The View From The Hill. Chairman Nicholas Randall Speaks!

[Strawberry Avenger]

The Club communicate about the 'nearly' four years.

Nicholas Randall, QC in the hot seat with Q&A from Forest fans.

SA.

[PsychoStanleyStone]

I 'went' to the game around 2006, changed my mind and sat up on Wilford Hill, felt sad back then, it was a long distance watch with commentary on the car radio, anyway will have a listen when I can face it, wondering what classes as 'nearly'

[Strawberry Avenger]

Structure of the club outlined. They will consider offers of further expertise added to the Forest board.

Recruitment structure outlined. They do use Olympiacos for the expertise in the European and World market for players.

Manager has the final say. They outline where the gaps are and where improvements can be made.

Randall admits there was a bit of 'short term-ism' Re: player recruitment and turnover and they 'rushed' to get to where they wanted to get to.

Didn't shy away from last Summer's recruitment. The reality is that the results haven't been good enough.

'Mistakes' have been made. There is a propensity to talk about this when there is a change of manager.

Makes feelings clear about this season. It's a results based business. Clearly not where they wanted to be. Feel the current 'narrative' has affected the club's momentum.
Feels some of the coverage has been unfair. But they welcome criticism. They tend to prefer to quietly let the football do the talking.

£20 million of debt has been converted so that debt isn't hanging over the club. Mari 100% and totally committed. Not looking to sell!

Comfortably and well within the FFP limits. Great deal on Matty sale. The losses are much lower in the next set of accounts.

Mari loves the club and determined to make the club a success. Investing in the community trust.

In Hughton, Randall believes they have an 'Outstanding' candidate.

They 100% sympathise with fans over loss of our young talent. 'We have to let those players go (and it's not right, an unfair system...) to stay within FFP limits.' (ie. Premiership have the resources to hoard talent.)

Talks about the need to improve club revenue within the limits of the current facilities. Believe making ticket prices competitive is the right move to get people into the club. Crucial we get people in. Young people in. Huge priority to get fans back.

Part 1 concludes.

Up next for Part 2 will be the development of the stadium and the academy.

SA.

[TheGreenMan]

Thanks for sharing that SA.

[Strawberry Avenger]

Cheers, TheGreenMan.

The Q&A is welcome communication from Nottingham Forest. I quite like Randall as a Chairman and felt his responses were reasonably candid.

Really looking forward to the questions on the Ground improvements and the Academy.

SA.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Thanks for the concise synopsis SA, much appreciated.

Just listened to it, lets see what others think. He answered most questions pretty well in my opinion although for certain bits I wasn’t entirely convinced our QC told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Anyhow some refreshing openness at last is excellent to see.

[wassy04]

There wasn't loads of big takeaways really from part 1. Good that they admitted they were a bit too short termist and they have messed up comes up until now.

The FFP bit was good news, suggested the next accounts look good for FFP so that means we can spend a bit this summer. Or perhaps more importantly that we don't need to sell Worrall.

I thought it was good to hear about quite how much he disagreed with the parachute payment structure, definitely sounded like we're quite keen to get rid of those. Basically said promotion and relegation was semi redundant if its just the same teams going up and down (Norwich & wba spring to mind)

Excited about the stadium and academy stuff in part 2. Overall was a good listen and just glad really that this has happened. Hopefully they continue, it really does make such a big difference

[wassy04]

Thanks for the concise synopsis SA, much appreciated.

Just listened to it, lets see what others think. He answered most questions pretty well in my opinion although for certain bits I wasn’t entirely convinced our QC told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Anyhow some refreshing openness at last is excellent to see.

I thought he was talking to you when he said he didn't want to take things too slowly on recruitment  :D

Agreed, think you could tell he was a lawyer!

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Haha maybe he was talking to me! I suspect that one or two club insiders do lurk on here from time to time anyway even if not Randall himself but he did seem to be aware of most criticisms.

Not wanting to take recruitment slowly well fair enough as long as there is a strategy (you know my feelings on that). The bit I didn't buy is the one about the manager always having the final say. Do you honestly believe Lamouchi had the final say in every one of those 14 signings last summer?

But I am nit picking, overall as I said it was positive to hear.

[wassy04]

Haha maybe he was talking to me!  I suspect that one or two club insiders do lurk on here from time to time anyway even if not Randall himself but he did seem to be aware of most criticisms.

Not wanting to take recruitment slowly well fair enough as long as there is a strategy (you know my feelings on that). The bit I didn't buy is the one about the manager always having the final say. Do you honestly believe Lamouchi had the final say in every one of those 14 signings last summer?

But I am nit picking, overall as I said it was positive to hear.

Yeah I thought that would've liked them to ask him whether Sabri was a key in signing cafu, Diallo etc. Although ironically cafu has probably been the best signing! 

He was pretty positive about CH at least, no hint that they had any intention of changing manager again. Hopefully his reputation allows him the power that perhaps Sabri couldn't command

[ozzyten10]

Good to hear we might have a bit of wiggle room for ffp. Hopefully a bit of quality coming in the summer.

[tugger2018]

Great interview very informative
This guy mr Randall is a very impressive intelligent individual we are in safe hands with him at our helm