Accountability Matters

Listen to any interview with William P Foley II, and the topic of his military service is bound to be mentioned at some point.

It is a period of his life of which the Cherries owner is clearly incredibly proud and it gave him the platform from which he built everything that he now enjoys.

Whilst the West Point graduate's service did not see him in frontline action, he has spoken about how it has instilled into him values that guide everything that he does in business which will inevitably include both the value of the chain of command, and the value of leadership.

In business Foley describes himself as a "benevolent dictator". He wants things done his way, he wants control. "There is nothing more limited than being a limited partner of Bill Foley" he told the world when his consortium took over AFC Bournemouth. His way seems to work. He has a proven track record of building successful enterprises and making successful investments which encourages his wealthy partners to trust him with their money, safe in the knowledge that he'll produce a return for them. They trust him to make the right decisions to prevent them from losing their capital. That's one kind of leadership, it's not particularly collegiate but he takes responsibility and delivers the results his investors require. Foley simultaneously describes himself as a team builder that empowers his team to be entrepreneurial. It's hard to square the circle of these two contending philosophies but Foley's successes show that he must have managed to blend the two as business can't scale without effective and empowered delegation.

In spite of this professed autonomy for his team, it has become clear that Foley has been an active participant in player recruitment at AFC Bournemouth. He has not left the recruitment team entirely to their own devices. Foley was particularly involved in the signing of US Mens National Team captain Tyler Adams. Describing the midfielder to the 'Men In Blazers' podcast, Foley stated "He is going to be a key player in terms of being this defensive midfielder, the number 6 that Andoni needs - and Andoni needs that player". Unfortunately, Adams' pre-existing hamstring issues mean that Andoni does not have that player. Indeed, Andoni is not going to have that player until the spring and a sizeable chunk of the summer's transfer spend is not going to be having any impact on the team for much of this season. It's not clear what the dynamic in the recruitment team is - but from the outside, Foley's desire to have the US captain at his club seems to have been the overriding consideration. The number 6 position was the most important one to fill in the summer. This presented the perfect opportunity to bring in Adams; a more than capable player to meet the team's need - and along with it an increased profile in Foley's home country and the caché of having the USMNT captain at his club. Regret at missing out on Nicolas Jackson in January after a failed medical has also clearly played on Foley's mind and so Adams has been signed at considerable expense with very little return on that investment likely this season.

In spite of this massive setback, AFC Bournemouth have assembled a very talented group of young players. It's a transfer strategy designed to help us become sustainable as a Premier League club into the future. The club have bought players with a lot of upside so that they can be developed, whilst capitalising on their growing skills on the pitch. This will increase their market value, producing a profit can be realised later and reinvested in more players. Brighton have demonstrated how effective this model can be, with enviable scouting and development they are enjoying European football for the first time as a result - and looking likely to finish in the European places again come the end of the season.

The ability that our players have is not in any doubt, but their youth is evident and the team is lacking in leadership and character. When a slip from Ilya Zabarnyi allowed Everton to take an early lead at Goodison Park, the team looked vulnerable. They looked fragile. The confidence visibly drained from the young players' faces and they could easily have been overrun in the aftermath of that slip. There was a need for strong characters to show calmness, to prevent panic, steady the ship and dig in and fight. Neto tried to continue to show trust in his centre backs to play out - but that kept putting them under increasing pressure. Our wingers were struggling to bring the ball under their spell when he played wide and the absence of a number 6 meant there was no midfield block to allow us to go long to the strikers and compete from the second ball. The players were rattled, they were in a difficult position and needed leadership which just wasn't there. The scoreline could easily have snowballed out of hand.

At the final whistle, the players and the head coach did at least cross to face the ire and frustration of the travelling support. Fans don't get to ask them questions and hear their answers - Philip did appear to engage in an exchange but what was said is unclear - but at least they faced their supporters. People had spent significant amounts of their hard earned money, endured a 10 hour round trip to support the team. They barely stopped singing the whole game in spite of the performance. The players did at least come and they looked at the faces, looked in in the eyes and heard the voices of those supporters that were left hurting.

Having taken the feedback from the supporters on the chin, Andoni Iraola left the field to answer the questions from the waiting media. The post-match circuit offers some kind of accountability albeit an indirect form, answers being given to the press rather than the supporters themselves. The media seldom ask the questions that supporters would want them to - but at least some form of account is offered. Leadership requires accountability. If you don't have to answer for your decisions you aren't a leader, you are a dictator - and not a benevolent one. Iraola puts a brave face on things when asked by the media if he has the players he needs. He will never say so publicly but his squad is torpedoed by the absence of the key player that Foley boasted of. How could a player so key to the team being unavailable not be fundamentally damaging?

The absence of that key number 6 has unbalanced the team, it has forced other players to be played out of their best positions and the defence is not protected as it should be. The ability of the team to press high is critically undermined by not having a true defensive midfielder protecting the space behind the press and in front of the back four. It is the platform upon which everything else is built and the edifice is crumbling without it.

In that context, the difficulty in getting results is to be expected, especially with a difficult fixture list. Nevertheless sections of the support are calling for the manager's head already. The national media have been sharpening their knives for Gary O'Neil's successor from the moment the club announced that he had left the club, such was their collective apoplexy at the parting of the ways and every opportunity is taken to plunge them into his back.

At the time of writing, AFC Bournemouth now sit 19th in the Premier League. Without a win so far this season, some supporters have begun to lose faith. The feelings of unity and optimism that abounded at the start of the season are a distant memory. Unpopular decisions regarding ticketing and hospitality offerings compound this angst. The pressure on the next two games has now grown exponentially, not least because O'Neil returns to the club in the next match. He is now working in a different context, at a different club and with a different group of players. What he achieves there has no relevance to AFC Bournemouth. If he fails it cannot vindicate the decision to change direction and if he succeeds it will not prove the club wrong. His tenure at Wolves generally and the 90 minutes of the game has absolutely no bearing on how things would have turned out had the club retained his services. We will never know that. This obvious point will not stop those conclusions from being drawn if the away side win though. The reaction from media, pundits, other clubs' fans and even some of our own will be as predictable as it is nonsensical. This means that pressure on the team and the manager grows, but the only visible human face of the club in this period of relative adversity remains Andoni Iraola's. He is the only one giving account for himself or talking about how the team will come through this period. Others have made themselves steadfastly unaccountable and left their young manager to deal with the consequences of their decisions alone. The pressure all falls on his shoulders when the load could be shared were they just to be more visible and more accountable.

"When people said you may have made a mistake, I said 'you're right, and if I've made a mistake it's on me because I was involved in the decision making process", Foley stated on the decision to appoint Iraola. He makes it clear that he is willing to be held accountable at some level (to whom is questionable, more likely his investors than supporters) but is he willing to be accountable for the Captain America sized hole in the centre of midfield? Is there going to be any accountability for the signing of an already injured player? If the club were determined to sign Adams, injury and all, would it not have been sensible to sign a second player in the same mould that could fulfil the role while he regained fitness - and provide depth in the position once he was fit? Especially given that the club's other marquee midfield signing, Alex Scott has also arrived injured and unavailable. Andoni Iraola is not to blame for this, but is the one on the receiving end of criticism in the media and vilification from some fans as the consequences become evident in results.

One has to assume that there will of course be internal accountability around these decisions but the leadership group at the club is not just responsible for leading internally. It's not just the players and not just the staff. They need to show leadership for the fans as well. Supporters want to believe in them. They need to believe in them. To be as emotionally and financially invested as we are in a club, a team and a game that we have absolutely no control over and infinitesimal influence on is an act of pure faith. We need leadership to hang that faith on and leadership requires accountability - but the leadership group at the club steadfastly refuse to give account of themselves directly to the supporters. The last time the club had an open fans' forum was August 10th 2016. Seven years without offering themselves up to answer fans' questions. There is something amiss in the club's culture and how they see their relationship with supporters that allows that to be the case. Supporters have to have more meaningful ways to hold the football side of the club accountable than just shouting at the players and the manager at the end of matches - and if the culture values supporter accountability more highly throughout the entire organisation then that might just translate to more accountability and more leadership where it matters most of all - on the pitch - and help to build a more inclusive, more united club off of it.