Donald’s biggest mistakes


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I think he was too candid on the original podcasts. we got an insight in to things we probably shouldn't ,that was great at the time but I'm not sure it's helped him even if he was twisting some truths here and there because he tripped himself up. He didn't need to go into it in so much detail and in reality, the supporters got distracted with all of it too. They've (the podcasts and groups running them) have eventually proven to be his down fall by turning on him.

I listened to an interview with James Hunter yesterday on the radio and he was almost happy at the way the podcasts have backlashed on Donald... although I don't think the owner is totally his source of ire.

Also he should have backed Ross and focused on the pitch this summer rather than be distracted, but maybe that was because of him biting off more than he can chew. The takeovers were the primary focus.

Taken at face value he talked a good game but much like those before him (e.g. Coleman), saying something and actually being able to deliver it are two completely different things. recruitment being the prime example. raising expectations is only wise if you back it up

like I said earlier in the week id have preferred for the protests to begin after the window shut, but it's all going off now and I'm not optimistic we'll be better off under the next person. sharks at this level have less safety barriers to get through.

Hopefully the next guy is a middle ground between a brick wall of silence (Short) and the Dons long winded interviews.

What happens on the pitch is the be all and end all until you get it right , the rest is largely noise.
 
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using parachute money to buy the club was a big gamble.

he just had to get promotion in year one.

now he's slashed running costs, has had to sell playing assets, is likely running an operating loss, is in debt to yanks, is sliding down the table and has no way of rejuvenating the squad
 
Posted on another thread but in case you missed it - recent post on our site (oxford) talking about stuart

I’ve always found north East fans bizarre. They really do have an insupportable superiority complex that makes them believe you’re privileged to meet them.

This lot have clumsily tumbled down to our level, like many other sides before with slightly above average support like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Man City, and seemingly want us to all be in awe. They are no different except for the sheer levels of delta between reality and expectation. That article is completely devoid of the actual reasons for their anger , just more emotive nonsense about some romanticized ideal of who they claim to be. So what are these awful crimes the owner has committed. He’s had about 18 months to turn around years of engrained failure embedded into the seeds of their dna. Do they understand what it takes to turn a business around? Methven, for all his ills, may be right about the lack of corporate education up there.

1. Stadium sold off?
2. Name and colors changed?
3. Asset stripped?
4. HMRC payments missed?
5. Failure to buy players? (Griggs must be a record at this level and shows huge commitment given debts and operating losses at this level)

They’re actually showing huge ignorance as to the operating costs at this level relative to the lack of tv revenue and commercial revenue. They built this pitiful lower league existence by being part of the premiership money gravy train for so long, suckling on the teet of sky TVs money and ignoring the plight of the lower leagues. Now they reap their reward. Welcome to the other side of the fence you gravy train muppets. Deal with it or change it if you ever rise from league one, which no doubt they will eventually.

What they really need to learn is a dose of humility and recognition of where they are. The article states that those outside the region won’t understand. Another statement laced in self importance and the equivalent of Christians argument of “the greatest trick the devil pulled was making you think he doesn’t exist”. Impossible to disprove but substantiates nothing. We are perfectly capable of recognizing what we see.

In reality their first season they got to a play off final. Good season. They can look to their own impatience for the demise of their reasonably decent last manager and so called current plight where they are still well within touching distance of the play offs and only half the season gone. How many teams get relegated and bounce back first time?

Given they’ve won f**k all in decades then perhaps they should just enjoy a new league with new stadiums to visit and more real opposition fan base to engage with rather than the plastics of higher leagues.Rather than creating a toxicity, forcing a relatively decent guy out as owner, and ending up with a genuine devil in charge that the likes of Blackpool and Charlton could reference for them

:lol:

Areet Charlie
 
Hired his mates.
Failed to see the bigger picture.
Economical with many truths.
Seeing football through the eyes of a fan.
 
Cut costs which needed to happen but then didn’t bother to try and build the club back up again.

The club remains a skeleton operation.
 
Posted on another thread but in case you missed it - recent post on our site (oxford) talking about stuart

I’ve always found north East fans bizarre. They really do have an insupportable superiority complex that makes them believe you’re privileged to meet them.

This lot have clumsily tumbled down to our level, like many other sides before with slightly above average support like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Man City, and seemingly want us to all be in awe. They are no different except for the sheer levels of delta between reality and expectation. That article is completely devoid of the actual reasons for their anger , just more emotive nonsense about some romanticized ideal of who they claim to be. So what are these awful crimes the owner has committed. He’s had about 18 months to turn around years of engrained failure embedded into the seeds of their dna. Do they understand what it takes to turn a business around? Methven, for all his ills, may be right about the lack of corporate education up there.

1. Stadium sold off?
2. Name and colors changed?
3. Asset stripped?
4. HMRC payments missed?
5. Failure to buy players? (Griggs must be a record at this level and shows huge commitment given debts and operating losses at this level)

They’re actually showing huge ignorance as to the operating costs at this level relative to the lack of tv revenue and commercial revenue. They built this pitiful lower league existence by being part of the premiership money gravy train for so long, suckling on the teet of sky TVs money and ignoring the plight of the lower leagues. Now they reap their reward. Welcome to the other side of the fence you gravy train muppets. Deal with it or change it if you ever rise from league one, which no doubt they will eventually.

What they really need to learn is a dose of humility and recognition of where they are. The article states that those outside the region won’t understand. Another statement laced in self importance and the equivalent of Christians argument of “the greatest trick the devil pulled was making you think he doesn’t exist”. Impossible to disprove but substantiates nothing. We are perfectly capable of recognizing what we see.

In reality their first season they got to a play off final. Good season. They can look to their own impatience for the demise of their reasonably decent last manager and so called current plight where they are still well within touching distance of the play offs and only half the season gone. How many teams get relegated and bounce back first time?

Given they’ve won f**k all in decades then perhaps they should just enjoy a new league with new stadiums to visit and more real opposition fan base to engage with rather than the plastics of higher leagues.Rather than creating a toxicity, forcing a relatively decent guy out as owner, and ending up with a genuine devil in charge that the likes of Blackpool and Charlton could reference for them

There says a man who knows nowt. We have an enormous infrastructure- 48000 capacity stadium. A next level training facility. What kind of division one club can maintain that ? So in the Oxford business school how do you pay for that lot in division one against teams like you who bring a few hundred fans ?

We had a number of players last year with premier league experience. We lost an actual prolific young goalscorer prior to signing a potential one for a high fee and which one is worth more now- one is worth nowt, one is worth three times what they paid and we stayed in the lower leagues. Is that good business in the Oxford school of business ?

Summer. He uses our play of final to invite a sale. That sale dawdles and dawdles then falls through and we are short of time to sign players and strengthen our side while other teams pick off the best of the loans.

We sell quality young academy players who may be our future and are told we had no choice when kids parents tell us the club saw the value of the pound. Good business or short term bookkeeping ?

With respect you know nowt and when you only have half a story and you open your fat gob you inevitably get found out. So take your arrogance back to your little minnow and enjoy fishing elsewhere you know nowt irrelevant southern fanny.
The biggest one for me is his naivety to run a football club in the EFL and thinking that because it worked at Eastleigh it'll work for us which obviously isn't the case and have resulted in some of the biggest mistakes. For example being too much open about everything, you don't share all the details of your company and hiring ex Eastleigh staff who don't have the skills.

Over time this has just mounted up with us sliding down ever so closer to Eastleigh. There's a real sense of arrogance around him and he never has the sense to ever look at the bigger picture for example actually hiring to people to run the club with experience of running bigger clubs (not non-league) etc. Everyone makes mistakes but some (Donald) won't admit to them and this has been his biggest downfall.

Those saying selling Maja I kind of disagree with. I bet if you said that to anyone at the start of last season would you be happy to get Grigg (proven L1) for Maja they'd say yes. It's just a shame Grigg hasn't worked out and pinning that on Donald is a bit harsh.
What Maja was at the start of the season is irrelevant. He should have been spoken to and offered terms anyway and was shunted back despite him being our only source of goals / striker from very early on. He wasn’t. When they sold him he was in lightning from and even by October no one would have lost him and replaced him with Grigg. Too little too late with the offer and too open minded to a sale to keep him.
 
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Posted on another thread but in case you missed it - recent post on our site (oxford) talking about stuart

I’ve always found north East fans bizarre. They really do have an insupportable superiority complex that makes them believe you’re privileged to meet them.

This lot have clumsily tumbled down to our level, like many other sides before with slightly above average support like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Man City, and seemingly want us to all be in awe. They are no different except for the sheer levels of delta between reality and expectation. That article is completely devoid of the actual reasons for their anger , just more emotive nonsense about some romanticized ideal of who they claim to be. So what are these awful crimes the owner has committed. He’s had about 18 months to turn around years of engrained failure embedded into the seeds of their dna. Do they understand what it takes to turn a business around? Methven, for all his ills, may be right about the lack of corporate education up there.

1. Stadium sold off?
2. Name and colors changed?
3. Asset stripped?
4. HMRC payments missed?
5. Failure to buy players? (Griggs must be a record at this level and shows huge commitment given debts and operating losses at this level)

They’re actually showing huge ignorance as to the operating costs at this level relative to the lack of tv revenue and commercial revenue. They built this pitiful lower league existence by being part of the premiership money gravy train for so long, suckling on the teet of sky TVs money and ignoring the plight of the lower leagues. Now they reap their reward. Welcome to the other side of the fence you gravy train muppets. Deal with it or change it if you ever rise from league one, which no doubt they will eventually.

What they really need to learn is a dose of humility and recognition of where they are. The article states that those outside the region won’t understand. Another statement laced in self importance and the equivalent of Christians argument of “the greatest trick the devil pulled was making you think he doesn’t exist”. Impossible to disprove but substantiates nothing. We are perfectly capable of recognizing what we see.

In reality their first season they got to a play off final. Good season. They can look to their own impatience for the demise of their reasonably decent last manager and so called current plight where they are still well within touching distance of the play offs and only half the season gone. How many teams get relegated and bounce back first time?

Given they’ve won f**k all in decades then perhaps they should just enjoy a new league with new stadiums to visit and more real opposition fan base to engage with rather than the plastics of higher leagues.Rather than creating a toxicity, forcing a relatively decent guy out as owner, and ending up with a genuine devil in charge that the likes of Blackpool and Charlton could reference for them
You forgot the spelling mistakes salmon pants.
speaking to the fans mixing with the fans, big mistake
You mean talking a load of shite.
 
His handling of the Maja situation

Issuing a public deadline for him to sign an extension man :lol:

Even at the time it was clear as day that they had no intention whatsoever of keeping him until the end of the season. The chancers were too stupid to realise that their best chance of getting us promoted and selling us for a profit was by holding on to him for another 6 month even if it meant him leaving for nowt in the summer.
 
Focused too heavily on trying to balance the books and manipulating the media profile of the club, meanwhile completely failing to develop the football side.

Relegation to league one should've been a golden opportunity to develop young players and create a brand new ethos that we can all get behind. Instead we got Will f***ing Grigg.

He's set us back years.

This for me.

Instead he’s ran the academy down and stuck with a 1980’s esque long ball manager.
 
Posted on another thread but in case you missed it - recent post on our site (oxford) talking about stuart

I’ve always found north East fans bizarre. They really do have an insupportable superiority complex that makes them believe you’re privileged to meet them.

This lot have clumsily tumbled down to our level, like many other sides before with slightly above average support like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Man City, and seemingly want us to all be in awe. They are no different except for the sheer levels of delta between reality and expectation. That article is completely devoid of the actual reasons for their anger , just more emotive nonsense about some romanticized ideal of who they claim to be. So what are these awful crimes the owner has committed. He’s had about 18 months to turn around years of engrained failure embedded into the seeds of their dna. Do they understand what it takes to turn a business around? Methven, for all his ills, may be right about the lack of corporate education up there.

1. Stadium sold off?
2. Name and colors changed?
3. Asset stripped?
4. HMRC payments missed?
5. Failure to buy players? (Griggs must be a record at this level and shows huge commitment given debts and operating losses at this level)

They’re actually showing huge ignorance as to the operating costs at this level relative to the lack of tv revenue and commercial revenue. They built this pitiful lower league existence by being part of the premiership money gravy train for so long, suckling on the teet of sky TVs money and ignoring the plight of the lower leagues. Now they reap their reward. Welcome to the other side of the fence you gravy train muppets. Deal with it or change it if you ever rise from league one, which no doubt they will eventually.

What they really need to learn is a dose of humility and recognition of where they are. The article states that those outside the region won’t understand. Another statement laced in self importance and the equivalent of Christians argument of “the greatest trick the devil pulled was making you think he doesn’t exist”. Impossible to disprove but substantiates nothing. We are perfectly capable of recognizing what we see.

In reality their first season they got to a play off final. Good season. They can look to their own impatience for the demise of their reasonably decent last manager and so called current plight where they are still well within touching distance of the play offs and only half the season gone. How many teams get relegated and bounce back first time?

Given they’ve won f**k all in decades then perhaps they should just enjoy a new league with new stadiums to visit and more real opposition fan base to engage with rather than the plastics of higher leagues.Rather than creating a toxicity, forcing a relatively decent guy out as owner, and ending up with a genuine devil in charge that the likes of Blackpool and Charlton could reference for them

Mag? What a bitter twat. Why?
 
excellent & exposing summary by the Oxford fan. Naturally not recognised as such & belittled in response
 
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