I feel that Roy (2nd time around) was only a placeholder to steady the ship / keep us in the PL until we -

a) Get the main stand built (which increases the stadium capacity & therefore revenue, which helps us with profit & sustainability)
b) Lower the salary / revenue %age (83% down to 64% down to ?
c) Complete the academy / sports science upgrade (soon ?)

The underlying feeling of the shareholders at the start of the season being that the current squad should be good enough to carry us through until the summer window when the main stand construction begins & the other 2 targets are sorted - Obviously injuries have thrown a spanner in the works.

At the risk of stating the obvious - the big question is what do we do next with a little over a week of the transfer window left,
Effectively its stick or twist with the manager & the transfer window - those are big decisions, SP will earn his money on Monday morning & only history will dictate whether he made the right decisions.

I think our present problems are a result of a series of bad decisions made last summer.

* the assumption that Zaha was going to stay . My suggestion of giving him a deadline to make up his mind was not met with widespread enthusiasm on here, but he left at the eleventh hour and the club failed to replace him. It was also known at that time that Olise had an injury likely to keep him out for some time
* the assumption that the squad had sufficient depth of quality. Far from having Top Ten potential, the more pertinent question would be to gauge if it was enough to even achieve our usual mid table spot. Factor in a couple of inevitable injuries….
* the signings of Henderson and Franca. Henderson still makes little sense to me. Could we not have identified a decent back up for Johnstone without eating so much into our limited transfer budget ? Franca looks like one for the future, but not for the now. Forget the hefty transfer fee, if he had come through the Academy would you not be thinking, has potential but raw and not ready yet ?
It all feeds into a lack of coherent and structured approach to player recruitment and fee developing strategy.
* re-appointing Roy. To me that was a Red Flag as to the extent of this seasons ambition. I think this is one of those “ weak decisions “ referred to yesterday at the Emirates. As Roy said, ultimately it’s the manager that carry’s the can for poor results and while I don’t hold him solely responsible for our predicament, he’s appearing increasingly like somebody that wants his future decided for him. Which leaves Parish in a position that I’m sure he didn’t want to be in, trying to find a new manager in mid season.

The club feels like a ship without a captain at the moment. A real lack of inspirational leadership on and off the field.

I think the problems start at the top, at Board level. So the what next should start there too, but more likely it won’t. It’s more likely to be a new manager. But I suspect that once again we will be appointing someone that was not first choice but who is available.

Apologies for yet another thread but this is a genuine attempt to look at the whole thing holistically and provoke some insight/thought/answers:

This is all conjecture of course however it does look as though it’s either catastrophically/severely bad judgement from our board or there is no money whatsoever:

- I don’t know if other fans feel similarly, and yes FFP and all that jazz, but I wouldn’t recognise any other PL team (of reasonable duration) to spend as little money/bring in so few players as we do.

- If there is so little money, you lose your best player (possibly of all time) and you have gaps in the first team, why the f**k would you spend the little you have on back up goalies/CBs and young players who aren’t even going to be given the chance to play in the first team let alone may not bring any value in the first instance? A literal question as it seems incredibly f**king stupid and did at the time.

- There must be some recognition that ‘football has moved on’. So why continue to employ a manager whose singular identity is play as suffocating and antiquated football as possible? Perhaps that’s all we can hope for as we don’t buy players nor have the money for a manager however he’s now proving he can’t even do that effectively. We might have got draws against the Manchester clubs but elsewhere and last dozen games it’s been as bad as possible.

- Why come out and talk about ‘Top 10’ etc (Parish) if you know you can’t fund anything but the mitigation of a descent? Is it a deliberate tempt of fate or winding up of fans?

I can get quite miffed but I do make an effort to not jump on ‘Roy/Parish out’ bandwagons spontaneously, plus I do reserve something for my ignorance on management/running a club, but I’ve no further energy for their excuses and what feels like blatant falsehoods deliberately told to pacify fans who would be, and rightly are, angry with the reality.

This isn’t hindsight, I’d of said at the end of last season: we need to look for the next manager, scout some wing backs plus a replacement for Wilf and perhaps see if there are any GK’s available on the cheap who could could be decent stand-ins. That’s all before doing anything positive beyond plugging gaps. None of this has happened. I assumed it meant there was another plan in place and this season was just a ‘muddle through’ but it’s looking an absolute sh!tshow now and that’s not down to a couple of injuries.

Parish has been extremely quiet, Roy seems to bite back at all the objectively deserved criticism he receives, the players are rightly unhappy and the fans on the precipice of eruption. The only positive I can foresee is a couple signings, some sort of statement from Parish and a result in the next game. I don’t see any of those as likely let alone guaranteed however.

Were the Americans only brought in to provide some bailout when the last cohort all simultaneously ran out of legs/retired etc but are now a huge hinder/not interested?

Is the feeling of panic, despair and anger justified?

Are we in fact absolutely skint? If so what is/was the plan?

Is our race run? Is that just the reality and we’ve never moved on from miracles and a bit of staying power?

There have already been rumblings and Everton seemed at the very least a look to provoke a reaction which we got, a 5-0 loss. What has gone so badly wrong and is there any hope left for us?

Do we expect Roy to be incharge against Sheff Utd, and do we expect any new signings to be playing in that game.

Firtstly Nicholas an excellent post and indeed the replies. There comes a time when you are found out and I think our time is here. Clearly we are reliant on Textor and co’s cash and all being able to be on the same page. If the media reports are true this is now not the case which, will inevitably affect the running of the club. For the good of CPFC the board need to sit down and have a grown up conversation and resolve the issues and quickly.
There is seemingly no recruitment plan and this goes back years. I would love to know what our scouting network is I.e where we find rough diamonds for decent money and polish them up. Given the results of this I doubt it extends much beyond Google! When you look at Brighton (very sorry to say) it is clear they have something we can only dream of and bringing players through from the academy …. The centre forward Ewan ?? springs to mind. They can do it so why can’t we??

We don’t seem to think ahead, no strategic planning and because of this we are forever working hand to mouth and doing our transfer window shopping in Aldi at 9.45pm. Saying all this we must be careful what we wish for in wanting SP out ….. Reading FC!!

Finally, the manager, a previous post said that good managers improve players and sorry Roy but this isn’t happening and I also believe that you have lost the dressing room. Lots of things to put right and it needs strong leadership from the top to right the ship.