The Most Exiting (sic) League in the World: Div 2, 2019-20

[statto99]

I didn't realise that as well as this repugnant tie in with a gambling firm to sign Rooney and use him a billboard, Derby have "sold" their stadium to their owner and leased it back as an FFP scam.

I very much much hope they fail to get promoted again now.

<The Stylistics>But not half as much as I dooooooooo</The Stylistics>

Really, statto?

<The Stylistics>No not half as much as I dooooooooo</The Stylistics>

#RentASanta

[ad hoc]

To be honest I’d not looked at his stats, and now I have I’m hoping you just might be right.

Just saw the goal he scored at the weekend. Brilliant stuff.

[Capybara]

Excellent. Shame about the goal nets, mind.

[Sits]

Jesus. Reading aren’t ready for this sort of thing. To be fair the Cardiff defence played their part.

[Thierry Ennui]

The positive start made by caretaker boss Lee Bullen at Wednesday was sent off course at the weekend, losing away to 10 man Millwall.

Our Chairman Dejphon Chansiri is dragging his feet and procrastinating about appointing a new manager, like he seems to whenever he has a big decision to make. Chansiri only got rid of Carvalhal about five months after his decline started, which rendered that season moot. We've been under two transfer embargoes because Chansiri didn't keep the accounts in order, took on players with massive wages and refused to sell anyone to balance the books. Chansiri keeps finding short-term ways to bypass this (we've sold our stadium to him like Mel Morris at Derby), but there will come a time when there are no quick fixes left to use.

Despite the loss at Millwall, there is still a huge level of support for Bullen from Wednesday fans, but this appears to be based more on sentiment than logic because of his close links to the club. Every Wednesday fan riding the wave of romanticism has completely forgotten the period when Bullen was caretaker in January 2018, which ended with a 3-0 loss to Burton Albion and an almost tearful Bullen saying "the sooner we have a new head coach the better" in the press conference afterwards.

[George]

''Mr Chairman'' allegedly micromanages the most mundane aspects of every day operations at Hillsborough to anally retentive levels*. Yet the big picture stuff like the club's finances go to shit. It figures.

*Physio staff having to document and justify taking plasters from supplies. There's endless stories floating around the city.

[longeared]

I haven't forgotten that Burton debacle, and it's one of the reasons why I don't want Bullen to get the job permanently. I accept that the chairman had to start a search from scratch after the previous manager buggered off and there would be a delay in an appointment, but it's now reaching a stage where we need to either appoint Bully permanently and give him the requisite coaching support (which is what the Star has suggested today might happen) or get someone else in, however uninspiring they may be. Or he'll just wait for things to go wrong for Carvalhal at Rio Ave and reappoint him as there seems to be a desire from both parties for him to come back, plus Amadeu Paixao (the shady bloke who really runs the show) likes him.

To be fair to the chairman, he does seem to have improved a bit since the turn of the year and we do actually operate like a proper football club at times now - I think Meire got in his ear a bit and showed him how we should be run - and he's certainly learnt to pick his battles. We've sold a player for actual money for the first time in aeons - I mean, I'd like to have sold some more, but it was a start - and he's not thrown huge fees or long contracts at players with no resale value. The big picture question he's going to have to deal with sooner or later is the ground. It's still fundamentally the same as it was at Euro 96 and the only investment he's put in is the big screen and the million quid pitch. The West Stand is past its architectural lifespan (it was built for the World Cup and expected to last fifty years), there's the problems with the Safety Advisory Group over the North Stand and there's allegedly quite a lot of work needed if we ever get back to the Premier League.

[Billy Casper]

Is the West Stand the one opposite the Main Stand? If so, leave it alone. I think it looks fantastic (less so since the seats were changed to spell 'Chansiri', but that's easily changeable).

If you're going to change any stand, do something with the Leppings Lane end. That should have gone twenty years ago.

[George]

West stand is the Leppings Lane End. The North Stand is the one opposite the cameras.

[Thierry Ennui]

Yeah, that's the Leppings Lane end. We should've razed that end to the ground straight after the Hillsborough disaster. I still think we should move to a new stadium as of right now - Hillsborough is so old and unfit for purpose that it's hemorrhaging money every week.

To be fair to the chairman, he does seem to have improved a bit since the turn of the year and we do actually operate like a proper football club at times now - I think Meire got in his ear a bit and showed him how we should be run - and he's certainly learnt to pick his battles. We've sold a player for actual money for the first time in aeons - I mean, I'd like to have sold some more, but it was a start - and he's not thrown huge fees or long contracts at players with no resale value.

I will give Chansiri credit for how we handled the most recent transfer deadline day, because it's the first indication that he's learnt from his mistakes. Part of the reason we got ourselves in financial trouble a couple of years ago was because Chansiri listened to the fans on Twitter clamouring for Jordan Rhodes, and we ended up throwing away £8m on a player we didn't need. On this occasion, fans were doing the same with the very popular Michael Hector on deadline day, but we backed out after Chelsea demanded £5m for a player with one year left on his contract.

[George]

I'm amazed they even spend enough on the place for it to haemorrhage money. Or is it coded language for ''doesn't have enough executive boxes/conference/function facilities'?

[Thierry Ennui]

I think that's a large part of it. It also regularly comes under scrutiny in terms of safety (as noted above by longeared) which costs time and money to address, and it's a 40,000 capacity stadium that only gets about 25,000 for home games, so we're running it (in terms of stewards, electricity, toilets and general upkeep) as a stadium big enough for 40,000 people but only getting money in return from 25,000 people.

[ursus arctos]

Stoke are seriously bad, eh?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I think that's a large part of it. It also regularly comes under scrutiny in terms of safety (as noted above by longeared) which costs time and money to address, and it's a 40,000 capacity stadium that only gets about 25,000 for home games, so we're running it (in terms of stewards, electricity, toilets and general upkeep) as a stadium big enough for 40,000 people but only getting money in return from 25,000 people.

what would be a proper size for a new Hillsborough? 32,000 with room to expand to 40K if the need arises? How much would it even cost to build a stadium like that in sheffield?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Stoke are seriously bad, eh?

They are. We won there then tied with, also fancied, Huddersfield. Felt seriously chuffed at the time but haven't won since. It's kind of dented the old confidence a bit.

[ursus arctos]

I watched their first half hour at Preston today and it was grim.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I hope they stop the rot, starting next week.

[Thierry Ennui]

what would be a proper size for a new Hillsborough? 32,000 with room to expand to 40K if the need arises? How much would it even cost to build a stadium like that in sheffield?

I'm not sure how much it would cost or where it would be, but it could probably be about 30,000 without the need for expansion. The only times we've been above 30,000 are Sheffield derbies and huge promotion deciding games. Lots of Wednesday fans like to assume we'd get 35,000+ every week if we got to the Premier League, but when we were last in that league in the 1990s, our attendances were about the same as they are now.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Looking at your attendances from 91-92, when you had a properly good team, You only went above 33K four times. The first and last games of the season against Villa and Liverpool, Man utd, but there was 40,700 there for the sheffield derby, which did not go well. 32k, with the opportunity to fill in the corners if things go well might be the way to go.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

BTW, how the fuck did Sheffield wednesday come third in the league, while suffering the biggest home defeat of the season 1-6 leeds and the biggest away defeat of the season 7-1 at arsenal.

[E10 Rifle]

They were a decent and very watchable side at the time, Wednesday.

[ad hoc]

Indeed. Even if we spend the rest of my life scrapping around the second or third divisions (or lower) at least I got to see those couple of years when we were superb and played brilliant football. Teams that play with such verve are always liable to have one or two games when it just goes horribly wrong

[ursus arctos]

In addition to the considerable personal qualities of their supporters, that side is responsible for my having had a soft spot for Wednesday for almost 30 years,.

[Gangster Octopus]

Wednesday and their fans are and always will be scum.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Now that's not a nice thing to say about ad hoc.