SENTINELCELTS

Writing a GTF article today would be like taking candy from a baby, it might actually be expected of us.
But I’m not going to go down that route, tempting as it is.

The truth is we can only truly access Peters full reign next year at the earliest, but would anyone bet against another few on or off- field twists n turns in this season from hell, or maybe possibly a skeleton coming out of the closet from a man who has nothing to lose now?
If he does have a ‘hit list’ now the time.
Doesn’t strike me as the sort I admit, but stranger things have happened, like Fredo getting pulled for his dark arts.

I thought the choreographed praise cringeworthy, giving the bloggers manna from heaven if they so choose, but again I pass.
I’ll look forward, not backwards thanks.

With that in mind, thoughts turn to the new man. I would have preferred an outsider, I will state that clearly. The need to fill the top positions with folk native to the isles given high preference is at best folly and at worst suspicious.
The need for someone ‘who knows the lay of the land’ or ‘who had a season book/sat on a bus’ must be heavily questioned given events of the last decade or so. It’s a fresh pair of eyes we need, just some freshness in general, and natives don’t tend to rock boats, for many reasons, some of them not so pleasant.

Now don’t get me wrong there are some things I do like with the appointment. Rugby is a growing sport I believe, and has taken leaps and bounds towards modernising. Mic’d up refs, video replays, and the ability to have a beverage at the game are all signs that sport is more mature than football, in the law makers/police eyes at least. That might well be because it’s many of the establishments game of choice, having played at university and now it’s become a conduit for business away from the football riffraff, that’s you and I by the way.
Point is, we have someone who knows the actual legislation and intricacies involved with some of these steps the national sport should be taking, which can’t hurt at all.

Whilst rugby has gained itself a lot more sponsorship money in recent times, this young mind fails to see anyone coughing up more than a pittance for the bent never boring SPHell but as sure as James Bond gets the girl the new guy will try.

Something he will also try is to start off with a clean slate, perhaps even expect it granted to him. If only it were that simple.
If one fresh face pleading clean slate can simply take away the sins of the entire regime, they will forever throw them at us!
A new regime is one thing, but with the main characters still in play, still pulling the strings, then any new guy is a puppet, not the puppet master.

First and foremost actions speak louder than words, on behalf of a fanbase who have been able to strip away all the sorry soundbites and cliches that we have been tossed, maybe expected to be unable to rationally break them down as false. You’ll have your own ‘favourite’ no doubt but ‘generation of domination’ is sure looking sorry now, and that replaced ‘every penny’ which replaced,,,,

Something all of us want to see is the existing Remunerations Committee moved on with much more up to date replacements who subsequently offer only the average salary in that sector, further incentivised through onfield success, not the balance sheet. Our salaries need looking at, that is a major understatement.

Another thing, no more favourites. Halt selective leaking and introduce transparency or simply hire a competent Public Relations team to keep the faithful informed, which surely is not too much to ask given we are a ‘Champions League Club’, which almost made the above list. With a PR background hopefully the benefit of positive relations and being pro-active are well ingrained into our new man.

The job is huge, for the club needs a rebuild if not some new facets added, yet positive cash flow is at it’s tightest for year’s.
And thus Dominic finds himself caught in a rock and hard place from the very first day in that he must either downsize the footballing operation to meet the available budget, yet the available budget depends on the supports season book sales primarily, and they won’t take up in large numbers unless a semi name manager is brought in and backed somewhat.
Yet this is the very last thing the business side of things needs or can afford, which brings us into speculate to accumulate territory.
That’s a good option only with the correct structure to take advantage of those funds you borrow or sell shares for, and those funds can easily be frittered away unto nothing, just like our infamous 36 million splurge on flops that helped cost us the ten.
Big decision right on day one.

Of course he will know this, maybe Dermot has arranged a war chest of some sort, but can you see him or anyone at this stage entering and initiating a large spend?
While the club is at war on two fronts, Covid and a fanbase who are not accepting the footballing department propping up the business and feel it should be the other way around.
Given the Preston pre-contracts, signs point to the slow lane, belt severely tightened.
The very worst thing that could happen to a disenfranchised fanbase who fully stepped forward then were severely, no embarrassingly, let down by the puppet masters or their puppets, or both.
If you like speculation about next season’s (V)ST sales we then Monday will bring you proper opinions but it ain’t looking good at all.
The words that spring to mind on that front are ‘they dug their own grave’.

So yes a new guy and hopefully ideas sound great but at the end of the day our problems are much bigger than one man, even if that man is a megalomaniac.
We have structural flaws, are not prepared one bit for the modern game as a giant club (as our good friend TeT keeps pointing out we are in the top 60 clubs in the world), and shorter lack the means to fund the primary business to a standard deemed sufficient by it’s furious lifeblood, despite being the biggest club in the land.

Welcome to the Jungle Dominic McKay.