Is this the plan? (2 Viewers)

I personally get the impression that Sisu's plan for Coventry City Football Club is to find it a corner, let it roll up in it and die...and it seems to be going swimmingly well so far.

Sounds about right: it's a theory I posted about two years ago! Basically, last seasons plan, rinse and repeat..

They have already tried the gamble on success. There were no significant boost in crowds and most definatly not enough to cover the fees and wages paid for the likes of Westwood, Dann, Fox, Gunnarsson, Best, Morrison, Clingan, Cranie + many others.

When SISU arrived, I'm sure they did it for the right reasons and had a fairly solid plan for turning us back into a good club again. Major problem was Coleman, his football was boring and nobody wanted to watch it. If we had an attack minded manager (i'm not talking about Thorn and the 'myth' of his good football), but someone who was able to get the best out of his players and put on a winning team. Coleman seriously failed with the squad and budget he had available and we're paying the price for it now.

That squad was no where near good enough anyway. Eastwood and Morrison, a promotion winning strike force? Yer avin a laff!!

I wouldn't say the plan is to deliberately drop to league 2 but the plan looks like keep cutting until we are not losing not money regardless of where that leaves the club in terms of on pitch performance

At the time Eastwood had just banged in 40+ in league one in 2 seasons, scored 10+ in that awful Southend team and had a poor spell/couldn't settle at Wolves, at the time it looked like a good signing. I never said it was a promotion winning strike force and if i remember correctly Morrison was only brought in as back up. It doesn't excuse the fact that Coleman had the best squad in years and failed to do anything with it.

dongonzalos said:

I agree they tried to have a crack at it in the first season. However it was a bit gamble to expect it to happen in a season and a half then if it doesn't have no plan B. I think if you bring in a new manager and quite a few players you may have to be prepared to wait 3 years.

Now I think they have a plan B the second option in the OP

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It wasn't just that one season. They started to hold back only in the Christmas period of Aidy Boothroyd (2010?), They gave it 3 good seasons, appointed the 3 wrong men (Coleman, Boothroyd & Thorn) for the job and the rest is history. I would like to throw Dowie into the mix as well, he was given a lot to spend on players wages, our squad was massive when SISU took over. He had signed donkeys like Ellery Cairo and before they could even start bringing players in, it was a case of cutting out the dead wood. They saw no significant increase in support for their investment, i'm not surprised the funding has dried up and I would be doing a similar thing now in their position.

Nonleagueherewecome said:

Sounds about right: it's a theory I posted about two years ago! Basically, last seasons plan, rinse and repeat..

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Rinse ,Repeat ,Tumbledry ,Sorry i meant Tumbleweed. Thats the Prospect for ACL/RICOH as we're not alone in the SISU effect Re; L2. There would be no point playing there in that scenario. ACL would have to work far harder to find the £1.2m. that pays down their loan and provides the average £500k. profitability of the operation ,not withstanding Compass /ACL having strained relations of such downturn

dongonzalos said:

Dissagree, they sold Scott Dann June 2009 and that was the start of the selling your best players policy. Surely they would have kept Dann if they were giving promotion a serious go. They bought Coventry in December 2007. So a year and half before they started selling our best players.

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Not at all, We held out for 4 mill for Dann, we paid 100k or so a year and a half before, it allowed us to bring in like for like (Craine). We're a selling club and can't afford to not sell players in certain situations. It's naive to think we can't sell our best players.

Marty said:

It wasn't just that one season. They started to hold back only in the Christmas period of Aidy Boothroyd (2010?), They gave it 3 good seasons, appointed the 3 wrong men (Coleman, Boothroyd & Thorn) for the job and the rest is history. I would like to throw Dowie into the mix as well, he was given a lot to spend on players wages, our squad was massive when SISU took over. He had signed donkeys like Ellery Cairo and before they could even start bringing players in, it was a case of cutting out the dead wood. They saw no significant increase in support for their investment, i'm not surprised the funding has dried up and I would be doing a similar thing now in their position.

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Just a few thoughts...
1987 we all raised our expectations above what was realistic. Snozz & George Curtis had done a magnificent job winning the FA Cup. Let's face it...it all started going pear-shaped the day George Curtis left Snozz to his own devices, then since we have had one expensive disappointment after another. Eg Speedie, great player but we couldn't/didn't add sufficient quality elsewhere. Big-Ron, McCallister must've been on huge contracts, then there was the likes of Strachan...couldn't bring in the right players to add-to (even at Celtic...when players needed replacing he fell short)
Also, look back over time...we have ALWAYS been a selling club.

Not an amazing fee if you are serious about promotion to the premiership vis spending money

I would agree to an extent, to spend money, you need to make money, selling players is the only way of bringing in a large lump sum, if then that money was spent on 3 or 4 more quality lower league players then brilliant, if we repeated that circle every year or two, we would be in a very healthy position now.



Well, Cranie for Scott Dann isn't excatly like for like, but the difference of 3.5 million in their price tag for near enough the same quality player is too good to turn down, i was very happy at the time with that piece of business. Dann has gone on to improve and Cranie hasn't, there is a huge difference in their quality now but at the time I saw it as pritty much like for like.

Fox was awesome I agree and I would have loved to have kept him, but we already had 2 left backs (Barrowdale & Hussey) and I thought and expect they thought that Hussey would grow and make that position his own, injuries have prevented him from doing this, I can also understand his selling, as at the time we needed to bolster the midfield, Clingan, Bell, McIndoe & Beuzelin were brought in on that summer if i remember that correctly.

So although I agree with you their initial plan was buy good players and get promoted. their floor was they had enough money to sustain this for 18 months. That is a massive gamble to achieve such success with so much change in such a short time.

To sustain this, we needed to sell, players will all move on eventually, if thats running their contracts down or being sold, at the I felt we done the right deals at the right time. If players were sold and brought in with less quality, then I would put that down to Coleman himself. We spent something like 500k on that donkey Baker.

It's not as cut and dried as most on here make it out to be.

SkyblueBazza said:

Just a few thoughts...
1987 we all raised our expectations above what was realistic. Snozz & George Curtis had done a magnificent job winning the FA Cup. Let's face it...it all started going pear-shaped the day George Curtis left Snozz to his own devices, then since we have had one expensive disappointment after another. Eg Speedie, great player but we couldn't/didn't add sufficient quality elsewhere. Big-Ron, McCallister must've been on huge contracts, then there was the likes of Strachan...couldn't bring in the right players to add-to (even at Celtic...when players needed replacing he fell short)
Also, look back over time...we have ALWAYS been a selling club.

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Every club is apart from Barcelona & possibly Real Madrid,

I'm a bit too young to remember the Sillett & Curtis era, but i agree, 1 expensive mistake after another, I don't mind players coming here and not living up to expectation, not everyone will work out, but the likes of Strachan spending 1mill + (big money back in those days) on that Honduras pair who played 2 or 3 times between them is just completely unsustainable, Zuniga (remember him?) played only a few times and cost nearly 1 mill.

Just found this link.
http://www.cwn.org.uk/skyblues/jim-brown/2001/010910-strachan-transfers.htm

I am so angry and frustrated with whats going on.Bad news ,follows bad news, and never ever do we see some light at the end of the tunnel.
I admire the 5000 ST's but the money for my 3, the first for 9 years as I've lived abroad, will be staying in the bank, and it will stay there until these fecking parasites show some sort of commitment.

The Rev

i remember reading a quote from RR after he had left was the plan to spend 2.5 million a year on up and coming talent.also said they had the chance to sign andy carroll jordan henderson but the board would nt go for it thats part of the reason he left no investmeant.

If they had stuck with the plan in the first place we might not be in this mess.Broken promises again.Can sisu tell the truth?

dongonzalos said:

But SISU came in with Plan A, like you said, spend and get success. This ended as soon as they started selling the best players that they signed. Danny Fox was sold for 1.5 million in July 2009.Not an amazing fee if you are serious about promotion to the premiership vis spending money

With all due respect like for like Cranie for Scott Dann???

I think you have to admit there was a change of ethos as oppose to signing good players we began selling them and signing average championship ones and this was a year and a half in.

So although I agree with you their initial plan was buy good players and get promoted. their floor was they had enough money to sustain this for 18 months. That is a massive gamble to achieve such success with so much change in such a short time.

There was no other plan, than promotion. The after 18 months and ever since it has been release the best and replace them with poorer quality

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Cranie was an England U21 regular at the time and very highly rated, they are the same age and Cranie made 16 apps at U21 level compared to Dann 2 apps. I think at the time it was nearly like for like replacement.

Danny Fox was a huge mistake to sell though, Hussey wasn't bought to go straight into the first team. He had to be a bit part player and gain experience whilst he adapted to championship football from non league football.