| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it 10:41 - Aug 13 with 2893 views | IP1Blue |
His last 3 transfer windows have been so very poor.
Muric - 8m - disaster and cost us
Palmer - 2.4m - had to buy because of muric
Johnson - free (high wages) - 1 good game in every 4 games
Young - free (high wages) - should bring experience
O Shea - 15m - has worked out well
Greaves -17m - never been sure, always seems on edge
Godfrey - loan - the less said the better
Kipre - loan - unsure as of yet
Townsend - 1.5m - good cover but now done ACL
Azor - 8m - jury still out as we’ve not seen much
Philips - loan - just didn’t work
Cajuste - 2 x loans - worked last year but will his knees hold up?
Szmodics - 8m - injured all season (hope it works this season)
Enciso - loan - was good in spells
Ogbene - 8m - injured again straight away but was never convinced he was worth 8m
Hutchinson - 22m - leaving this summer
Clarke - 17m - I fear it’s never going to work and it just hasn’t gelled
Philogene - 20m - hull buy for 3m, villa buy for 13m and then we buy for 20m 6 months late, absolute calamity and not sure he’s worth 20m but time will tell
Akpom - loan - unsure but not set work alight since leaving boro
Delap - 20m - sold for 30m
We’ve then also let or letting go of:
Tuanzebe
Broadhead
Burgess
Morsy
Delap
Hutchinson
Who IMO would/should have been in our starting 11 and we’ve spent £150m and been left with a squad who’s only slightly better in areas and significantly weaker in other areas.
To potentially be going into Southampton with Taylor (our 4/5th joins cm last year) and Hunphries (on loan at Wycombe last year) as our starting 2 midfielders if Azor’s groin is still tight and Cajuste not being fit is purely a disgrace tbh.
Ashton is also prone to panic buying e.g. al hamadi, Ahadme, Ogbene and with 3 weeks to go in the transfer window, I seriously have much hope in what we bring in has been thoroughly thought through! |  | | |  |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 15:35 - Aug 13 with 312 views | Bobbychase |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 15:31 - Aug 13 by chantryblueboy |
You could have made the same Chansiri argument in defence of Marcus Evans who was useless and running the club into the ground. Yes Ashton isn’t on Chansiri’s level but should that make him exempt from criticism? |
The point is Chansiri is what can happen. We have no divine right to a competent CEO and generous well-balanced owners. We are fortunate, other clubs are not. We could have got a Chansiri-type figure at the end of the Evans era, Lord knows enough people were in the "anyone but Marcus" camp.
But I accept why the mention of Chansiri undermines some of the "waaah, everything is terrible" posting as it shows people what a badly run club ACTUALLY looks like. |  |
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| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 16:26 - Aug 13 with 250 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 13:41 - Aug 13 by chantryblueboy |
Who gives a fck how much profit we make on players when the best match day squad we can put out is crap |
Blatantly untrue, | | | |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 16:44 - Aug 13 with 207 views | jayessess |
Mark Ashton is a bit too corpo speak for my taste, but if we're judging his stint at the club in the round, it's far more positive than negative, surely?
Summer 2021: Manage to buy the spine of a team - Hladky, Walton, Edmundson, Burgess, Morsy, Chaplin, Burns - good enough to finish 2nd in the Champ, despite being a League One side at the time.
Nov/Dec 2021: Sack failing inherited manager, bring in excellent new one
Summer 2022: Sign Davis, plus other players that proved useful in L1 and the Champ (Leigh, Harness, Ladapo)
Jan 2023: Sign 4 players all of whom turn out to be absolute ballers who power us to back to back promotions (Hirst, Luongo, Broadhead, Clarke)
Summer 2023: Add a few more useful acquisitions to round out PL squad (Hutchinson, Taylor, Tuanzebe)
Jan 2024: sign four players necessary to get us over the line (Sarmiento, Travis, Moore, Al-Hamadi).
There's a lot that could have gone wrong with all of that, don't think we have to do the whole "what he has done for me lately" thing. We didn't succeed at cracking the Premier League, but there's no real shame in that for me.
Not challenging for autos this season would definitely make me more critical, but it might be worth actually waiting for that to happen first?
[Post edited 13 Aug 16:49]
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| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 16:50 - Aug 13 with 191 views | Vic |
It's almost like you've looked at the worse scenario in each player!
Try flipping it and looking at the positives - something like this:
Muric - 8m - struggled but looks like we'll get our money back
Palmer - 2.4m - a decent, steady keeper
Johnson - free. Been indifferent, but played well last night
Young - free - excellent acquisition, we need his experience.
O Shea - 15m - excellent buy
Greaves -17m - dependable. Excellent before his injury last season
Godfrey - loan - not sure what the point of him was
Kipre - loan - too soon to tell
Townsend - 1.5m - really good cover for Leif.
Azor - 8m - too soon to tell
Philips - loan - worth a punt, but didn't work out
Cajuste - 2 x loans - really good first season.
Szmodics - 8m - sadly he got injured, but good when he played
Enciso - loan - added positivity when he came in
Ogbene - 8m - started brightly, sadly cut short by serious injury
Hutchinson - 18m - leaving this summer for a healthy profit
Clarke - 17m - Jury still out
Philogene - 20m - Has huge potential, but injuries have have limited him
Akpom - loan - Excellent pedigree and should be a great addition
Delap - 20m - Best buy of them all.
Shame that Burgess and Morsy chose to move on - but understandable as they weren't going to be first choice. Broady, if we get £7 for him that will be an excellent deal
Overall far more hits than misses as we've rocketed up the leagues. |  |
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| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 16:52 - Aug 13 with 179 views | mistert |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 15:18 - Aug 13 by darkhorse28 |
Who’s responsible for recruiting the recruitment team.., try saying that after a beer.
Mark gave KM a champions league contract, and he panicked in truth.
He’s brought in the entire off field team and that’s a huge part of his role.., strategy.
So there’s no ambiguity, he is 100% accountable for how they perform.
I’m genuinely shocked how some people think organising the basics, like painting the ground makes him elite.., that’s the basics, no CEO has ever failed to add additional camera positions etc
It’s the off the field team and structure which define a CEO and Nark isn’t terrible, he’s actually a good operator at EFL level.., but he’s 2/10 at the level above and he really hasn’t built anything strategic, in spite of revenue sky rocketing and spending going though the roof.
That’s in or off the pitch.
I’m surprised it’s controversial - some awful business done.., and eye watering sums to do it.
Young, on a free, and 40!!! Is TWO levels above the players we spent £150 million on.
This isn’t a happy camp.., and we are for sale.., the owners have clearly lost trust in Ashton.., it does look like this time last year he massively over promised.
If we weren’t for sale.., I suspect he’d have gone this summer.
Wycombe, Watford, they don’t have much good to say about Mark, he just doesn’t have the toolbox at the highest level.
No shame in that, but we should accept it, the blind fantasy some fans built in their heads is almost cult like.., based on literally finishing second to a poor Plymouth side.., with twice their budget.., and one unbelievable season, where it looks like legacy players like Sam were the motivational force behind the success.., not Ashton and McKenna - who has looked lost motivationally for a very long time |
I don't dismiss a lot of your points. The buck ultimately stops with Ashton so whilst you can't pin one bad transfer on him the overall strategy is what he'll be judged on. I don't have enough information to know if it's a happy camp or not. It's clear confidence isn't exactly brimming though and there are rumblings of discontent, but I don't know how deep that goes.
I've always assumed the ownership group wouldn't waste any time getting rid of Ashton if they'd lost faith in him. Maybe what you say is close to the truth but I'm not sure.
I think there's still plenty of time to turn the ship around. Leeds drew their first match last season to a newly promoted side and got knocked out in the first round of the cup so the season could still pan out in a number of ways. |  | | |
| Mark Ashton quietly getting away with it on 21:16 - Aug 13 with 52 views | WD19 |
Can’t blame everything that goes wrong on the CEO. The chairman deserves some flak too. |  | | |
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