Whose fault is it that so many supporters are falling out of love with the club?

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JumpingAnaconda said:
I think the fundamental problem is the Premier League. Sides that had enough success at its start managed to keep afloat and maintain dominance. Pretty much every other major side that was in the top flight has completely crumbled under the financial pressure of trying to keep up. You can not make sensible decisions about finance when you are forced to spend over what you can realistically get in income in order to try and get a toehold on the big money. If there are 40 or so clubs making financial commitments that are dependent on long term top end of the Premier League levels of success to balance the books, you are going to end up with the majority of sides have serious problems.

If you look at the first Premier League league table, you have tonnes of examples of sides that have tried to keep up with the Premier levels of spending in the vain hope of getting stability, both in performances and in finances, and ended up having long periods greatly diminished as a club. From that first season Aston Villa, Norwich, Blackburn, QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Wimbledon (arguably a few more reasons with them!), Sheffield United, Ipswich, Leeds, Middlesborough and Forest have all gone through that process of overspending at a level dependent of top level success in order to survive, and they have all crumbled. In the case of Blackburn and Leeds they actually had the top level success, and they still eventually succumbed to the reality of the spending levels they needed to achieve that eventually crushing them. The guts were ripped out of football when these sides were reduced to limping along in the lower division.

The Premier League introduced the concept where finishing in the bottom half of the league could be a financial disaster. The Premier League introduced the concept where finishing outside of winning the league could be a sackable offence. The Premier League made the stakes so high that eventually the exciting football we saw in early years was replaced by dreary play-it-safe, stop the other side playing style football championed by the likes of Mourino. The Premier League cemented certain sides at the top of the table. The Premier League destroyed top flight football in the Midlands and reduced football in the North East to one favoured team. The Premier League brought a huge bias to teams from Liverpool, Manchester and London, yet crushed all of the slightly less fashionable teams in those areas, like Tranmere and Orient. The Premier League saw the top sides bankrolled by oligarchs in order to achieve dominance. The Premier League saw players brought in just to stop them being in other sides in other leagues in Europe, and has resulted in making most European leagues rubbish. The Premier League saw ticket prices go through the roof, merchandising going into overdrive, it started the trend of moving sport away from free-to-air, it saw football brands seriously start to overtake local football loyalties and allegiances.

For all of the exciting football it brought in the first few years, the Premier League has been disaster for the game. Football is now a whore to corporate bodies that milk it for all it is worth and do not give a monkey's that the 'product' is woeful over marketed tripe.
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Excellent post. Hard to argue with much of your analysis tbh.
 


Bagpuss said:
I didnt say the players and management had not done anything wrong at all. My argument is that people are booing and abusing average players for being average players. Grayson has made mistakes for sure but lets not for one second suggest that we are where we are because of a few tactical errors. We are where we are because of systemic failures in virtually every part of this football club over a period of nearly a decade.

The seeds of the current debacle were ironically sown the last time we were promoted having spent big on average players on fat long contracts that we then couldnt get rid of and which undermined our future recruitment and success from that point onwards.
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and with few exceptions very little resale value.

It has to be shorts fault, but got to say he has been so badly advised. Especially with some of his managerial appointments of PDC, GP and DM. At least PDC tried to engage with fans, but he was just a managerial nutter. he has also got to accept blame for his DOF approach. I can understand why he has done it, but the way it was doomed to failure.

what is it, that happens at the club. Most seem to start well and they just fade. RK, Bruce, Mon, PDC, Advocaat had reasonable starts and just floated to failure. even GP had a little success with the league cup and failed in the league. Somebody surely must be able to investigate and see the cause of the failures. grayson can blame lack of cash. All the others cant
 
soapster said:
and with few exceptions very little resale value.

It has to be shorts fault, but got to say he has been so badly advised. Especially with some of his managerial appointments of PDC, GP and DM. At least PDC tried to engage with fans, but he was just a managerial nutter. he has also got to accept blame for his DOF approach. I can understand why he has done it, but the way it was doomed to failure.

what is it, that happens at the club. Most seem to start well and they just fade. RK, Bruce, Mon, PDC, Advocaat had reasonable starts and just floated to failure. even GP had a little success with the league cup and failed in the league. Somebody surely must be able to investigate and see the cause of the failures. grayson can blame lack of cash. All the others cant
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Short emptying the club of any footballing knowledge at board level wasnt a great start when you are looking to recruit managers thats for sure.
 
Bagpuss said:
Short emptying the club of any footballing knowledge at board level wasnt a great start when you are looking to recruit managers thats for sure.
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ive always said that was a reason for failure. manager goes to ceo. who does the ceo go to and say, manager wants this person. is that a good move. ceo knows nothing about football. owner knows nothing, so who sanctions it, is a person who knows nothing. crazy
 
soapster said:
ive always said that was a reason for failure. manager goes to ceo. who does the ceo go to and say, manager wants this person. is that a good move. ceo knows nothing about football. owner knows nothing, so who sanctions it, is a person who knows nothing. crazy
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The scary thing is that most of us on here have massively more knowledge of football than Short did when he took over SAFC....Most of us have been eating, living and breathing the English game since we were kids, he bought into it and knew little if anything about it....He then proceeds to run a Prem football club......An owner with some footballing knowledge in England would have been saying £5 million for Gardner, are you sure? (like most on here were).....

monolithic baby said:
Wonder if this thread would exist if BSA had turned down the England job?
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I suspect Short actually stumbled on the answer with BSA, shame and no you are right, had that worked out then all Shorts fuck ups previously would probably have been forgotten.....Just like everything else he has done though, it didnt work out and we are where we are
 
Bagpuss said:
The scary thing is that most of us on here have massively more knowledge of football than Short did when he took over SAFC....Most of us have been eating, living and breathing the English game since we were kids, he bought into it and knew little if anything about it....He then proceeds to run a Prem football club......An owner with some footballing knowledge in England would have been saying £5 million for Gardner, are you sure? (like most on here were).....



I suspect Short actually stumbled on the answer with BSA, shame and no you are right, had that worked out then all Shorts fuck ups previously would probably have been forgotten.....Just like everything else he has done though, it didnt work out and we are where we are
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as much as he is a very likeable guy, I have to agree re the cost
 
fredthefan said:
It’s football in general. I have little interest in international matches, used to watch any football on the telly and now can’t be arsed with it. My only real interest in football these days is SAFC and that’s waning thanks to the likes of Short, Bain, Moyes, Kone, van Aanholt etc. It’s all about commercialism and money these days.

That’s why people are craving the likes of Keane and Reid. They represent days when football and footballers had some pride in the team they represented and self respect for the performance they turned in. Kone is “ill” and Rodwell gets paid a king’s ransom but is scared to play in midfield.

Money has ruined football.
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Yep, similar vein to my earlier post. I agree. Modern football is awful.
 
We haven't home at home since December, can't expect people to turn out and pay their money to watch us almost certainly get beat.
 
I think it is just simply that we have been shite and struggling like fuck for about 6 years now with very few bright spots. It’s reached a crescendo where it has been utterly depressing for the last 16 months since BSA left, with no home win for over 10 months, and us staring a consecutive relegation in the face.
It’s not the need for local players. If we had ManCity’s team I’d be happy as fcuk. Even West Brom’s would be great FFS!
Short has fucked us over royally. The bastard.
 
Baghdad McBadLad said:
Season after season after season of seeing utter shit on the pitch? False promises, shocking decision making, breaking every bad stat ever created. Just had enough - there are far more better things to do on a weekend than waste your money on people like f***ing Jack Rodwell and Billy Jones.
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SAFC is full of overpaid charlatans on and off the pitch
 
I honestly don't really think many ( if any) are falling out of love with the club .... but....

... they are with the present players, managers/coaches, senior management & owner.

The key word there is "present" - remember they are all temporary, & will be gone well before our feelings for the club.

The club is ours, they can hurt us but can't take it away nor us from Sunderland
 
Bangkok Blackcat said:
I see an awful lot of posts these days from supporters saying they no longer love the club and there is a tendency to put the blame at Ellis Short's door. However, I don't see Short as the cause of the malaise, I think he's more a symptom.

For those of us who are over 35 we can remember when clubs were part of the community, even at the start of the Premier League there was still a desire for teams to remain part of their areas heritage (Look at the success of Hall's Geordie Nation Campaign and Niall Quinn's love affair with us for proof of this.)

But as the Premier League became more popular worldwide, the local community's hold on football clubs lessened and this led to the lack of bonding between the bigger clubs and the local area. The biggest clubs could cope with this by being successful. Success will always bring support, but traditional clubs like Sunderland and Villa who, to be blunt, sold out in the pursuit of success, lost their soul.

Burnley are still a local club and they are succeeding because as they are part of their community even when things don't go well, there is not the bitterness towards the club that I see on here.

I know some posters will mock me for being a jumpers for goalposts nostalgia lover, but in many respects, I miss the old days.
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I’m still madly in love with SAFC and plan to see every game. If anything though, I have fallen out with football in general and the premier league specifically. I have recorded every MOTD this season and erased them all without watching. I’ve watched bits of some of the bigger games but mainly interested in watching SAFC.

Ironically, once we tried to move away from being a community club we got worse.
 
Bagpuss said:
The scary thing is that most of us on here have massively more knowledge of football than Short did when he took over SAFC....Most of us have been eating, living and breathing the English game since we were kids, he bought into it and knew little if anything about it....He then proceeds to run a Prem football club......An owner with some footballing knowledge in England would have been saying £5 million for Gardner, are you sure? (like most on here were).....



I suspect Short actually stumbled on the answer with BSA, shame and no you are right, had that worked out then all Shorts fuck ups previously would probably have been forgotten.....Just like everything else he has done though, it didnt work out and we are where we are
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I often wonder if we’d thrown a bit of cash at Sam might he have been willing to stay. I’ve never felt so genuinely excited about the coming season in those few weeks before the Euro’s. Then England get beat off Iceland and decide that the manager who finished 4th bottom of the league was the best to take over....then he only lasts one game ffs. Another great example of the SAFC curse...
 
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