Davefevs

He was like two players!

It’s quite interesting reading other posts on TWTD. You’d think with the investment they’ve made promotion is the aim. I’d see anything else as failure. I kinda get playoffs as sensible objective….but you know fans will ignore it’s a 1 in 4 chance. So, quite surprised the low expectations of some. They’ve given up on autos. Got a few hamstring injuries already according to one thread. I don’t mind the responses. We are all a bit touchy about other clubs’ fans coming on OTIB and telling us about our club….I guess in this case they asked, and it was about Ashton, not their club per se.

Yours and @Fuber’s post resonate so much with my own view. I have nothing against Mark Ashton as a person (although I don’t like some of his traits), but the evidence I have built up shows (imho) that he is not that competent at some aspects of his role(s). As you say surrounds himself with people to protect him / keep the ones who might challenge one step further away. It’s a common trait of a weak leader. I think he’s a decent football business administrator, one who should’ve stayed as COO, focusing on the non-football playing side…but COO doesn’t command £540k salary does it? I agree that he will probably get relative immediate success at Ipswich, but I fully expect plateau followed by a fall, by which point he will have already identified his escape route. He really screwed my club over. He was allowed to by SL and JL in the main, but also LJ for failing to call him out. Someone else said they would’ve liked to see LJ without Ashton. We can watch from afar to see how it pans out at Sunderland.

Yes, someone else mentioned it was on original list, so I assume they corrected, then fallen foul again.

That is their standard response isn’t it? Very pally still I’m led to believe.

Do any sensible fans expect a CEO to not talk like a CEO, dress smartly etc? I don’t want a CEO to sound like a Harry Redknapp, or dress like Tony Pulis. To think that is why fans don’t “like” him is bonkers.

@Mr Popodopolousnot Another one!

Great summary btw. Re FFP in Lg1/2 it’s different to Champ. At it’s simplest it’s 60% of turnover on wages (55% in Lg2). But….the key part is this: Turnover definition Under the SCMP rules, the definition of 'Turnover' is particularly important as Turnover is used to determine the maximum wage-spend. Within a traditional accounting perspective, there are usually only three elements of turnover: Match-day Income Commercial Income (such as sponsorship) TV revenue (and any 'merit payments' based on league position) However the Football League use a is broader definition of Turnover. Crucially, the FL Turnover figure includes donations from the owners to the club and injections of equity. Loans from club owners are understandably not included in the Turnover figure as these would result in growing club debts Ipswich’s new owners are taking advantage of the bit in bold…in some respects this can make a “big club” in Lg1 terms a very viable investment to get the momentum building. Their problem will be that if they get promoted they will have to fall under Championship rules. Irrespective of what “Mark” says, they will be paying big wages for Lg1. Some players will have taken pay cuts, I don’t doubt that, but not that much….and you can bet their contract next season if promoted will be a sizeable uplift. That will hamper Ipswich….especially when owner donations don’t count either. It’s why SL can’t just bung us a £10m striker! The list I originally compiled I looked at in terms of “real” success on the pitch and financial success, e.g. did they perform relative to their fee. It was very subjective. I tried to keep it simple by giving them Green, amber, red for both categories, and looked at which ones were green in both. Plenty of our signings fell into “middle ground”, so not a true success, nor a sh1t signing either. But I also wanted to overlay the fact that our CEO says our recruitment team and processes are world class, other clubs ask us how we do it. So against that high expectation set by our CEO, were the likes of Wright and Pato successful, were the meh, or were they bad. With Wright (and Matty Taylor and Liam Walsh) I was massively frustrated that we exercised their options and still let them leave for free. We let both go on loan, there’s little chance we recouped all their wages too, so why extend their contract at a cost. Things like that make the signing of Wright err towards failure from being an ok signing. That’s where Ashton seriously mis-managed us, stuff like that. Just wasted money. Back to Q, all very subjective, but rationale to reach that subjectivity ?

Players we bought….not loaned.

If you let TWTD know I’ve registered and they activate me, I’ll add my thoughts tomorrow. No bed wetting, just a fair few facts mixed with opinions and viewpoints from people who know how he operates. No jealousy, just a bit of anger over how he operated and the poor position he left my club in.

I’ve registered. In for a penny, in for a pound -just waiting to be activated

The highlight for me was (paraphrased) - i had to call all my contacts to do these deals. Basically I read that to mean that they’ve recruited based on player agents rather than player fit to the plan.. Smells of brown envelope recruitment to me. Must stop getting so angry because he’s no longer here….but he’s left us in a shit position, and I can’t forgive that from a bloke who took £540k salary (wages and pension) from us in 19/20, and undoubtedly a similar amount last year whilst metaphorically ******* us over.

….and this For me is where you have your thinking all wrong, the horse and cart the wrong way round. If Cook is the problem, get rid of him, don’t lavish him with players. Or get players that Cook wants. As CEO you should be providing the checks that each signing meets the managers requirements? To me this is CEO failure and manager failure. Never in a million years can 19/20 players be a good window. Recruitment is not about volume….it’s about quality over quantity. It’s about a plan. Source: ITFC Analytics - I’ve added red shading to the new players. I still can’t get my head around that. Why would you sign Barry, Edwards then go and get Celina? This had the hallmarks of us signing Szmodics because we couldn’t get Palmer, then Palmer becomes available, so you get him as well. Do you honestly believe several of those players signed earlier this summer as first team regulars, and thought Ashton would be signing another in their position later in the window? Most of your signings will have signed expecting to play each week. Did Fraser sign expecting Chaplin to steal his minutes? What was the plan for Evans, Carroll and Harper if Morsy was genuinely the plan? The players themselves are in the main good players at this level, some very good, but it is gonna stink when you get a busted dressing room / training ground. Did you need to loan Dobra out? I guess time will tell, but I’d be horrified if we made that many signings. A cynic might suggest you let players go so the CEO could have his ego massaged by the thrill of lots of signings.

They are nicknamed the Biscuitmen! Gone to QPR hasn’t he? I guess EFL could refuse to register them, like they did with Brum’s Pederson. Im long of the belief that if you loan someone (say over the age 23) that you should pay their full contract costs. U23s should be about development and perhaps a percentage should be paid, e.g. 25%. Would make clubs think twice about hoarding.

Imagine Louie Barry and Aston Villa are delighted by this. Penalty clauses? Not first team players.

Irrespective of how big a cock he is, there is no recruitment plan that can be deemed good that involves 19/20 first team signings. It’s not like they didn’t have a group of players. Lets see how many are here this time next year. I see this as awful recruitment. Hope it goes horribly wrong.

Depends what’s in their contracts.

Just that he wasn’t a very nice bloke, treated youngsters like sh1t, through his toys out the pram re recruitment. I’d heard similar from another Pompey fans but not as damming / harsh.

His wife (ex-wife) has a company doing travel, house hunting etc for pro footballers….creaming money out of football. I’d love to see the detailed accounts of a couple of his other businesses. Id love to see the money trail of some of our deals over the years too! Very disappointed. Really wanted him here. Heard some shit from a Portsmouth fan last week re his time there, and don’t mind saying I was wrong about him….dodged one I think. What does it say for him that Ashton turned him down last summer.

Problem exacerbated by it probably being the most competitive Lg1 in years, stronger than 14/15, and that had some good teams in it. Big gamble they will gel….there are “teams” in Lg1 who will make it very tough for Ipswich….most of them will be raise their game against the so-called superstars.

Fixed it for you.

I have.

too right! ??? I loves me stats and data, but from reading this analysis I get the impression it’s incredibly data driven, and not from watching the events themselves - in fact I’d say this has been written without watching the games, highlights at best. I’ve noticed that Wyscout (my chosen source) has mis-mapped Weimann’s 2nd goal as being outside the box and flaws like that skew the data. Cardiff’s pass network has lots of connections between Flint, Morrison and the wingbacks….and we all know from actually watching the game that we were happy for them to pass amongst themselves in their own half, but pressure the direct ball. Therefore the analyst has completely missed that nuance of the Cardiff style. When they write “Flint dominated defensively” it’s plain to see they didn’t watch the game.

Not sure it’s hindsight, selling the CM you built a system around seemed a “bit” stupid at the time didn’t it?