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

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Asleep at the wheel - Worthy out!

I think you mean "Mistakes have been made, there are learnings"

[Worthy4England]

Asleep at the wheel - Worthy out!

I think you mean "Mistakes have been made, there are learnings"

Pretty sure I still have Shazza's full support! Backing of the Board, as it were.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Candid interview here from SB;

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... ure-error/

Interesting, thanks. You can never tell without seeing/hearing the original tape, but (at least the way it's presented here) it feels like she's blaming Markham more than Evatt.

Firstly she blames the two transfer windows - "“When the August transfer window and subsequently the January window were not good enough, then Ian stepped down in January, we knew this was our opportunity to restructure the entire department".

Then, she elides from eulogising Evatt to saying “I don't think the recruitment in the 2024 summer window was where it should have been, and I think that followed into the January 2025 window" - then back to "I wish Ian nothing but the very best", with Markham notable by absence.

That was my take, too.

Hadn't spotted we had a new CEO too....

I did mention it here back in May.

Asleep at the wheel - Worthy out!

To be fair, you've been hanging out with Hobes in the politics thread a fair bit

[nicholaldo]

I think the trouble is she took her football counsel from Evatt. So when she asks ‘what’s going wrong’ it’s only natural to say ‘well I’ve not got the right players’.

I'd agree with that but it feels like this time it's the other way round i.e. the sporting director is top dog with the manager second.

It’s a pretty candid interview and clear she knows she should have sacked him after Wembley. The fact remains that I feel the naivety of the owners set us back two maybe 3 or more years.

On this, I'm not too sure. She does say in the interview she was prepared to have Evatt in charge until the end of the season and only makes vague references to changes in the football department post-Wembley. That needn't necessarily mean a change of manager.

[sonicthewhite]

I think the trouble is she took her football counsel from Evatt. So when she asks ‘what’s going wrong’ it’s only natural to say ‘well I’ve not got the right players’.

I'd agree with that but it feels like this time it's the other way round i.e. the sporting director is top dog with the manager second.

It’s a pretty candid interview and clear she knows she should have sacked him after Wembley. The fact remains that I feel the naivety of the owners set us back two maybe 3 or more years.

On this, I'm not too sure. She does say in the interview she was prepared to have Evatt in charge until the end of the season and only makes vague references to changes in the football department post-Wembley. That needn't necessarily mean a change of manager.

Now in my mind it's the other way around. She's saying that really Evatt and Co should have gone after Wembley and she'd only have persevered with him until the end of the season if he hadn't have walked. Doesn't matter now though, it's history.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I think the trouble is she took her football counsel from Evatt. So when she asks ‘what’s going wrong’ it’s only natural to say ‘well I’ve not got the right players’.

I'd agree with that but it feels like this time it's the other way round i.e. the sporting director is top dog with the manager second.

Not even manager: Schuey is officially Head Coach, as Evatt was initially until he defenestrated Phoenix.

Sharon could plead that this is a simplification of duties - see her insistence that dear Ian took on too much - but it's definitely clear that Harkin is board-level (a big-d Director), above Schuey and for that matter any successors.

It's simpler that way, but no easier if the board-level mon isn't any good. I've no reason to doubt Harkin but look at Stoke - how many lives does their sporting director Jonny Walters get before the family of bookies think it might not be a coaching problem?

It’s a pretty candid interview and clear she knows she should have sacked him after Wembley. The fact remains that I feel the naivety of the owners set us back two maybe 3 or more years.

On this, I'm not too sure. She does say in the interview she was prepared to have Evatt in charge until the end of the season and only makes vague references to changes in the football department post-Wembley. That needn't necessarily mean a change of manager.

Now in my mind it's the other way around. She's saying that really Evatt and Co should have gone after Wembley and she'd only have persevered with him until the end of the season if he hadn't have walked. Doesn't matter now though, it's history.

It's a bit of both, IMO, and therefore can be taken as per the reader's previous beliefs. She says:

“Hindsight is a great thing. Obviously if we look back now and reflect, it was the wrong decision. We should have made changes after that Wembley defeat."

But also:

“I would have supported Ian to the end of the season, 100 percent. I always made my views very clear. I think he's a superb manager, I don't think we supported him correctly, and I feel responsible for that."

To me she's saying her lamb took on too much and would have been better under the protective aegis of a sporting director... but she must know that there was no way his planetary ego would have accepted that demotion. Even with the relatively distant, spreadsheet-scrolling Ludonautics stuff – another quarter-arsed idea - he still had to make it publicly and repeatedly clear that they couldn't force signings on him ("everyone has to agree"). That was Worthy's favourite - buck-passing - but also evidence of a man gasping for the clear air of authority even while tightening his own tactical noose.

[Worthy4England]

I think the trouble is she took her football counsel from Evatt. So when she asks ‘what’s going wrong’ it’s only natural to say ‘well I’ve not got the right players’.

I'd agree with that but it feels like this time it's the other way round i.e. the sporting director is top dog with the manager second.

Not even manager: Schuey is officially Head Coach, as Evatt was initially until he defenestrated Phoenix.

Sharon could plead that this is a simplification of duties - see her insistence that dear Ian took on too much - but it's definitely clear that Harkin is board-level (a big-d Director), above Schuey and for that matter any successors.

It's simpler that way, but no easier if the board-level mon isn't any good. I've no reason to doubt Harkin but look at Stoke - how many lives does their sporting director Jonny Walters get before the family of bookies think it might not be a coaching problem?

It’s a pretty candid interview and clear she knows she should have sacked him after Wembley. The fact remains that I feel the naivety of the owners set us back two maybe 3 or more years.

On this, I'm not too sure. She does say in the interview she was prepared to have Evatt in charge until the end of the season and only makes vague references to changes in the football department post-Wembley. That needn't necessarily mean a change of manager.

Now in my mind it's the other way around. She's saying that really Evatt and Co should have gone after Wembley and she'd only have persevered with him until the end of the season if he hadn't have walked. Doesn't matter now though, it's history.

It's a bit of both, IMO, and therefore can be taken as per the reader's previous beliefs. She says:

“Hindsight is a great thing. Obviously if we look back now and reflect, it was the wrong decision. We should have made changes after that Wembley defeat."

But also:

“I would have supported Ian to the end of the season, 100 percent. I always made my views very clear. I think he's a superb manager, I don't think we supported him correctly, and I feel responsible for that."

To me she's saying her lamb took on too much and would have been better under the protective aegis of a sporting director... but she must know that there was no way his planetary ego would have accepted that demotion. Even with the relatively distant, spreadsheet-scrolling Ludonautics stuff – another quarter-arsed idea - he still had to make it publicly and repeatedly clear that they couldn't force signings on him ("everyone has to agree"). That was Worthy's favourite - buck-passing - but also evidence of a man gasping for the clear air of authority even while tightening his own tactical noose.

I reckon these two things are connected, rather than separate and contradictory. Part, the first: Should have changed after Wembley. Part the second: [Having not done part the first] I would have supported Ian until the end of the season. Which wouldn't have come into play, had she done Part, the first.

Which if memory serves (and clearly I might be on shaky ground not remembering we had a new CEO), was pretty much what Ghost said back in last close season - having made her pick, it would have been a 1 year, pick.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I reckon these two things are connected, rather than separate and contradictory. Part, the first: Should have changed after Wembley. Part the second: [Having not done part the first] I would have supported Ian until the end of the season. Which wouldn't have come into play, had she done Part, the first.

Which if memory serves (and clearly I might be on shaky ground not remembering we had a new CEO), was pretty much what Ghost said back in last close season - having made her pick, it would have been a 1 year, pick.

Yeah, I can see that reading, too.

What makes that particularly piquant is that it's now widely said that Evatt offered to resign after Huddersfield and Sharon dissuaded him. Oops. I don't know whether he offered again after Stockport; whether he figured there wasn't much point; whether he did but she didn't want to perform a 180-degree turn; or whether she considered the intervening 19pts in 10 games more important than the towering humiliations either side...

On the one-year pick thing - she let him leave halfway through, but crucially after spending most of the second window and all of its money (barring any small loan fee for walking disaster Etete).

[jmjhb]

Ian may have taken on too much, but from what I've heard from staff, he acted like he ran the place too...

Hence why I think both coach(/manager) and sporting director were changed and a clearer structure formalised.

[The_Gun]

Ian may have taken on too much, but from what I've heard from staff, he acted like he ran the place too...

Hence why I think both coach(/manager) and sporting director were changed and a clearer structure formalised.

I, for one, am shocked by this revelation.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

FWIW on the Buff podcast this week Iles gives it more context and confirms that Sharon does seem to regret not replacing Markham, rather than Evatt, last summer and taken some duties/responsibilities/(and therefore authority) off Evatt.

However, as he notes, that would have been a very difficult sell to Evatt. And Harkin wouldn't have been available. And besides, sacking Markham the day after Wembley feels hindsighty given it predates the two main reasons for removing Markham, namely "last summer's window" and "January's window".

[Worthy4England]

FWIW on the Buff podcast this week Iles gives it more context and confirms that Sharon does seem to regret not replacing Markham, rather than Evatt, last summer and taken some duties/responsibilities/(and therefore authority) off Evatt.

However, as he notes, that would have been a very difficult sell to Evatt. And Harkin wouldn't have been available. And besides, sacking Markham the day after Wembley feels hindsighty given it predates the two main reasons for removing Markham, namely "last summer's window" and "January's window".

Not sure about the hindsight. There is something that predates both the summer and Jan windows, which is the previous Jan window. It's easy to forget that 1/1/24 we were 2nd, 2 points off top with a game in hand. At the end of the Jan window, we were 2nd, 3 points off top with 3 games in hand.

I wouldn't be surprised if that Jan window, with the addition of Collins, wasn't viewed as "[hopefully] this should land it for us." We went backwards from there...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

FWIW on the Buff podcast this week Iles gives it more context and confirms that Sharon does seem to regret not replacing Markham, rather than Evatt, last summer and taken some duties/responsibilities/(and therefore authority) off Evatt.

However, as he notes, that would have been a very difficult sell to Evatt. And Harkin wouldn't have been available. And besides, sacking Markham the day after Wembley feels hindsighty given it predates the two main reasons for removing Markham, namely "last summer's window" and "January's window".

Not sure about the hindsight. There is something that predates both the summer and Jan windows, which is the previous Jan window. It's easy to forget that 1/1/24 we were 2nd, 2 points off top with a game in hand. At the end of the Jan window, we were 2nd, 3 points off top with 3 games in hand.

I wouldn't be surprised if that Jan window, with the addition of Collins, wasn't viewed as "[hopefully] this should land it for us." We went backwards from there...

Was going to say that the previous two windows were mixed but had their upsides. Maghoma, hired the previous summer, was our most progressive player and the one specifically targeted for physical abuse by Oxford. Collins (hired Jan 2024) was almost always fit and scored goals; his arrival may have split the Dion-Vic combo, but not many fans here or elsewhere were loudly counselling against getting a third striker. He wasn't the tiara on the shire horse, he was a necessary improvement on Bod and Jerome (combined league goals by end Jan: zero). As you say, he was supposed to be the guy that landed promotion. But tactical decisions thereafter are down to the manager, not the sporting director.

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.

[Prufrock]

Aye - absolutely no-one's reaction after Oxford was that we didn't have talented enough players. It was "how the feck have our much more talented side not laid a glove on them". And the two overwhelming answers, in order, were:

1) Buckingham did a job on Evatt, we were one dimensional, no plan B, tactically inept. Stop us playing into midfield and there's nothing else; and

2) they're a bunch of bottleless gets who don't show up when it matters. All good when things are going well but as soon as the chips are down they wilt.

1) is entirely the manager and nothing to do with Markham. 2) IMO is much more the manager too (unless anyone can make a case Evatt was asking for headcase bastards and Markham said "here you go, here's one Joe Randall."

[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)...

[The_Gun]

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)...

We smashed them only a few weeks prior, and we were deservedly heavy favourites going into the final. Atrocious tactical performance from our ex-manager in that game.

[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)...

We smashed them only a few weeks prior, and we were deservedly heavy favourites going into the final. Atrocious tactical performance from our ex-manager in that game.

But ultimately the players weren’t anywhere near as good as people made out. And plenty could see that in advance. Too many who flattered to deceive.

We overrated that side but truth is Oxford had better players. I mean they had managerial disruption mid season but were right up there prior.

[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)...

We smashed them only a few weeks prior, and we were deservedly heavy favourites going into the final. Atrocious tactical performance from our ex-manager in that game.

True on all counts. Which doesn't detract from the point I was responding to. We made the point on numerous occasions, that it's great having the 5-0 win. But Leagues are about talent and consistency and if you don't have the latter, then the first might not help you much. For me consistency is a talent attribute, and if you don't have it, then you aren't as talented as made out. You might be skillful though.

[Worthy4England]

FWIW on the Buff podcast this week Iles gives it more context and confirms that Sharon does seem to regret not replacing Markham, rather than Evatt, last summer and taken some duties/responsibilities/(and therefore authority) off Evatt.

However, as he notes, that would have been a very difficult sell to Evatt. And Harkin wouldn't have been available. And besides, sacking Markham the day after Wembley feels hindsighty given it predates the two main reasons for removing Markham, namely "last summer's window" and "January's window".

Not sure about the hindsight. There is something that predates both the summer and Jan windows, which is the previous Jan window. It's easy to forget that 1/1/24 we were 2nd, 2 points off top with a game in hand. At the end of the Jan window, we were 2nd, 3 points off top with 3 games in hand.

I wouldn't be surprised if that Jan window, with the addition of Collins, wasn't viewed as "[hopefully] this should land it for us." We went backwards from there...

Was going to say that the previous two windows were mixed but had their upsides. Maghoma, hired the previous summer, was our most progressive player and the one specifically targeted for physical abuse by Oxford. Collins (hired Jan 2024) was almost always fit and scored goals; his arrival may have split the Dion-Vic combo, but not many fans here or elsewhere were loudly counselling against getting a third striker. He wasn't the tiara on the shire horse, he was a necessary improvement on Bod and Jerome (combined league goals by end Jan: zero). As you say, he was supposed to be the guy that landed promotion. But tactical decisions thereafter are down to the manager, not the sporting director.

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.

[BWFC_Insane]

I don’t buy the whole retrofitting. If the argument is that Markham should have gone post Wembley then it’s clear Evatt tried to throw him under the bus too during the season clearly blaming him. Same way they allowed Evatt to chuck Craddock under the bus.

I think that Sharon says she is good at looking inwards so you’d think she would be able to have looked inwards and seen what Evatt was. Whatever his managerial credentials or otherwise he to my mind was very clearly a deeply unpleasant individual. I’m sort of surprised Sharon didn’t see this and am concerned by the judgement if even now she can’t recognise it.