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Steve Gibson


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I am of the school that says that those accusing of letting us down are ingrates and have short memories. Gibson has spent millions over the years giving us a team and we are a top end champo/bottom end prem type club because of him not despite him IMO.

It all well and good quoting other teams but there are reasons foreign/rich owners bought them and I also look enviously at the fact we are beaten to players by the likes of Reading/QPR but I think our current model is spot on. After all who is actually queuing up to buy us?

We should be careful what we wish for as there but for the grace of Gibbo we could be a Bolton/Sunderland/Pompey etc

 

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Just had another look at the table, we currently sit below teams like Preston and Charlton (who are in and around the playoffs), Brentford, Blackburn, Luton, Millwall, Wigan and Hull.  I don't se

It’s the standard ‘one or the other’ paradox most boro fans seem to have, ‘WE NEED A DEFENSIVE MANAGER WE CANT KEEP A CLEAN SHEET!!!’ ‘NOW WE NEED AN ATTACKING MANAGER, WE CANT SCORE!!’ What we n

Sorry, but I can't agree with this. The vast majority of Boro fans recognise Gibson is a fan first and foremost. He loves the club so much he - with help from others - saved it in 1986, and he's earne

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I think Gibson has always had the intention that the club would be self sufficient, generate it's own cash through sales and live within it's means.

do we need to be managed better financially, I'd say yes, if we'd have gone into the prem' season with the attitude we spend a little but accept we will probably get relegated and set the club up as such I believe we would be in a better position. But we didn't so this is our lot and we have to make the best of it.

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9 minutes ago, Boro 86 said:

I am of the school that says that those accusing of letting us down are ingrates and have short memories. Gibson has spent millions over the years giving us a team and we are a top end champo/bottom end prem type club because of him not despite him IMO.

It all well and good quoting other teams but there are reasons foreign/rich owners bought them and I also look enviously at the fact we are beaten to players by the likes of Reading/QPR but I think our current model is spot on. After all who is actually queuing up to buy us?

We should be careful what we wish for as there but for the grace of Gibbo we could be a Bolton/Sunderland/Pompey etc

 

It's still alright to critisese him though. After all we're not lemmings. The club has been atrociously run for the past three years. How many good decisions has been made since we got promoted? Extremely few. To think that we gone from promotion to onæy being able to sign 300k wingers in just 3 years is a testament to how we've been run. Plain and simple awful stuff. So much money has been wasted it's criminal.

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2 hours ago, edinboro said:

I would guess at the end of this season with Friend, Howson, Randolph, Britt probably gone the club will be almost sustainable. That might be the point at which the club can be sold.

It will be interesting if we get some genuine folk interested. We are a decent bet and have good infrastructure.

Still think Peter Kenyon is involved with the club again for this reason. He brokers deals for clubs now, that's his day job.

Just my opinion.

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3 hours ago, DevKWat said:

I just wanted to get peoples thoughts on the current state of the club and it’s future, I’d say Steve Gibson’s tenure has been called into question more now than ever before. There are huge question marks beginning to appear like him pulling transfers for no specific reason and talks of him potentially getting ready to sell up soon. He promised in Woody’s unveiling that he backs all managers and in my opinion fell way short, after Woody got most of the fans back on board by himself. I personally don’t believe a word he said anymore, but I’d love to hear your lads opinions on it...

Don't know about "my lads opinion" but something is not right nor has it been for a while and when the finger of suspicion aims at the very top without so much of a word from him then so many fans will be and continue to be bewildered.

Stories about simply stopping transfers due to one mans say so in a way is a dictatorship.   

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He's written off 8 figure losses over the years and those losses unlike other clubs have not been millstones around our necks and are not to any prospective takeover he 100% 'cares'. My take on the 'is he looking to sell' has always been the same the richest man in the world could put down 80 million for MFC+Rockliffe and Gibson wouldn't sell I hate to break the 'we are a northern *ithole' myth that gets thrown around but both Sheffield clubs are owned by rich Asians I think Barnsley might even have a rich owner? There'd be interest in Boro but it'd take the prospective owners moving into the region on a 20 year lease promises of taking care of the area I mean Gibson after what he's done isn't handing keys to the first rich bloke he sees.

Gibson's problem seems to me he's very hands on with things he shouldn't be whether it's intervening in Agnew's tantrum with Aitor about feeling 'left out' or players coming to him with concerns about Aitor's methods and Spanish cliques. He can't sit back on transfers 30 odd years after saving us he's not got any kind of urge to sit back on anything yet alone sell us.

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1 hour ago, Borodane said:

It's still alright to critisese him though. After all we're not lemmings. The club has been atrociously run for the past three years. How many good decisions has been made since we got promoted? Extremely few. To think that we gone from promotion to onæy being able to sign 300k wingers in just 3 years is a testament to how we've been run. Plain and simple awful stuff. So much money has been wasted it's criminal.

No doubt there should be criticism, but it needs to be tempered with realism.  Unfortunately, because of our location in the country, it costs more to attract decent players.  This puts the club either at a financial disadvantage or footballing disadvantage (in terms of the ability of the players we can attract for the same outlay as other clubs).  In the past the financial disadvantage was acceptable because it brought periods of success, something I imagine Gibson was hoping to achieve when he threw money at Monk's purchases in an attempt at a quick return to the Premiership (as Newcastle had recently achieved and as had worked in for the Boro previously).  His failing has perhaps been not to notice that other clubs had been having success on smaller budgets by investing in talent from the lower leagues.  It also seems that comparison with Burnley and others might be a little unfair because they all are somewhat nearer the cities of London Manchester and Liverpool.  We are near Newcastle and Sunderland (in better times) and, from either a family-centric or leisure perspective we are not as attractive because of our past association with heavy industry, 'it's grim up North' etc.  This will no doubt be something considered by investors also.  Mike Ashley has a Premier League club that he can't get rid of.

Also, as has been previously mentioned, for every successful team there are plenty of others whose fans think the grass will be greener and success assured by a change of owner or manager, only to be bitterly disappointed.  The Brentford match shows how fickle fate is. 

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There are two phases of the Steve Gibson era - 1986 to 2006, and everything since. In the first era, he saved the club, put it on the map, moved us to the Riverside and invested in a squad worthy of Europe. Even today, he loves the club, and he's a far better chairman than those charlatans up the A19.

 

That said, since 2006, as the man who writes the cheques, he's made one bad decision after another after another. In terms of managerial appointments alone, we've had the untested Southgate who took us down, Strachan, Agnew, Monk, Pulis... Anyone who grieved when Pulis left clearly has trouble understanding modern football, given the fact Pulis wasted our last parachute money on crap players in unnecessary positions while taking the biggest salary we'd ever paid a manager and completely aborting our promotion hopes against Villa.

 

In his second era, Gibson has appointed people to senior positions at the club who don't seem to justify their salary, like Bevington. He's signed vanity players like Rhodes against the wishes of the managers of the time, got involved with politics to nobody's benefit, and now seems to have disappeared from view entirely. When did he last say anything to anyone in public? We're signing league one-standard players, whichever club they actually joined us from, yet Gibson apparently claims Pulis left us in a great position after all his mysterious "behind the scenes" work.

 

Anyway, why would we need to fully balance the books to sell the club? Most clubs run at a loss, but the promise of PL cash is more than enough to attract investors. I tend to disregard rumours to the extent that Gibson pulled the plug on transfers last week, he's ready to sell, etc, but I invite anyone to tell me over the last ten years how his chairmanship of MFC can be considered a success, other than the fact we're not Bolton/Coventry/Bury. 

 

All footballing eras come to an end. However risky a new owner might be, I think Gibson began the process of separation some time ago. He'll be missed if/when he goes, but the time seems to be right.

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3 hours ago, mendieta420 said:

There's no one else in the world that would be willing to finance the huge pit of burning cash known as Middlesbrough football club. 

Everyone wants to point the finger and say someone is to blame, when in reality we're at the level we should be.

You've only got to look down the road at our neighbours Newcastle and Sunderland for much worse owners.

As in Newcastle who are in the Premier league and have zero debt? 

Sure Ashley lies to the fans (so does Gibson) makes false promises (so does Gibson) but they are in much better shape than us as a club - the reason Ashley has such a bad name is because the Newcastle fans are constantly slating him because he's not spending like City, Utd, Liverpool etc. But Newcastle fans are as unbearable as scousers so they're never going to be happy 

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5 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

He wants the best part of £400m for it, doesn't he?  I suspect that's more of a factor than the location.

Hmm, that's probably why he didn't reply to my offer of £50 and a lifetime season ticket. 

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1 minute ago, Birdie said:

Hmm, that's probably why he didn't reply to my offer of £50 and a lifetime season ticket. 

He would have taken the £50 it was the lifetime season ticket that put him off ?

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1 minute ago, Blanco said:
3 minutes ago, Birdie said:

Hmm, that's probably why he didn't reply to my offer of £50 and a lifetime season ticket. 

He would have taken the £50 it was the lifetime season ticket that put him off ?

??

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9 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

He wants the best part of £400m for it, doesn't he?  I suspect that's more of a factor than the location.

Yeah, I believe he values the club at 250 mil, he makes 150mil a year profit and wants a years profit on top of the 250 if anyone wants to buy, which equates to 400mil, he's in no rush to sell though as hell just keep pocketing 150mil a year from the club. 

That's where the stumbling blocks have been, not the location - the location is perfect due to the huge catchment area around it

 

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