Yes, with a title such as Acun’s Near Relegation, I’m going to be criticising our dear leader.
However, I will start by saying that I do believe that Acun’s heart is in the right place, in terms of our football club.
I’ve seen various rumours swirling around – with understandable reason based on our club’s history, but I’m yet to see anything that stands out as him not caring, him giving up, him not financing the club any more – here’s hoping this sentence doesn’t look foolish any time soon.
Acun’s near relegation started with one major decision. Yep, sacking Liam Rosenior, was mistake number 1.
I actually liked our style of play. Not every single minute, I appreciate it was plodding and sometimes frustratingly so. But there was a plan, there was a game plan – we had some good players too.
Embed from Getty ImagesSacking Rosenior was a real shock. I could maybe have understood if say by Christmas 2024 we were 17th or something, fine. But not when we’d vastly outperformed expectations and finished 7th.
More mistakes please
Of course, the mistakes didn’t stop there.
How did Tim Walter persuade anyone that he was a football manager? I should really start applying for more CEO positions in FTSE100 companies.
Of course, we then sold all of our best players. I understood the reasons, some such as Greaves wanted to play Premier League football, Philogene seemed like good business (though there are some rumours of strange goings on there) – but almost all of our goal scorers were sold.
And the signings – well, it’s unclear to me how much responsibility Acun has for this, but certainly seems like he has some involvement in the persuasion at times, and then with the general direction.
I think the main mistake is signing 10+ players every single transfer window. Imagine how unsettling that is for the existing squad, let alone how expensive it is. Our form did dip in February – impossible to prove causation, but one has to wonder of the effect of having 48,745 players on our books (figure needs verifying).
Were you ever convinced that Selles knew his best team? Apart from at the back, I wasn’t.
Please learn, Acun
We all make mistakes, and as an owner I still think he has got more right than wrong, so far.
Also I think Acun has the ability to learn from mistakes, he certainly had no hesitation in sacking Walter and Arveladze when they proved incapable of managing in the Championship. But Rosenior was more than capable – has Acun accepted this was a mistake? You can only learn from your mistakes if you believe they are mistakes.
And I fear he may do the same again this summer. Selles has got an unfit bag of semi-misfits over the line. Our form improved, alas so did the form of most of the lower clubs, hence Acun’s near relegation being a very close call.
There is something to build on. Not quite as much as we had to build on last summer, but there is something.