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Roker Rapport Podcast: With Stewart Donald (Tues 28th May)

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I understand why the questions that were asked, I understand the time taken on the finance and that my interest is in the minority.

I can only say why I didn't enjoy it and why I find surface answers such as "expect 100 points" meaningless without details as to how.

I don't know a great deal about RAWA, I assumed they were more to do with Methven and the match day experience. This wasn't the first time the questions have been posed but not asked, it may be because the chaps interviewing are not of the same opinion or require the same detail and wish it to remain more standard chat.

RAWA are designed to be an interface between the club and the fans. While the concerns to date have been about addressing the match day experience and understanding the finances, they are there to raise any matters concerning fans. Their meetings aren't just with the board, and they have scope to go into more detail than the podcasts, which have to cover a lot of things in a short timeframe. RAWA's meetings usually result in follow-up action points on both sides, so it's a serious forum. I'd suggest talking to @Ghandi Floss in the first instance; he's the forum rep on the RAWA committee.
 

Realistically I think we just got bodies through the door in the summer. I think it was telling that Donald said we got players in who had been in promotion teams but it didn’t quite work out for us.
Again in January I think Maja leaving, and all those goals going with him, created a bit of panic which led to Grigg.
I REALLY didn’t like that comment. I don’t want proximity to success to be a key aspect of our recruitment process - I’m not sure it should enter into the conversation much at all tbh. I don’t want to end up with a modern day David May.
 
Donald has the same qualifications as me. There's be a huge risk of getting bogged down in the detail. I'm happy to suggest things to go into in advance, but I'm not sure exactly how much I could add in the studio.

Since I'm currently studying to try and get the same qualifications as youyour be fascinated to listen to two such people get bogged down in the details butt something in already a fan of but I recognise most wouldn't
 
Don’t agree. Thought they came across fantastically well and if went into much more detail then the podcast would be 5 hours long.

To me, the club in once again in safe hands. It’s encouraging that they speak to people with the club at heart like Niall and Bob Murray. After feeling so dejected after the weekend it made me think there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I have no doubt either that the plan will be to play very attacking football next year.

HWTL.


Reckon he’s a bit of a know and maybe dodged s bullet. Good player but other issues. He chose to effectively run us down but the real reason he went to Charlton was so he can live at home and his Mam wash his kegs.
I’d rather we had someone with a credible plan for improvement in their heads than someone with the club in their hearts.
 
Since I'm currently studying to try and get the same qualifications as youyour be fascinated to listen to two such people get bogged down in the details butt something in already a fan of but I recognise most wouldn't

As an example, I'm not 100% happy with all the disclosures in the accounts, and the way certain things are presented. There's nothing missing (with the possible exception of a contingent liabilities note in respect of untriggered contract clauses), but the layout isn't as clear as it could be. Utterly irrelevant to 99% of fans, but very time consuming to clear up.
 
We're still taking baby steps. You're talking about advanced statisistical methods, and we're only 12 months on from "scouts" recommending Ibrahimovic.
I think that’s a bit of an excuse Grumps. At a time when we should be building foundations that should underpin us for the next decade we’re equivocating and operating in the same tired ways that got us here in the first place? There’s companies who’ll consult on this stuff for the price of a fortnight of Lee Cattermole.
 
I’d rather we had someone with a credible plan for improvement in their heads than someone with the club in their hearts.

They layed out a simple short term plan though, given after promotion they are way out of their depth but for now they are great for us. They have turned a 500k pw loss into a 100k profit or (theatrical 98k loss pw without the parachute payment at a guess**).
I think we should be happy to have someone with the right intentions and a bit of nous at lower level of the game till we get back to the championship, we're lucky to have avoided going pop at the end of the day.

** @Grumpy Old Man may be able to put a true number where we would be the coming season minus the final parachute payment, even though I'm sure the rest of the high earners would be cleared out to even that missing income by the season after.
 
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I think you can ask the manager about the performance of players and the setup of the team. That's within his remit. Whether he answers honestly given the relationship he has to maintain with the players is a different matter. Even Ross himself is unlikely to be publicly negative about Grigg's performances, attributes or application.

I don't think a chairman should ever be talking publicly about the performance of individual players or tactical intricacies of the team. He employs a specialist to look after that (the manager) and he shouldn't undermine that specialist by voicing his own (uneducated / unqualified) opinions in public.
It was a question about the performance of the manager
 
Clubs in the NE are less successful. Fact. We have our place in football, but it isn't at the top and hasn't been for a while now.
 
We're still taking baby steps. You're talking about advanced statisistical methods, and we're only 12 months on from "scouts" recommending Ibrahimovic.

I mentioned on another thread that although football is difficult to analyse statically compared to say, baseball, I had no idea what you could measure until I read 'Moneyball' and another book (who's name I've forgotten) about football.

In the second book the authors talk about an owner bringing them in to a club to instigate an analytics department and the new manager who comes in a few months later is really cold and sceptical and bins them.

It's pretty clear from what they say and what the new manager says that it's Ellis bringing them to Sunderland and Martin O'Neil binning them when he arrives.
 
I found it a tough listen to be honest.

Whilst I understand it’s good to ask tough questions, some of those were out of order.

The Scottish lad in particular asking the owner questions about why a manager signed a certain player. What gives then the right or the qualifications to question something like that.

I thought Donald was excellent.
 
I mentioned on another thread that although football is difficult to analyse statically compared to say, baseball, I had no idea what you could measure until I read 'Moneyball' and another book (who's name I've forgotten) about football.

In the second book the authors talk about an owner bringing them in to a club to instigate an analytics department and the new manager who comes in a few months later is really cold and sceptical and bins them.

It's pretty clear from what they say and what the new manager says that it's Ellis bringing them to Sunderland and Martin O'Neil binning them when he arrives.
If so they should’ve been kept on even if MoN and subsequent managers nivver even spoke to them. Let ES see the data evidence against their ideas and methods mount.
 
If so they should’ve been kept on even if MoN and subsequent managers nivver even spoke to them. Let ES see the data evidence against their ideas and methods mount.

Yeah I agree, and Ellis was never one to worry about hurting people's feeling. Seems like another missed opportunity.
But at least it's been flagged up now.
 
We're still taking baby steps. You're talking about advanced statisistical methods, and we're only 12 months on from "scouts" recommending Ibrahimovic.
I understand that it's only a year on but if I was buying a football I'd have a ethos and philosophy on how to run the football department. I would look at how clubs in Germany and Holland do things on small budgets. The first thing I'd do would be look for a Sporting Director who fits the bill and has the same vision. I'd let him run the football department and the responsibility of carrying out the task I want for the football club.

Unfortunately we brought in people like Richard Hill who is a buddy and a hero to Donald and Methven. Hill brought in Coton who is a dinosaur. And we brought in Paul Reid who is ex-Eastleigh. We seem to be going down a real old fashion British route of a football club rather than a more progressive European route which most clubs are doing.

Donald turn Eastleigh into a Football League everywhere but on the pitch. At the end of the day result on the field is all that matters.
 
Been saying for ages, the state we were in last summer, the recruitment was scattergun as you say. It was more about quantity than quality. This summer it has to be about the latter, the recruitment has to be spot on. As Charlie said, no excuses.

Was McGeoch injured or dropped at the end of the season?
 
I mentioned on another thread that although football is difficult to analyse statically compared to say, baseball, I had no idea what you could measure until I read 'Moneyball' and another book (who's name I've forgotten) about football.

In the second book the authors talk about an owner bringing them in to a club to instigate an analytics department and the new manager who comes in a few months later is really cold and sceptical and bins them.

It's pretty clear from what they say and what the new manager says that it's Ellis bringing them to Sunderland and Martin O'Neil binning them when he arrives.
So they were introduced under Bruce?
 
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