David Holdsworth Thread

Because Holdsworth has no interest in the team being successful.

The whole club is being run at present with the primary aim of reducing the personal financial liabilities of Jenkins, Nixon and Pattinson, nothing more.

Success on the pitch and what the supporters might want is genuinely irrelevant.

Even on that basis, I disagree that Holdsworth is doing a particularly good job or that his hit rate with signings is better than anyone else would do with the same remit.

We are obviously speculating on cheap, mostly free players at a low ebb who have lost their way through injury, loss of form or whatever but have some sort of pedigree that suggests a chance of being quickly resold for profit, eg Tanner, Clough, Gibson etc.

It’s not hard to identify such players from available and free agent lists, any half arsed football analyst who does the Opta stats or whatever could do exactly the same with at least equivalent results.

Add to that the fact that Holdsworth has played a key role in recent failed managerial appointments, and has a reptilian, oily and supercilious manner and what is there to like about him?

I’m not saying I particularly like him, but I haven’t found any reason to dislike him either.

In my opinion he seems to be doing the job asked of him from the owners, and he seems to be doing it quite well.

If you don’t like overall running and direction of the club, blame the owners.

If you don’t like the results, tactics or style of play then blame the manager or coaching staff.

I’m not understanding why Holdsworth gets so much flack? he’s just a middle man between the two entities. Not so much different from say Suzanne Kidd or someone. Just an employee who does the jobs asked of them.

Quoted from thefoot on Monday, 11 October 2025

In my opinion he seems to be doing the job asked of him from the owners, and he seems to be doing it quite well.

Holdsworth’s job title is Director of Football. How’s the football been going lately would you say?

Another unappealing trait he has is of only giving interviews when he’s claiming the credit for something, then going missing for months on end when things are going badly.

Be nice to hear him take some personal responsibility for his many failures.

The football is going terribly at the moment, hence the reason we have just sacked the manager. Again, I’m not really sure exactly how Holdsworth is to blame here?

As for interviews with Holdsworth, I would have imagined he does them when the media team ask him for an interview? I feel like this is quite a stretch to aim criticism towards him to be choosing the timing or topic of interviews. Who wants to watch an interview entitled “We are playing shit - an interview David Holdsworth” which consists of him saying, yeah our manager is doing a shit job, sorry everyone I must try harder…

Quoted from thefoot on Monday, 11 October 2025

The football is going terribly at the moment, hence the reason we have just sacked the manager. Again, I’m not really sure exactly how Holdsworth is to blame here?

As for interviews with Holdsworth, I would have imagined he does them when the media team ask him for an interview? I feel like this is quite a stretch to aim criticism towards him to be choosing the timing or topic of interviews. Who wants to watch an interview entitled “We are playing shit - an interview David Holdsworth” which consists of him saying, yeah our manager is doing a shit job, sorry everyone I must try harder…

So the man with overall responsibility for football matters at the club bears no responsibility for football matters in your view?

Holdsworth was instrumental in appointing both Pressley and Beech.

And club staff only give interviews at the request of their own media department? Wouldn’t take it upon themselves to communicate with fans unless someone thought to ask them?

Right. So that bit is presumably Andy Hall’s fault then, anyone but your lovely Mr Holdsworth.

He presumably is taking some responsibility because we have just sacked our manager. I assume he would have had some part in making the decision to do this, and he would be taking part recruiting a replacement.

I’m not saying anything is Andy Hall’s fault. As far as I’m concerned he is also doing a good job. Personally I’m not seeing any issues at all regarding the communication between the Director of Football and the fans. I don’t personally want to watch any interviews of Holdsworth talking about us struggling on the pitch. You are the one finding an issue here.

Day’s watchful eye, making sure nothing happens at all. Players he’s ‘signed’ have us in a relegation fight. Instrumental in choosing Pressley and Beech. But yeah, nothing to do with him at all. Surprised the charlatan hasn’t put himself forward for the manager’s job.
Utter leech.

Correct, his ‘links’ to PD will always make a portion of the support wary of his true aims…

Quoted from ccu on Tuesday, 05 October 2025

Quoted from heilkmoon on Tuesday, 05 October 2025

I'd like to know definitively who is employing Holdsworth, who he is accountable to and who has the power to dismiss him.

If he is only accountable to Day then let's have that out in the open.

Been asked/answered several times via Q’s to CUSG.

Club employ and can dismiss if they feel need to seemed to be the last state of play from memory…

They couldn't really say any different though could they as admitting he was employed by Purepay/EWM would probably mean we fall foul of some ownership regulations within the FL in regards to third party interests

If he was anything other that Days plaything he’d be Sacked. Was brought in without advertising it as “he was the best around” ha

Numerous failed manager appointments.
Can’t retain players, manager wants.
3rd bottom of the football league.

He will stay as he made a few Bob in player sales.

So there’s your answer who he is employed by.

Quoted from ccu on Monday, 11 October 2025

Correct, his ‘links’ to PD will always make a portion of the support wary of his true aims…

As well as being DOF of course DH is looking after Philip Days interests .

If Philip Day is the immediate future of CUFC then DH is going to be an
integral part of it.
Fans had better get used to it!

Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s also on a £ % of player sales generated.

Genuinely amazing we’ve had zero word from our DoF, in well over 24hrs, considering it’s his Dept and all that…

Holdsworth was brought in to prevent the excesses of the Curle era. We were spending 2.25m a year on wages and going nowhere. The wage bill is some £600k less now, so Holdsworth has been a part of that.

Holdsworth is part of the recruitment team. Most of the recruitment has been, in my opinion, pretty good. We haven't signed any complete diddies which must be something of a record for us. Players so badly injured they can't walk properly. Some of the dross Cure brought in, Nabi, Joachim, Ward was shocking. If we had a worst Carlisle player ever thread, how many of the current team would be in it? They were hamstringed for most of the summer because they weren't able to sign players until they knew what was happening with the Pureplay debt.


The football has undeniably been mince, so they have moved to correct the issue by getting rid of the underperforming team member, Chris Beech. If AJ was still running the show Beech would still be with us in 2 years time.

Nothing wrong with the players in my book, they just don't match the tactics. That will hopefully be rectified shortly.

#HoldsworthOut

Any other club he would be out on his ear, but not basket case CUFC with their unreliable boyfriend in Dubai.

Absolute shambles this club. Can't imagine which experienced manager would be willing to come in and work alongside him as a YES MAN.

He must be cursing that he will have to come out of hiding on Thursday and answer to the press.

Hoping Jon Colman etc. give him a good grilling on his own position and failings as part of this club's failings.

What are the failings that he hasn't addressed? Wage bill brought under control. Transfer income pipeline of millions. Decent enough recruitment taking into account the issues with finance behind the scenes.
The football has been both terrible and unsuccessful , but that is being dealt with.

There seems to be this idea, I don't see what you do at the club therefore you are a bad person, you are crap at your job, you are leeching off the club. Instead of directing bile at Nixon (draws no salary and was paid £1436 in expenses in 2019 by the FA) or Holdsworth- why not aim your anger and frustration at the people who sit on their sofa every Saturday and bitch like 3-year-olds? 2000 extra fans every week, and we would be in L1 in my opinion. Absent fans are the biggest problem, if they got off their arses and came to the ground it would solve 90% of the club's problems.

Quoted from Markovitch on Monday, 11 October 2025

Holdsworth was brought in to prevent the excesses of the Curle era. We were spending 2.25m a year on wages and going nowhere. The wage bill is some £600k less now, so Holdsworth has been a part of that.

Holdsworth is part of the recruitment team. Most of the recruitment has been, in my opinion, pretty good. We haven't signed any complete diddies which must be something of a record for us. Players so badly injured they can't walk properly. Some of the dross Cure brought in, Nabi, Joachim, Ward was shocking. If we had a worst Carlisle player ever thread, how many of the current team would be in it? They were hamstringed for most of the summer because they weren't able to sign players until they knew what was happening with the Pureplay debt.


The football has undeniably been mince, so they have moved to correct the issue by getting rid of the underperforming team member, Chris Beech. If AJ was still running the show Beech would still be with us in 2 years time.

Nothing wrong with the players in my book, they just don't match the tactics. That will hopefully be rectified shortly.

There were no excesses in the Curle era, his oft-criticised bonus scheme only paid out when winning, which attracted bigger crowds. We made a bigger loss in 2014/15 due to Kavanagh getting us relegated to league two with league one paying contracts. For the next 3 years our spend went up but it was matched by turnover as cup runs and bigger crowds came back - over those 3 years our losses were about 200k in total. The year after keith left we made a loss as it became obvious the board weren't arsed so crowds and income dropped - it wasn't costs going up.

Anyways, blaming Curle for financial mismanagement is like blaming Clibbens for poor tactics, neither is in their area of control

I can remember someone talking about Curle bypassing people and going straight to Jenkins if he wanted the money to sign someone.

This was talked about as a negative thing on Curle , but this showed he had ambition and knew that Jenkins would put the money in .

For me this is a another negative thing on the owners . If your child walk up to you and asks you for £10 to buy something and you don't have enough to give him £10 it's not the child's fault , also if you keep giving the £10 then you just end up with a spoilt child.

Quoted from Happyblue on Tuesday, 12 October 2025

I can remember someone talking about Curle bypassing people and going straight to Jenkins if he wanted the money to sign someone.

This was talked about as a negative thing on Curle , but this showed he had ambition and knew that Jenkins would put the money in .

For me this is a another negative thing on the owners . If your child walk up to you and asks you for £10 to buy something and you don't have enough to give him £10 it's not the child's fault , also if you keep giving the £10 then you just end up with a spoilt child.

That is exactly why Holdsworth was brought in, a human shield between manager and owners, same as Clibbens is the shield between fans and owners.

Quoted from orfc on Tuesday, 12 October 2025

Quoted from Markovitch on Monday, 11 October 2025

Holdsworth was brought in to prevent the excesses of the Curle era. We were spending 2.25m a year on wages and going nowhere. The wage bill is some £600k less now, so Holdsworth has been a part of that.

Holdsworth is part of the recruitment team. Most of the recruitment has been, in my opinion, pretty good. We haven't signed any complete diddies which must be something of a record for us. Players so badly injured they can't walk properly. Some of the dross Cure brought in, Nabi, Joachim, Ward was shocking. If we had a worst Carlisle player ever thread, how many of the current team would be in it? They were hamstringed for most of the summer because they weren't able to sign players until they knew what was happening with the Pureplay debt.


The football has undeniably been mince, so they have moved to correct the issue by getting rid of the underperforming team member, Chris Beech. If AJ was still running the show Beech would still be with us in 2 years time.

Nothing wrong with the players in my book, they just don't match the tactics. That will hopefully be rectified shortly.

There were no excesses in the Curle era, his oft-criticised bonus scheme only paid out when winning, which attracted bigger crowds. We made a bigger loss in 2014/15 due to Kavanagh getting us relegated to league two with league one paying contracts. For the next 3 years our spend went up but it was matched by turnover as cup runs and bigger crowds came back - over those 3 years our losses were about 200k in total. The year after keith left we made a loss as it became obvious the board weren't arsed so crowds and income dropped - it wasn't costs going up.

Anyways, blaming Curle for financial mismanagement is like blaming Clibbens for poor tactics, neither is in their area of control

And how much did the debt go up by?! We borrowed 500k from Day in 2016/17 alone. The season after he left the loss was 700k which was in a large part due to write-off of player asset costs. That means that when they paid signing on fees they didn't show the cost as an expense. The rolled them up.

If your house goes up in value you have a profit. Does it help you when you go to Tesco? No. Look at the bank balance and the debt, it'll tell you much more about the health of the club than the profit & loss. The debt stayed constant at about £2m, but Jenkins wrote off (exchanged to B shares) a million of his debt during the period. Thats what Curle was spending.

Jenkins could have said no, but he's a fan, so he didn't.

Quoted from Markovitch on Monday, 11 October 2025

Holdsworth was brought in to prevent the excesses of the Curle era. We were spending 2.25m a year on wages and going nowhere. The wage bill is some £600k less now, so Holdsworth has been a part of that.

Holdsworth is part of the recruitment team. Most of the recruitment has been, in my opinion, pretty good. We haven't signed any complete diddies which must be something of a record for us. Players so badly injured they can't walk properly. Some of the dross Cure brought in, Nabi, Joachim, Ward was shocking. If we had a worst Carlisle player ever thread, how many of the current team would be in it? They were hamstringed for most of the summer because they weren't able to sign players until they knew what was happening with the Pureplay debt.


The football has undeniably been mince, so they have moved to correct the issue by getting rid of the underperforming team member, Chris Beech. If AJ was still running the show Beech would still be with us in 2 years time.

Nothing wrong with the players in my book, they just don't match the tactics. That will hopefully be rectified shortly.

Marko - I know you struggle to see anything wrong with the club (okay, you have said the football is mince now) but if a donnet like me can see twelve months ago that playing hoofball without a target man and no flair players (our two best midfielders last season - Guy and Riley are so similar as to be daft) how can our esteemed DoF not see it.
He claims the credit for the recruitment when we flog someone on the cheap, but is one of his basic duties not to bring in the players to suit the style he or the manager sets out?
If he was going to go, now would be the time, which clearly means he is being protected by someone - wonder who?

Third bottom with the players we have, I think, is shocking, so no one is above criticism

He earns £60k pa(?) but he has saved £1.8m over 3 seasons, so let's agree that is good.

As for his role in the recruitment team, I don't know. If Beech said I must have Smith, there is money in the budget, can Holdsworth refuse? How it usually works is that the manger says I need a player who has certain characteristics, and he sets certain metrics. The analyst, Holdsworth and co will prepare, say, a dozen dossiers on players who meet that requirement and take into account availability/cost etc. The manager then whittles that down to say 3 or 4 who are watched, the manager then scouts the players himself, and chooses. At what point Holdsworth can butt into the process and put his foot down, I don't know. It certainly doesn't look as if he can. We didn't play 433 when Pressley was manager, so I don't see the debacle on the pitch was down to him.


If you want him to pick the team and have final say in signings, what do we need a manager for? Would we be better having 2 coaches come in and let Holdsworth carry the can? Might be an idea

O/T Is there no one on here doing their badges? I've always thought we would do well to invest in some coaches. Surely someone could work as set piece coach for a season ticket and sponsorship for class A? Someone else does some defensive organisation. God knows we need it, and I can't see what the club have got to lose.

Marko, let's assume you are right, and Beech has set out the players he wants.
Would a competent DoF, especially after he was watching last years implosion not say, "watcher Chris, do you not think we need a target man for this long ball game you are playing".
Course he chuffing should.
As I say, it has been obvious for many many months what the team was lacking.

Quoted from Markovitch on Tuesday, 12 October 2025

Third bottom with the players we have, I think, is shocking, so no one is above criticism

He earns £60k pa(?) but he has saved £1.8m over 3 seasons, so let's agree that is good.

As for his role in the recruitment team, I don't know. If Beech said I must have Smith, there is money in the budget, can Holdsworth refuse? How it usually works is that the manger says I need a player who has certain characteristics, and he sets certain metrics. The analyst, Holdsworth and co will prepare, say, a dozen dossiers on players who meet that requirement and take into account availability/cost etc. The manager then whittles that down to say 3 or 4 who are watched, the manager then scouts the players himself, and chooses. At what point Holdsworth can butt into the process and put his foot down, I don't know. It certainly doesn't look as if he can. We didn't play 433 when Pressley was manager, so I don't see the debacle on the pitch was down to him.


If you want him to pick the team and have final say in signings, what do we need a manager for? Would we be better having 2 coaches come in and let Holdsworth carry the can? Might be an idea

O/T Is there no one on here doing their badges? I've always thought we would do well to invest in some coaches. Surely someone could work as set piece coach for a season ticket and sponsorship for class A? Someone else does some defensive organisation. God knows we need it, and I can't see what the club have got to lose.

“Surely someone can work as a set piece coach for a season ticket”

Your sheer stupidity surprises me everyday.

My friend did it in Austria, Rapid Vienna. Worked part-time as a defence coach for free with the U23 team. You need a club to say they sponsor you, even if you pay for your license courses yourself, at the higher levels. He did his with the SFA, so he used to fly back for them. On the same course as Charlie Adams and Chris Burke. Then when he passed he went to work with Mark Hateley in China, running football schools for kids.

Half of the people on SFA coaching courses are from outside the profession.

Still, it's an example of someone putting some effort in to achieve a result, so you would struggle to understand. Busy Saturday afternoon planned?