Financiers, investors and white knights: What next for FV?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

For clarity - I wept no tears when Markham left. Those last two windows were awful, and his wagon had been hitched to a horse already sent to the knackers' yard. I just think that to turf him out last summer while leaving Evatt intact would have been a huge huge call – and not one, I don't think, with a lot of sympathy among the fans. It's a retrofitted solution pasted on a non-existent alternate reality.

For sure - I'd have dumped them both after Wembley.

Perhaps weirdly, at that point I'd have been more minded to junk Evatt than Markham. The structure's supposed to promote continuity, so chopping off both heads at once seems to undercut that. And at that point (last summer) it felt more like a failure of coaching than recruitment. As I say, the two shocking windows were still to come - and it doesn't feel like we'll ever get much closer to knowing whether the problem was Markham's recruitment or the player types Evatt asked him for. Pru jokingly suggests Evo asked for a hardcase and Markham bought him Randall; I'm reminded of Rafa Benitez saying "I was hoping for a sofa and they've brought me a lamp."

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Watched the interview earlier. My reading is she believes Markham was mainly to blame and reluctantly accepted that Evatt needed to go. Two things that worry me from the interview are that come the end of January she reluctantly accepted Evatt going. By then it was bloody obvious he'd lost the fans, possibly some of the players and the plot. The second thing that concerns me is her preference to talk about Evatt and almost skirt past Schumacher. I get she wanted to maybe try and restore Evatt a little due to earlier performance, but it felt like she didn't want to talk about Schuey and maybe has some reservations. I get the season end was bad, but he was fighting to put out a balanced team given injuries and the collection of 10s not 10s he had available. I think once he realised the players had given up he focussed on trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in preparation for the summer.

[Prufrock]

Aye - absolutely no-one's reaction after Oxford was that we didn't have talented enough players.

Fake News! There was at least 1 (and I suspect a few more), not convinced by plenty of our players/squad - it was a pretty regular conversation in the latter half of the season as we wilted. That's not to say we couldn't have beaten Oxford (on our day)...

I mean on that day! As for why we didn't go up automatically, that's a different question and fair enough, but the reaction post Oxford was we've just lost a play off final we were heavy favourites for because of that tactical oaf and those bottleless fannies.

Not - "oh well look Oxford who finished sixth and we spanked two weeks ago recruited better. While we may have the better manager, their sporting director or whatever has outfoxed Markham".

[Worthy4England]

Aye - absolutely no-one's reaction after Oxford was that we didn't have talented enough players.

Fake News! There was at least 1 (and I suspect a few more), not convinced by plenty of our players/squad - it was a pretty regular conversation in the latter half of the season as we wilted. That's not to say we couldn't have beaten Oxford (on our day)...

I mean on that day! As for why we didn't go up automatically, that's a different question and fair enough, but the reaction post Oxford was we've just lost a play off final we were heavy favourites for because of that tactical oaf and those bottleless fannies.

Not - "oh well look Oxford who finished sixth and we spanked two weeks ago recruited better. While we may have the better manager, their sporting director or whatever has outfoxed Markham".

On that day, I'm fairly sure Mr Insane said we didn't have the players! Along with maybe a few others..it just got lost in the even worse crime. It's like there was a murder - they also buggered a couple of sheep and robbed the bank just prior, but, there was a murder.

Oxford got more ppg between the end Jan and end season than us (marginally)....We'd been pretty awful across three months.

[BWFC_Insane]

Aye - absolutely no-one's reaction after Oxford was that we didn't have talented enough players.

Fake News! There was at least 1 (and I suspect a few more), not convinced by plenty of our players/squad - it was a pretty regular conversation in the latter half of the season as we wilted. That's not to say we couldn't have beaten Oxford (on our day)...

I mean on that day! As for why we didn't go up automatically, that's a different question and fair enough, but the reaction post Oxford was we've just lost a play off final we were heavy favourites for because of that tactical oaf and those bottleless fannies.

Not - "oh well look Oxford who finished sixth and we spanked two weeks ago recruited better. While we may have the better manager, their sporting director or whatever has outfoxed Markham".

That day was coming though. It wasn’t out of the blue. We all knew deep down that team was simply not up to it when push came to shove.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

The second thing that concerns me is her preference to talk about Evatt and almost skirt past Schumacher. I get she wanted to maybe try and restore Evatt a little due to earlier performance, but it felt like she didn't want to talk about Schuey and maybe has some reservations. I get the season end was bad, but he was fighting to put out a balanced team given injuries and the collection of 10s not 10s he had available. I think once he realised the players had given up he focussed on trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in preparation for the summer.

There's a lot more from her on Schuey in Ilesy's second slice, available now to fee-payers.
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... -part-two/

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

The second thing that concerns me is her preference to talk about Evatt and almost skirt past Schumacher. I get she wanted to maybe try and restore Evatt a little due to earlier performance, but it felt like she didn't want to talk about Schuey and maybe has some reservations. I get the season end was bad, but he was fighting to put out a balanced team given injuries and the collection of 10s not 10s he had available. I think once he realised the players had given up he focussed on trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in preparation for the summer.

There's a lot more from her on Schuey in Ilesy's second slice, available now to fee-payers.
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... -part-two/

Thanks DSB

[BWFC_Insane]

The second thing that concerns me is her preference to talk about Evatt and almost skirt past Schumacher. I get she wanted to maybe try and restore Evatt a little due to earlier performance, but it felt like she didn't want to talk about Schuey and maybe has some reservations. I get the season end was bad, but he was fighting to put out a balanced team given injuries and the collection of 10s not 10s he had available. I think once he realised the players had given up he focussed on trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in preparation for the summer.

There's a lot more from her on Schuey in Ilesy's second slice, available now to fee-payers.
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... -part-two/

Yeah the club interview either she didn’t expand much or the edited it out. I saw it more that she was wary of repeating the mistake and bigging up a head coach (though Sharon called him the ‘manager’) when I think it’s pretty clear that she now sees Harkin as responsible for finding the right formula for success including that of who the head coach should be.

I didn’t get the sense she has concerns or is worried about- the other feeling I got is that she desperately didn’t want to say anything that might be seen as a criticism of Evatt even if she maybe has some. A thinly veiled ‘he’s a very different character he’s very calm and collected’ seemed to jolt her off course perhaps realising the inference….