Sadly for your lazy, blinkered binary profiling of my opinions (rich, given your above objections to my prior post); I don't believe ENIC to have done a perfect job of running the club. I simply think they have done a lot more right than wrong and our growth under their ownership is blatant testament to that. My thoughts regarding Pochetino aren't too dissimilar... You presumably won't have noticed, but I haven't been wholesale piling blame for our predicament on Poch either.
I'm reluctant to throw the towel in on the whole ENIC/Poch relationship as generally I believe in what we've been doing on both sides of the fence (although I have criticised both entities when I have seen fit over the last 5 years). Now call that 'romantic' if you must, but please spare me your crap about nuance, objectivity and so forth.
You talk about pig-headedness and the like, but you're the one making smug/gloating posts (and deploying childish giffs about dick-sucking in other threads) tagging a guy that has had very little interaction with you since the summer.
Regardless...
Sifting through all the indignation above, as per the part you say about "easy mistake to make", you - the guy that swore blind that we wouldn't buy ANYONE (let alone bring in 4 players!) - have partially conceded to my past reservations about gambling huge sums of money in the transfer market... For the sake of harmony and perhaps a swifter end to this debate, I won't dwell on that beyond this here comment.
In closing, it seems that much like the summer, I'm not the only one to find a lot of the criticism surrounding how the club is run to be ridden with double standards & contradiction, so I'll leave you to continue to grapple with some of those instead.....
Apart from the grandstanding (which is a common theme with you) this is probably the most honest and decent post I have seen you make towards me.
Ok so I am going to start by honestly addressing your points, in regards to you saying that I am profiling your opinions, I am going to be honest mate, you make it fairly easy from where I am sitting, this is the first time I have legitimately seen you even cast any form of doubt about ENIC or have a balanced opinion on them, maybe I have just missed your criticisms of them in the past but you sincerley come across like you would defend them over the club at times, so it's nice to see you say that you don't think they have done a perfect job.
For what it's worth I am actually in agreement with you, I think they have done more right than wrong, I don't think ENIC are bad at running us as a business, where I think they fail is on the footballing side of things.
Now that doesn't mean that I think they have done a bad job, clearly they have improved us in terms of league position and financials over the years, that's not even up for debate so they aren't completely failing on the football side but where I think they have failed is winning silverware.
Now I know the debate from some is "Well silverware doesn't matter, that's not what football is about, be grateful for what we have, remember what it was like before" I fundamentally disagree with that notion and I think it sets a dangerous tone for the club because it sends the message to the owners that we are happy and grateful just to have them and we don't have ambition to improve, which gives them a free pass to sit on their hands and do nothing whilst making lots of money for their business.
I also don't expect silverware every single season, it's unrealistic to do so, what I do expect however is at least one piece of silverware in a decade, something which ENIC has failed to deliver, that to me is unacceptable, especially considering the clubs we have apparently "overtaken" because of league position have all won trophies within that time despite being in apparent turmoil.
It is romantic imo but I do admire your belief, I however believe that in order for us to improve at this juncture the manager must go, the trend (and you will know this as a long time supporter) is that when this sort of dip happens, very rarely, if ever, is it fixed without a change, we had people saying we should stick with AVB, Sherwood etc and whilst I admit, they were different scenarios, the common denominator is once the tail spin started we couldn't stop it and by removing those two, we improved, I believe removing Poch will also see us improve again.
As far as the meme is concerned, look, you can't go around calling people melts and shit supporters and flinging insults without expecting a little back, you talk about the level of discourse being low, well I think you need to look at how you speak to other posters sometimes because it seems like you can give it but you can't take it, now admittedly, yes, I was taking the piss but since this post of yours comes across quite polite and decent I will engage with you in the same way.
I was convinced we wouldn't spend based on two windows of nothing, I was wrong, I admit that and I praised Levy for spending, hence why I am blaming the manager for this season, he has nowhere to hide, the most insulting part is, he hasn't even really played the players that were purchased to improve us and had instead stuck with cunts like Eriksen who couldn't give a fuck about the badge, that right there alone is a sackable offence in my eyes.
My thoughts on spending are that it's not really about the price of the player, it's about good scouting and making sure that when you do find a player that will improve you (Ndombele for example) that you get them, so no complaints about that either, we have to continue to work under that business model and it will lead to success, providing we have the right manager and the right mentality at board level, we should have and could have improved further this window as well imo.
The criticism about how the the club is run stems from the fact that we have had many years of underspending or no spending which has held us back at crucial moments, those two windows that we didn't buy have directly contributed to the situation we are currently in, our owners are seemingly happy to remain where we are and some of our fans are just happy to be getting into the top four occasionally because it's better than the sugar years.
We may have a brand new stadium, all this fantastic branding, Amazon documentaries, the NFL and all the other glitz and glamour but under the surface is the stench of stagnation and regression and my issue with the owners is that they aren't concerned as long as we remain profitable, which is more than possible, even at mid-table with the occassional top four finish, that's also why I think Poch is still in a job, Levy has sacked for far less in the past.
Is that good enough for this club? I don't think so.
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