southern softies” could easily be rolled over. Obviously that wasn’t the opinion of Ivor Beeks, whose ambitions for promotion got the better of him. The rest is history.
From memory I think there were 110 away fans freezing their nuts off on the open terrace. I remember walking back to my b & b after the game & getting straight into a hot bath to defrost.
Rob Couhig is obviously a winner who likes success & achievement. Sadly, I think the club went into this season surprised that we got promoted. Everyone was delirious about the results at Fleetwood & Wembley but consequently we went into this season underprepared.
The EFL Championship has often been called the Premier League 2. It’s the 5th largest league in terms of support in Europe. We deserved to be there on merit. But we needed to reorganise on the pitch and off it. You have to adapt your playing style & be able to play a bit of football at times. I’ve listened to Alan Parry commentating several times on Championship games this season talking about the nice football being played. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is the defenders are of better quality & are able to cope with our style. We may not have the biggest budget in this league but are our resources that different to Luton Town? They seem very comfortable in mid-table & have even loaned Elliott Lee out to Oxford United. Despite the PR I expect the players are pretty fed up getting beaten game after game. We have some decent players but they are not performing to their best.
Despite Rob Couhig’s bullish assertion we won’t get relegated, I can’t see any other outcome at the moment. You can be as optimistic as possible but management is all about dealing with reality and the art of the probable. We probably need to devise the elusive “Plan B” to get us out of League One next season. Anybody who thinks that will be easy is wrong. Relegation is an unforgiving punishment.
@mooneyman I'll try one more time. I don't think we've invested enough money this season to guarantee survival in the Championship. I agree with that approach as, for me, the long-term stability of the club is the most important thing.
The money we have spent has been spent well I think - I'm not trying to argue we could've achieved more with what we've invested.
I read it as a public acknowledgment that our style of play is difficult to watch and that Gareth has license to be more gung ho given that his job is safe.
But really, waiting to send this until after the transfer window closed, when the investment extended to one extended U23 player, one extra U23 player and a back-up left back, deserves a little bit more self reflection.
All very odd. I think I can see what he’s trying to say but there’s some mixed messaging in there and I hope his communication with GA and co was a bit better.
On the positive side the timing is probably spot on. The atmosphere around the club (and on here) seems a little resigned and downbeat right now so I guess as a pep talk it’s useful. As a hostage to fortune though it could come back to bite him (and us).
On the negative side it allowed someone (yes you @Right_in_the_Middle) to mention the M** P***** game again and I will need another 2 months of therapy (AKA Theakstons Old Peculiar) to recover
Ticking off Management and Media Team. Me thinks Petes taken his foot off the Gas! Surely this is his responsibility. I guess he’s had a massive Rollacking
Interesting letter, if this had been sent out just before Xmas I would have absolutely got all of the content, particularly with the run of games we were due to have until the end of January and our position in the league.
Now being firmly routed to the bottom and 12 points adrift, affectively 13, the expectation that we manage to stay up comes across as a little odd.
Overall, its a rallying speech for us to pull our socks up across the board, whether it be fans, players, senior management or day to day staff to see if we can pull something special off over the next 19 games. We're renowned for doing it, so why not this time?
I've read it in the spirit that I feel it's intended. Forget what has happened in the previous 27 matches and concentrate on the last 19 and we will deliver. Very positive.
Finally, I think he has intimated that if the management and squad give their all, with no excuses and a real effort to succeed, then their jobs are protected if we end up going down. However, if he continues to see what he's seen over the last few games until the end of the season then he is not afraid to act.
Everyone pull your socks up, get positive and give it a go! COYB!
@Wendoverman said:
If he's not sacking anyone, walking out or demanding anything, I did not really see the point of it myself. It's sort of saying he bollocked a management team who are completely safe and he is confident we will stay up. Seemed a bit random to me. It will be interesting to see the reaction of posters fully entitled to their views who don't like the reaction they get from other posters reacting to their posts though.
I think it's refreshing that his instant go-to isn't to sack the manager, unlike most of the owners in football these days.
You seem to be suggesting the only way to motivate a management team is to threaten them with job loss if they fail. I would disagree with that.
@Commoner said:
Interesting letter, if this had been sent out just before Xmas I would have absolutely got all of the content, particularly with the run of games we were due to have until the end of January and our position in the league.
Agree with this. Six weeks ago it would have looked positive and achievable. Now it's just wishful thinking.
Comments
To the club yes. But I don't need to change my views based on it either.
The guy is a winner. That’s what he does & how he lives. Whether we think it’s deluded or not is up to us as individuals to pontificate on. I found it quite refreshing and not unexpected.
If it revs us up to have at least a bit more drive & passion than recent weeks then that’s a good thing.
I think it is actually a brilliant email from Mr Couhig senior. He has confirmed that he will back the club and its current coaching staff for the foreseeable. Supporters need to realise that generally Americans view of the world is slightly different to ours, particularly with regard to our national game.
I feel @Last_Quarter's criticism of the level of investment in the squad at the start of the season is unfair. We have to live within our means and you cannot attract top players without paying the going rate. Watford for instance currently have 12 players earning over £1m per year with two of them earning more than our reported budget alone. He signed Championship quality players in Uche, Taf, Horgan and Knight on loan. The first two got injured more or less straight away and our best midfielder has been out most of the season.
Whilst Rob's hopes of staying up are probably somewhat deluded now, you cannot expect him to publicly throw in the towel. I think we all need to judge his tenure of the club this time next year.
Rob Couhig is big on matchday experience and entertainment.
It's one thing losing, but to lose playing in such a basic, dull route one style maybe starting to get to him ??
It maybe a psychological strategy to get players and staff out of there comfort zone ?
Bet he clearly seems annoyed about the constant bleating about referees and other excuses from his staff.
Throughout his tenure as manager, Ainsworth, quite rightly , has received full and wholesome support. Clearly he still retains the Couhigs support but my sense from reading the email, Rob C is not happy. Will be interesting how Ainsworth reacts.
If he's not sacking anyone, walking out or demanding anything, I did not really see the point of it myself. It's sort of saying he bollocked a management team who are completely safe and he is confident we will stay up. Seemed a bit random to me. It will be interesting to see the reaction of posters fully entitled to their views who don't like the reaction they get from other posters reacting to their posts though.
I'm particularly interested in @glasshalffull reaction to Rob Couhig statement.
@mooneyman I think you misunderstand me a little bit. I've always argued for living within our means and, as I said, our recruitment policy in the summer made sense to me in that respect. What then seems strange is to then suddenly say that relegation is not acceptable when I dont feel we've invested the money we need to guarantee survival, and I imagine that's exactly what GA would be feeling too.
You make a fair point about injuries to key players at the start of the season and we've been unlucky there, but if anything that only affirms my point that we didn't invest widely across the squad to be competitive when injuries inevitably struck.
I'd also point that out that I like the tone of the statement and agree that RC is clearly a winner. I'm just not sure we've given GA all of the tools he needs to deliver on this vision.
A really curious email.
I had to check the date to make sure it hasn't been delayed as to say he expects us to stay up from this position is baffling.
Then a weird mix of i've not made it clear enough staying up is imperative, yet immediately following it up saying our management are super safe.
Then ticking our media team off.
What's the intention of such a communication?
@Malone same here. I thought it was strange. It doesn't offend or outrage me or anything...but I really didn't see the point of it.
There's a few aims:
-Kick up the arse all round
-Passifying the more rabid amongst our fans
-Instill a bit of belief in staying up
-Ensure staff and players don't think they can coast until May
How successful any of that is remains to be seen, Several omissions and difficulties are also pretty clear.
I liked it. It made me feel more positive. I hope the squad and management team saw it as an unflinching show of support and positivity.
Cheers Rob
Rob Couhig will have chosen those words very carefully and deliberately for his chosen audience. I would be extremely surprised if he hadn't already discussed and cleared the air with the people mentioned as needing to improve, not offer excuses and not act with wonder that WWFC are mixing it with the relative big boys in the 2nd tier.
In some ways it is reassuraning that the club hierarchy also consider the last few performances to have been unacceptable to the extent that a public statement has be made, though using the stick rather than the carrot to improve morale and motivate carries inherent risks. At the very least we need to go out all guns blazing and not have regrets about not taking anything from winnable games from teams around us in the table.
I like Rob’s optimism and especially ‘the time for sight seeing is over’. But, in reality, we haven’t a hope in hell of staying up.
There is an argument that the club as a whole have almost been quite apologetic at being in this league.
Almost licking the boots of all these clubs and their fancy stadiums etc etc
It’s almost become a self fulfilling prophecy and I think we are far too humble.
Time to end the small club mentality if we are ever to succeed at this level.
Has to be said if I was the management team I would be furious at that email. A private conversation is bad enough, a public bollocking - not good at all. Maybe the difference between US and UK culture but I would be dusting off my CV.
But you dont have a particularly impressive history of "toughing it out" Mr Devc !!
If it ruffles a few feathers then good. Too many underachieving and the last few weeks have not been good enough. People talking about planning for next season in February. At least have a bit of fight. Lots of teams in our position have changed manager and changed mentality to do just that.
Football is not like any other business @DevC so it’s incomparable to any conversation you or I are likely to ever have ....
I would be interested to know how you would have spent the budget more widely without increasing the budget or diluting the quality of the best eleven. At the start of the season we had two adequate keepers, three good central defenders in Taf, Stewart and Knight, five good midfielders in Horgan, Wheeler, Gape, Thompson and Adeniran. On paper, a strike force of Uche, Bayo, Kashket, Fred and Samuel would have been expected to score more goals. The only clear mistake I can see was not having a back up for JJ.
The only way the budget could have been better spent was perhaps by not forming a "B" team. However long term I think that may turn out to be an asset.
I just wonder how his nephew is feeling after being away from his family for a year.
Well for a start you can look at those striking options there.
Bayo is 38 and is having little influence at this level.
Samuel isn’t a goal scorer.
Kashket has missed several sitters this season which has resulted in him being dropped recently.
Uche has had rotten luck with injury but has obvious quality and Fred has the quality but is clearly low on confidence.
All in all not enough depth there in my opinion.
I remember that game at Bootham Crescent quite clearly. It was a bitterly cold night & I think we were 6th in the league at the time. It was a well-won point in difficult conditions when the locals thought these “Southern softies” could easily be rolled over. Obviously that wasn’t the opinion of Ivor Beeks, whose ambitions for promotion got the better of him. The rest is history.
From memory I think there were 110 away fans freezing their nuts off on the open terrace. I remember walking back to my b & b after the game & getting straight into a hot bath to defrost.
Rob Couhig is obviously a winner who likes success & achievement. Sadly, I think the club went into this season surprised that we got promoted. Everyone was delirious about the results at Fleetwood & Wembley but consequently we went into this season underprepared.
The EFL Championship has often been called the Premier League 2. It’s the 5th largest league in terms of support in Europe. We deserved to be there on merit. But we needed to reorganise on the pitch and off it. You have to adapt your playing style & be able to play a bit of football at times. I’ve listened to Alan Parry commentating several times on Championship games this season talking about the nice football being played. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is the defenders are of better quality & are able to cope with our style. We may not have the biggest budget in this league but are our resources that different to Luton Town? They seem very comfortable in mid-table & have even loaned Elliott Lee out to Oxford United. Despite the PR I expect the players are pretty fed up getting beaten game after game. We have some decent players but they are not performing to their best.
Despite Rob Couhig’s bullish assertion we won’t get relegated, I can’t see any other outcome at the moment. You can be as optimistic as possible but management is all about dealing with reality and the art of the probable. We probably need to devise the elusive “Plan B” to get us out of League One next season. Anybody who thinks that will be easy is wrong. Relegation is an unforgiving punishment.
@mooneyman I'll try one more time. I don't think we've invested enough money this season to guarantee survival in the Championship. I agree with that approach as, for me, the long-term stability of the club is the most important thing.
The money we have spent has been spent well I think - I'm not trying to argue we could've achieved more with what we've invested.
I read it as a public acknowledgment that our style of play is difficult to watch and that Gareth has license to be more gung ho given that his job is safe.
But really, waiting to send this until after the transfer window closed, when the investment extended to one extended U23 player, one extra U23 player and a back-up left back, deserves a little bit more self reflection.
All very odd. I think I can see what he’s trying to say but there’s some mixed messaging in there and I hope his communication with GA and co was a bit better.
On the positive side the timing is probably spot on. The atmosphere around the club (and on here) seems a little resigned and downbeat right now so I guess as a pep talk it’s useful. As a hostage to fortune though it could come back to bite him (and us).
On the negative side it allowed someone (yes you @Right_in_the_Middle) to mention the M** P***** game again and I will need another 2 months of therapy (AKA Theakstons Old Peculiar) to recover
Ticking off Management and Media Team. Me thinks Petes taken his foot off the Gas! Surely this is his responsibility. I guess he’s had a massive Rollacking
Interesting letter, if this had been sent out just before Xmas I would have absolutely got all of the content, particularly with the run of games we were due to have until the end of January and our position in the league.
Now being firmly routed to the bottom and 12 points adrift, affectively 13, the expectation that we manage to stay up comes across as a little odd.
Overall, its a rallying speech for us to pull our socks up across the board, whether it be fans, players, senior management or day to day staff to see if we can pull something special off over the next 19 games. We're renowned for doing it, so why not this time?
I've read it in the spirit that I feel it's intended. Forget what has happened in the previous 27 matches and concentrate on the last 19 and we will deliver. Very positive.
Finally, I think he has intimated that if the management and squad give their all, with no excuses and a real effort to succeed, then their jobs are protected if we end up going down. However, if he continues to see what he's seen over the last few games until the end of the season then he is not afraid to act.
Everyone pull your socks up, get positive and give it a go! COYB!
I think it's refreshing that his instant go-to isn't to sack the manager, unlike most of the owners in football these days.
You seem to be suggesting the only way to motivate a management team is to threaten them with job loss if they fail. I would disagree with that.
Agree with this. Six weeks ago it would have looked positive and achievable. Now it's just wishful thinking.