Quote Originally Posted by goats View Post
Is Dalman just trying that age old trick trying to make us grateful for the (abject failure) we currently have from him and Tan?
Please don’t leave us bla bla bla…..honestly, it’s so obvious.
It’s now about eleven and a half years since there was confirmation that Vincent Tan was formally confirmed as a benefactor of the club and when you apply his leaving us in a better state than when he arrived test, you have to say at the moment that he is failing.

Virtually the first thing he did when he became involved with City was to pay the HMRC bill was threatening the existence of the club during much of the 09/10 season, so, although we appear to be struggling as badly on the financial side as we have done in the Tan era, it’s not as bad as it was under the latter days of Peter Ridsdale.

Despite the problems off the pitch, the 09/10 maintained a promotion challenge throughout the season, eventually finishing fourth to reach the Play Offs and that is a Championship position that has only been bettered in our two promotion seasons during the Tan era. So, while there have been times when it can be said that we were more successful than in 09/10, it’s far more debatable overall and I’d argue that you have to grade it as was - certainly, with two club worst ever records having been set on the weekend, there are can be no argument whatsoever that we are worse off now than when Vincent Tan arrived.

When you consider the other things which are measurable, the picture isn’t great either. Vincent Tan has delivered when it comes to increasing the capacity of the ground, but we’re still awaiting the club owned training centre that was being talked about in 2012 and, although progress has been made on the debt to equity front, it’s not at the stage that was being promised a few years ago. Gates are below 09/10 levels although the fact that was the first season that we played in the new ground needs to be borne in mind.

Quality of football is something that has become increasingly important to me as the Tan years have gone by and it’s absolutely no contest there - we weren’t always great to watch in 09/10, but there were quite a few times when we certainly were, whereas I’m struggling to remember the last game I saw us play when we were entertaining as I define that word.

Add in that we’ve spent a huge amount of money by our standards in the process and the totally pointless rebrand and I’d definitely say that, particularly at the moment, Vincent Tan is failing his own test.