Cogs/clappers/gino Backers Roll Call

For the avoidance of any doubt COG stands for Cult of Gino - fans who support Gino over their own club.

For some reason TUT has decided to go all Henry Hooter with it and try and label left as right.

 

Not that anyone supports Gino over their own club of course.
I think you mean that your definition of COG is someone who doesn’t criticise Gino enough for the liking of you and half a dozen other posters on this forum ?

 

No, that isn’t what I mean. As I said, it means Cult of Gino, fans who support decisions Gino makes over the good of the club.

 

Because Gino deliberately sabotages the clubs well being, as opposed to just making decisions which turn out to be poor ? Does anyone believe he does the former, and support his cause in doing that ? I doubt it.

I just think he’s making a number of poor decisions over the last 3 years and the Duxbury/Pozzo relationship seems broken. Does that make me a COG using your little acronym, or would I need to believe he’s deliberately choosing sub optimal decisions to undermine the club to be a COG. Just genuinely interested to know. As you know I’m not a great fan of this COG / BW thing.

 

Or the kit built Elton John Bleachers

 

Oh Gino P. Oh Gino P, oh Gino P is wonderful. He buys overpriced sh*te from near Ypres. And fires the boss for his mistakes.

I think Pozzos did a great thing then sha* on it. Like a matchstick castle that took you 200 hours to glue together but you smashed it up by precariously leaving it on top of the fridge.

 

I’m not sure I’d describe it as ‘wilfully working against the club’ - it’s more in line with him taking decisions that aren’t always the best option for the club because they (likely) benefit him and his mates personally and he thinks the weaker options he chooses for the club as a result will be good enough, even when recent history demonstrably says that’s not true.

People will suffer that if it happens on rare occasions - but it’s more or less every decision he makes now (or at least well over 90% I’d fathom) and most are sick of it now. Some are too sick, some are coming round and some ride it out come what may.

Seems a few people place success on the pitch over absolutely anything else - as is their want. I don’t profess to understand why but it’s their opinion. But I think there’s a tipping point for most people and a few more have tipped over the last couple of days.

Gino’s relative success with the club means it’s always going to be a drip feed of people turning against his ownership - I doubt there’ll ever be a flood of people that’s strong enough to mean real protest.

 

I would say that a business director who actively increases links to a man involved in a money laundering investigation to the point he became a key stakeholder, before the outcome of the court case was known either way, could be thought of as not acting in the interests of the business?

I mean it’s completely ridiculous and any business would naturally distance themselves from said person or at least not forge tighter links. How could how Pozzo acts in any way be considered normal behaviour and in the interests of the business?

 

Nail on the head.

 

With every decision? No I don’t believe that’s what Gino is doing.

But I do believe he is making an increasing amount of decisions which don’t have the clubs best interests at heart - and many of these likely benefit him or his cronies personally.

I think whether he’s doing it ‘wilfully’ kinda pales into insignificance a bit now given the regularity with which it happens.

I don’t think a gambling addict is wilfully losing their money every time it happens - but when the amounts increase and the ripple effect on their life takes hold, it doesn’t mean I have to understand much longer, continue to support them or think it’s okay because they once won big.

 

Pozzo has done wonders for this football club, but it feels like it may have run its course. I genuinely believe the words of that odious Kremlin spokesman more than anything coming out of the club now, and it's impossible to see that trust ever being rebuilt.

I'm ready for an Elton John led consortium.

 

Either he somehow thinks the club gets value for his money (he may well be wrong), or you think it's something more sinister. I think the former. If you think the latter that's fine with me.

 

Fine, not sure why he'd do that, but that's your view.

 

Fine, no worries. I just thinks he's making genuine mistakes.

 

So poor decision making or something more sinister ? I think poor decision making.

 

Is that excessive these days? I've genuinely got no idea. And does the fee include payments to 'Harry's 50/50' agents?

 

You think buying all these Bayat clients are ‘genuine’ mistakes? For instance?

17 managers? For instance?

Sorry, I think that’s incredibly naive. Not buying Ivan Toney was a genuine mistake, not refreshing things after the Cup Final…genuine mistake.

There’s too much going on with him these days for every mistake to be genuine.

 

It was the 6th highest in the PL. It’s extortionate for a club our size - and downright fishy when you look at the links to Bayat we have.

Still, just a genuine mistake to some apparently.

 

I'm not a great fan of their ownership over the last 3 years but I still want to see the team win and I suspect decisions made may be flawed but are made with the intention of being good for the club. The difference in valuation of their asset, the club, is huge between prem and financially challenged champ club. Hundreds of £m. It would be incredibly stupid to prioritise bunging a few £m to his mate over maximising the value of the club, which is why I doubt he is doing that.

 

See my post just now. Yes I think they are genuine mistakes (intermingled with the huge successes) because they would be stupid to prioritise paying their mates a few £m over the health and value of their main asset, the club.
Regular turnover managers is just how they roll. Hire and fire until you get sucess. Then fire when that success wanes.

 

On your second point, something I've wondered about Gino's supporters but nobody has given me an answer:

You admit he's made many mistakes in the past 3 years, yet you stand by his leadership. How come you (as a collective) usually support the decision to sack a manager after just a few weeks of poor form? Why does the leniency only extend towards Mr Pozzo and not to his cannon fodder?

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Depends what you mean by "stand by his leadership". I don't think he's doing a great job of leading at the moment. Quite a few poor decisions. Until 3 years ago I thought he was doing a fab job. I don't see us as ever becoming an established prem club without a much richer owner.

 

Yes, it does seem rather a lot. What is it a percentage of what we spent on players during that period?

 

Gino puts great faith into his agent friends to deliver ongoing quality. They don’t
Gino puts great faith into his coaching friends to “support” the Head Coach. They don’t
Gino puts great faith in his ability to select the right coach. He can’t
Gino puts great faith in the theory that WFC finances can support all these mistakes. It cant

 

I don't think it is as extreme as some people make out and I suspect that the majority of fans probably think that too (although I accept this is just conjecture on my part). In most fields of life those that complain come out as the loudest and strongest voices but it does not necessarily mean they represent the majority.

I personally think people have lost perspective on our club and it's size and how we have been pitching above our weight on and off since the 70s mainly under Elton and the Pozzos. Maybe relative success leads to a sense of entitlement. Yeah sure another owner could have come in and have built a new stand, developed the club and provided relative success but that's so hypothetical that it is utterly meaningless and there are many clubs of our relative size that this has not happened to.

 

Sigh. If anyone is being entitled it is those supporting the sacking of Edwards because they expect us to get promotion?

I just want a club that doesn’t have 3 managers a season. Doesn’t have close ties to a man involved in a money laundering investigation. Doesn’t spend money we don’t have on a crony to spy on training. Doesn’t prioritise players from one agent over the good of the team. Doesn’t run up astronomical debt to finance the owner’s practices. Doesn’t actively lie to the fanbase. Doesn’t prioritise player trading while allowing the defence to still rely on awful veterans.

If that is in championship or premier league I’m not too fussed. How are any of those wishes “entitled”? On the other side you have people praising Pozzo for sacking a young coach after 11 games because we are outside the playoffs.

 

At this stage, it's far more plausible that he is consciously making decisions that are beneficial to him and detrimental to the club than him just constantly 'making genuine mistakes'.

 

It is awful but can't really blame Pozzo for that as it was already there. Probably limited in what they can do to it as well

 

Your sigh is a little patronising but that's ok.

None of those wishes are entitled and I of course agree with them but they are one side of the equation considered in isolation and without wider context.

It clearly does not apply to you but I would still speculate that generally speaking success may breed a sense of entitlement.

 

Is it not really far more entitled to completely ignore any or all bad decisions the club/owner makes, in the hope of achieving PL football?

 

I really don't know as i don't quite understand the question. What do you think?

For the record i am not completing ignoring all the bad decisions the club/owner has made I am just suggesting that it is one side of the equation to consider these in isolation. Nor do I think PL football is the be all and end all. As well as bad decisions there have been positive actions the club has taken off the pitch.

 

Highest outside of the top 6 I believe. This added to signings such as Kalu and Bayo just makes it feel like some things are being done that don't wholly benefit the club

 

Well I think the thing many people wrongly miss is that generally the people who are unhappy with Pozzo, in the main don’t care what league we operate in, they’ve just had enough of how the club is run. I don’t see how that can in any way be viewed as entitlement, whereas wanting PL football at any cost in my view is far more entitled as that has never been our natural level.