We are not a well run club

Financially successful?

The club have lost £247m since 1986.
£143m of that has been since Dec 2009. £10m per season.
Figures taken directly from published accounts.
The club has a net shareholder value of MINUS £132m. It can only operate because of £142m of loans that Gibson O'Neill have provided AND have agreed not to recall within 12 months of June 30th 2024.
The Club is completely dependent on Group for funding, it can get nothing anywhere else.

Nobody in their right mind would suggest that financial performance or situation is "well run".

Successful on the pitch?

1 season famously described by Bob Mortimer in 15 in the top flight. There has been just 1 other period in our history that has experienced this dismal record.


The Club academy is a Cat A academy and very well resourced. I'm not sure it has generated revenue from sales to have covered its costs over the years. I'm not saying we should not have one, just saying other Cat A's are more productive than ours.
The club are notoriously poor Commercially. The revenue they generate from Merchandise and other commercial streams is poor by comparison to other clubs.
They also charge relatively high pricing, at least for non SC holders.
Concourse service is legendarily amateurish.
Club PR is really poor, epitomised by Gibson, but replicated by Bausor and Scott.

I would say they do make an effort with Community involvement and it would be unfair to say that everything that the people employed by the club do is poor; it is not. There are some good people doing their best.

I'm not sure on what objective metrics it could be argued that Middlesbrough FC is "well run", or has been since relegation in 2009.
 
r00fie1 said:
Granted we need players for some of those positions - but, in the end its down to brass tacks: where is the £££ coming from? You dont get quality by paying peanuts.
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Course you don’t, but what is that saying about paying peanuts? 😉

If you have say £5M-£6M available you could buy 1 quality player for this league, maybe 2 at a push, on say 3 or 4 yr deals. Value may decline as contract ends. You could probably get 4 quality loans for that outlay which makes all the difference to a team if the quality is better than you have.
 
coluka said:
Course you don’t, but what is that saying about paying peanuts? 😉

If you have say £5M-£6M available you could buy 1 quality player for this league, maybe 2 at a push, on say 3 or 4 yr deals. Value may decline as contract ends. You could probably get 4 quality loans for that outlay which makes all the difference to a team if the quality is better than you have.
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Or you could keep giving it to cunning Kieran who scours the world for "bargains" that "the Head Coach" should turn to valuable assets for clever Kieran to sell for top dollar.
 
coluka said:
Course you don’t, but what is that saying about paying peanuts? 😉

If you have say £5M-£6M available you could buy 1 quality player for this league, maybe 2 at a push, on say 3 or 4 yr deals. Value may decline as contract ends. You could probably get 4 quality loans for that outlay which makes all the difference to a team if the quality is better than you have.
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Dry roast or ready salted?
We`re going to have to stick with the rough diamonds for now - or GET WILDER BACK!!!! :love:
 
We had this debate last year same agendas from some posters.It soon stopped after Carrick had been in post after about a month.

I can’t defend the results at the moment
we appear to be a soft touch. We came very close to promotion last year and I appreciate people are frustrated but if the team goes on a winning run this post will disappear but the governance of the club won’t have altered.

Looking from the outside in its very easy to criticise the club football fans are pretty fickle ours are no different.
 
Muttley said:
Ah the lack of ambition nonsense rephrased 🤷

Then we have some amateur mind-reading

Basically you say the club is lunging from one strategy to another and fail to offer an alternative other than hinting at doing exactly that and criticising every level of the club while showing little understanding of the complexity of running a Championship football club.

No one enjoyed that game yesterday but Corcoran's West Brom were always going to be a difficult game. At times I did see signs of improvement. Looking at the stats (always a poor measure of a game but I think interesting in this case) we had 5 shots on target to their 4 and 15 shots to their 7. You can't hope to beat a team when you gift them two goals with individual errors. The sending off was stupid and where he was on the pitch doubly so. But the first yellow card for Smith was a joke. The West Brom player got caught trying to block a clearance, never a foul at all. Home fan pressure?

I get the frustration but combining the results from the end of last season with beginning of this is pointless, we are, as we know, a much different team having lost multiple players and not yet completed our recruitment for this season. I don't see much indication that other teams around us have done much better other than the relegated teams who command riches that are beyond us. That is not naiveté that is simply me trying to look at the ambitions of our club and our resources in context of the division we are in.
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Coventry and Sunderland the other two sides there fanbases are well aware the trouble there having, they know they’ve went backwards. Yet there still miles above us. We have a few days of the window left and at present we have a very very poor squad. There’s no justifying it, tough game or not we were hammered just like we were By a bang average Coventry side. Can you see us getting the players we need to go for promotion within the next few days? look at it this way, we drew 1-1 with HUDDERSFIELD TOWN there bottom of the league, they shipped 4 to Norwich yet at home we couldn’t beat them and it fans we’re claiming it’s a positive result, the acceptance of mediocrity. A 1-1 draw at home to ***** like that being a positive result, it’s not a few tweaks here and there needed we need a good 5 or so quality players to mount a challenge, we have lost our best players. The ambition this season should have always been promotion. A “ transitional season” or whatever bs narrative we will get told within the next few weeks is the fans being openly lied to as carrick said the aim is automatic promotion.
 
Angus said:
We had this debate last year same agendas from some posters.It soon stopped after Carrick had been in post after about a month.

I can’t defend the results at the moment
we appear to be a soft touch. We came very close to promotion last year and I appreciate people are frustrated but if the team goes on a winning run this post will disappear but the governance of the club won’t have altered.

Looking from the outside in its very easy to criticise the club football fans are pretty fickle ours are no different.
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No one has an “ agenda” people are realists, we are getting hammered every week by average sides we are in the bottom 3 and have lost our 5 best players and not replaced them. We will not get what’s needed within the next few weeks Scott fills me with no confidence whatsoever. If it wasn’t for Chuba turning into prime pele for a season we would have not got the striker needed to challenge and left with that lump muniz and Matthew hoppe, January we did some shrewd business but ultimately means nothing now. The club takes 1 step forward and two back
 
Angus said:
We had this debate last year same agendas from some posters.It soon stopped after Carrick had been in post after about a month.

I can’t defend the results at the moment
we appear to be a soft touch. We came very close to promotion last year and I appreciate people are frustrated but if the team goes on a winning run this post will disappear but the governance of the club won’t have altered.

Looking from the outside in its very easy to criticise the club football fans are pretty fickle ours are no different.
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Such wisdom… is that what it is?
 
Borokian1876 said:
No one has an “ agenda” people are realists, we are getting hammered every week by average sides we are in the bottom 3 and have lost our 5 best players and not replaced them. We will not get what’s needed within the next few weeks Scott fills me with no confidence whatsoever. If it wasn’t for Chuba turning into prime pele for a season we would have not got the striker needed to challenge and left with that lump muniz and Matthew hoppe, January we did some shrewd business but ultimately means nothing now. The club takes 1 step forward and two back
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People have agendas.I didn’t name anyone and I wasn’t referring to you. No offence but I have never noticed any of your previous posts.
 
Who is ? Where's the queue of investors then ?
Borokian1876 said:
regularly I see this, we are a “ well ran” club we are “ stable” finishing in the championship every season bar the odd promotion push Is not stability is mediocrity we have had 1 top flight season in 15 years in heaps of debt, and the man has made continuous mistake after mistake when will fans take the rose tinted glasses off and realise he’s taking the club backwards?
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indeedido said:
Wondered what had happened to you since you lost the Hartlepool gig.
See you’ve dropped the H.
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Daft **** and a 🐒 I seem to have upset you! You can put me on ignore 🙉🙈🙊.Hope your ego is ok? That’s a rhetorical question by the way so no need to respond. I won’t be after this so you can have the last word if you like.
 
You haven't upset me and I've no intention of putting you on ignore Angus, but you did start with the insults.
Both Boro fans, even if we do see the club hierarchy differently.
 
Love threads like this, usually means at some point we will go on a long point collecting bonanza during the season and someone will keep bumping this other and other similar threads, I have had a bit of a whinge in the last day or two but have purposely avoided doing a thread because of this. UTFB
 
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Shhh, don’t say owt. Young players these days follow the Internet, put it out there that boro are an ace club to sign for, with top training ground, ethos, stadium, progressive, young coach you’ve heard of and a good chance of the premier league with boro or a transfer (see Tav, Spence, Archer, Giles & Ramsey) and top fans.
 
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