Dear @Udohs.Trousers ,
Just to put the record straight. This is soccer for the 21st century . Loyalty is an antiquated notion that has no place in the modern game, had you attended the world renowned DiSs course (data in soccer school) you would have learnt this day one. The former ‘manager’ (in itself an out dated concept) showed unimaginative naivety in limiting his CV to a ‘one club man’ - one appearance for the Tractor Boys (see I can talk in the vernacular when it suits) and a couple of weeks at ‘we hate Col U’ (there I go again talking like I know where ‘the shed end’ is) frankly made his CV untenable at a club with the global vision that our pay masters demand. As an aside I had been employed in formative roles at at least five clubs over the same period - that sort of Under 12’s experience is what is now needed to thrive in the modern game.
To the specifics. The previous ‘manager’ with his sycophantic fade hair cut, white soles leisure shoes and slim hipped tracky bottoms was, not to put too fine a point on it, taking the Michael out of the go to Data Dan vibe, that was never going to wash with me, as a natural leader I need fall guys around me who can’t quite pull off the fade/trackie/shoe combo and look more like a supply teacher than a seasoned pro operating at the top of the professional game, hence my phalanx of yes men now populating our state of the art / soon to be abandoned (delete as appropriate) elite training facility.
I could go on but as I’m sure you are aware the ‘less is more’ in communication terms is how I choose to roll, at least with those of you who have no leverage over my career path.
Any way must fly there are a couple of Danes outside my conference suite who say they want a word - no idea who they are but it’s all about making contacts in this game isn’t it!
You keep cheering the boys on and I’ll keep putting the cones out.
THE man Dan
Maybe this is the way of football forums, but could it be that we are indulging our negativity a little too far here. This season we will finish in our highest ever position in the third tier of English football (not counting the curtailed Covid season). We have up to three playoff game in two weeks which could yet result in little Wycombe Wanderers playing in the Championship. A former manager often used to say “never too high never too low”. Perhaps a good lesson right now.
that first sentence might just be the understatement of the season Devvers
Negativity? We all know that it should be so much better!
To try and fail - great with all fans. But it feels like we’ve been set up to not even try for weeks now.
Yes top work to all involved in the first half of the season. Let’s pat ourselves on the back for that and go into the summer feeling very happy with ourselves indeed.
I’m yet to be convinced by Dodds, but we should even be contemplating removing him until he’s had a fair crack at the job. The January transfer dealings were farcical as far as I’m concerned. Too many players signed, many of whom seemed short of fitness and they just weren’t what was needed at that time. That’s purely on Rice, nothing to do with Dodds, but it’s a problem, he’s had to inherit.
Performances haven’t been great, but result have generally been ok, and we’ve not fallen away in the way Huddersfield, Barnsley and Bolton have. He does at least seem aware of our on the pitch issues and has acknowledged this in interviews. He’s also having to deal with several of our forwards losing form. This may be partly down to playing style, or over playing certain players, but this is all stuff he needs to be given time to learn. If we’re going down the route of appointing inexperienced coaches, then we have to give them time to learn the job. Dodds hasn’t had that time yet.
Great I have some new words to use for some of our posters.
Not only is Dodds inexperienced in his job, so Dan Rice is inexperienced in his, it would be a smart move from DR that should we fail in the play-offs that he speaks to the fans and acknowledges he has made mistakes, and has learned from them and how he intends to work with MD to make the team better next season and for longer.
Because fans know best. What!!!
sometimes supporting a football team means you experience some tough moments. You’re beginning to sound like a spoilt child
Still find it interesting it’s yet another “Hey Dan, you’re the bad man in all this” thread and, I don’t think, not one mention of Mikhail Lomtadze or Eduard Vyshnyakov.
It’s weird. Maybe it really is because their names are hard to spell.
Dan would have been sacked, or at least a permanent chairman put in place if those two weren’t completely happy with is approach yet no one is calling for them to show any accountability
I still scoff in amusement at the “I don’t care if we never hear from the owner as long as he does all the right things” brigade.
Well, Dan IS doing all the “right” things (from the leaderships POV) as he is still in post making decisions.
Edit: my apologies. @Commoner did mention Eduard
Quite aware of that having supported this club for over 30 years. Football can be tough especially when your club make such horrendous decisions and the person in charge makes such illogical mistakes. But luckily we have such a fine means such as this to complain.
Lommy doesn’t really care about us and Eduard is copying his father-in-law (if that rumour is true) by staying silent.
It’s a fair point, though my understanding is that Vyshnyakov’s job is more akin to the “chairman” role as we know it than Dan Rice, whose role appears to be more like a director of football. The biggest bugbear of supporters are not retaining a club legend who was just coming good as a manager, record sums paid for players who have been bench-warmers at best, and now the team chronically misfiring in front of goal.
Vyzhnyakov’s role in the first two is anyone’s guess, the third is a cumulation of other factors stemming from failing to retain Bloomfield, poor recruitment of attacking players and appointing a rookie in place of Bloomfield.
TLDR - Dan Rice’s responsibility is the football side of things therefore he’s being held up to scrutiny when the football side of things are demonstrably getting worse.
I think this circles back round to the stated objectives, which I believe were:
#1 - build a Category 1 Academy
#2 - become a sustainable championship club
It feels though the DRs focus is very much on #1 and I feel like he “tested” the data model in January but the output of potential vs what we actually needed has produced a big gap, hence we’ve not really seen the Danes.
DR is listed as owning a company called Scout Mission on Linked In, so not sure if this is the “data model” or not. Eduard is the son in law of Mikhail if I remember.
I still cannot work out why ML invested in Wycombe and why he appointed Dan Rice as Interim Chairman. There was also a 3rd objective though, which was to improve Kazakhstan or Georgian National football, I think. Be interesting to see what Kazakhstani’s or Georgians start coming through the doors in future years and perhaps this is what ML and EV are really interested in.
Based on what you’ve just said I’m now terrified we have a rerun of what happened at Hearts when the Lithuanian guy took over 20+ years ago. Forced out a manager that had them top of the league because he wasn’t “his guy” and replaced him with a disaster while filling the team with players from his home country.
I think he’s like Joe Pesci in Casino, just here to make sure everything is running smoothly.
Rice screwed up, simple.
Signings in January that either weren’t needed, haven’t delivered, or have barely even been seen. We needed quality not quantity. Someone up top so Kone could be rotated and not run into the ground. Go all out for Morley rather than spend big on the Danes.
After Rice sacked Matt Bloomfield’s head of recruitment, you wonder if it was a case of “I’m in charge and know best”.
Well Dan, i said in January when Bloomfield decided to leave and weeks later you ended up with Mike Dodds, you would both be judged at the end of the season.
Lets hope the playoff campaign delivers something very different to what we’ve been watching since February, otherwise the fallout will be on you.
I just cannot get on board with Dodds. Seems like a perfectly nice bloke and I don’t blame his media awkwardness on him, some people just don’t like or aren’t as comfortable with public speaking/interviews as others (I can personally relate).
The key question for Dan Rice again is why did he think this was the correct path to go down? We have negative football, a previously rampant team now a shell of themselves, playing in a more defensive formation despite being promised not much would change. It’s been a death by a thousand cuts watching us slowly fall away from automatic promotion.
Calm down!! We’re the next Gretna.
Scott Mitchell (Matt Bloomfield’s head of recruitment) was responsible for the summer signings was he not?