Steve Bould

I hope so, too. He just looked bloody miserable sitting next to AW.

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The Steve Bould situation still shows the lack of competence within the higher echelons of the club.

Clearly he cannot be happy about his demotion from the first team set up and if he is it shows a lack of ambition and hunger. Yet he no doubt commands such a big salary (maybe £500k-£1,000k pa) that he does not dare leave whatever job the club gives him for fear of not getting such a well paid job elsewhere. A bit like the Mesut Ozil situation. Money pours out of the club on someone who does not really want that much to be there (other than for the money) but they mark time because the pay check is so good.

It just breeds a culture of mediocrity and wasted money with no real hunger and where people take pay checks in exchange for no delivery that actually improves the situation in the club.

The culture of mediocrity grows under this staggeringly incompetent Board of Directors.

They demoted him to a role he previously did a good job in and promoted someone else to replace him.

I can’t see what Bould or the board have done wrong lol

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What a load of bollocks.

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And very random aswell hah

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I don’t think so and this my understanding from someone well connected with the club (and no I cannot disclose my source as it is off the record). I wouldn’t be saying it unless I thought it to be true.

Essentially he is on too much money to take a job elsewhere which would require a big pay cut so he is just biding his time taking his money. He’s on a good whack. If the club thought he was that good he would have stayed with the first team. I am not aware of any huge success he had with the under 23’s before.

I am not knocking Bouldy here. He is a club legend in my eyes. It’s just poor management to have him paid so much in the set up when they don’t rate him and he’s only doing it for the money.

Nevertheless, if you want to insist he is over the moon about his demotion (or at least not unhappy about it rather than just putting up with it for money) then be my guest.

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You’d rather we paid him off and had to spend more money employing someone else would you?

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Yes.

The culture has got to change. It’s got to be high performance and motivation in all key positions or out. Otherwise mediocrity creeps across the club. I think it’s poor he was on such a well paid contract in the first place but we know the management of the club have been spraying money around largely insensibly for a while now.

I agree it isn’t a pleasant choice and I can see why some would say let’s try and get something out of him but this is supposed to be the role that creates a lot of the next generation and I just don’t think he’s gonna be the man for that. Wish we could resurrect Don Howe for this role.

Excuse me for not believing you and assuming you’d just be here giving out about that instead.

What is it today? I have two of you calling my posts today bollox and saying I am making it up/lieing.

I realise they some of my views may not be popular views with many members but I think it’s only fair that I should be trusted as making them in good faith and not disrespected by saying oh it’s all ā€œbolloxā€

I explained my reasoning for saying someone in a senior and well paid role should only be at the club if high performing and well motivated.

You’re basically a kayfabe WWE character.

Steve Bould is pretty irrelevant in the small or the grand scheme of things. His employment is not a symptom of rewarding failure and indeed being moved aside the way he was is a sign of the opposite as far as I’m concerned. The U23s manager (not a truly important role at all) was a role that needed filling so we stuck Bould in there. He has a contract, if he’s above the going rate now presumably that will be rectified when the renewal rolls around.

You must have been truly, truly, truly bored to drag this thread up.

No it’s just I was told this In the last week although I accept on a rainy Saturday I am truly bored too which is why I am wasting time on here again today.

I’ll have to look up kayfabe

Kayfabe is life!

(Actually, it’s the very opposite…)

If this would be true, so fucking what anyway? Bould is a 56-year old in his second career who reached the pinnacle of football in his first/main career as a footballer. Why should you judge him if he has chosen a more ā€˜easy’ ride as youth coach?

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As I said above I’m not knocking Bould who is a club legend in my eyes. He’s just doing what suits him here.

I’m saying though that there is a malaise at the club where money gets sprayed around endlessly and where poor performance and/or motivation is tolerated rather than quickly moved out of the club. I think this is another example of the malaise and I think it sets a poor culture in what should be a high performance regime.

I think he gets phased out by the end of the season. I’d agree new blood is important and needs bringing in now.

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If anything that is exactly what they did that…Bould wasn’t cutting it as assistant or wasn’t at his place/effective there. How do you know he isn’t working out as youth coach?

In the past two years a lot has been changing at Arsenal. Emery, Mertesacker, Sanhelli, Edu, Ljungberg are new. The club is still in the early stages of a rebuild top-down.

Also Arsenal has been cutting a lot in the wages / money as far as the playing stuff goes, who I assume are taking in the most.

A couple of people called your posts out for bollocks, because that is what it is.

Mate most of this Board of Directors has been in place for years. Even Sanhelli has had a few years now. That’s not early stages.

They’re well over due to perform.

Show me the long list of Arsenal first choice stars that Bould coached to success when he was involved in the youth set up originally and I’ll happily eat my bollox. Otherwise you’re just talking shit.

It’s not possible for a youth team coach to bring a player to first team success. The series of events that has to conspire for that to happen are vastly outside the control of a youth team coach. Ultimately what is most important is whether or not the player is good enough/applies themselves enough to get/take the opportunity.

We basically don’t know who any youth team coaches are for almost any club out there.

The standard you’re trying to apply to Bould is bollocks.

So we have a very well (over) paid coach who first works under a failing and deteriorating Wenger and who does not make a demonstrable improvement for the better in first team performance.

Then it’s decided he’s not up to the job under Emery - having had a second chance to prove himself.

But don’t worry let’s say to the next up and coming generation who aspire to win a first team place. Here you are boys he’s not really very good but he’s good enough for you.

To me it encourages mediocrity and the wrong culture across the club. To you this view is bollox. I just don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this issue.

I have some sympathy with the view he’s a club legend and it’s painful to pay off part of a big contract (it’s a negotiation with a duty to mitigate loss by the claimant). However the club needs to start showing under performance is not tolerated or rewarded. Wenger and his final extension was the worst recent example along with the new Ozil contract.

Arguably Emery is close to being on borrowed time based on shambolic defensive mistakes this season.

To me this is just another example where culture must change rather than the wasteful mediocrity of the last decade being allowed to continue- same old wolf in new sheeps clothing perhaps but actually nothing has really changed - at least not in a way that demonstrably shows up on the pitch.

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