With the Blackpool owners suing forum posters, I genuinely don't know what I should say, however the genera; consensus amongst the fans is the following:
- Benham is to statistical sports analysis what Warren Buffet is to investing. The guy is a genius. Through his company's quantitative analysis he was able to target two European players which would have shortened our odds of getting promoted
significantly. Furthermore, Benham is a boyhood fan of the club and has already pumped in £90m over the past 6 years - that's £90m into a club who has only just got out of the Championship!!
- Frank McParland, our Director of Football, apparently isn't the sort of professional that the club were expecting he was (read in to that however you want). The management team is comprised of Mark Warburton, David Weir and Frank McParland.
- The two players whom we were hoping to sign, and had offered acceptable contracts to, were apparently told that if they joined that would not be involved in the first team whatsoever by the management team. No one is really sure why. What is known, however, is that the committee to sign players was comprised of MW, DW, FMP and Benham, with a single veto on any transfer target meaning that the transfer would be cancelled. It seems as if the management team held far too much power over this. Warburton seemed reluctant to sign players, wanting to believe in the squad and the dressing room harmony. Since the window closed our relatively small squad has been hit by injuries and suspensions, which led to us losing 3-0 to Charlton last weekend. Charlton hadn't won in almost three and a half months...
- All this talk about us wanting to get in a free-kick specialist coach and a sleep guru is a bit overblown. Benham also owns FC Midtjylland in Denmark, and the aim was to share positive football information between the two clubs (transfer info, scouting, tactics, etc.). FC Midtjylland have taken on a host of info from Brentford, and currently sit several points clear at the top of the Danish league, with the potential to win it for the first time in their history. The flow of information the other way, towards Brentford, was largely ignored by the management team because apparently the Danish league is significantly inferior to the Championship, and their advice is irrelevant
. Apparently Benham was furious about this snub by the management team, especially given the advice FC Midtjylland provided with regards to set pieces. To put it into perspective, Brentford have scored from two set pieces this season, whereas FC Midjylland have scored seventeen...
- Finally, there's rumours that we might not pass the FFP sanctions and therefore Benham wanted to spend big in January in order to either get promoted this season or to have the new and stronger players in the squad by the start of next season before the transfer sanctions came into force (i.e. either just failing FFP but having the same squad for next season, or failing FFP good and proper but having acquired the necessary talent to mount another promotion challange)
Obviously, all of that info is rumours and hearsay, but it all seems tremendously accurate. Only Brentford could manage to create a situation whereby the manager is being let go because he
wouldn't spend the millions that the owner wanted to pile in. Therefore, it seems as if Benham wanted us to grow and progress whereas the management team wanted to keep the status quo.
Either way, I'm just sad this has happened
