Jump to content
IGNORED

Mark Ashton Leaving (Merged)


Harry

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Scrumpylegs said:

It’s worth remembering that Ashton’s finest hour was signing Webster from Ipswich and making millions just 12 months or so later. Whoever instigated this deal totally pulled down Ipswich’s pants! To be fair to him though, nobody did this to us while he was here - we sold some players for decent money and the general consensus has been that we did get a fair, or even slightly over the odds, price in almost all cases.

Ummm.... never been Fammy’s greatest fan, but to say £0.0 is a fair price for him is questionable, even in my mind. Then you add Pato, again very hit and miss, ..but £0.0 value? Assume Bakes will be going soon as well at £0.0. That’s about £10 million of players to zero value in a few years.

Now hopefully the likes of CoD, who Ashton very successfully negotiated a renewed contract with, I assume, on the basis of the single goal at Norwich scored sometime in 1909, will soon be worth about £10 million. That could go to off set the losses on these 3 players or will go some way to compensate the costs of the numerous utter donkeys - the list being too long to quote - Ashton has brought in either on a permanent basis or loan. 

Meanwhile, the team spirit of the Cott era have been summarily dumped by Ashton, and all the players made surplus to requirements and disposed of, many at bargain basement prices. 
 

I’m sure Ashton is an exceptional administrator, he’s brilliant at self-promotion (to the gullible imo), seems superb at ‘serving’ the great and wealthy but he’s not someone I’ll fondly remember for his input to my Club. 
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Harry said:

 

 

This is what you would generously call an embellished CV, or less generously, bull. 
 

Dave’s post above is the truth. But to add :

Yes, he was here in a consultancy role throughout 2012. He essentially came in to set up a recruitment database (on behalf of his company Tactical Change). He sacked the head scout. He provided zero support to the then manager McInness resulting in what was a somewhat novice manager with a lack of Champ level contacts, and no head scout or scouting network to support him, leaving DMC to either source his own inferior players from Scotland and his limited contacts or be bedecked with Ashton’s wondrous network which brought us the recruitment of the single most yellowbellied side I’ve ever seen which got relegated the year after Ashton had left. 

The subsequent managers (Sod, Cotts) as well as Burt, pretty much scrapped and ignored Ashton’s wondrous network that he’d implemented and went ahead to bring in their own players with zero Ashton influence. The clubs claims that Ashton’s systems contributed to the recruitment of the promotion squad is North Korea levels of propaganda. If anyone wants a named source on that, I’ll give you 3 - SOD, Cotts & Burt. 

The claims that Ashton lead the project for Academy 2 Status in also ridiculously North Korean and does a huge disservice to the people who ACTUALLY delivered it - Amy Kington and her team, with major input from SOD as well. If you want a source on that too - SOD and a number of others who actually worked on that project. 
 

It’s hilarious to me that now he’s leaving, we’re seeing the propaganda machine in further flow, suggesting that somehow he was involved in the stadium rebuild that was started years before his arrival. Absolutely brilliant. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan in particular. I just wanted to mention that he didn’t just appear from nowhere, he had previously wormed his way in

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lrrr said:

I'd say only Ayling we received poor money on when you take considerations into account, 

Brownhill - Clause in his contract that would have let him leave for significantly less in the summer

Eliasson - Covid market where unless you're a premier league club there wasn't much money being thrown about, millions for a player with 12 months left given that wasn't bad going

Not strictly true.  I believe we got exactly the same (£7m) as we would’ve got in the summer.  However the reason for doing early was two-fold.

1. The main factor - to be able to insert future financial clauses, e.g. sell-on percentage, which wouldn’t be possible in the summer, as just a straightforward trigger.

2. Minor factor - use it as leverage for Wells

37 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

The thing with Ayling was he was back up right back for us as far as LJ was concerned and had a year left on his contract.

But then Ashton did say a few teams were after Ayling, so I am a bit surprised we couldn't get a bit more than we did.

Back up?  Might be more accurate to say wasn’t guaranteed to start....e.g. you will be fighting out minutes with Matthews.  That was what Albie implied.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Not strictly true.  I believe we got exactly the same (£7m) as we would’ve got in the summer.  However the reason for doing early was two-fold.

1. The main factor - to be able to insert future financial clauses, e.g. sell-on percentage, which wouldn’t be possible in the summer, as just a straightforward trigger.

2. Minor factor - use it as leverage for Wells

Fair enough, no inside info or anything but I was under the impression it would have been closer to £5m from memory 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Ashton was trying to sell Ayling as he was bringing in Matthews. And Ashton said Ayling would not be getting much game time, and that he had 3 clubs interested in Ayling.

Ayling himself said he was probably 2nd or 3rd choice for us

Fair enough.  Guess choice between Little or Ayling going.  Ayling more sellable???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, GrahamC said:

If you’ve been around the world of work for a significant length of time you will have encountered this type

Yup. Usually the bullshit is deployed to cover up a lack of knowledge. When you know what you’re on about you simply don’t need to talk bollocks every time you open your mouth. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, CotswoldRed said:

If we didn't know, then he should have concentrated on his communication skills, so he could have articulated it better. 

We could say that about most people who’ve been in similar roles at the club, but then what club does come out and explain exactly how it functions.

I’m not down with all the MA bashing myself. Was he any good at his job. I don’t know and I would guess most here don’t know either because they don’t know him and don’t know exactly what he did and didn’t do.

 All I can say is that regardless of how good or not he was at his job we should have appointed a proper director of football to control the whole coaching and scouting aspects at the club. That for me was his biggest failure

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Show Me The Money! said:

We could say that about most people who’ve been in similar roles at the club, but then what club does come out and explain exactly how it functions.

I’m not down with all the MA bashing myself. Was he any good at his job. I don’t know and I would guess most here don’t know either because they don’t know him and don’t know exactly what he did and didn’t do.

 All I can say is that regardless of how good or not he was at his job we should have appointed a proper director of football to control the whole coaching and scouting aspects at the club. That for me was his biggest failure

He's in charge of player recruitment and recruitment of fitness/conditioning/physio staff. I'm impressed with neither elements of his role.

Can we improve in these areas? Hell, yes. Does he seem like the man to achieve it? I don't think so.

Each to their own. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People are giving credit to Ashton for signing, then selling Webster at an inflated price. Unless I have it totally wrong, wasn't Webster supposed to be injury prone having spent a long time injured at Ipswich and, our purchase of the injury prone Webster was seen as a bit of a punt. Luckily for us, this was one of those punts which we seem to take, that actually paid off.

Isn't it also the case that, just before the sacking of SC, Ashton was working behind the scenes, coincidence surely that he arrived just before LJ?

Then we went on a spending spree of player after player for either first team or "the future" which it would appear to me have mostly been abject failures, with them not quite suiting the manager or, the younger ones loaned then sold/released for minimal fees. That is apart from the odd ones recruited, plus those from the previous SC and Burt times.

To me, he might have done a really good job behind the scenes running the overall football club but, our recruitment for one that is based on so much technology, was poor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Rich said:

People are giving credit to Ashton for signing, then selling Webster at an inflated price. Unless I have it totally wrong, wasn't Webster supposed to be injury prone having spent a long time injured at Ipswich and, our purchase of the injury prone Webster was seen as a bit of a punt. Luckily for us, this was one of those punts which we seem to take, that actually paid off.

Isn't it also the case that, just before the sacking of SC, Ashton was working behind the scenes, coincidence surely that he arrived just before LJ?

Then we went on a spending spree of player after player for either first team or "the future" which it would appear to me have mostly been abject failures, with them not quite suiting the manager or, the younger ones loaned then sold/released for minimal fees. That is apart from the odd ones recruited, plus those from the previous SC and Burt times.

To me, he might have done a really good job behind the scenes running the overall football club but, our recruitment for one that is based on so much technology, was poor.

There is an element of failing on the part of the manager as well, assume you mainly mean LJ- his tactics can limit certain types of players, then in varied cases his inability to get even a baseline level out of them and then those who went backwards since joining.

Why play Henriksen in a 2 for example, especially when he flourished in a 3 at Hull added to which his relative lack of fitness- why deploy Benkovic in a way that didn't really give him freedom to carry? Two relatively recent examples from last season. There are certainly players he did not deploy very well- he had a strange aversion to a genuine 4-3-3  e.g. which I think might have suited us at times in his final two seasons.

If we keep using tactics more likely to make us fail, we will be likely to continue to fail and my definition of failure in this case is to fall short of the maximum possible output and level- just IMO of course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, CotswoldRed said:

If we didn't know, then he should have concentrated on his communication skills, so he could have articulated it better. 

I agree that his role and the parameters should have been made clearer. Whether that was his job to explain himself, well that's another matter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In summary, coming up to a truly epochal summer in the history of the club, with massive recruitment decisions to make, we have neither a permanent manager nor someone in charge of recruitment.

Forgot the OOC 10+ players, THAT'S a failure of senior management.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, CyderInACan said:

Yup. Usually the bullshit is deployed to cover up a lack of knowledge. When you know what you’re on about you simply don’t need to talk bollocks every time you open your mouth. 

I think I can pretty much guarantee that SL has had plenty of experience of recruitment of senior professionals, and can spot someone who is incompetent. And even if appointed but useless, he'd get rid, not keep him for 4 years.

Still, don't let reasoned think get in the way of your hate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Scrumpylegs said:

It’s worth remembering that Ashton’s finest hour was signing Webster from Ipswich and making millions just 12 months or so later. Whoever instigated this deal totally pulled down Ipswich’s pants! To be fair to him though, nobody did this to us while he was here - we sold some players for decent money and the general consensus has been that we did get a fair, or even slightly over the odds, price in almost all cases.

I wonder if Ipswich would sell us Downes 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, CyderInACan said:

Yup. Usually the bullshit is deployed to cover up a lack of knowledge. When you know what you’re on about you simply don’t need to talk bollocks every time you open your mouth. 

.........but it is an essential requirement for posting on OTIB!   :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SecretSam said:

I agree that his role and the parameters should have been made clearer. Whether that was his job to explain himself, well that's another matter...

In fairness to Mark, I thought he already had explained that he was responsible for recruitment, albeit the manager/head coach had the final say/veto. 

In which case, the quite awful signings we've made are down to him. The situation where player's futures (with contracts ending shortly) are up in the air is down to him. 

And he brought in the fitness and conditioning staff didn't he? 

And he constantly talks BS. That's also down to him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some great insights from the Ipswich equivalent of the Bristol Post

https://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/profile-of-new-itfc-chief-executive-ashton-7898856

I've picked out some of my favourites below:

Ashton resigned from his position (at Watford) in December 2008 days after the surprise departure of chairman Graham Simpson. He subsequently sued the club for a reported fee of around £300k, money he claimed was owed as part of his contract, but that High Court claim was eventually withdrawn. A scathing article published in the Watford Observer around that time opens with the line: “Logic dictates there must be more than one person with a good word to say about Mark Ashton’s reign as Watford’s chief executive, but I have yet to meet them.” 

Ashton became Wycombe Wanderers CEO in February 2009, also joining the board of rugby club London Wasps, who ground-shared with the Chairboys at the time. He resigned from both roles just four months later though after Wycombe had achieved automatic League Two promotion under Peter Taylor's management. He said: “I've been in football for the majority of my life and now feel it is time to do something different. 

In 2014, Ashton returned to football to become CEO of Oxford United. One of the first things he did was sack the recently appointed Gary Waddock (after just eight games in charge) and bring in former West Brom player and coach Michael Appleton. 

And yet the Bristol Post reports that ‘few Bristol City men have proved as divisive to the Robins’ fan base’. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I did not know Boothroyd had been at West Brom.

He was unknown at the time ? but it was Watford. Like the Bristol Post that rag is littered with adverts and one comes immediately after the Watford title so it is easy to think you are still reading about West Brom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, CiderJar said:

He was unknown at the time ? but it was Watford. Like the Bristol Post that rag is littered with adverts and one comes immediately after the Watford title so it is easy to think you are still reading about West Brom.

Not unknown....he’d played for “our friends in the north”.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See also in the comments....
https://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/profile-of-new-itfc-chief-executive-ashton-7898856

Wotan says "What do we take from your article? Well, Ashton fired a manager after only a few games. That's the one optimistic note in the whole piece. The rest of it talks of a Flash Harry, front but no substance, more suited to Love Island than Ipswich. But let's not get too maudlin and hope his past is no guide to his future."

And we're supposed to believe that fans don't know anything about football off the pitch GeeMacGee?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Show Me The Money! said:

We could say that about most people who’ve been in similar roles at the club, but then what club does come out and explain exactly how it functions.

I’m not down with all the MA bashing myself. Was he any good at his job. I don’t know and I would guess most here don’t know either because they don’t know him and don’t know exactly what he did and didn’t do.

 All I can say is that regardless of how good or not he was at his job we should have appointed a proper director of football to control the whole coaching and scouting aspects at the club. That for me was his biggest failure

This is a massive failing though and is the reason we are in the mess we are in now.

whilst a good negotiator and administrator, Ashton was useless on day to day football matters but arrogantly thought the opposite. Hence he had too much power in areas where he was mediocre at best. This justifies many peoples distain of him in my eyes. But more blame for this lies at the door of the Lansdowns I suppose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Huge change, in a crucial and delicate moment for the club.

To me, Ashton's work at AG has been overall quite good: his selling ability matched with the club's sustainable model and some of his signings were good (even if part of the credit goes to the manager and his staff); other signings clearly were not, and in some occasions he had difficulties with contracts talking, at least lately.

Anyway, after 6 years a change is understandable, and I wish the board to find the right person for the role...or even two (CEO + DOF) if it's required.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Gregors now found out more details about the day when Ashtons departure was announced:

 

6D27E679-19F2-456C-8891-2747E5C7938B.jpeg

Like the players should care that the CEO is off, unless he’s too involved in the team?


Also confirms Werhun off in the piece

I’d heard he was, but was waiting for confirmation.

I have no problem with him being headhunted, I have no problem with him speaking new opportunities.  But I wonder how much was done on City’s time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Gregors now found out more details about the day when Ashtons departure was announced:

 

6D27E679-19F2-456C-8891-2747E5C7938B.jpeg

Like the players should care that the CEO is off, unless he’s too involved in the team?


Also confirms Werhun off in the piece

Werhun going as well you say?? Never!! 
Who’d have thunk. 
 

As for Ashton’s announcement to the squad - wow!! I’m sure they were devastated (assuming they were interested enough to actually give a ****)! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...