Interview with owner

It's a fair interview I think ....Already it's started us all thinking next season will be tough which it truly will be.

Far better than the previous gent screaming "I know we will get promotion next season" and all of us believing the ridiculous signings he goes on to make will get us there. He dined out on one stellar signing than he did not even initiate.

This Summer almost feels like a complete reboot for me - It's needed to purge some of the crazy things that were going on at the club both on and off the field. Players training apart to suit a minority and then some of the colossal wastage from Hospitality / Catering right offs and Back Office wasted expenditure which I was told reached six figures !!

I actually think the size of the budget is almost irrelevant - especially when announced a cut on the previous seasons which was crazy high to enhance the managers ego - this budget was wasted in a truly outrageous way - Signing players whose fitness was questionable at best and then who produce a scandalous low output of games between them which does not justify their cost. Hunt / Friend / Wilson did not come cheap. Add in Big John Marquis on 5k per week - for what return ? There are plenty more examples - Connolly / McCormick who have not come close to covering their cost. No idea how much of the loanees wages we covered .... all adds up though.

There are other factors that need addressing within the club - Back Office staff positions need filling including some senior roles who have stagnated too long but now been found out by the new regime ... I think some of our training team need a swift wake up call -and maybe some new ideas to get players properly warmed up and stretching muscles rather than keepy Ups and some of the other stuff they do week in week out. It's no wonder we have so many muscle strains and pulls early in games - players are not warmed up properly. I like to get into the ground early and watch the teams warming up - most of the opposition seem to take it far more seriously than we do - routines are good as well. Subs are out right on half time and warming up, not half arsed like ours who appear with about five minutes to go to the second half and just fart about.

Other clubs with smaller crowds / smaller budgets have out performed us this season - If MT can find a committed group who play for the shirt and tick some of the fast mobile and tough qualities he wants, we will gradually see a better end product. Might take time - Two seasons maybe but we will progress slowly.

Patience needed - I hope we do clear out big time and its a real exciting chance to build something worthy of the Faithful Fans who turn up every week.

We can't go offering long contracts to young players, we aren't Chelsea. MT and GF need to get a good balance of old and young. Old being 28-30. Not 30+ and always injured.

Said it before, I can accept us battling away in league 1 for a few years, but as long as the stadiums is actually being developed properly.

Is there any indication when the new plans might be revealed, understand they are already completed and being discussed with the council. Not sure why fans are being kept in the dark.

Any mention of ground redevelopment in the inteview ?

This is a super calming and realistic conversation with the owner. A top ten finish is a realistic target and one that should be discussed regularly to lower expectations so that when we finish in top ten we can say we achieved our target. For fans, this is expectation management at its purest form.

This my friends is our realistic goal.

It’s clear that in an incentive based bonus scheme this is the realistic target. A slightly stretching target might be play offs and fail and a ground breaking one would be promotion in one way or another.

Contracts for management and players in all football clubs will have these targets. The more successful we are (points, position, attendances, merchandising etc) the more money there will be available to share with participants.

We might not see them but there will be internal targets that reflect the possibility of promotion.

Internally we will talk playoffs but externally talk top ten. It makes sense to talk about top ten from a fans communication point of view as it calms the expectations.

I’ll be back in the close season with a bus full of hope as always.

Any mentions of our 30 million quid stadium redevelopment?

Wake up Rich this is Rovers if an owner says top 10 is the aim, then that's the aim, not sneaking into the top 6/getting promotion if we have a bit of luck. It's clear the new owners have no intention of a top 6 push.

Keep your bus in the garage for a few years as it's clear whilst the new owners remain in charge we just need to get used to life in L1, assuming the summer rebuild goes well and we don't get sucked into a relegation fight next season.

We were aiming for the Championship a couple weeks ago, a month ago it was the Premiership, now it's top 10 in league 1.

I don't trust the new owners at all at the point in time.

If in next few weeks they reveal their big plans for the stadium then I may change my tune, but right now we are just being fed lines, mostly negative ones.

Its just public rhetoric at the end of the day and deliberately understated to lower expectations and with it pressure .

Surely we have learned from this season that it is better to expect less and over perform than it is to have high hopes and come crashing down to earth when things do not go as we would wish.

The fact that the owners are talking about building a foundation and having a longer term plan should be a relief as it means that they wont be upping sticks and wanting out when we inevitabvly hit a few bumps along the way.

But will the they be happy with reduced s/t sales and income? 

Wael came out with similar comments about long terms plans but it wouldn't be that big a surprise if he now cut all his ties with the club by this time next season.