I received a lot of positive feedback from my last post entitled I want to beleive and since then I spent a cracking weekend with some great lads and lasses at the Sacramento game; where we (Toon Army California) rolled out this banner and had a bloody good drink and sing-song.
The reaction to this has unsuprisingly been mixed, some have seen the change in manager, new signings and better fan engagement as a new beginning and didn’t appreciate us having (what we beleive was) a well deserved pop at the owner. The banner itself to a huge amount of effort from the good folks of Toon Army California, not just in the making but also, coordinating the message with the California, New York and America Toon Army Groups and in securing written permission from Sac Republic to allow us to deploy it and I think it got our message across very succinctly. On the face of it there has been a number of positive changes but after a week of contemplation I’ve decided theres been lots of change but no change at all as far as recruitment.
The Manager
Nothing but positives here so far. Though Steve McClaren certainly wasn’t my first choice he is here now and so far hasn’t put a foot wrong. From a fan engagement point of view he is a world away from the arrogance and "backs against the wall" attitude we have had to endure for what seems like an eternity. The players seem revitalised and he has an almost completely new backroom staff which if nothing else is a breath of fresh air. Ultimately he will be judged on results and the success of his new signings 12-18 months from now.
New signings and transfer policy
Since we have reentered the Premier league the only proven Premier league players we’ve drafted in have been Sol Campbell, Demba Ba and Colback on Free transfers and Loic Remy on loan, only Colback of them was ever a long term acquisition but both Ba and Remy hit the ground running in a a way that (understandably) almost none of our first-season-in-England imports have.
As for the new lads, I’m not going to judge them yet having not seen much of the two (almost three) apart from 20 minutes of Wijnaldum’s debut at Sac Republic, what I will say is they are all pretty exciting signings and on first glance it looks like we’ve loosened the purse strings. The reality of the situation though is that there is a lot more TV cash in both the Premier league and the club this year and though the fees are large they are still exclusively going for exciting, young prospects with high potential sell-on value. What would really signify a change in policy for me would be putting down real money for a proven player in their prime, Austin would be a good start but a rock solid centre-half would please me even more. I beleive to take the club forward we need to balance sell-on value with experience to make the team both financially self sufficient and improve us on the pitch.
This isn’t a one window endevour, what I would love to see over the next three windows is a consistent improvement of the team, building a solid core by blending experience with the hungry young players, who knows Steve McClaren may even be the man to do it.
Club Image
I think the final piece of the puzzle is the club image. The last few weeks have seen an excellent change in engagement of the club with the fans via social media, including some great work by Anthony Marshall and the team on twitter, it can’t be underestimated how much difference this could make and how much easier the last couple of years could have been if they had just talked to us in this way.
As for Ashley, I honestly think he could turn around his image with the fans but it is going to take far more than one good window, we aren’t all that fickle. I was very slow to move against him and I won’t be any quicker to get behind him, I’ll need to see real sustained change.
AshleyOut for now but ever hopeful
