Season finished 3 games before the end…again (well done the board)

[ExiledAjax]

3 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Is it? When the gap to the play offs has so far got wider? 

I'd say yes.

The number of points achieved by the team in 6th is something outside of our control. Next season it could be 68, maybe one season it might be 75. I don't think it's the best yardstick to use to measure year on year progress.

What is in our control - so far as it can be when we play other teams who have their own ideas - is our own points tally.

That's probably going to very slightly improve on last season. So yeh it can be argued to be progress in terms of raw points output.

The more interesting discussion is around the reasons for that very slight improvement.

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 minutes ago, Big C said:

Yep, higher position and probably more points. 

 

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

I'd say yes.

The number of points achieved by the team in 6th is something outside of our control. Next season it could be 68, maybe one season it might be 75. I don't think it's the best yardstick to use to measure year on year progress.

What is in our control - so far as it can be when we play other teams who have their own ideas - is our own points tally.

That's probably going to very slightly improve on last season. So yeh it can be argued to be progress in terms of raw points output.

The more interesting discussion is around the reasons for that very slight improvement.

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

 

[ExiledAjax]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

But, to use your analogy, next season Red Bull may well be slower. 

So, if we just keep getting faster ourselves, then eventually one season, we'll be fast enough to beat them.

The average for 6th place is what about 73? So just concentrate on getting closer to that and we'll get our chance at some point.

[Big C]

9 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

 

It's like saying Mercedes have got faster this year so thats progression. 

When the reality is Red Bull have got even faster. 

 

Exactly Mercedes have got faster and progressed. 

We are not talking about other teams progression just City's

Edited April 14 by Big C

[MarcusX]

12 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

So you don't think we could have beaten Huddersfield x2 +4 points

QPR x2 +5 points

Cardiff x2 +6 points

Without adequate investment? Beating just those 3 teams twice would now see us sitting comfortably in the play offs. 

I can list many other other games where we could and should have got more than we got. 

Whilst I think we should have signed 1-2 more in the summer, we have enough to have done better than we've got. 

Blaming it on 'investment' is just you doubling down. 

 

That’s not how football works, win one of those and everything else changes afterwards. It’s not as simple as you’ve made it.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, ashton_fan said:

Scotty made 42 league appearances and Semenyo 23 so a significant number, your stat may be correct but gives a biased opinion on the effect those players had on the team

It’s not biased, people are trying to give a view that we had BOTH Scott and Semenyo ALL last season as a comparison to this season.  The fact (a real one, not an opinion) is Antoine was injured early season, and left in January 2023.  At best we had Antoine for half a season.  All I’m adding is that they only started 10 league games together.  My opinion is that Antoine struggled for form when he came back, and that meant he started considerably less than the 23 he appeared in, so we did quite benefit from Antoine being at full tilt.  That’s all.

 

[cidercity1987]

2 hours ago, Mendip City said:

Here’s a thought…. When was the last truly meaningful league game we played? I really can’t think…. Wasn’t there a season under LJ where, in theory, we could have made the play-offs with a win and other results going our way? It’s just been season after season finished with dead-rubbers for the last couple of months. Not even a relegation battle! 

Truly meaningful, Birmingham and Millwall this season. We went into them in good form and on the cusp of the play offs. Failed to put them away and drifted down the table.

I had a feeling at the time our season might pan out more successfully if we'd managed to crack the top six and prove we could play against the low block

[Cov 77]

6 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Yes I am being very serious and I note others on here have said the same. That Blackburn win was the least exciting 5.0 in the club history, we were average and gifted the game through error after error from them. Majority of second half was fall asleep mode. We’ve played much better this season like Stoke at home under Nige where we played them off the park and somehow lost. 

God honestly you will say anything to justify your agenda , yes they made mistakes but we pressed them from the off excellently and took our chances , we were very good , inconsistency I will give you but behave 

[REDOXO]

15 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Real progress! Top six squad we were told! Progressive appointment….sorry a couple of scrappy results isn’t convincing me (and I include a 5.0 win in that which for me was almost as bad a performance as some of the others…gifted 5 goals and created little ourselves). Worried for next season, he will get the summer and first 10 games for me but I’m not convinced he is any better than LJ. 

I do see some signs of progress with the Manning way…Sometimes. 
 

However yesterday was rubbish and I do share your misgivings about Blackburn. They were utter nonsense all over the park. Yes we pressured them but honestly they were so garbage their manager hooked four off at ht. Everything you need to know right there. 
 

Where we have real signs of progress is consistent clean sheets. However is that progress from the beginning of the Manning era or across the season? 
 

Mr Manning is facing his first proper injury crisis, however the week Lansdown junior and Tinnion sacked Pearson we had seven (7) U18/U21s in the squad. 

I’ll take a point at home against second bottom if I have to but I’m not down wiv the cult of Liam quite yet.

Hopefully  will be one day!

[Northern Red]

Fair play, I didnt think "only beat West Ham because they had a man sent off" and "only beat Southampton because Downes was missing" could be topped for idiocy, but the OP has managed it.

Tedious waste of bandwidth, and now going on ignore.

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

But, to use your analogy, next season Red Bull may well be slower. 

So, if we just keep getting faster ourselves, then eventually one season, we'll be fast enough to beat them.

The average for 6th place is what about 73? So just concentrate on getting closer to that and we'll get our chance at some point.

They may well be. 

They may however go even faster. 

I'm happy with my own metric of points from play offs. Neither of us are right. It's our own opinions. 

If a team finishes 7th on goal difference but then finishes the next season in 7th but 5 points off the play offs, that's regression. 

Coventry for example should hit the same points total as last season. However its not likely they will miss out on the play offs by X amount of points. 

I consider that to be a regression. You have to not only keep up with the opposition but improve more than the opposition. If you stand still you're likely to go backwards, just like Coventry. 

 

[W-S-M Seagull]

23 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Fair play, I didnt think "only beat West Ham because they had a man sent off" and "only beat Southampton because Downes was missing" could be topped for idiocy, but the OP has managed it.

Tedious waste of bandwidth, and now going on ignore.

This place is full of different opinions. 

This guy has raised some valid points and you feel because its not an opinion you share that you must mock his opinion? 

Just scroll on by mate. 

[mozo]

52 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Fair play, I didnt think "only beat West Ham because they had a man sent off" and "only beat Southampton because Downes was missing" could be topped for idiocy, but the OP has managed it.

Tedious waste of bandwidth, and now going on ignore.

Yeah there was the narrative that the cup didn't matter and ppg was the important thing, and that Manning could only beat the good teams.

Then we won games in the league, beat teams below us, improved our ppg, and suddenly the real issue is the quality of our wins. They're not good enough wins. We should be winning in a much more glorious manner.

Thankfully there are also sensible critics of Manning too, but some of the noise is amusing.

Edited April 14 by mozo

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, mozo said:

Yeah there was the narrative that the cup didn't matter and ppg was the important thing, and that Manning could only beat the good teams.

Then we won games in the league, beat teams below us, improved our ppg, and suddenly the real issue is the quality of our wins. They're not good enough wins. We should be winning in a much more glorious manner.

Thankfully there are also sensible critics of Manning too, but some of the noise is amusing.

To lay the Blackburn win at Blackburn’s ineptitude is crazy.  The Swansea win is fair-game for criticism imho.

[mozo]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

To lay the Blackburn win at Blackburn’s ineptitude is crazy.  The Swansea win is fair-game for criticism imho.

Yeah the Swansea game I think you and I were both annoyed with the block, which didn't work and is Manning's poor decision. I think another factor to the performance was that our players looked liked their confidence was shot. Not all of the individual errors were related to the tactics, but you could argue that cautiousness bred nervousness. 

I think Manning's defence was that we didn't moan about the block when it worked. And he's got point. But he should have just said, yeah I got it wrong.

[Davefevs]

4 minutes ago, mozo said:

I think Manning's defence was that we didn't moan about the block when it worked. And he's got point.

I effing did, from way back too!

I called out structure v structure (sterile v sterile) relatively early on.

I’m not sure it has worked that well tbqh.  But I’ve written at length why, no need to repeat.

[Capman]

It’s the relentless predictability of it that really gets to me. 
For the first time in years we should actually have some money to spend this summer. But I wonder if anyone can tell me who they would want to oversea spending it, a manager and CEO who have both gained promotion to the premier league doing those roles or a nice bloke who has never coached at this level and a great guy who once scored against Liverpool in the cup?

If you ran any sensible business like this you would expect to go bust. Of course as a supporter I really hope that they are successful but the sensible part of my brain says we have set ourselves up to fail once again. Let’s put it like this, I might have been tempted to put a few quid on those who have done it before, to do it again. This lot, I will keep my cash in my pocket. 

[petehinton]

It’s been a real mess of a season from every angle, when you look at it properly objectively. 
 

- Board to not agree on whether to sack and replace current manager and coaching staff over the summer, before pre-season starts. Dily dally, leave it too late, have to stick with. 
 

- Sell best player after the season starts (I have no real gripe with, Alex wanted to go, was inevitable he was going to). Don’t allow money for ANY replacements. 

- Owner appears on local business podcast in his place of residence to discuss the deal. Allow that to be the only time he’s publicly heard from all year.

- CEO leaves by ‘mutual consent’ after basically flagging he has no idea why he was brought in because the owners son is allowed to do whatever he wants, to the commercial detriment of a club in commercial difficulty. 
 

- Publicly say ‘we don’t actually need a CEO with the new structure’. Appoint someone who’s essentially a good accountant as Group CEO of three sporting clubs. 
 

- Ask manager to resign when sitting 7th (?) in the table. Are shocked he doesn’t want to. Cause him to go nuclear in the press, because no one at the club can string a sentence together when speaking externally. 
 

- Sack relatively popular manager after spirited performance in the middle of an enormous injury crisis

- Realising you’ve massively misread the room, make things even worse and double down on saying the team should be pushing for promotion, trying to look ambitious to get the fans excited. Fans react by saying that’s unrealistic and naive. 
 

- Roll out the Chairman who knows nothing about medical or physical performance, to explain why the most senior and experienced medical professional the club has ever had has also been dismissed. Proceed to pick up more muscle injuries than you had before sacking. 
 

- Say we have a clear playing identity from ‘first team to u11s’ which is front foot, high press, and aggressive. Proceed to appoint a head coach who built his teams to be very methodical, slow in their build up and keeping possession as much as possible. 
 

- Magically make budget available in January that wasn’t available in the summer in trying to bring in an attacking midfielder, key to the head coach’s style of play despite saying the squad is the best we’ve ever had at this level and just needed a better coach to move us on. 
 

- Lose out on number 1 target, so loan in a player for 4 months with no buy option, because you didn’t want to pay the fee that the parent club will probably still demand in the summer. 
 

- Sign a relatively unknown youth prospect with an option to buy. Blame lack of game time in Belgium due to mysterious (or made up?) visa issues. Proceed to not play him. 
 

- Sign 2 players on a permanent, but loan them back to their parent clubs, not strengthening the squad depth or quality in any way. 
 

- Sign a very promising young player from Ireland. Lie & say he is currently doing a 3 month ‘mini pre season’ to hide that he’s injured and can’t train or play. 
 

- Head coach near enough admits he can’t play the way he wants to, and way he was brought in to, with the squad he has. 
 

- In the middle of very poor run of results and performances with ST renewals on the horizon, Technical Director to appear on local radio and disclose confidential information as he can’t answer hard questions. Interview to have corrections added to it when published in local written press. 
 

- In the same poor run, head coach is clearly concerned for his job so out of nowhere implies the squad is weaker than last years, so maybe expectations should be lowered. 
 

- To get people excited for new year, use main striker who Technical Director has publicly admitted has rejected 3 contract offers in pictures and videos for ‘more of this to come next season’ comms. 
 

Have I missed anything?

Edited April 14 by petehinton

[mozo]

25 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I effing did, from way back too!

I called out structure v structure (sterile v sterile) relatively early on.

I’m not sure it has worked that well tbqh.  But I’ve written at length why, no need to repeat.

Cup games, Southampton to name the obvious (from memory, we used the block?)

[Northern Red]

9 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Have I missed anything?

ONYEGO!

[mozo]

11 minutes ago, petehinton said:

It’s been a real mess of a season from every angle, when you look at it properly objectively. 
 

- Board to not agree on whether to sack and replace current manager and coaching staff over the summer, before pre-season starts. Dily dally, leave it too late, have to stick with. 
 

- Sell best player after the season starts (I have no real gripe with, Alex wanted to go, was inevitable he was going to). Don’t allow money for ANY replacements. 

- Owner appears on local business podcast in his place of residence to discuss the deal. Allow that to be the only time he’s publicly heard from all year.

- CEO leaves by ‘mutual consent’ after basically flagging he has no idea why he was brought in because the owners son is allowed to do whatever he wants, to the commercial detriment of a club in commercial difficulty. 
 

- Publicly say ‘we don’t actually need a CEO with the new structure’. Appoint someone who’s essentially a good accountant as Group CEO of three sporting clubs. 
 

- Ask manager to resign when sitting 7th (?) in the table. Are shocked he doesn’t want to. Cause him to go nuclear in the press, because no one at the club can string a sentence together when speaking externally. 
 

- Sack relatively popular manager after spirited performance in the middle of an enormous injury crisis

- Realising you’ve massively misread the room, make things even worse and double down on saying the team should be pushing for promotion, trying to look ambitious to get the fans excited. Fans react by saying that’s unrealistic and naive. 
 

- Roll out the Chairman who knows nothing about medical or physical performance, to explain why the most senior and experienced medical professional the club has ever had has also been dismissed. Proceed to pick up more muscle injuries than you had before sacking. 
 

- Say we have a clear playing identity from ‘first team to u11s’ which is front foot, high press, and aggressive. Proceed to appoint a head coach who built his teams to be very methodical, slow in their build up and keeping possession as much as possible. 
 

- Magically make budget available in January that wasn’t available in the summer in trying to bring in an attacking midfielder, key to the head coach’s style of play despite saying the squad is the best we’ve ever had at this level and just needed a better coach to move us on. 
 

- Lose out on number 1 target, so loan in a player for 4 months with no buy option, because you didn’t want to pay the fee that the parent club will probably still demand in the summer. 
 

- Sign a relatively unknown youth prospect with an option to buy. Blame lack of game time in Belgium due to mysterious (or made up?) visa issues. Proceed to not play him. 
 

- Sign 2 players on a permanent, but loan them back to their parent clubs, not strengthening the squad depth or quality in any way. 
 

- Sign a very promising young player from Ireland. Lie & say he is currently doing a 3 month ‘mini pre season’ to hide that he’s injured and can’t train or play. 
 

- Head coach near enough admits he can’t play the way he wants to, and way he was brought in to, with the squad he has. 
 

- In the middle of very poor run of results and performances with ST renewals on the horizon, Technical Director to appear on local radio and disclose confidential information as he can’t answer hard questions. Interview to have corrections added to it when published in local written press. 
 

- In the same poor run, head coach is clearly concerned for his job so out of nowhere implies the squad is weaker than last years, so maybe expectations should be lowered. 
 

- To get people excited for new year, use main striker who Technical Director has publicly admitted has rejected 3 contract offers in pictures and videos for ‘more of this to come next season’ comms. 
 

Have I missed anything?

Totally agree with all of that. 

Interestingly, comms/PR is a big part of the problem, as many of your examples refer to bodged communication. 

Genuinely, I could do better PR for the club, and so could you Pete. It's a really important part of the club's relationship with the fans and it has been shocking for years.

I'm not totally against our recruitment because some of it has been really good, but I would love a proper DoF; someone with experience. 

Unfortunately, our billionaire owner won't pay good money for that.

Edited April 14 by mozo

[Numero Uno]

15 minutes ago, petehinton said:

It’s been a real mess of a season from every angle, when you look at it properly objectively. 
 

- Board to not agree on whether to sack and replace current manager and coaching staff over the summer, before pre-season starts. Dily dally, leave it too late, have to stick with. 
 

- Sell best player after the season starts (I have no real gripe with, Alex wanted to go, was inevitable he was going to). Don’t allow money for ANY replacements. 

- Owner appears on local business podcast in his place of residence to discuss the deal. Allow that to be the only time he’s publicly heard from all year.

- CEO leaves by ‘mutual consent’ after basically flagging he has no idea why he was brought in because the owners son is allowed to do whatever he wants, to the commercial detriment of a club in commercial difficulty. 
 

- Publicly say ‘we don’t actually need a CEO with the new structure’. Appoint someone who’s essentially a good accountant as Group CEO of three sporting clubs. 
 

- Ask manager to resign when sitting 7th (?) in the table. Are shocked he doesn’t want to. Cause him to go nuclear in the press, because no one at the club can string a sentence together when speaking externally. 
 

- Sack relatively popular manager after spirited performance in the middle of an enormous injury crisis

- Realising you’ve massively misread the room, make things even worse and double down on saying the team should be pushing for promotion, trying to look ambitious to get the fans excited. Fans react by saying that’s unrealistic and naive. 
 

- Roll out the Chairman who knows nothing about medical or physical performance, to explain why the most senior and experienced medical professional the club has ever had has also been dismissed. Proceed to pick up more muscle injuries than you had before sacking. 
 

- Say we have a clear playing identity from ‘first team to u11s’ which is front foot, high press, and aggressive. Proceed to appoint a head coach who built his teams to be very methodical, slow in their build up and keeping possession as much as possible. 
 

- Magically make budget available in January that wasn’t available in the summer in trying to bring in an attacking midfielder, key to the head coach’s style of play despite saying the squad is the best we’ve ever had at this level and just needed a better coach to move us on. 
 

- Lose out on number 1 target, so loan in a player for 4 months with no buy option, because you didn’t want to pay the fee that the parent club will probably still demand in the summer. 
 

- Sign a relatively unknown youth prospect with an option to buy. Blame lack of game time in Belgium due to mysterious (or made up?) visa issues. Proceed to not play him. 
 

- Sign 2 players on a permanent, but loan them back to their parent clubs, not strengthening the squad depth or quality in any way. 
 

- Sign a very promising young player from Ireland. Lie & say he is currently doing a 3 month ‘mini pre season’ to hide that he’s injured and can’t train or play. 
 

- Head coach near enough admits he can’t play the way he wants to, and way he was brought in to, with the squad he has. 
 

- In the middle of very poor run of results and performances with ST renewals on the horizon, Technical Director to appear on local radio and disclose confidential information as he can’t answer hard questions. Interview to have corrections added to it when published in local written press. 
 

- In the same poor run, head coach is clearly concerned for his job so out of nowhere implies the squad is weaker than last years, so maybe expectations should be lowered. 
 

- To get people excited for new year, use main striker who Technical Director has publicly admitted has rejected 3 contract offers in pictures and videos for ‘more of this to come next season’ comms. 
 

Have I missed anything?

Which is why, in my view, the Technical Director MUST be sacked whatever the club does. Very little of his comms are shown to possess any degree of truth which for me is a huge red flag and then add his dubious qualifications to say the least to be in the role then I cannot see how his position is tenable. There is no way back for him whatever the club does as far as I’m concerned. You cannot have people in post who are proven to be incorrect pretty much every time they speak publically.

[ExiledAjax]

3 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

They may well be. 

They may however go even faster. 

I'm happy with my own metric of points from play offs. Neither of us are right. It's our own opinions. 

If a team finishes 7th on goal difference but then finishes the next season in 7th but 5 points off the play offs, that's regression. 

Coventry for example should hit the same points total as last season. However its not likely they will miss out on the play offs by X amount of points. 

I consider that to be a regression. You have to not only keep up with the opposition but improve more than the opposition. If you stand still you're likely to go backwards, just like Coventry. 

 

Ok. I strongly disagree.

What if we finish on more points, but the gap to relegation is smaller? Hell what if the gap to both promotion and relegation is smaller? Are either of those signs of progression?

Just like the discussion some of us had about form, I don't think it's right to measure progress against an arbitrary and moveable level achieved by another team.

Edited April 14 by ExiledAjax

[redsquirrel]

1 hour ago, Northern Red said:

ONYEGO!

gosh,id forgotten that already,explains zaks absence yesterday,probs out delivering a box of merch, to botswana

[Capman]

13 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Ok. I strongly disagree.

What if we finish on more points, but the gap to relegation is smaller? Hell what of the gap to bother promotion and relegation is smaller? Are either of those signs of progression?

Just like the discussion some of us had about form, I don't think it's right to measure progress against an arbitrary and moveable level achieved by another team.

I guess it depends on your objective. For me the club’s objective should be to get into the playoffs (at least). So points from the playoffs is not arbitrary. It is a very specific measure of how far short the club fell from its objective. As for the ‘moveable level achieved by another team’ surely that is exactly what a league is designed to measure.  Clubs will get better as training and fitness improves. If a team wants to get promotion it needs to improve faster than other teams. 
It reminds me of the age old debate about GCSE results. Does the fact that teaching gets better and pupils are better prepared mean the steady upward creep of grades is right? Or should the required attainment move to keep the bell curve the same. When there are two automatic places and four in the play offs it’s just a fact that in football the bell curve moves. 
So I don’t know what the right answer is, but that is because I think the club needs to be more specific about its objective. Once you know what your target is, I would only measure how far over or under it you are. 
 

[ExiledAjax]

10 minutes ago, Capman said:

Clubs will get better as training and fitness improves.

But not exponentially. The points required to finish 6th is not going to constantly keep improving until it hits 100. There is a level, probable by looking at the history of this ancient league, that we know will give us a good chance of finishing 6th.

Yes, we have to improve relative to both ourselves and the other 23 teams, but I believe that when we compare present Bristol City to past Bristol City it makes sense to look more at raw points return and finishing position than it does to look at gaps to 6th or 22nd place.

[ExiledAjax]

13 minutes ago, Capman said:

So I don’t know what the right answer is, but that is because I think the club needs to be more specific about its objective. Once you know what your target is, I would only measure how far over or under it you are. 

And I've said before that we got a good steer on this from Tinnion on SoTC when he said we should be "about ten points better off". Given what we were on at that time this implied that 1.54ppg is the target. 

1.54 * 47 = 71 points. Which happens to be a total that gives you a good stab at 6th place in an average season.

[Superjack]

7 hours ago, Super said:

Pearson is gone move on ffs.

I'll move on when it's proved the right decision. 

Don't hold your breath.

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, mozo said:

Cup games, Southampton to name the obvious (from memory, we used the block?)

Yes, but I’m talking overall.

I don’t want to drag it all up again if that’s ok.

[Superjack]

2 hours ago, petehinton said:

It’s been a real mess of a season from every angle, when you look at it properly objectively. 
 

- Board to not agree on whether to sack and replace current manager and coaching staff over the summer, before pre-season starts. Dily dally, leave it too late, have to stick with. 
 

- Sell best player after the season starts (I have no real gripe with, Alex wanted to go, was inevitable he was going to). Don’t allow money for ANY replacements. 

- Owner appears on local business podcast in his place of residence to discuss the deal. Allow that to be the only time he’s publicly heard from all year.

- CEO leaves by ‘mutual consent’ after basically flagging he has no idea why he was brought in because the owners son is allowed to do whatever he wants, to the commercial detriment of a club in commercial difficulty. 
 

- Publicly say ‘we don’t actually need a CEO with the new structure’. Appoint someone who’s essentially a good accountant as Group CEO of three sporting clubs. 
 

- Ask manager to resign when sitting 7th (?) in the table. Are shocked he doesn’t want to. Cause him to go nuclear in the press, because no one at the club can string a sentence together when speaking externally. 
 

- Sack relatively popular manager after spirited performance in the middle of an enormous injury crisis

- Realising you’ve massively misread the room, make things even worse and double down on saying the team should be pushing for promotion, trying to look ambitious to get the fans excited. Fans react by saying that’s unrealistic and naive. 
 

- Roll out the Chairman who knows nothing about medical or physical performance, to explain why the most senior and experienced medical professional the club has ever had has also been dismissed. Proceed to pick up more muscle injuries than you had before sacking. 
 

- Say we have a clear playing identity from ‘first team to u11s’ which is front foot, high press, and aggressive. Proceed to appoint a head coach who built his teams to be very methodical, slow in their build up and keeping possession as much as possible. 
 

- Magically make budget available in January that wasn’t available in the summer in trying to bring in an attacking midfielder, key to the head coach’s style of play despite saying the squad is the best we’ve ever had at this level and just needed a better coach to move us on. 
 

- Lose out on number 1 target, so loan in a player for 4 months with no buy option, because you didn’t want to pay the fee that the parent club will probably still demand in the summer. 
 

- Sign a relatively unknown youth prospect with an option to buy. Blame lack of game time in Belgium due to mysterious (or made up?) visa issues. Proceed to not play him. 
 

- Sign 2 players on a permanent, but loan them back to their parent clubs, not strengthening the squad depth or quality in any way. 
 

- Sign a very promising young player from Ireland. Lie & say he is currently doing a 3 month ‘mini pre season’ to hide that he’s injured and can’t train or play. 
 

- Head coach near enough admits he can’t play the way he wants to, and way he was brought in to, with the squad he has. 
 

- In the middle of very poor run of results and performances with ST renewals on the horizon, Technical Director to appear on local radio and disclose confidential information as he can’t answer hard questions. Interview to have corrections added to it when published in local written press. 
 

- In the same poor run, head coach is clearly concerned for his job so out of nowhere implies the squad is weaker than last years, so maybe expectations should be lowered. 
 

- To get people excited for new year, use main striker who Technical Director has publicly admitted has rejected 3 contract offers in pictures and videos for ‘more of this to come next season’ comms. 
 

Have I missed anything?

Nope. I think that's about it. 

Except for the previous two decades of similar, of course.