You wouldn’t swap places then?
The point was more about people blaming the likes of Gamble, a paid employee for our predicament. He’s worked for an owner who milked the club for years and then one that by todays standards, hadn’t got a pot to piss in.
Vale’s owners have obviously stuck a load of money into the club and still they are struggling to stay in L1. Our new owners will most likely need to do the same. It won’t happen otherwise, regardless who the CEO is.
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True about the finances. I think it’s fair to question those in leadership roles at the club though. Gamble may well have done a very good job under the constraints of the new regime, I can’t pretend to know, but when the club keeps struggling I think it’s fair to ask if someone else could do better.
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In what role? If Gamble’s remit is to keep the club financially stable, then that is what he has done admirably. Of course, if his remit is to keep the club financially stable and also get playing success on the field, then he has failed in the second half of that. But I get the impression that he has never been tasked with that second requirement and that that part has been placed on the manager alone (and the DoF while we had one). Personally, if he is CEO, I feel he should be asked to meet both criteria, but I don’t make those decisions.
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I agree with you. I have no idea about the inner workings of the club and can only guess. Just saying that it’s natural for fans to question employees of the club who have overseen years of stagnation and failure.
Going back to the original point, I would 100% swap places with Vale.
The core principle of the club should be to deliver a successful football team for the town.
If Gamble’s sole role was to make the club financially stable to do this then fair enough, although I’d be pretty pissed if I was him that others must not be delivering their piece of the jigsaw given our demise. In fact I’d go as far as saying professional pride would have seen me leave years ago.
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But given the financial constraints and his previously overriding objective to provide Boners wedge, then maintaining league status could be considered success when compared with his some of his peers that have much greater resources?
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Yes a really good insight.
Looks like another underwhelming January transfer window did for Clarke although seems he was more accepting of that than what happened in January 2021.
Also amusing all that debate last week about Flynn commuting from Newport. Vale had a key player coming in from Cambridgeshire 2-3 times a week!
Sorry which league are we on about?
Yes being competitive in league one will be a struggle if a return ever happens. Just finishing in top half would be a huge achievement really (while hopefully something sustainable for the long term is being built as any promoted side will obviously have a core of 4-5 decent players who could step up).
That said Sloppies used to yo yo between the bottom two leagues yet I think they’ve been in league one now since 2015 and have been top half for most of this season. Burton had a few struggles but again established themselves as a solid league one team now and Cheltenham had a good season avoiding relegation comfortably.
It is no success whatsoever this club is again set for a bottom 10 finish just scraping past 50 points.
There’s a lot of blame going round since the Leicester cup game but the most important thing is to actually realise what it’s all happened and rectify things in the summer. We’ll soon see whether anyone is actually taking notice that one win in pretty much half a season really isn’t good enough.
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The irony is that if Flynn were to be sacked, and a manager with Clarke’s CV was available, most of us would be saying that they would be an almost perfect fit for the position we are in having pretty much got promoted from it in 1-2 seasons with 2 of his last 3 clubs.
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No prizes for spotting the odd one out.
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We have been in decline for years due to the parasite Bonser. An owner of a lower league football club that has made a fortune from it, while at the same time, owners of our competitors with ambition, pump their personal wealth into their clubs, and even then don’t always get the success they are looking for.
Until that changes then maintaining our league status is probably the best we can hope for. Hopefully Trivela will invest in the team at a similar level to those clubs we think we should be competing with.
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At least with a loan repayment instead of rent the club is finally investing in itself. That’s a start.
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They should put that on the early bird marketing campaign material.
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Why? That’s my view, not necessarily theirs, Didn’t stop me buying one though.
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So you’re buying into what you expect will be a relegation scrap. Respect. I have no desire for that so didn’t renew. I honestly wish you all the best with that and hope it’s a promotion campaign instead but wow, just wow. The club don’t even have to spin a yarn about ‘going for it’ or aiming for the playoffs (words are cheap) anymore.
I don’t expect a relegation scrap, but as the old saying goes, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I try not to let things affect me that I can’t control tbh.
At the start of the season, I will probably have higher than realistic expectations, as I do more often than not, but this league is pretty close so if a few things fall into place then who knows? That’s the beauty of it all.
Many of the comments I’ve made above and on one or two other threads are in answer to people that seem to be writing off the new owners too quickly, in my view.
I’m more optimistic now that Boner is out of the way.
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You and I differ on some of the less serious threads 
but on this you are absolutely right. I think we need to be watchful as the new ownership takes shape but so far other than my quibbles about some of the price increases I am pleased with the sense of direction they have set. Like you I am optimistic that next season things will be different.We have some good players and with strengthening in key areas of team (midfield/upfront) we could easily be challenging next year.
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I think optimistic but cautious is spot on.
We’ve gone from years of being very closely controlled by one person, during which we were allowed to stagnate, partly because he clearly didn’t welcome any third party help or input, to being owned by what ought to be a slick investment firm, who are closely controlling things for now but bringing fresh ideas with them and, in the medium to longer term, I would expect them to back off a little, act more like non-execs and ensure the right people are in executive positions in order to drive this club forward.