| McKenna and the club 10:37 - Feb 22 with 3531 views | Nutkins_Return |
I can be guilty of letting a bad result ruin a weekend etc but I try to keep some balance and as someone else said in the champ the next game to put it right comes fast.
What I hated yesterday and recently is the reactionary anti McKenna stuff that has crept in as well as some of the normal nonsense player scapegoats etc. I'm not talking about when people can have a balanced criticism of the manager or the team. It's the "he's got to go", "two years of failure", "mcKenna out - he lucked out and it was all Cook's work that got the promotions" - a favourite
I don't want us just to be another club jumping from Manager to Manager. McKenna is a class manager and also a class human being who has helped transform this club. He has invested himself into the club completely, he's brought a fantastic culture and mentality to the football club. As a football club I honestly think we have moved forward every season (infrastructure, youths, squad etc) albeit being in a different league brings a massive challenge for him to keep things cohesive.
This guy has done so much for us and brought so much happiness to the club (my kids couldn't have enjoyed those promotions more! And they got to see us have fantastic memories after years of bland nothing really). He works harder then anyone and that is hard work he's doing for us. The table adjusted for games we are realistically 3rd. With almost a new team. It's hardly outright disaster. We can still make autos. If not playoffs and if ultimately we don't go up whilst disappointing we have a first opportunity to build on a more settled team (Like Cov, Like Boro and like Sunderland did). We have a team to enjoy going into games as favourites regularly. Whilst not always clicking it's a team that play football the right way.
Let's try and manage our frustrations a bit better. Let's find a bit more respect in our club and it's people and each other. Let's get behind this team again and let's pick them up and then let them pick us up. It's a fantastic football club. Our fans did help pick it up and let's do it again FFS! |  |
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| McKenna and the club on 18:10 - Feb 22 with 419 views | EddyJ |
Some of the recruitment hit/miss lists here are missing some big points:
Recruitment is about building a balanced team/squad, not buying good individuals. Most on here would say Philogene and Clarke are our two most effective attacking threats. But they play in the same position and we have never successfully got them both into the same XI. Whilst on the right both McAteer and Egeli have failed. Good recruitment would have a good first choice winger on both flanks.
The failure to sign a striker in January (and arguably in the summer) is looking costly. Recruitment is as much about what you don't do as what you do do. The failure to sign strikers is a common theme during the Ashton/McKenna tenure.
We have signed players that don't seem to fit in with the rigid way McKenna wants to play. I can't see where we thought Szmodics fitted into our system. Likewise, for a team who likes to play out from the back, why do we have two goalkeepers who are bad with their feet? O'Shea is not exactly John Stones either, as evidenced by the game yesterday.
People also justifying our recruitment by talking about the residual value of our squad. The problem with that is it assumes that other clubs are willing to pay at least the same amount we paid for those players. Since we signed them, both Philogene and Clarke have failed in the Premier League. Nobody is going to pay £15m+ for good Championship players. The only way we see a profit on them is if we get promoted and they make some impact. Likewise, Greaves has gone from a potential Premier League player to a Championship reserve. He is no longer worth £10m+. Egeli and McAteer are worth a fraction of what we paid unless they start performing. [Post edited 22 Feb 18:10]
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| McKenna and the club on 18:13 - Feb 22 with 414 views | farkenhell |
| McKenna and the club on 18:01 - Feb 22 by mrshallisfit |
Are you really enjoying this current team though. There are a few players that can produce moments individual brilliance but I dont really see a team. Thats after 5 months and alot of money spent. |
I would say that generally we are looking more and more like a team rather than a group of talented individuals. Compared to 3 or 4 months ago. Derby away, for example, we saw plenty of slick passing moves, although we could have been more clinical. Yesterday we scored 3 goals and in patches we looked good going forwards with some decent link up play. We were undone by too many defensive howlers.
Would you feel the same way had we won 3-2 yesterday? Or even 3-3? | | | |
| McKenna and the club on 18:22 - Feb 22 with 365 views | Nutkins_Return |
| McKenna and the club on 18:01 - Feb 22 by mrshallisfit |
Are you really enjoying this current team though. There are a few players that can produce moments individual brilliance but I dont really see a team. Thats after 5 months and alot of money spent. |
Improving. Not as fast as I would like but they are much better than start of the season and seen some really good performances like Cov away. Even Derby I thought we were good (just a game before last).
It can take time (we should know that well and better than most I'm recent history!) | |
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| McKenna and the club on 18:22 - Feb 22 with 366 views | Churchman |
| McKenna and the club on 15:55 - Feb 22 by ITFCSG |
Grown the club in what way, as an event mega venue?
If Ashton wants to run one he should go apply for the job at the O2 Arena, not ITFC.
There's no point bringing in concerts and boxing matches when you can't even improve on recruitment and scouting i.e. the bread and butter of a football club [Post edited 22 Feb 15:55]
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Five years ago there was no recruitment bar what the manager brought in through personal contacts. There was no scouting, lightbulbs, receptionist or cleaner. But hey, we had a tree growing out of the roof! Norwich will never claim that! Ahhh, how you and your like minded chums must yearn for the past.
Of all the things this club is trying to build, I cannot think there is anything harder than building a recruitment team and scouting network home and abroad from scratch. Training facilities: easy. Cleaning the stadium after years? Easy. 100 plus projects in 3 months to allow us to play in the PL? Easy compared to recruiting players. Cat 1? Clearly easier than when Evans tried to do it on nothing. Community engagement? Hard work but easy in knowing what needs to be done.
Event revenue, commercial money goes where? Ashtons pocket? Into orbit? You tell me. I always thought that the more money you could bring in from any source was a good thing.
But maybe you side with the knowledge bump that believes we don’t need training facilities a half decent ground, community stuff, Cat 1 or anything else beyond the brilliant football our saviour Marcus and Mick dished up for years.
The bread and butter of a football club is actually its infrastructure- all the stuff you clearly dismiss. Build foundations and managers and players will come and go, but the club will progress.
Personally, as somebody who witnessed this club nearly die under dementor Evans, I tend to take a broad view. Hell, it saves on laundry bills if nothing else.
But hey opinions, like ars@holes, we all have one, so you be you. [Post edited 22 Feb 19:00]
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| McKenna and the club on 18:32 - Feb 22 with 331 views | mrshallisfit |
| McKenna and the club on 12:31 - Feb 22 by ArnoldMoorhen |
You can't exclude Hutchinson. He was a player with a reputation at Reserve land Youth International level before our recruitment team identified him and our Coaching staff worked with him. Which makes it a 50% hit rate. |
50% but including OShea. | | | |
| McKenna and the club on 08:07 - Feb 23 with 202 views | PioneerBlue |
Great OP. Its not like football fans to over simplify the complexity there is in building and maintaining a football club on a constant up curve.
Cash helps, accelerates acquisition of players, allows you to cover mistakes in recruitment BUT because GC20 MA et al made L1 > Champ > PL look easy it doesnt mean it was.
The right leadership, processes (recruitment, coaching), people, culture and chemistry came together to achieve a great thing. That was stress tested nearly to destruction under the spotlight of the PL.
It is hardly surprising after several years of unparalleled upward trajectory the club takes a breather. Its a challenge in football and most business when the environment changes, perhaps you lose key personnel meanwhile your customers and the wider world continues to expect they same experience as before. Weve made and weve seen others make knee jerk decisions and they are either costly or dont really lead to any greater success, look at Nottingham Forest or Spurs right now, let alone Sheff Wed.
Keep calm and give the club the support they need through to May. All these problems are best left to the summer, weve got an automatic promotion to challenge for or playoffs to compete for as a backdoor back to the PL.
Focus on whats infront of us not behind us or too far on the horizon, thats my mantra! | |
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| McKenna and the club on 09:19 - Feb 23 with 154 views | itfcsuth |
| McKenna and the club on 18:22 - Feb 22 by Nutkins_Return |
Improving. Not as fast as I would like but they are much better than start of the season and seen some really good performances like Cov away. Even Derby I thought we were good (just a game before last).
It can take time (we should know that well and better than most I'm recent history!) |
Are we improving though, or consistently inconsistent.
I’m not sure Sheffield Utd away was any improvement on Birmingham away on the opening night. Have we seen a better home performance than Sheffield Utd at home back in September.
I’m not sure we’ve made or seen steps forward this year, it’s been a real season on consistent up and down performances, from start to now - hence we are in a decent position, but would want to be in a far better one. |  | | |
| McKenna and the club on 09:58 - Feb 23 with 111 views | blueoutlook |
| McKenna and the club on 15:48 - Feb 22 by lazyblue |
Sorry but that’s the most rubbish I have heard in this board , Ashton has grown this club. |
He may have made things a lot better,I give him that,but, he has too much sway nowadays. No one to reign him in. He shouldn’t be Chairman and CEO at the same time. That was a big mistake from Gamechanger and I hope they correct that in the very near future. Let him stay Chairman I have no problem with that,but get a new face in as CEO at least. |  | | |
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| McKenna and the club on 10:52 - Feb 23 with 72 views | bringbacktheglory |
| McKenna and the club on 18:10 - Feb 22 by EddyJ |
Some of the recruitment hit/miss lists here are missing some big points:
Recruitment is about building a balanced team/squad, not buying good individuals. Most on here would say Philogene and Clarke are our two most effective attacking threats. But they play in the same position and we have never successfully got them both into the same XI. Whilst on the right both McAteer and Egeli have failed. Good recruitment would have a good first choice winger on both flanks.
The failure to sign a striker in January (and arguably in the summer) is looking costly. Recruitment is as much about what you don't do as what you do do. The failure to sign strikers is a common theme during the Ashton/McKenna tenure.
We have signed players that don't seem to fit in with the rigid way McKenna wants to play. I can't see where we thought Szmodics fitted into our system. Likewise, for a team who likes to play out from the back, why do we have two goalkeepers who are bad with their feet? O'Shea is not exactly John Stones either, as evidenced by the game yesterday.
People also justifying our recruitment by talking about the residual value of our squad. The problem with that is it assumes that other clubs are willing to pay at least the same amount we paid for those players. Since we signed them, both Philogene and Clarke have failed in the Premier League. Nobody is going to pay £15m+ for good Championship players. The only way we see a profit on them is if we get promoted and they make some impact. Likewise, Greaves has gone from a potential Premier League player to a Championship reserve. He is no longer worth £10m+. Egeli and McAteer are worth a fraction of what we paid unless they start performing. [Post edited 22 Feb 18:10]
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I totally agree with the arguments about building a balanced squad and signing players that do not fit our system. Although, Szmodics did fit our PL system (without hindsight), on the assumption we were not going to have much of the ball and hitting teams on the break. We have failed to do that, despite signing clearly talented players. It’s hard to judge Philogene, Clarke, Egeli etc on their worth until they eventually do leave. Only at the point will we know whether they were worth the investment. It’s therefore an argument that cannot be used to bash or justify our policy, because it’s all hypothetical at this moment.
Is the failure to sign strikers really a common theme?
We signed Hirst, albeit later than we wanted to, who got us up alongside Ladapo (who was a proven goal scorer at that level when the goal was promotion). We then went into the season with Hirst who most deemed vital to our squad and how we played, which proved to be the case until his injury. Ladapo as second choice probably wasn’t ideal but we had goals coming from all over the pitch that season. We then signed Moore who did the job needed. After that, we signed Delap to battle it out with Hirst (who did a good job in the Prem).
Sure, we have signed some interesting ones (Al Hamadi, Ahadme) that have not worked out and they were relatively cheap punts. It’s hard to have 2 or 3 top quality strikers in a squad, there’s always going to be a drop off after first choice with the exception of top clubs. We haven’t landed some we hoped to but until this season, McKenna has signed strikers needed for the job in hand. It says more about how hard it is landing the right striker for any club, rather than ours, in my opinion. | | | |
| McKenna and the club on 11:24 - Feb 23 with 55 views | EddyJ |
| McKenna and the club on 10:52 - Feb 23 by bringbacktheglory |
I totally agree with the arguments about building a balanced squad and signing players that do not fit our system. Although, Szmodics did fit our PL system (without hindsight), on the assumption we were not going to have much of the ball and hitting teams on the break. We have failed to do that, despite signing clearly talented players. It’s hard to judge Philogene, Clarke, Egeli etc on their worth until they eventually do leave. Only at the point will we know whether they were worth the investment. It’s therefore an argument that cannot be used to bash or justify our policy, because it’s all hypothetical at this moment.
Is the failure to sign strikers really a common theme?
We signed Hirst, albeit later than we wanted to, who got us up alongside Ladapo (who was a proven goal scorer at that level when the goal was promotion). We then went into the season with Hirst who most deemed vital to our squad and how we played, which proved to be the case until his injury. Ladapo as second choice probably wasn’t ideal but we had goals coming from all over the pitch that season. We then signed Moore who did the job needed. After that, we signed Delap to battle it out with Hirst (who did a good job in the Prem).
Sure, we have signed some interesting ones (Al Hamadi, Ahadme) that have not worked out and they were relatively cheap punts. It’s hard to have 2 or 3 top quality strikers in a squad, there’s always going to be a drop off after first choice with the exception of top clubs. We haven’t landed some we hoped to but until this season, McKenna has signed strikers needed for the job in hand. It says more about how hard it is landing the right striker for any club, rather than ours, in my opinion. |
For McKenna's preferred formation, we probably need three strikers in the squad. Perhaps two solid first teamers and a development project.
In 2022, we went into the season with Ladapo and Ahadme. One first teamer and one punt that was barely even a development project. We did chase Hirst, but failed to sign him. We improved significantly after Jan, when we did sign Hirst.
In 2023, we went into the season with Lapado and Hirst. One first teamer and one player clearly playing above his level. We did sign Moore in Jan, which helped a lot. We also signed Al Hamadi as a development project.
In 2024, we went into the season with Hirst and Delap. One first teamer (who was injured a lot) and one development project (who admittedly came very good). We chased the Greek and Broja all summer and signed neither. We signed no strikers in Jan.
In 2025, we went into the season with Hirst and Azon. We had previously pulled out of the Azon deal. We signed no strikers in Jan, despite it being clearly needed.
So, in the past 3.5 seasons, we have had the desired number of functional strikers in the squad for 0.5 seasons (second half of the Champ promotion season).
We did get promoted in two of those seasons, so we were able to work around it. But we got lucky with form and injuries. Had Hirst been on his current run of form for either promotion, I don't think it would have happened. | | | |
| a.. haha.. hahAHAHAHAHAHAHA on 11:27 - Feb 23 with 48 views | Dyland |
| McKenna and the club on 10:57 - Feb 22 by boysof1981 |
Ashton is so far up his own backside he can’t the issues the club has. He has too much power and needs reigning in by the owners or at least someone above him to oversee matters. Personally like to see him gone, the crap when we were getting back to back promotions, the fist pumping the crowd, the Brent-esque interviews were cringy.
Think he and McKenna will be relieved of their duties after this season, hopefully. |
"the crap when we were getting back to back promotions"
Jesus wept! |  |
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| Agreed to an extent on 11:36 - Feb 23 with 33 views | Dyland |
The problem isn't even criticism, whether it's balanced or undue or not.
I remember a long conversation with an old lad on the Lowestoft train when we appointed McCarthy, and he wasn't having it at all. "Not for me" was the gist, and this before a ball had even been kicked. He was really intractable. Not my philosophy at all, but the point is he was on a train chatting with another supporter. Was he jabbing his finger at McCarthy or Chambers and telling them to fook off, spittle foaming around his gob like a rabid animal? No.
It's not criticism per se that's the issue here. It's the bile, the anger and antisocial behaviour of grown fooking adults at the games. It's a sad indictment of football, money and society. I'm very nearly done with it and the only reason I still go is the crowd around me have generally been the same for two decades and whilst many get het up and some seem to know even less than I do about the game, they don't directly abuse our team or manager. | |
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