Jarka

Probably about a dozen times

I can really feel that the tide is starting to turn with this club, on the other hand I've lost count with how many times I've said that to myself. The good thing about the future is that it always looks bright.

Playing him was bad enough but the disgraceful marketing leading up to the game was what did him in.

I can't argue with that WJ

I respect your knowledge on the MFC and I know you're a smart bloke WJ but you're above this post. Before we can fix the problem we need to first understand the problem. Just saying that he's gone so that's it and pretending it's all about bloodlust is wrong, the supporters need to know what went wrong and if that means those responsible are identified then so be it. CS did do good for the club but he has overseen the club at it's lowest point in history. He also wasn't alone.

That's a great question.

No, I'm not on the board and if i was I wouldn't tell you anyway but I certainly wouldn't post info on here about what goes on behind doors if I was, but I'm not regardless. Let me first say that I've dealt with CS personally and I think he is a great person and I'm sure he'll be very successful with whatever career he goes onto. He's a genuinely really nice guy. He has a strong opinion on how a club should be run and that structure used to work really well, the last time he was at the club he did a great job (apart from the Salary cap issue which he inherited from someone else). He's works bloody hard, he puts everything into his job, no question, but where I think he fell down was that he didn't move with the modern way of running a club. PJ has said a lot more than that, not always to the media.

Schwabby was my old footy coach at school, great person.

No, it's not all his mess and no, fixing the structure of the FD will not be an instant success but he was the one in control overseeing everything and making decisions. How many times do you see the players getting together and demanding that the CEO be sacked? I can't remember it ever happening but more importantly what were the events leading up tot hat point that caused that friction? I have no idea, would love to find out. How they let the club get into this state is staggering, and yes, it is a collective 'they' but Schwab played a big part of 'they'.

You're presuming that I'm making my comments based on media articles. You're barking up the wrong tree, I stopped reading media articles on Melbourne about 6 months ago so don't accuse me of something which is not true. My opinion comes from listening to PJ's comments about how the FD structure was set up. It was everything that Freo fans said about what was bad about him.

I don't have an issue with the blazer, nor the emblem, in fact I quite like them both, however at the risk of talking for others perhaps what people are angry at is the time and effort gone into those ventures whilst our FD was rapidly going down the toilet.

Brett Ratten would be a good choice, did pretty well at Carlton with an ordinary list albeit with a handful of stars. They treated him really poorly.

I was always a Schwab fan but the more I hear about the structure of the club the more it makes me realise I was soooo wrong. Freo fans on BF tried to tell us and there were red flags occuring everywhere but I was blind to it. In a way what's happening this season is the best possible thing for the club in the future because it means that real changes will be made. If we had of one a couple of games early (against Port and GCS) then we would have just stumbled on with the same inept people in control, at least now we have a chance to be better in the future.

Well put sir

I don't understand why we've been playing so poorly because we've been great at training.

The Ross Lyon issue was not straight forward at all. The MFC were in discussion with his management at the time. Ross Lyon told his management that he wanted to stay at St.Kilda, he instructed them to work out a deal. His management told the MFC past on this info to the MFC so we believed he wasn't interested in leaving the Saints. Lyon then went and signed a contract directly with Freo with his management's knowledge. There was nothing we could have done really

We are failing dismally because we don't have a midfield, that's what it comes down to. It is the worst group of midfielders I have ever seen at AFL/VFL level, I challenge anyone to come up with another. Now, for the sake of this discussion, who's fault is it? First of all let's look at the players we've lost. Scott Thompson: Go home factor at a time when the club was reasonable strong culture-wise, nothing we could have done about it. Moloney was a decent return, but we lost out on the trade. Brock McLean: Bailey has to wear this one, although at the time Brock wasn't going well and the future was uncertain. Pick 11 was a good get. Tom Scully: Left for $6.6m over 6 years, how can you compete against that? The question remains though, would he have left if our culture had been stronger? nfi The club has done well out of it though, Scully is just a vanilla mid. Morton & Gysberts: Delisted and traded, they wouldn't have made a difference at all. Brent Moloney: Moloney would be pretty handy right now, not sure why the reasons why left but on face value it appears to be at the root of our current issues. Different players I know but when Boak was all but gone to leave Port they moved mountains to get him to stay. We took a different path. Jack Trengove: I only put him in here because of the decision to make him captain. I'm still unsure of the effect it's had on his development, his injuries have made it hard for him to perform. Individually the losses haven't been that bad, it's only when you add them all up that it becomes a problem. Recruiting or development: Bothhave been [censored] ordinary. We've constantly picked up the smokies, Lucas Cook being a good example. Hearing Morton talk about how he trains now is not surprising at all, but the fact remains that we have continually wasted our top picks, the effect has been disastrous. List management: Do we have it? Club culture: [censored]. I think we've sucked at almost every level, from the President downwards. I think the problem was much greater than Neeld ever imagined and he's tried to fix it but went about it the wrong way. I Still believe he's putting in procedures that will be successful in time however he's contributed to our problem by not managing the ego's of the players well. The solution is to get good midfielders by either FA or trade because it will take too long for our kids to mature, but convincing talent to come to us now is going to be bloody difficult.

I think it would be more accurate to say that 'It's not just Neeld's fault'. Recruiting, list managment and senior management all have to share the blame. How the club let it become to this is staggering, we are not an AFL level team and it will probably get worse before it gets better.

I have something to confess. I was a Neeld fan. When he came in and said that he was going to make this team the hardest to play against I believed him. This is the guy we desperately need, I remember thinking. I even blindly believed him when he dropped Moloney first from the leadership group and then to Casey. Rivers went as well but I knew it was all about the future and they were part of the poisoned past. Of course the alarm bells started to ring when Trengove and Grimes were made co-captains, but I convinced myself it was a great move that will pay dividends by the truckload in the future, never mind adding enormous pressure onto a kid who has yet to play good consistent AFL footy. Somehow the Byrnes/Rodan FA pickups made sense to me, and I just knew that once we got rid of that bad egg in Moloney our culture would be soooo much better. Of course when I went through the team in the pre-season the complete lack of midfielders was a bit of a concern but we had a plan. We were training really well, our intensity was up 30% compared to when that complete dud, Bailey was in charge. Afterall the massive increase in money spent in the FD would just naturally translate into wins. I just knew it and had complete and utter faith. Now, some 18 months down the track it's like I've suddenly woken up in a 'Lost' episode after missing several series thinking WTF is going on, this doesn't make any sense and you lot have nfi either. We haven't gone backwards, this club has been completely dismantled. I honestly hope we've hit rock bottom but I fear who we'll lose at the end of the season. I've got to the point where I hate watching us play, it just makes me angry and sad. The glory days (ha! everything is relative) of Danihers team being labelled a bunch of soft front runners are just a distant memory. [censored], at least we occassionally made the finals. Now my biggest fear is whether we'll still exist in 5 years time, because if we continue like this we won't. How could I be so blind and stupid? I apologise to anyone who I've argued against over Neeld, I was spectacularly wrong.

He made some revolting comments about people based purely on their family background. That's racism mate. He has no evidence at all about what you call 'probable anti-semitism'. Probable, what a [censored] load of shiite.

Are you serious?

Racists have always hidden behind these type of excuses. It was only a joke/flippant comment,unfortunately he's exposed himself for what he really is. The problem with Gutnick was that everyone who he introduced to the board eventually turned against him.

I have to agree with you RR, his comments were absolutely disgusting. He accused the MFC of being racist.

Have to laugh when people say that Gutnick saved Melbourne. When he came to the club with his money we had absolutely no debt and was operating at a surplus, one of the few Vic clubs in that position. After he, and those who he brought to the board, left we were millions in debt. There is an amazing amount of history being rewritten in this thread.The reality is that at the time he was worth $300m and the $3m $2.7m he donated was basically a tax write off for his companies. But regardless of what you think of think, one thing is fact without dispute. He, whether directly or indirectly, split this club like it had never been split before, the inhouse fighting continues to this day as this thread proves and he nearly destroyed us. Yeah, thanks Joe.

I want to be outraged by your post but it's true