I dont know Ayre and I dont know who has been responsible for what behind the scenes.
The idea that we can discuss a CEO, MD etc as though he were a centre forward strikes me as daft. It is pure speculation based on little or nothing. There are very few facts in any of it. It may all be right, it may all be wrong but it says more about you and what you believe than about Ayre.
I think it appeals to the worse side of all of us to be able to pigeon hole somebody as all good or all bad. It is simply not true for most people.
The transfer situation with Comolli and Dalglish - if it had worked we'd be praising him for allowing the 'experts' to get on with it - when it doesn't he didn't exert enough control. Exactly how did the fabled 'consensus' approach work there with the individual business cases? We just dont know enough to attrubute responsibility and therfore blame.
Part of being a CEO is risk taking and on occasion you get it wrong. Making mistakes isn't generally the issue - its how you go about it that is. But in the above example we dont know who pulled the strings - Ayre didn't bring in Comolli. Did Ayre agree the transfer strategy for this summer. We're told Henry does everything by consensus with his vote being more equal than everybody else's.....
Is Ayre just a patsy for FSG, in place until they learn the ropes and then discarded. He has none of the qualifications you'd expect in terms of the FA , UEFA etc - he is not an experienced football administrator and has never claimed to be. He has none of the football acumen you'd expect in a technical director, no experience of running such a huge organisation. On the face it he is somebody who has been given an opportunity of a life time, I'm not sure he can be blamed for taking it.
The Suarez debacle was handled badly from start to finish but how much was Kenny himself responsible for that, he dug several trenches without the assistance of Ayre and Suarez himself needs to take some of the flak on handshake gate. We have to hope we have learned the lessons there so why bring in somebody else who may need to learn those lessons again.
On the Chang appointment i doubt that was Ayre, so does he take the grief for the Slam Dunk debacle, apparently he does.
Ayre appears to have been responsible for every bad decision and none of the good ones in the last 2 years. Apparently he was Hicks bitch at the same time as being part of the group that removed Hicks.
There is the old phrase about walking a mile in somebody else's shoes before you criticise them and I think that applies here.
As for Parry and the 'family silver' the responsibility for that is clear. I'm not sure how he can atone for that or what Ayre would need to do to reach that level of incompetence but certainly more than even you have accused him of.
For me Ayre is an easy target, he knows he is, its part of his brief and he has developed a thick hide to go with it. He's the face of FSG over here and it aint that pretty but it is what it is - if we have any real issues they should be with FSG which is where the responsibility ultimately lies everything else is guesswork - the organ grinder not the monkey (@ Clattenberg).
generally appears to me that your approach to this is -
a) we do not really know, so how can we criticise really (hicks' bitch, blamed for every decision, etc.)
b) even if we do know ayre had his paws over something, did he really have the authority to make the final decision? (suarez, cheng, etc)
c) is it fair to criticise someone when things go tits up, when he would have been praised if it had gone well (Comolli/Dalglish transfers)
how about we look at how we are run as a club since he has been md? he is a director, he does not delegate authority or responsibility as a director to someone else (under law he cannot for a start)?
well, since he has been in any position of responsibility we have been run in a way that has made us less competitive and less efficient and less effective....now, ayre does not hold the purse strings, so of course it his not his fault we do not have more money to spend or an endless bag of cash to drop in front of anyone we want to buy.....however, dalglish and comolli (in particular comolli) paid the price for wasteful use of resources and not advancing the club despite investment by the owners.....however, ayre remains having not seen any improvement in club performance since he took over....so, should he be accountable? or can he just say the people employed to do their jobs have failed, so the club failed, and that is nothing to do with ayre? what is he accountable for?
