Bates protests worry me BIG TIME

[Silky]

I dont give a s**t about Ken Bates one way or the other, all i worry about is the football and the team that is at our disposal.

I think we have a team capable of challenging for a top 6 spot.. I'm not saying i'm confident we will be promoted, but the fact is we have a chance, just like everyone else, and i think our players are as good as anyones...

Anyway.. I'm reading on Waccoe about more protests, and now theyre talking about constructing great big banners to hang within the ground..

If we do turn out to be a good side this season it will be because of a great team spirit and a sense of togetherness... We're a well supported club, and when we get some momentum we're hard to stop...

The thing that these idiots dont seem to realise is that by concentrating all their efforts on BATES OUT crap, theyre hurting the team, and hurting this potential momentum..

Why do you think the players are thinking? "Oh well, it's got nothing to do with us"... or "The fans are unhappy.. Why? Maybe theyre not happy with us? Maybe we're not playing well enough.. maybe they dont like us! Ah crap.... now i'm sad"

Whether they are playing well enough or not is beside the point... we need to get behind the players and fill them confidence, because that's our only shot!! NOT making them all feel like theyre not good enough to get the job done without new faces...

Theyre my thoughts for this evening

At a time when i think we should be getting excited about the prospect of Tom Lees, Andy Lonergan, Adam Clayton, Ramon Nunez, Andy Keogh... everyone's worried about Ken-f@#kin-Bates, and i just dont get it...

[Toby]

Perfect post mate!

It's really annoying all this Bates stuff, Let's concentrate on the League not the beard.

[MeeTa]

i disagree, but its way to late for me to write an extensive reply to that.

[Eblis Presley]

I dont give a crap about Ken Bates one way or the other, all i worry about is the football and the team that is at our disposal.

I'm going to try and avoid being rude but how can you not see a connection between the Chairman of a football club and his policies (whether it's Ken or anybody else) and the players that are at the manager's disposal?
'I don't give a crap..' and it's variants are a cowardly cop out from the supporters of a club that has had the starkest demonstration of what letting those in charge 'get on with it' without challenge can lead to.

I think we have a team capable of challenging for a top 6 spot.. I'm not saying i'm confident we will be promoted, but the fact is we have a chance, just like everyone else, and i think our players are as good as anyones...

Your first assertion is wishful thinking imo though I sincerely hope you're soothsaying is superior to mine. 'Just like everyone else' is trite and meaningless, is it Donny and Cov you're thinking of? Our players are simply not as good as anyones - I don't know anybody with a decent knowledge of football who would make that case. Leicester may not turn out to be the force so many fear, but the fact is that there are players that don't even make their matchday squad who would walk into out first team. Positivity is great I guess, but when it flies in the face of the evidence I fail to see the value. Unless you're just after some applause for your cheerleading and a 'Prezakerly HITS the nail on the HEAD matey boy!!!!!' . :the smarmy smiley with the huge thumb:

Anyway.. I'm reading on Waccoe about more protests, and now theyre talking about constructing great big banners to hang within the ground..

If we do turn out to be a good side this season it will be because of a great team spirit and a sense of togetherness... We're a well supported club, and when we get some momentum we're hard to stop...

The thing that these idiots dont seem to realise is that by concentrating all their efforts on BATES OUT crap, theyre hurting the team, and hurting this potential momentum..

Blah. Shame on you for 'Let's blame the fans!!' They were magnificent at Southampton - if it's a results business your argument doesn't stand up. The players are professionals and if we do go backwards this year it'll be because they're not good enough professionals for this club and phuck all to do with the fans.

Why do you think the players are thinking? "Oh well, it's got nothing to do with us"... or "The fans are unhappy.. Why? Maybe theyre not happy with us? Maybe we're not playing well enough.. maybe they dont like us! Ah crap.... now i'm sad"

Whether they are playing well enough or not is beside the point... we need to get behind the players and fill them confidence, because that's our only shot!! NOT making them all feel like theyre not good enough to get the job done without new faces...

Theyre my thoughts for this evening

Truly bizzare.

At a time when i think we should be getting excited about the prospect of Tom Lees, Andy Lonergan, Adam Clayton, Ramon Nunez, Andy Keogh... everyone's worried about Ken-f@#kin-Bates, and i just dont get it...

Clearly.

[MeeTa]

now thats a great post elbis, thank you for writting it now i dont have to.

[Silky]

@ Eblis Presley

What people like you have to understand is that teams like Donny and Coventry are the teams that we are up against.. comparing our situation to Leicesters or West Ham's is just ridiculous....

We're one season up from League One, and were recently bankrupt...

Expectations are too high as usual...

And yes, i think Becchio, Keogh, McCormack, Howson, Snodgrass, Gradel, Kisnorbo, O'Dea, Longeran eyc are as good as any other player in their positions in this league... and i think Simon Grayson is as good as any other manager...

Nothing good can come from these protests..... what do you think would happen if he did just decide to leave?

Leicester and West Ham have stand out squads, everyone else is pretty even...

[Crude]

Nothing good can come from these protests..... what do you think would happen if he did just decide to leave?

Really know? So your more of a head-in-the-sand-type? Worked wonders for Risdales-style of management. The protests are letting Bates know that folks are watching extra carefully. He's already had to do damage control by doing a big interview with the YP last week. He's know he's being watched. Yeah, it's great he was taking the piss by flapping his arms about while the supporters chanted outside of ER. Yet those very same people are the lifeblood of the club. No one thinks he'll just up and walk away from the club, but we can always hope. I will say the day he does leave any kind of controlling position with LUFC, it will also be the day when we get a flood of outside investment in the club. That I can guarantee.

[Silky]

Ahhh, this is where you and your mates fall down...

You cant f@#kin guarantee anything... for all we know, Ken Bates could be running the club to it's absolute capacity.. you all just ASSUME you know what's going on, and assume you know what would happen if things were differet... but none of you do, AT ALL! and i've said it a thousand times...

And as white.riot says, "Its better the devil you know"..

Every single day i get accused of being off with the fairies by people on this board, but it's crap! I just deal with what's in front me and what i know to be fact, and the FACT is we have a profitable club, we have a good group of players, and a clever manager that has improved us every year he's been with us. They are undisputable facts, with no assumption or opinion or conspiracy theories involved.

Saying that Ken Bates was pressured in to a 'reveal all' interview in the YEP by fan protests is absolutely laughable... Ken has been in the game for a long long long long time and dealt with hairier moments than the one he finds himself in now.... He doesnt reveal ANYTHING in the paper that he hasnt already, and if there was some alterior motive for allowing himself to be interviewed by someone other than Ben Fry, i reckon we can safely assume it was only because he wanted to... He doesnt give a flying f@#k what any of us think about him...

All the protests are doing is unsettling the club as a whole... Ken probably wont be at half of the games, which means it's the players and the manager that have to listen to it, and theyre the ones that have to deal with the tension created by it.

[Armleywhite]

The trouble with your side of the coin though is that you blindly accept Bates to be the only way forward. We ALL accepted ridsdale and look where that got the club. No one to question blind acceptance and then massive failure. At least those that have the right to question should be allowed to do so without glib remarks! It's your right to question and when folk see the club potentially suffering for other ventures then why would you not want to question. The protesters have already made him realise he can't rough shod over them. Thats the point of the protesters, to make sure that he knows that some would rather not just be shafted with he rough end of the pineapple anymore. But rather to question and make him aware he is being watched. Why is that so hard for some to understand?

[1964white]

Ahhh, this is where you and your mates fall down...

You cant f@#kin guarantee anything... for all we know, Ken Bates could be running the club to it's absolute capacity.. you all just ASSUME you know what's going on, and assume you know what would happen if things were differet... but none of you do, AT ALL! and i've said it a thousand times...

And as white.riot says, "Its better the devil you know"..

Every single day i get accused of being off with the fairies by people on this board, but it's crap! I just deal with what's in front me and what i know to be fact, and the FACT is we have a profitable club, we have a good group of players, and a clever manager that has improved us every year he's been with us. They are undisputable facts, with no assumption or opinion or conspiracy theories involved.

Saying that Ken Bates was pressured in to a 'reveal all' interview in the YEP by fan protests is absolutely laughable... Ken has been in the game for a long long long long time and dealt with hairier moments than the one he finds himself in now.... He doesnt reveal ANYTHING in the paper that he hasnt already, and if there was some alterior motive for allowing himself to be interviewed by someone other than Ben Fry, i reckon we can safely assume it was only because he wanted to... He doesnt give a flying f@#k what any of us think about him...

All the protests are doing is unsettling the club as a whole... Ken probably wont be at half of the games, which means it's the players and the manager that have to listen to it, and theyre the ones that have to deal with the tension created by it.

Ken built a hotel at Chelsea

Chelsea wish to expand their ground, the only way they can do that is by demolishing the building as the ground is in a built up area in West London

There is a stumbling block though guess which football chairman owns the top tier of the hotel & refuses to budge

A True Story !

[Swell Shark]

Ahhh, this is where you and your mates fall down...

You cant f@#kin guarantee anything... for all we know, Ken Bates could be running the club to it's absolute capacity.. you all just ASSUME you know what's going on, and assume you know what would happen if things were differet... but none of you do, AT ALL! and i've said it a thousand times...

And as white.riot says, "Its better the devil you know"...

Agree completely. "better the devil you know" Bates has never had a history of signing multi million pound players, nor giving his managers millions in a warchest. Whats to say he's going to do that now - for a championship club. One thing he has always bought is stability - I appreciate, Chelski had debts when he sold them, but he bought the club for £1 and made a £17million profit when he sold them - Dont care who he is (and he could be the devil) but that is pretty sound business acumen.

I'd love to see what would happen if we were all chairman or manager of Leeds, alot of grand plans, but none of us actually know the true state of the clubs finances (which I appreciate, building a hotel is certainly going to affect) however, i think Ken has got the finances in his best interests... I'd love us to be in the market for Robbie Keane / Nugent / Nolan etc. But I appreciate, We dont want to be going down the Ridsdale path again, id rather have a team to support than none.

[Silky]

Ken built a hotel at Chelsea

Chelsea wish to expand their ground, the only way they can do that is by demolishing the building as the ground is in a built up area in West London

There is a stumbling block though guess which football chairman owns the top tier of the hotel & refuses to budge

A True Story !

Maybe if Chelsea hadnt ripped us off with those kids recently he might have been more obliging... ? He can hold a grudge, old Ken..

All i'm saying is that protesting the way they are will achieve nothing, Ken doesnt give a sh!t, and the people that will deal with the tension are the manager and the players.... I dont mind the protests out the front of the ground, and out the front of his box.. but it was the talk on waccoe of great big signs inside the ground and more and more chants during the match that bothers me... it takes away from the football, and if they take away from the football then theyre as bad as Ken himself..

If Ken was the big horrible dictator that everyone makes him out to be, would Snoddy still be here? woudl Max still be here? would he have allowed Beckford's and Johnson's contracts to run out? If it truly was all about money and all about his own personal gain, then why would he bother keeping these men around?

[Silky]

By the way!! Chelsea finished 4th in the Premier League during Bate's last season as chairman.... shocking effort.

[JonTheBassist]

Agree completely. "better the devil you know" Bates has never had a history of signing multi million pound players, nor giving his managers millions in a warchest. Whats to say he's going to do that now - for a championship club. One thing he has always bought is stability - I appreciate, Chelski had debts when he sold them, but he bought the club for £1 and made a £17million profit when he sold them - Dont care who he is (and he could be the devil) but that is pretty sound business acumen.

I'd love to see what would happen if we were all chairman or manager of Leeds, alot of grand plans, but none of us actually know the true state of the clubs finances (which I appreciate, building a hotel is certainly going to affect) however, i think Ken has got the finances in his best interests... I'd love us to be in the market for Robbie Keane / Nugent / Nolan etc. But I appreciate, We dont want to be going down the Ridsdale path again, id rather have a team to support than none.

+1 :thup:

[white.riot]

I will say the day he does leave any kind of controlling position with LUFC, it will also be the day when we get a flood of outside investment in the club. That I can guarantee.

Can't let you get away with dreams as fact.

LUFC has never generated a great deal of external investment from memory and yet you can guarantee this would change post Bates. Unless you have the money and are holding it back until Bates leaves how can you guarantee ' a flood of investment'. Without producing the evidence that's just a dream - nice but a dream nonetheless.

[mav]

While I am not a fan of Bates, I can't see protests inside the ground not affecting the players.

[joluafc4eva]

Never mind the Bates protests - Bates worries me.

[Gino 1959]

Never mind the Bates protests - Bates worries me.

Like in the same way a dog worries sheep?

[MeeTa]

Like in the same way a dog worries sheep?

or the way donny people worries sheep

[MikeLUFC7]

Regarding Silky's posts.

I can see where you are coming from. Bates has done a good job turning this club around. We are turning a profit. We are debt free. We are progressing slowly. However, what you have missed is the worrying start to this season, our lack of transfer activity, and our inability in the transfer market. In the transfer market this season we have missed out on players who have decided to go elsewhere, or just out-and-out reject us because they don't consider us as good enough. Now that falls directly onto the club as a whole. If we cannot attract a Keith Andrews type player, then we are certainly doing something wrong. We even got turned down by a big premier league striker for similar reasons apparently. So there are issues at this club that need addressing if we are to compete at the right end of the table. Now is Bates to blame for this or is it Larry?

It could be both. On the one hand Bates decides the budgets and if these players don't come within them, then the players will turn them down; but on the other, it is Larry's job to create a positive atmosphere that will attract players to want to come play for us. Now Andrews rejected us. The big striker rejected us. A number of other players this season have rejected us. Some for money, some for not classing us amongst the contenders. Now that usually would fall squarely on the manager's shoulders, however, how can we blame Larry for this if he isn't being given the required funds to work with?

We can't. The guy is working his arse off with limited funds and picking up the scraps left by other teams. You say we have exciting prospects, and a good team who can challenge for the top six?

I can agree with the likes of Lees, Clayton and Nunez showing early promise; but we are not a team who will challenge for the top six. I know I said in previous posts in other threads that it isn't the end of the season. I also know that I have said in the past few weeks and months that we will be up there contending. But that is more my heart talking than my head. If you sit back and think about it, our team is noticeably weaker than last season. Furthermore, we no longer have the surprise factor. When you get promoted you surprise people. They don't expect certain things. And then after your first season you can sometimes hit a brick wall. You can go from one extreme to another. They call it second season syndrome. Leicester City suffered it last season. Bristol City suffered it the year they missed out in the championship play offs. And so have other clubs in this division and especially in the premier league. They have one good year, then they fall away. We are at risk of doing the same thing and finding ourselves in a battle we simply do not want to be a part of. Now we can continue to sit on our hands and cheer our team on, bury our heads in the sand and simply accept what we are given, pray that we turn this around and magically go from being relegation candidates to promotion candidates, and we can be happy to pay top end premier league prices for cast offs. Or, we can make our voices heard that we have had enough and do something about it.

I remember reading about Roy Hodgson comparing a designer suit to one you buy from Tesco's. He basically said you cannot expect a man in a suit from Tesco's to look as good as a man in a designer suit - he was referring to the Long deal compared to the Aguero deal. Like he said, sometimes you simply cannot afford the designer suit and have to get by with what you can afford - i.e. work within your limits. But unfortunately at this club, we fans are paying designer suit prices for Tesco's suits. We are paying top ten premier league prices for crap. Last season it was fine when we were competing at the top and were one of the best teams in the division. But this season we have yet to see that. We got tore apart by Southampton. We got tore apart in parts of the game by a mid table league two team at best. And we could have got hammered by Boro at the weekend. By the end of this month we could be firmly at the bottom of the table looking at our fixtures list, and that is very worrying. We could end up in a battle we don't want. We could even end up heading back down.

The reason behind these protests is twofold: a - discontent, and b - fear. We are scared that we could go down if investment isn't made. And we are discontent because we aren't seeing the investment required to take us forwards and back to the premier league. Now, Silky, is that really wrong for us fans to want that? And is it wrong to instead of writing on messageboards on waccoe, which no one at the club reads, to actually take the fight to those in charge and make them aware of our unhappiness and discontent?

No, not at all. I personally back the protests, and hopefully sooner rather than later Bates sells up. I can appreciate what he's done in making us profitable, and now trying to build our facilities up. But we are risk of heading backwards on the pitch. We need to invest now, and if we don't I can't see us being anything but relegation candidates, instead of promotion candidates. Whether you support the protests or not, there is only so much a fan base can take until they get to a breaking point, and at that time, they will make their voices heard. And for me, it's about damn time!