Originally Posted by
blue lewj
The decisions by the club and its direction are directly linked though. Who the club pick as Chairman, manager and playing staff and how they then work with them day to day has a big say on success on the pitch.
It is arguable that under Tan's leadership there have been very large reasons why we went up twice. Thing that we are not doing now. Malky Mackay, for example, was brought in when the consortium, including Tan, were still very hands on with Dato Chan Tien Ghee as Chairman. He was Chairman between May 2010 and March 2013. He resigns a month before we were promoted to the Premier League. The fact we started bumbling from one bad decision after another after Ghee leaves may be linked to him. It might not.
When Mackay came in he took over a team that finished 4th in the Championship so a fairly competent squad. He was then backed in his first season to buy players like Don Cowie, Craig Conway, Earnshaw, Ben Turner, Andrew Taylor, Aaron Gunnarsson, Joe Mason and Kenny Miller. He guided this squad to 6th in his first season.
The next season we add Joe Lewis, Jordan Mutch, Matthew Connolly, Kim-Bo Kyung, Heidar Helguson, Craig Bellamy, Tommy Smith, Craig Noone, Nicky Maynard and Friazer Campbell among others. We went up as Champions that season.
If you look at the above signings and think that we added these to a squad that finished fourth is it any wonder we improved by a few places to win the league. This was Tan in full 'back the manager mode'. All was well.
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