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All About Charlton - BBC Radio London tonight 7pm - exclusive interview with Thomas Sandgaard

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  • Gribbo said:
    Scoham said:
    DubaiCAFC said:
    Personally I have no issues with the interview, was open, honest and realistic of the situation! He has invested money in to the playing side. 

    Maybe not having a CEO on board is a bit rookie - but untimely would they affect how poorly we have been on the pitch no! Only thing they might have influenced might have been the appointment of Jackson, at the point of appointing him, if they hadn’t, the fans would have turned quickly!!

    It’s going to be a big summer, and as fans we need to be realistic of who will come through the door..
    I think the belief is an experienced football CEO would in turn bring in people with proven ability in player recruitment which should result in better signings. Add to that they wouldn’t make mistakes like giving away thousands of free tickets, stopping fans from being able to buy seats together.

    There’s been a change in that area with GR going and MS coming in - I think you can see why many have doubts about the owner appointing his son as director of analysis?
    I don't think enough people, including myself, know enough about what a director of analysis does, to be too overly critical about the appointment, but it's another it's another stick to beat TS with regardless
    Imagine we will have a interview soon with MS who will explain what he does. Under the impression it’s a lot more spreadsheet related than football related. If that makes any sense at all.
    Yeah, that's what I was assuming too.But, as I don't know, the jury is still out.

    Note that Elliot Lee shared the Pep interview where he was criticising the over emphasis people put on data and analytics in the modern game. Pointing out there are players in teams that don't show up on the stats, but do far more for the team than those who do show up
  • Being so stung by previous ownership that you let Sandgaard do what he likes, because the bar has been set so low, is as unhealthy as being overly cynical of eveything he does.

    He's done some good, he's done some bad. I'm sure it will continue like that, but he doesn't help himself with his comments and the set-up at the club. 
  • Disagree, it is to encourage new supporters to the ground, and improves overall match revenue, along with extra support behind the players.. I agree it went on for too, and I understand fans frustration with season tickets, as it doesn't give you the value of having one.. I certainly agree with it for one or two games a season giving away tickets to season ticket holders! 
  • edited March 2022

    Most of those are fair points, unless you mean the morale and motivation of the playing squad and management.

    None of others would be affecting our current league position. So all this clamour for a CEO is unrelated to the team losing then...

    100% correct! This CEO business is just something that people have grabbed hold. It is pretty irrelevant in terms of the management of the team.
    If you look at the the role Steve Kavanagh plays at Millwall, it’s clear that it isn’t. He is the public face of the absentee owner and he is involved in the football set-up - which he wasn’t at Charlton 2011-12 because Varney did it. Then Prothero, for better or, actually, worse.

    Look at any account of the 2011 recruitment and Varney was central to it. OK he wasn’t chief executive but he wasn’t the manager either or director of football either.

    It was only after Katrien left at the end of 2017 that there was no day to day involvement in the football side from senior staff at The Valley.

  • Most of those are fair points, unless you mean the morale and motivation of the playing squad and management.

    None of others would be affecting our current league position. So all this clamour for a CEO is unrelated to the team losing then...

    100% correct! This CEO business is just something that people have grabbed hold. It is pretty irrelevant in terms of the management of the team.
    If you look at the the role Steve Kavanagh plays at Millwall, it’s clear that it isn’t. He is the public face of the absentee owner and he is involved in the football set-up - which he wasn’t at Charlton 2011-12 because Varney did it. Then Prothero, for better or, actually, worse.
    What do you mean by 'football set-up'? Are you saying that Kavanagh at Millwall and Reg when he was with us had direct involvement with team management?
  • I think you need to be a fan of the club that you purchase - for it to really genuinely work. Even then, it would be hard.

    Which is exactly why he needs to hire more qualified staff to do the job for him and everyone associated!

    If I was a millionaire....I don't think I would purchase Charlton. It would probably be awful. 

    He needs the required help!



  • If you look at the the role Steve Kavanagh plays at Millwall, it’s clear that it isn’t. He is the public face of the absentee owner and he is involved in the football set-up - which he wasn’t at Charlton 2011-12 because Varney did it. Then Prothero, for better or, actually, worse.
    I am not sure that we are lacking in a public face - if anything, several people on here are complaining that they are hearing altogether too much from the club management.
    Regardless of where one comes down on that, it is irrelevant to the team (or at least it should be if the team management is right).
  • We're banging on about the CEO situation because of the number of OFF THE FIELD areas that need to be managed, many of which haven't been working well. Thomas doesn't have the football experience to manage them himself, and certainly doesn't have the time anyway.

    Ticket pricing (including season ticket pricing, promotions, comps etc)
    Catering
    Hospitality areas
    Club shop
    Replica kit
    Home and away coach travel
    The condition of The Valley (tannoy speakers, toilets etc)
    Day to day management of the club
    etc
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  • Did Brentford make it to the Premier League while breaking even?
  • You know what, I'm convinced. 
  • We're banging on about the CEO situation because of the number of OFF THE FIELD areas that need to be managed, many of which haven't been working well. Thomas doesn't have the football experience to manage them himself, and certainly doesn't have the time anyway.

    Ticket pricing (including season ticket pricing, promotions, comps etc)
    Catering
    Hospitality areas
    Club shop
    Replica kit
    Home and away coach travel
    The condition of The Valley (tannoy speakers, toilets etc)
    Day to day management of the club
    etc


    From the above list of grievances, it sounds as though a better fix would be to sack the heads of marketing/cleaning/hospitality etc.

    Director of Operations you mean? 
  • edited March 2022
    What is the diference between a Chief Exec and Chief Opperations Officer?

    Could it be the case that the Cherry Blossom Kid has agreed to take on some of the CEO responsibiliby as part of his shoe shine excersise and TS has gone with it?
  • Gribbo said:
    What is the diference between a Cheif Exec and Cheif Opperations Officer?

    Could it be the case that the Cherry Blossom Kid has agreed to take on some of the CEO responsibiliby as part of his shoe shine excersise and TS has gone with it?
    Yes, but has TS considered the effect this would have on burger flipping outcomes?
  • bobmunro said:
    Absolute car crash of an interview. 
    Football is just common sense and I don't need football people telling me what to do.
    My son knows lot's about football. 
    Don't need to spend money on an expensive CEO.
    says the man who is aiming for Europe and finds himself 16th in league one. 
    Next season will be the same as this until he realises he can't do it without getting the right people to advise him.
    What full time responsibilities do you think we need a CEO for?

    This is just the latest thing that people want to lobby Thomas for, as he has acquiessed to almost all the fan demands so far.

    So all those people that point to the lack of a CEO for being the reason we are shit at the moment, lets have a breakdown of what we would be wanting a full time CEO to do?
    - Sack Tony Keohane
    - Oversee recruitment

    Anything else?
    Are you being serious. 
    I can't think of a single club that does not have a CEO.
    Sandgaard admits he knows very little about football yet is determined to run the club without a CEO or whatever to give him advice on a whole raft of things. 
    If he thinks that he can achieve what he wants to without proper guidance he is mistaken. 

    The role of a CEO in football is to run the operation, the commercial side of things, and perhaps get involved in contract negotiations (with lawyers) with player ins and outs. They are generally also the point of contact for the press. The CEO does not (or should not) get involved in the playing side.
    Good point from a man who should know.

    So what do people want a newly appointed CEO to do for us?
    Sort out the absolute car crash of a ticketing strategy, for one.
  • Croydon said:
    Personally I think people are being v harsh. If he was saying this with us in the play off position then people would probably be agreeing with him. There needs to be a long term shift change to make football clubs more financially viable.

    Key thing for me is his enthusiasm and approach for next season seems high, talk of increasing budget further and at a competitive level for promotion, seems there’s a fair strategy think already in place for next year, that Jacko is clearly in plan for next season etc

    Perhaps I misread it all 
      The problem I have with it all is that he doesn't have anyone in place to tell him where he may or may not be going wrong.

    And from what I've just heard he definitely needs that type of person in his sphere.

    Also, he's not really saying anything different from what he was saying 18 months ago. It really doesn't sound very progressive to me.
    Just a bloke who's stumbled his way into the football scene who's going to have a lot of fun and lose a lot of money along the way.
    Just a bloke who saved us. Success isn't a right and can't even be bought. Even those that cheat dont achieve it.

    I'm just grateful we still have a club. Anything more is a bonus
    Christ 🙄
    Without him we'd almost certainly be out of business
  • We're banging on about the CEO situation because of the number of OFF THE FIELD areas that need to be managed, many of which haven't been working well. Thomas doesn't have the football experience to manage them himself, and certainly doesn't have the time anyway.

    Ticket pricing (including season ticket pricing, promotions, comps etc)
    Catering
    Hospitality areas
    Club shop
    Replica kit
    Home and away coach travel
    The condition of The Valley (tannoy speakers, toilets etc)
    Day to day management of the club
    etc
    Thomas doesn't have the football experience required to ensure the toilets are in better condition?

    From the above list of grievances, it sounds as though a better fix would be to sack the heads of marketing/cleaning/hospitality etc.

    If a CEO has to get involved in fixing toilets then we really are in trouble.
    By mentioning toilets, I'm not just referring to a broken lock or blocked drain. I mean in general, in terms of their condition, and what money might be spent to spruce them up.

    The individual managers will all report to someone. Would you prefer Keohane reporting to Thomas (rarely there and unlikely to have the time to consider such issues) or a full time Varney-style CEO?
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  • Saulc23 said:
    Personally I just think it’s bad timing for the interview. If we’d won the last 5 there would be none of the negativity. 

    Im not sure I agree with all his points, but let’s try and treat it without having the current form at the forefront of the mind? 
    While I sort of get what you are saying, that interview was, to put it bluntly, a car crash. Jesus, we are back to the old 'buying a house'/'buying a restauarant' sinonyms we were using under RD again. And why? Because he oddly suggests he has no real knowlege of football, but has introduced his son who has a knowlege equal to any armcahir watcher of SkyTV. I mean, what??? Is this the level of competence we need? It's not the five match losing streak with no strikers that is a huge worry - injuries do happen, although apparently they happen much more to us. It's the future planning which would appear to be pretty much 'winging it' as football is a fairly straight forward business. It is! Failure causes huge problems with income. And a professionally run club will cope much better than an enthusiastically run amateur one. RD did exactly the same thing appointing Meire. By all means play the guitar, but if you admit your knowlege of English football is sparse, at least try to recruit people who are experienced. And finally, talk of a top two finish is actually embarrassing. He did the same at the end of last season and people are still beating him with it. Why the absolute fuck would he bother repeating that?

    Do you have 8 million?
  • esseffect said:
    Think a few people (on Twitter especially) have jumped on the ‘running a football club isn’t difficult’ line to much.

    It says nothing in there about being successful on the pitch, he likely means the day to day operations.

    if you choose to take that comment a pessimistic way that’s on you.
    Correct, the day to day operations is actually a very small business. 

  • Most of those are fair points, unless you mean the morale and motivation of the playing squad and management.

    None of others would be affecting our current league position. So all this clamour for a CEO is unrelated to the team losing then...

    100% correct! This CEO business is just something that people have grabbed hold. It is pretty irrelevant in terms of the management of the team.
    If you look at the the role Steve Kavanagh plays at Millwall, it’s clear that it isn’t. He is the public face of the absentee owner and he is involved in the football set-up - which he wasn’t at Charlton 2011-12 because Varney did it. Then Prothero, for better or, actually, worse.

    Look at any account of the 2011 recruitment and Varney was central to it. OK he wasn’t chief executive but he wasn’t the manager either or director of football either.

    It was only after Katrien left at the end of 2017 that there was no day to day involvement in the football side from senior staff at The Valley.
    And it improved.  No one is better than bad one......... 

  • Most of those are fair points, unless you mean the morale and motivation of the playing squad and management.

    None of others would be affecting our current league position. So all this clamour for a CEO is unrelated to the team losing then...

    100% correct! This CEO business is just something that people have grabbed hold. It is pretty irrelevant in terms of the management of the team.
    If you look at the the role Steve Kavanagh plays at Millwall, it’s clear that it isn’t. He is the public face of the absentee owner and he is involved in the football set-up - which he wasn’t at Charlton 2011-12 because Varney did it. Then Prothero, for better or, actually, worse.


    And he is absolutely despised by their fans.

  • While I sort of get what you are saying, that interview was, to put it bluntly, a car crash. Jesus, we are back to the old 'buying a house'/'buying a restauarant' sinonyms we were using under RD again. And why? Because he oddly suggests he has no real knowlege of football, but has introduced his son who has a knowlege equal to any armcahir watcher of SkyTV. I mean, what??? Is this the level of competence we need? It's not the five match losing streak with no strikers that is a huge worry - injuries do happen, although apparently they happen much more to us. It's the future planning which would appear to be pretty much 'winging it' as football is a fairly straight forward business. It is! Failure causes huge problems with income. And a professionally run club will cope much better than an enthusiastically run amateur one. RD did exactly the same thing appointing Meire. By all means play the guitar, but if you admit your knowlege of English football is sparse, at least try to recruit people who are experienced. And finally, talk of a top two finish is actually embarrassing. He did the same at the end of last season and people are still beating him with it. Why the absolute fuck would he bother repeating that?
    But the things that are within his gift to change (with the exception of the appointment of the manager) are precisely the things that relate to running the club as a business. They do not require any knowledge of football, and, as such, they should not reasonably have any impact on the performance of the team.
    In terms of the statistical analysis, this is something that is used by pretty much every club to varying degrees. I mean, in this day and age, why would you not want to know who runs further, tackles more etc? Again, this is a skill which involves an awful lot of time looking at spreadsheets and manipulating formulas in Excel or other packages. None of that has anything to do with knowledge of football - the skills and required knowledge-base are completely different - which is why this should (and, as far as I can tell, is) being used only piece of evidence alongside more experience-based opinions.
  • “So you’ll see a third strategy. I’m going to try and, as soon as possible, of a level of break even while I continue to invest in the club.

    “I’m not losing as much money as I did last season. But I’m losing £8m this season, investing, and that obviously can’t continue for a whole lot longer.

    “We have a lot of initiative internally and it all starts with filling The Valley, to make sure as many as possible of the fanbase are in for a live home game.

    “We have a fantastic fanbase. We have more potential than most English football clubs. I want to make sure we leverage that, to make the most of it on the revenue side. There is a limit to how much we can cut the expenses, but we have huge potential on the revenue side.

    “If and when we start improving on the football side, it’s all going to click.

    And that's the key. Sure an increasingly dwindling number of hard core supporters will continue to attend games if we remain in League 1 (or League 2!) but if the product on offer is poor you aren't going to attract back paying customers. TS can keep giving out free tickets in the hope some of those will come back and buy tickets on a regular basis but performances are going to have to pick up significantly next season to achieve that. That requires yet another significant turnover of playing staff in the coming close season and they need to get the bulk of their business done early, as you can't keep leaving it until 10 games into the new season before you have a reasonably settled squad.

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