Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA

*writes in notebook*

I feel a soup idea coming on...

angsty turtle soup with onions

A blind man walks in to a restaurant and orders a bowl of turtle soup. He has a bit, and leaves the restaurant. He is later found dead. Why?

Hint.  Onions are significant

Hint #2: Actually they're not.

Because his wife died. I've heard this one before.

SACK RICKI!

Hmm, not scared of change, but definitely cautious about cutting capability from the club that the club has invested in, as any business should be. My point above is that of all the football clubs in the world the Nix should be looking to squeeze every last little drop of value out of every dollar invested. Just because other clubs can afford to unceremoniously dump staff and incur all the direct and indirect costs that come with doing that, doesn't mean we can or should.

I truly am agnostic about whether Ricki should stay at the club or go, although I think his time as coach seems pretty much done (as much due to an almost irreversable tide of public opinion against him). The ownership are way closer to the issue than me, and to be frank, also much better equipped to make a decision. Whatever they decide is good enough for me.

I have an issue with this "whatever the owners do is fine with me" attitude for the following reasons:

1) history is littered with owners who have fucked up football clubs, so no one should accept that they are making the decisions and we should just accept them.  We should be appreciative of what they have done (putting money into the club) but that does not make them all knowledgeable.

2) Supporting a club does not just mean blindly accepting anything that it throws at you.  When YF was started, it was with an expressed mandate that it would just not be a lackey for the club, and it would challenge anything that it feels was being done wrongly.  There has been talk that people saying that not making the playoffs and Ricki moving on would not be a bad thing is not supporting the Phoenix, I actually think that it can be seen as supporting the club (although not neccessarily supporting the team).  The club will be there far longer than this team will (hopefully).  As a side note, I really hope we make the play-offs, but I want Ricki to stand aside.

3) This has taken so long to type*, I have forgotten the 3rd point.

4) There is something that can be done to get messages across to the owners expressing dissatisfaction with how things are going.  We don't need to just shrug our shoulders and go "what is the point?".  I am not suggesting that we are at this point now, but if there was enough people on this website who passionately believed that Ricki should go then they can use this site to organise banners, etc to help voice that opinion.  It would only need to involve those that belive that message (ie not an official YF endorsed message) but it could be organised through this forum which was set up to support the Wellington Phoenix.

Before anyone (Doloras) starts with the the "we said that everything would go wrong when Terry left" as some kind of justification for all they were spinning before the change of ownership, Terry had to go.  Just because the current owners are making some mistakes of a different nature doesn't mean that in hinsight Terry was a better propersiton to run the club.  Running the club on $350 per year would not have worked.

* I have a problem with my laptop keypad, where everytime I type a word, no matter how hard I press the keys, at least one of the letters is not there.  It is like the keypad has had some kind of glue spilt on it a few times, but I cannot think of anything that would create such a problem.

Final point - Feverish, get me a ticket to the game on Sunday March 3rd.

sorry I didn't read as far as the last line

All good points FM. You're putting a little bit too much emphasis on my closing remark of "Whatever they decide is good enough for me" though. I mean it's not like I haven't put some thought into that first (God knows, I wish I hadn't put quite so much thought into it). I am talking specifically about Ricki Herbert's future and if the owners think Ricki Herbert still has something to offer this club then that's great. Whether Herbert even wants to take a non-coaching role, or can work effectively with a new head coach, is another matter. I just think that the decision is more involved than the mutually exclusive "he either stays or he goes" that it is usually presented as.

And I take your point about YF not just being a lackey or mouthpiece for the club (although you acknowledge yourself that's pretty much impossible anyway, given the diversity of opinion on here). But that doesn't exclude supporting the owners decisions sometimes either, or at least trying to understand the decisions. Personally, I still have quite a lot of faith in what Welnix are trying to do.

Personally I think we (Yellow Fever) present a fairly united front when it comes to supporting the team. The message that we are telling the team, the press and the owners seems to be one of huge support for the team/players and a desire to see us perform much better - most of the angst is around the confusing decisions that are being made - these include owners speaking out against furry pets and slagging the fans off, then the singing of players when we are told there wil be none.

I agree Term. I'm agnostic as well now about whether he stays coaching or they get a new coach but I don't think its as simple as 'he stays/he goes.

We look at this from a far and its funny looking at the fiasco around the SBW fight and all the stuff that is coming out that we don't know about (that story has many column inches left). I think the same with the Phoenix. There is so much more going on that we do not know about. 

You have 8 smart guys whom own it and while there is only 1 guy we know of in Noah Hickey that has actual football experience, you would think that due diligence would be the catch cry on any decision. We only really know what we see and hear in the media, people going to training, players twitter profiles. The one thing I don't see is the players revolting against Ricki which is a good indicator in some respects. Granted they may not while the season is in swing but there is not even one player that I am aware of that has grumbled in the media about Ricki. I would think that if he was doing dumb shit, at least 1 of 23 would say something. I accept that its not always the case but its just another point of view.

This offseason will be very interesting indeed.

No fat goose twitters then?

If Frankie Mac wants to organise a public SACK RICKI campaign, then that's his right and the right of anyone else here who agrees with him. But (a) sacking Ricki won't necessarily change or improve anything; (b) be sure to keep those banners around for the inevitable SACK [NEW COACH] campaign that JD and Frankie will be starting in a year's time.

Sydney FC 7 - Wellington Phoenix FC 1

Central Coast FC 5 - Wellington Phoenix FC 0

yep the easiest ways for players to make a stand against a coach is to not give any effort on the field resulting in the above.

And likewise, if Doloras wants to organise a public KEEP RICKI campaign, then that's his right and the right of anyone else here who agrees with him. But (a) keeping Ricki almost definitely won't  change or improve anything; (b) be sure to keep those banners around for the inevitable  kEEP RICKI campaign that Doloras will be carrying on in a year's time when we are still in the bottom 2

1. It can't get much worse

2. It will definitely change something - we'll have a different manager and different players

indeed, if we sack ricki end of this season - ie immediately after the review. The biggest issue we'll have is finding a replacement quick enough to allow the new guy to sign suitable players to replace the ones we'll lose.

just as well the off season is so long.

Agree. The problem is, that reviews are never quick (and rightly so)

Okon.

We keep talking about noah hickey having this football experience that the others lack, but he wasn't anything else than a player was he? The type of experience needed at board level is of sports administration rather than playing I'd have thought.

 Mark Chote has experience in Sports Admin as well as his business links.  Albeit at local level rather than professional.

This is inaccurate. 

We will have a different manager, but the constraints he's operating under will be the same and so will a lot of the players. There may be movement around the fringes but there is no way to make wholesale changes to the squad. 

bravo (except the gender bit)

Unless - and I keep saying this but I get ignored because people have their SACK RICKI agenda and don't want to be confused by any fact - they walk as soon as they can because they're sick and tired of Welnix shenanigans. Then you might get a whole new group of players who are cool with the Welnix Way. How quickly do you think they'll gel as a team?

The Sack Ricki agenda is like something from Yes Minister crossed with South Park:

1. The Nix are shite at the moment, we have to do something.

2. Sacking Ricki would be doing something.

3. Therefore WE MUST DO IT.

4. ?

5. PROFIT!

Better than your agenda: DO NOTHING