Chris - the club knew the potential issues with Austin and his contract renewal - their inactivity is yet another example of the malaise at the club - unless of course it was a way of removing a problem employee. Given the season at best will end round 1 of the play offs there is no point in further recruitment.

Knowing the potential issues and then Austin asking to leave 1 day before the transfer window closes is a totally separate thing.

Now you can believe him and RS or not but they said it came out of the blue, the club may well have factored him leaving at the end of the year but as I say not one day before the transfer window closed, or Myler getting a season ending injury.

who says he asked to leave?

I get the Myler thing - there is no way you can legislate for that - GH is a very experienced manager who should have seen this coming - I get the notice bit. It is not as if a release hasn't happened before and recently.

I am not one of those who thinks we should have had a replacement - knee jerk is never a good solution. But for any employee in any firm to want a release at such short notice suggets all is not well or GH was hoping for this outcome.

Even if Austin asked for a release, we didn’t need to grant it and let him leave with no replacement, that’s the odd thing and makes me think there’s more to it than simply asking to be released.

I agree, we should have sat him down and got him back onside and to see out the remainder of his deal... why did he need to go to Cas with a few games left because we couldn't confirm his retention or otherwise ?? it makes no sense.... he could have sorted a new deal out elsewhere whilst still playing his contract out for us.

Mustve been something that changed I agree. One minute we are looking to extend, next minute he's out the door.
Smells like we were dragging our heels as we potentially had / have someone lined up and we didnt want to keep Blake once this was confirmed. ATEOTD hes coming up on his last contract so probably wanted a more lengthy one than we wanted to offer or Rohan wanted to add someone else.

It's incredible incompetence if we haven't got two halves lined up knowing full well that both Sezer and Austin were coming to the end of their deals and most likely leaving.
I guess time will tell.
From the outside looking in, the club have clearly accepted that 10th place for this season will do.
I've said previously that I think the ambition of the club these days is to finish in the top 6.
6th place would be considered success.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the ambition is just to avoid relegation.

Not finishing in the top 4 for 6 years and rolling gives you your answer.

I don't think there hasn't been ambition. We've been spending at/near the cap and had marquee players on top, which is a lot more than some clubs can afford. Our team might be bargain basement on the field, but its not in terms of earnings. What we've done is mismanage the whole situation. Until Smith came in there really hadn't been any kind of proper planning, except belatedly a refocus on junior development. That's been the problem.