E3 - Bonus Edition The Angus Kinnear interview

[Music] Hi everybody, welcome to episode three of the three peacocks. I'm Neil. How about? I'm Simon. And welcome to today's edition. We're on an international break as we all know this week. So we thought what better than to talk about the Angus canoe interview. I think we're all very, very pleased that Angus was so honest and personal and forthright with the square ball and we just like to chat about that. So let me start with you Simon and we'll just interject as we go through. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I was really impressed with him and to be honest I've always been very impressed when he's spoken. You know, he also comes across very well. And I think it's like you said earlier on, you know, if you're interviewing for a job. That's right. You've given that job. Yeah, because he comes across with that confidence and assurance and you know, manages to articulate, you know, even strategic issues. You're really very well. My overriding, you know, takeaway from your interview was that it was good that we got the information. But I don't think that we particularly learnt anything new and you know, even where we didn't know, you know, reading between the lines. We could have reasonably guessed about where the club was and what the dynamics were. So I don't think there was anything in there that totally shocked me or surprised me. But I did come away thinking that the club was in a lot better shape than it's been in for a couple of years. And at least. I've probably at least a couple years and you know, with a bit of luck and there's always going to be a bit of luck. You know, with the new ownership, you know, the management team and the players and I, you know, we can discuss whether we think Angus should have fallen on his sword or not. I think in terms of continuity, I would probably have given him the benefit of the doubt, you know, probably like the 49ers have done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I, um, yeah, much the same as Simon really. However, I'm not sure that, I mean, he did say clearly that, um, that some of the signings that, um, especially post-beelts, that it's just been a complete failure. Um, and really the club has been, I mean, he wouldn't have said this, but it's been in shambles since, uh, since Beelts left. Um, even though his honestness, he could be right in this. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the thing, like he, because he's still employed by Legion 9 and then obviously there's a, um, you just, how, how genuine, how authentic can you be, um, with also maintaining a job. Um, I think, you know, he couldn't throw everybody under the bus, but I think to the extent that he could throw people under the bus he had. Yeah. We're meeting between the lines. We're talking about half under the bus. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think the tires hit, um, Victor Orter, really well. Yes. A friend of past friend Victor. Yes. Yes. Uh, did you see that Andrea responded? Well, he was on Twitter the whole night and then he disabled his account, trying to respond to all the answers. Yes. So that. Very interesting. And it was interesting that he, um, admitted to transfer, uh, bids for Melier, I think what mid 20, so we're showing around 25 million. Yeah. And we didn't know that, but that was nice that I think we turned that down, right? And glad he's with us and I'm glad he's our number one in the season. Not so sure. The number two is that great at the moment. He seems to be a good number two, but in a bid for Willie that came and we weren't aware of that. I think maybe that was from Germany. Would you have been tempted to do for 20 or 25 million to sell Melier? Probably not the moment now. No, I mean, it's the same with strike as well. Yes. Yeah. Another big word. I think they were both pretty damaged by the whole sense of dysfunction and, you know, disappointment and your plainly bad play. Uh, over the last, you know, a couple of years and, you know, if we've got the chance to rebuild Melier and strike, I think that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. And it was interesting like you mentioned, I think, between the lines legal disputes with both Sinistera and I think we learn more about the, uh, Tallahadrim's dispute. Now, disappointed he was in particularly Tallahadrim, which was interesting and, um, and the clubs rolling that and the players rolling all of that. Um, so, so yeah, I think overall probably a good window and it was nice for him to at least admit these bids and be more transparent for us in that as well. I was also curious and interested to see that he was really on the ball with unsung data analytics. I think that is the future. If we look here in the US baseball football hockey, all the sports now, they've got data analytics specialists and he was referring to, you know, some of the top clubs in England, hiring Google and NASA experts. I think absolutely that's the future, not just to have the data experts but to interpret the data. As Farco said, we lost the game on data, but you can't lose again. If you really losing data, you don't lose a game on data. You understand what the data is telling you and you can't lose that right? And I think that all points about your analysis of data is really important because data in itself is worth nothing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Everything is in the interpretation and allowing you to use that data and interpretation of data to make good decisions. And, uh, clearly, you know, we've made some very, really not very good decisions over the last couple of years in particular. Yeah. And learning how to interpret data. I mean, I think, you know, he referenced obviously Brighton, the, you know, head and shoulders, a club that completely gets that right and even Brentford as well that they've really gotten that data analytics correct and had to read data as well. I also thought the reference to the naivety of the players not wanting to leave and not being attracted to the premise. The fact that every single player with that clause has left on a loan, I think he admitted in that interview to the naivety that probably he had that that wouldn't be taken up. And I thought that was interesting, but also a damning diamond on him and Victor as the two paid officials, like a more to that later that they didn't take a risk perspective on what happens if all these players take up this loan move or the buyout clause. So I think, first of all, I was pleased he admitted that, but secondly, it's a pretty damning indictment on him and Victor as the two paid officials. Yes. I'm going back to the experience of the contracts, the salary cuts, the buyout clauses, the release clauses, the loan clauses. Like for me, he and Victor were accountable for that. Victor as the director football. He is the CEO. Andre, with the greatest threat in the board, they are taking recommendations from those senior paid officials, the senior leads of the club. So I think he dodged that bullet and he did interview well, but his experience over the last six months of negotiating these contracts and being the leader in the paid official. I think is a pretty damning indictment and we've pretty much lost more players, more top players than any other club in 95 million was spent. And what we covered 23 for Tyler, right? Of that 90% for a group of three. Yeah, yeah. I think 20. Or something like that. So, do we know much about Keneer's past with Arsenal and West Ham? I mean, it would be interesting to get someone from Arsenal or West Ham's opinion or their perspective on the job he did while he was there. Because I just don't know much about him previous to leads. It's true, yeah, I'm not sure. I know he was involved. I don't think he was the CEO at that time. I think he was more involved in the operations and came across, but I don't know fully either. Yeah. But it was interesting to see. He did make a reference to when he was at Arsenal and West Ham that his role was not to communicate with the fans and he didn't expect or see the has his role here. And it's gradually sort of moved into that direction. And he actually said, he's most comfortable talking to fans on the train. It's more groups coming home from the games. And again, knowing the leaders we do, he does need to play role in communicating to the fans and the community, right? Yeah, I think you're basically, he said that the board really needed to be seen and not heard. Yes, that was actually the best strategy in most situations, but interesting that leads this probably an outlier to that where we do need to hear that direct human communication. Especially when results aren't going well, right? Like if we're winning, like he said, you know. that speaks kind of for itself. The football, you know, we're winning that the club is doing well. Yeah, we're all happy. But particularly when we've struggled the last two seasons as we have and then the board's still remaining silent, I think that's when you have to show character and leadership and step forward and at least give us more than we've gotten. And I did think that this was a good step. And again, maybe it's just me, but I would love to hear more. I don't know exactly what they would say, but I would love to hear more from the 49ers enterprises and in particular Parag. Yes. Because we've heard that one interview and we haven't really heard from Parag again. And I think if we leave it to what's been before with Kenere, I just think that might be a mistake because I think that he would represent different perspectives where I think a new perspective and a new idea and just sharing the vision and who we are as leads and where we're going. I think that would be helpful for us. From my experience working, I think what we need is a communications plan where we look at what is the role of the board, what is the role of the leader of the board, the chair, what is the role of the CEO, what is the role of the director of football, the two people we've got in place now in communicating to the community. And that needs to be defined and it needs to be implemented. The moment it feels as though there is no communications plan, even this interview seemed a bit out ugly, referred to it being an annual event, but it seemed out of the way there was no publication of this in advance as an annual event, but maybe now it is going forward. But just in modern life, we know how communication is now, the advent of social media, the flow of information is extremely fast, the expectations of communications are extremely high. Yes. This needs to be a communications. I know we have a direct communication, some criticising, I know on social media, and I think we need to step this up significantly. Yeah, in the sense, in defence of the club, I think the transfer window has been all consuming, with the recruitment of Fargate and the whole, yeah, it's been a hugely difficult year, couple of months. So I can understand why maybe Parag, you want to wait and allow things to settle down for a while, but I also think that as we get into October on November and you know, we've played 10 or 15 games, we should be hearing from Parag about some of the issues that you all the fans still need, you know, answers to the questions, to you know, thinking about the longer term, you know, particularly, and you know, how the, you know, thinking about the transfer window in January and you know, how we might actually, if it looks as though we've got a chance of getting promoted, you know, for him to provide the reassurance that your funds will be made available and maybe eventually we will buy that left back in that number 10. To in the US, if anybody's listening to this, that knows Parag, please pass this message on to him, that we're looking forward to hearing from him on a regular basis. I'm really understanding the structure of communications at the club, given we are in now 2023 and the expectations around communication. So I'm going to wrap this up up. You know, for me personally, I want to really, it sounds a little bit negative in some respects, but I really want to acknowledge Angus Keneer for doing this interview, for being honest, for being forthright, for expressing his views. There's been some difficult subjects to navigate here in terms of, you know, the Jesse Maas situation and the whole transfer situation and the real side, I really value what he did and him coming forward and putting himself out of any difficult situation and we do want to see more of it, not just on the trains. Absolutely. I don't know whether to say this in any way. We'll get the editor to out afterwards, that you know, it could have easily have been a print sandrew to our interview and everything was absolutely disastrous and you know, it wasn't, you know, I think he came across very well and I think most people having listened to or watched the interview will feel better than they did before. I agree. So, you know, I think that in itself is a justification for him having the courage to go out and talk to those guys, isn't it? You know, it can't have been easy, but you have to have come through it relatively well. Yes. Okay, so we'll wrap for this. We will see you after the Millwall game next week or we'll hear you'll hear from us and I can't remember last time, the last time we won at Millwall, so we'll try to fetch that stat before the game, but it's one of our unlucky grounds, it's the Denon, as we all know. But hopefully we can, the team will have had some time together and we can at least put together a point and a strong performance as this team now builds forward for the future. So it's goodbye from me, Neil. Goodbye, from Bo. And goodbye from me. Okay, bye-bye. Every day we're all gonna say we love you, please, please, please.