Discuss Daniel Taylor's Thoughts

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

I am sure every new owner of a big Championship club would say the same thing.

What else would we expect him to say? We aim to get relegated and hope to be in league 1 as soon as possible.

[ac_vodka]

I think its very hard to feel connected to the club right now and a couple of defeats will make that even more apparent. Recruitment has been a big miss for me with the new owners but everything else has largely been OK - given the dire state of some other championship/L1 clubs right now we should probably be glad we have a owner still willing to fund us and hope overtime everything else gets corrected.

[Jean_claude_killy]

The Tweets that Danny made at the week end; where they actually made by him?

The ones about the new training ground, the miracle gates and getting into the PL and qualifying for Europe within 5 years.

To the best of my knowledge the Club have not made any official announcements relating to any of those things; if that is the case what is Danny banging on about?

To my recollection JCK (not that my memory is that good anymore), I think these were things said at the time of the take over and, if im not mistaken, were in the open letter sent out by Nicholas Randall QC.

I could be wrong mind you

I think I am in the same boat as you, Tricky, when it comes to memory; I just cannot remember those claims from Nick Randall's letter.

I distinctly remember the bit about the Club being on life support and that a Rome was not built in a day approach was being taken to how they moved forward.

The only other claims I can remember were:

Re establishing the Forest Footballing philosophy, which would start at grass roots and evolve into a situation where we would have continuity at first team level, particularly with the managers - those are my words from what I recall.

Well, they have achieved success and failure there; The Academy grows ever stronger, with plans to make it stronger still, with the application for Cat 1; the continuity at first team level, particularly with managers has been a failure; there is no other way to view that aspect.

There was a bit about re engaging with the supporters and the greater community; The fact that great strides have been made in engaging with the wider Community - the engagement with schools and with local charities and attracting back local businesses has been successful and if the Forza Garibaldi banner displays are anything to go by, engagement with supporter groups has also been a success.

I hear on the grapevine that there is an element of unrest at both Forza Garibaldi and with the newly formed Trust regarding the Clubs approach to certain issues - I have no idea what those issues are, maybe someone could enlighten please.

Other than those recollections I just cannot recall any specific goals of playing in Europe within any space of time.

If the ownership was to be judged on what the initial aims were, then you would have to conclude that they have been successful to date; even more so when you consider the lost year, which may run to 18 months or longer.

Of course most supporters will not be bothered about any of those things, they will be focussed on what is happening on the pitch; and despite three seasons of improvement prior to this one, it is what is happening now which will attract the most attention, and that is not good at the moment.

[Widdow]

The comments made by Daniel Taylor he mentioned in his Tweets, are based on his actual conversations with the clubs hierarchy, when they arrived and he was reporting on their takeover, and was still writing in the match day programme.

If those were promises / ambitions that were not made to him, then I am sure the club would be threating him with legal action.

I am sure all of things mentioned (apart from the Miracle gates) were surely what the club wanted.

The only Fact in the matter is, they haven't really delivered on anything, apart from paying bills on time and we are closer to League One than we are Premier League, as for Europe, well that is a serious pipe dream, that would take major investment, strategic recruitment, better appointments and a whole lot of luck to happen.

They are better than a lot of owners, but unfortunately, not as good as others over the years (who in the same time been here) have achieved much more success in 3 years. ..for example, Leicester, Leeds, Wolves, Aston Villa, Brighton, Sheff Utd, Southampton, and a few of them had to start in League one!

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Some fact checking for you:

DTs tweets from this weekend:
“You could throw in last January too. 70-odd players since 2017, millions wasted on dead wages and bad decisions. No real vision, no joined-up thinking. It has set us back years.”

“What do you want them to say though? They have been the kings of spin and PR - over promising and under delivering - from day one. Just read the infamous open letter and try to keep count of the broken promises. Talking to the fans means nothing if what they say can’t be trusted”

“They told me:
- new state-of-art training ground
- Champs Lg facilities in 5 years
- playing in Europe in 5 years
- Miracle Gates (announced Sep ‘17) to go up straight away
- club would act in all cases ‘with values of old school Arsenal’”

I would say that Taylor has a point about the 70 odd players but some of the other claims certainly are not alluded to in Randalls letter. I think DT may have been a bit naive in believing some of the PR spin initially put out which does really sound fantasy stuff.
We do appear to be making progress towards a CAT1 academy but could training facilities have been improved earlier though?
The Miracle Gates havent happened but is that really such a big deal? There was a commitment to honouring the 40th anniversary that never happened though.
What is missing clearly is the promise from the letter for a “Formal advisory board ....reflecting the views of supporters and the community” Communication from the club is downright awful.

Score draw?

[ThePromisedLand]

Own Goal.

As Widdow rightly points out - if some of the things that DT is saying is so wrong ( they are clearly not ) then legal action would’ve been taken.

eg Miracle Gates:

No big deal - but don’t over promise, under deliver. Work - we were assured by the Trust - had already begun ( Sept 17 ).

Now I’m not fussed - if the ground redevelopment we have been promised comes to fruition - but it is the communication ( or lack of it ) that is at the heart of the problem.

[Jean_claude_killy]

I'm not sure that divulging the contents of a private conversation would be the basis for legal action, not unless the signing of a NDA was part of those conversations.

I'm just surprised that someone who has a habit of not making promises should go and do so, even in private.

As for the rest; I agree, serious investment will not take place while we are in this division, mainly because it cant, and recruitment has been, in the main, quite poor.

Cat 1 and getting a new stand will be very good achievements; I know some a sceptical that the stand will not happen, I take the other view.

If EM wants to sell up and leave, which he no doubt will want to do one day, and do so without losing his shirt, one of two things will have to happen; we get promoted to the PL or that stand gets built.

The building of the stand looks far more likely than promotion at the moment.

[wassy04]

I'm not sure paying the bills on time should be considered an achievement. This is a bare minimum surely? 

As far as I see it so far the main achievements have been convincing high profile managers (at the time of appointment) Karanka and Hughton to take the job. 

It would also be unfair not to praise the high levels of investment, we're running at a pretty heavy loss year to year, this is all being backed out of Marinakis pocket. Currently this is the main reason to still feel positive of the ownership, would he really want this level of sunk cost in his investment to abandon it. 

However, the investment hasn't been spent particularly well so far. It should be acknowledged its pretty difficult to challenge without parachute payments. The main issue has been an unwillingness to show some patience and allow a squad to develop. This is what Brentford and Leeds did/have done much better. 

After spending a huge fee on Carvalho that project was abandoned after 6 months that showed reasonable promise. I think they made a big mistake not factoring in this investment when picking the next managers. Perhaps he suffered from a lot of teams moving away from playing that position but for me this was a big error.

Can you switch to a slow build model when you're already 50m deep though? Or do you stick with the short term approach and hope to get lucky?

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Two things to remember both unexpected that have had a bearing on things.:

1.Covid

2. About those gates, it's about money, money that some players of that era are/were asking for from the club. That is not a guess it's 100% nailed on fact.

[Jean_claude_killy]

Some fact checking for you:

DTs tweets from this weekend:
“You could throw in last January too. 70-odd players since 2017, millions wasted on dead wages and bad decisions. No real vision, no joined-up thinking. It has set us back years.”

“What do you want them to say though? They have been the kings of spin and PR - over promising and under delivering - from day one. Just read the infamous open letter and try to keep count of the broken promises. Talking to the fans means nothing if what they say can’t be trusted”

“They told me:
- new state-of-art training ground
- Champs Lg facilities in 5 years
- playing in Europe in 5 years
- Miracle Gates (announced Sep ‘17) to go up straight away
- club would act in all cases ‘with values of old school Arsenal’”

I would say that Taylor has a point about the 70 odd players but some of the other claims certainly are not alluded to in Randalls letter. I think DT may have been a bit naive in believing some of the PR spin initially put out which does really sound fantasy stuff.
We do appear to be making progress towards a CAT1 academy but could training facilities have been improved earlier though?
The Miracle Gates havent happened but is that really such a big deal? There was a commitment to honouring the 40th anniversary that never happened though.
What is missing clearly is the promise from the letter for a “Formal advisory board ....reflecting the views of supporters and the community” Communication from the club is downright awful.

Score draw?

Regarding the state of the art training ground:

I seem to recall that this rumour surfaced after a open day at the Ground; I have a vague recollection of being told that the plan was to get the Academy site rezoned for housing and move to a new training and Academy site near to Gamston.

The money received from the housing would go along way towards paying for the stand and the new training facilities.

The Club were informed that the Academy site would not, under any circumstances, be rezoned for housing, the site at Gamston was sold for housing and what you have now with the apartments and stand is Plan B.

That all (allegedly) happened over two years ago, maybe closer to three.

I can understand the frustration regarding lack of communication, but after the ham fisted way in which communication was handled under the two previous regimes, I find the silence more to my liking.

[Strawberry Avenger]

I'm not sure that divulging the contents of a private conversation would be the basis for legal action, not unless the signing of a NDA was part of those conversations.

I'm just surprised that someone who has a habit of not making promises should go and do so, even in private.

As for the rest; I agree, serious investment will not take place while we are in this division, mainly because it cant, and recruitment has been, in the main, quite poor.

Cat 1 and getting a new stand will be very good achievements; I know some a sceptical that the stand will not happen, I take the other view.

If EM wants to sell up and leave, which he no doubt will want to do one day, and do so without losing his shirt, one of two things will have to happen; we get promoted to the PL or that stand gets built.

The building of the stand looks far more likely than promotion at the moment.

That's pretty much what I think.

SA.

[wassy04]

Some fact checking for you:

DTs tweets from this weekend:
“You could throw in last January too. 70-odd players since 2017, millions wasted on dead wages and bad decisions. No real vision, no joined-up thinking. It has set us back years.”

“What do you want them to say though? They have been the kings of spin and PR - over promising and under delivering - from day one. Just read the infamous open letter and try to keep count of the broken promises. Talking to the fans means nothing if what they say can’t be trusted”

“They told me:
- new state-of-art training ground
- Champs Lg facilities in 5 years
- playing in Europe in 5 years
- Miracle Gates (announced Sep ‘17) to go up straight away
- club would act in all cases ‘with values of old school Arsenal’”

I would say that Taylor has a point about the 70 odd players but some of the other claims certainly are not alluded to in Randalls letter. I think DT may have been a bit naive in believing some of the PR spin initially put out which does really sound fantasy stuff.
We do appear to be making progress towards a CAT1 academy but could training facilities have been improved earlier though?
The Miracle Gates havent happened but is that really such a big deal? There was a commitment to honouring the 40th anniversary that never happened though.
What is missing clearly is the promise from the letter for a “Formal advisory board ....reflecting the views of supporters and the community” Communication from the club is downright awful.

Score draw?

Regarding the state of the art training ground:

I seem to recall that this rumour surfaced after a open day at the Ground; I have a vague recollection of being told that the plan was to get the Academy site rezoned for housing and move to a new training and Academy site near to Gamston.

The money received from the housing would go along way towards paying for the stand and the new training facilities.

The Club were informed that the Academy site would not, under any circumstances, be rezoned for housing, the site at Gamston was sold for housing and what you have now with the apartments and stand is Plan B.

That all (allegedly) happened over two years ago, maybe closer to three.

I can understand the frustration regarding lack of communication, but after the ham fisted way in which communication was handled under the two previous regimes, I find the silence more to my liking.

Yeah of the two you'd pick the current approach but being better than Fawaz is not an achievement. There's a much more healthy middle ground and I actually think they're getting an easy ride at the moment because of the lack of fans at the ground, which DT alludes to indirectly.

That said we really don't have a lot of choice right now so I'm not sure its a great time to pick a fight. I'm going to stick with the fact that CH was willing to take the job as a big plus and hope nothing has changed since then. Now just to avoid relegation...