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Sparkz 76

By Sparkz 76
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Sparkz 76

Sparkz 76

Posted
Posted

So after 15 million pounds spent what top quality player/players do we have to show for it.

so much was put into the recruitment drive in the summer with MA/LJ when the truth is is the squad that much better then the team last season.

To be honest I would have rather seen quality then quantity and now with a bloated squad of mediocre players which will affect our recruitment for next year regardless of which division we are playing in.

For me this is one of LJ biggest mistakes this year and to many players to gel at once.

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MarkRed!

MarkRed!

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I think if you look at the players we have brought in we have good players on paper. They all have pedigree.  BUT, the game is not played on paper and clearly LJ (for whatever reason) has not been able to get a tune out of them. I think this is mainly because he has too much choice. A team introducing so many new players needs time to gel. Problem is that he has changed the team, formation and tactics every game and sometimes mid game. Players have no certainty or consistency and ultimately I think there is an apathy towards him and his particular style, whatever that might be. At Villa - we appeared to be reverting to long ball football and hoping to score from set pieces. Players vanish for months on end and then suddenly re-appear.  LJ has proved that he is not able to manage at this level and not to have a settled team in March is an absolute joke.  I believe this will ultimately be the downfall of LJ and I personally believe we over recruited and  have too many similar players. 

On paper, the squad is very good and far better than the resources at Cotterill's disposal. That is what makes our current position all the more frustrating. Take Tomlin - the guy was playing down the middle for the most part last year whilst on loan. Yet, he has featured out wide or upfront. He does not have the pace to do either, thus why buy him if you don't play him in the 10 role? I could go on - Joe Bryan is not a left back but apparently he is PL class.... play him where he is effective and actually that was within midfield or as a LWB.

I for one will be glad to see LJ gone...hopefully at 530 on Saturday. 

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ciderwithtommy

ciderwithtommy

Posted
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Mark Ashton has previous, at this club! the McInnes era...  The last window tells you everything you need to know, we needed players who knew this division and how to compete, how many of our Jan signings have experience in this division? Or even English football? We gambled, its failed, we now need to hope the players who were here under previous managers can save us. All praise Mr Ashton. 

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Phileas Fogg

Phileas Fogg

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2 minutes ago, ciderwithtommy said:

Mark Ashton has previous, at this club! the McInnes era...  The last window tells you everything you need to know, we needed players who knew this division and how to compete, how many of our Jan signings have experience in this division? Or even English football? We gambled, its failed, we now need to hope the players who were here under previous managers can save us. All praise Mr Ashton. 

No, I don't think he's been involved that long. His first involvement was actually the summer window preceding our double winning season where Korey Smith, Ayling, Freeman, Agard, Wilbraham etc came in.

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Phileas Fogg

Phileas Fogg

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29 minutes ago, ciderwithtommy said:

Just checked, defo here with McInnes as per this article:

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/bristol-city-robins-appoint-mark-ashton-chief/story-28539468-detail/story.html

My point being, it feels a little like deja vue in the way we are gambling again

No, the summer of 2014 was the double winning season when he had an active role in recruitment.

McInnes left in January 2013 where it just says he was a 'consultant' at some point. It doesn't state in what capacity, it could've been to do with the academy upgrade. I think it's a tenuous criticism to imply he's now awful because it says he did some consultancy work in an unknown capacity beforehand.

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ciderwithtommy

ciderwithtommy

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umm, not wanting to hammer a point to much, but direct quote from the link

A former West Bromwich Albion goalkeepoer, he worked with the club in a consultancy capacity during EDerek McInnes's reign as manager.
Read more at http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/bristol-city-robins-appoint-mark-ashton-chief/story-28539468-detail/story.html#Heh5C90mZBVDIa8V.99

Defo here when our recruiting was scatter gun

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ciderwithtommy

ciderwithtommy

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8 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

No, the summer of 2014 was the double winning season when he had an active role in recruitment.

McInnes left in January 2013 where it just says he was a 'consultant'. 

Consulting on biscuits, the state of the middle east and the early works of Shakespeare... He is a recruitment consultant, and should be judged as such. January was a huge opportunity for us to get back on track, the only player signed so far that looks like they know how to win in this division is Cotterill, and that surely is no surprise as we know he can play at this level - I am not a huge LJ fan, but he alone is not to blame

 

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BCFC_Dan

BCFC_Dan

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Most of the signings made in the last two windows have been about "potential". Magnusson, O'Dowda, Brownhill, Engvall, Moore are all young and all except Engvall have shown themselves at least competent in the Championship (how good Engvall is is anybody's guess).

The more experienced signings haven't been too bad in the most part: O'Neill has been good when he's played, Wright seems solid even if the defence as a whole isn't, Djuric has put himself about as you'd expect and has scored a goal, as has Taylor, whilst Cotterill has been one of the best signings made in January. Hegeler seems to have faded a little but I've not heard any reports of him being awful.

The big let downs have been Matthews and Tomlin. The former is fortunately only on loan and will be sent packing at the end of the year. It's doubly disappointing because had he not been signed we might have kept Ayling, who is a perfectly good Championship right back. Tomlin is a player who blows hot and cold wherever he is. That's why he's not in the Premiership. We signed him for occasional bits of magic. We'd have liked a few more of them but I think everybody knew what was coming. Perhaps signing him was a mistake but I don't remember many saying so at the time.

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Lrrr

Lrrr

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Bloated squad? We have 25 regular first team players (including Vyner) four of who are on loan, that's not bloated, its a pretty standard squad size. The squad size we had at the start of the summer we needed quantity or we weren't going to be filling a bench with first team players. The players we brought in during the summer:

  • Abraham - excellent signing (included due to loan fee)
  • Tomlin - On the back of last year should have been an excellent signing and I don't think you'd find many who were unhappy we signed him at the price he was signed for. 
  • O'Dowda - Has shown he has the potential to be a good player at this level, definitely worth his fee. 
  • Brownhill - Good first team player, worth his fee. 
  • Paterson - Was fairly cheap and there is a good player in there somewhere.
  • Magnusson - Viewed as one for the future but definitely could be playing at this level regularly already. If he gets back to playing regularly he will be worth the  money we paid for him.
  • Engvall - Really the only sore thumb that sticks out due to his price tag, it was a more expensive punt, there have been glimpses but probably requires regular first team football. With Tammy here he wasn't going to get it.
  • O'Neil - Again was promising, injuries haven't helped since he's been here but didn't cost a fee. 

January 

  • Taylor - £300,000 ... worth his fee.
  • Hegeler - Wasn't it £150,000 odd? Definitely worth it. 
  • Djuric - Seems a good player, very much Wilbraham's replacement, chips in with goals, £1.7m could be well worth his fee over time. 

Point I'm getting at, there aren't many players we've signed who you can't justify the fee for, if we went for 'quality' in the summer spending the same amount you're looking at 3/4 players in and having a squad size of maybe 19 or so which is way too small. There are many criticisms of Johnson, however I don't think recruitment is an area that can be criticised, we have a good championship squad considering this is our 2nd season back in the division, we're just not getting the most out of it.

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GrahamC

GrahamC

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5 hours ago, BCFC_Dan said:

Most of the signings made in the last two windows have been about "potential". Magnusson, O'Dowda, Brownhill, Engvall, Moore are all young and all except Engvall have shown themselves at least competent in the Championship (how good Engvall is is anybody's guess).

The more experienced signings haven't been too bad in the most part: O'Neill has been good when he's played, Wright seems solid even if the defence as a whole isn't, Djuric has put himself about as you'd expect and has scored a goal, as has Taylor, whilst Cotterill has been one of the best signings made in January. Hegeler seems to have faded a little but I've not heard any reports of him being awful.

The big let downs have been Matthews and Tomlin. The former is fortunately only on loan and will be sent packing at the end of the year. It's doubly disappointing because had he not been signed we might have kept Ayling, who is a perfectly good Championship right back. Tomlin is a player who blows hot and cold wherever he is. That's why he's not in the Premiership. We signed him for occasional bits of magic. We'd have liked a few more of them but I think everybody knew what was coming. Perhaps signing him was a mistake but I don't remember many saying so at the time.

Interesting theory.

So if all the signings bar 2 have worked out, (as LJ has signed a staggering 20 players this season personally I strongly doubt that), anyway, going along with this theory where does that suggest that the blame lies for a side that has picked up 10 points from the last 60 available, then?

Probably the fans, I guess..

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Harry

Harry

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7 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

No, the summer of 2014 was the double winning season when he had an active role in recruitment.

McInnes left in January 2013 where it just says he was a 'consultant' at some point. It doesn't state in what capacity, it could've been to do with the academy upgrade. I think it's a tenuous criticism to imply he's now awful because it says he did some consultancy work in an unknown capacity beforehand.

He was definitely here under McInnes, Phileas (I see this has been backed up by the link but wanted to clarify something).
Ashton was overseeing the recruitment when we were picking up the likes of Jody Morris, Steven Davies, Mark Wilson, Matthew Bates.  Ashton's reign saw the removal of our only player scout at the time, Russ Richardson, who departed in December of 2012 (Cunningham was one player we picked up via Richardson's work).
Ashton didn't really give much support to McInnes in terms of providing him the tools, knowledge & experience of the Championship - McInnes was essentially hung out to dry in the recruitment department.
Keith Burt came in during the summer of 2013, and Ashton departed not long after.
The legacy Ashton left behind at that point was an incredibly messy and disorganised new database of players, and no player scouts, so he can certainly not be praised for any influence on the summer 2014 recruitment (that was just club spin/propaganda when he re-joined us last year).

Burt's first action when he arrived was to re-establish a network of player scouts, and immediately we had 8 player scouts each covering their own region of the UK.  It was this action which led to the successful recruitment of 2014 (and let's not forget the success of 2013 too - 6 regulars of our double-winning side were signed in 2013, with 7 more added in 2014).  Ashton's tenure as a recruitment consultant bore no influence on any of this.

Fast-forward to this season and for as much as LJ has made his own mistakes and deserves to get the boot, it could be argued that once again, the man in overall control of player recruitment has left his first team coach out to dry.  We can of course throw a multitude of criticism toward LJ, but the overall recruitment strategy is not something he has too much influence over (yes, he will have his say on some players, but the combo of Des Taylor & Ashton have been the drivers behind all of it.  They have failed to give LJ the right players to work with for this level of football.  The focus has been too much on building the future (which is a great idea, don't get me wrong), but they have not provided enough championship ready talent and LJ has had to work with a number of players who simply are either not ready yet for this level of football, or not good enough period.

Des Taylor has now departed too, and there may well be very interesting reasons as to why his tenure here was so short (see Barrs Court Red's posts and have a good think about what that could mean?).

Mark Ashton was very keen to appraise himself when he arrived and quoted "all first team matters are my responsibility".  Therefore, the failure of the first team this season is not just the fault of LJ (who must go), but also Ashton, who in my opinion must also go.

Lansdown would do well to seek out Clive Woodward and pay him whatever he wants to come in and take charge of this football club.  Things are very very rotten behind the scenes, too many bigwigs with their own little empires and agenda's, no direction, too many mavericks.  The whole thing is a bally mess and needs sorting out and that will not be rectified until someone is in charge of this club who is not being undermined by the self-interests of a large number of staff, influenced by the lack of leadership from the owner's son and his ridiculous proxy-position.
 

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BobBobSuperBob

BobBobSuperBob

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5 minutes ago, Harry said:

He was definitely here under McInnes, Phileas (I see this has been backed up by the link but wanted to clarify something).
Ashton was overseeing the recruitment when we were picking up the likes of Jody Morris, Steven Davies, Mark Wilson, Matthew Bates.  Ashton's reign saw the removal of our only player scout at the time, Russ Richardson, who departed in December of 2012 (Cunningham was one player we picked up via Richardson's work).
Ashton didn't really give much support to McInnes in terms of proving him the tools, knowledge & experience of the Championship - McInnes was essentially hung out to dry in the recruitment department.
Keith Burt came in during the summer of 2013, and Ashton departed not long after.
The legacy Ashton left behind at that point was an incredibly messy and disorganised new database of players, and no player scouts, so he can certainly not be praised for any influence on the summer 2014 recruitment (that was just club spin/propaganda when he re-joined us last year).

Burt's first action when he arrived was to re-establish a network of player scouts, and immediately we had 8 player scouts each covering their own region of the UK.  It was this action which led to the successful recruitment of 2014 (and let's not forget the success of 2013 too - 6 regulars of our double-winning side were signed in 2013, with 7 more added in 2014).  Ashton's tenure as a recruitment consultant bore no influence on any of this.

Fast-forward to this season and for as much as LJ has made his own mistakes and deserves to get the boot, it could be argued that once again, the man in overall control of player recruitment has left his first team coach out to dry.  We can of course throw a multitude of criticism toward LJ, but the overall recruitment strategy is not something he has too much influence over (yes, he will have his say on some players, but the combo of Des Taylor & Ashton have been the drivers behind all of it.  They have failed to give LJ the right players to work with for this level of football.  The focus has been too much on building the future (which is a great idea, don't get me wrong), but they have not provided enough championship ready talent and LJ has had to work with a number of players who simply are either not ready yet for this level of football, or not good enough period.

Des Taylor has now departed too, and there may well be very interesting reasons as to why his tenure here was so short.

Mark Ashton was very keen to appraise himself when he arrived and quoted "all first team matters are my responsibility".  Therefore, the failure of the first team this season is not just the fault of LJ (who must go), but also Ashton, who in my opinion must also go.

Lansdown would do well to seek out Clive Woodward and pay him whatever he wants to come in and take charge of this football club.  Things are very very rotten behind the scenes, too many bigwigs with their own little empires and agenda's, no direction, too many mavericks.  The whole thing is a bally mess and needs sorting out and that will not be rectified until someone is in charge of this club who is not being undermined by the self-interests of a large number of staff, influenced by the lack of leadership from the owner's son and his ridiculous proxy-position.
 

Interesting post Harry

Thanks 

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ciderwithtommy

ciderwithtommy

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20 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

Typical Epost, wrong manager. He helped build the L1 promotion side. So total BS from people who said SC could not work with a recruitment team. I would suggest that is MA had been at the club post promotion, SC would have not lost his marbles as MA would have told what was and what was not possible. Hey ho. I read from Harry that Ashton was actually McInnes era, that was not what I was told, but then I don't know what to think. I was told he was definitely involved in some way in getting the SC side together. Spin or hype I do not know, but that does match his move to Oxford time. 

Des Taylor gone ! Now that is interesting as he was obviously brought in to use the Bournemouth connection. Nothing been said officially 

Wait til you see which club he has gone too!

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Red-Robbo

Red-Robbo

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10 hours ago, Sparkz 76 said:

is the squad that much better then the team last season.

 

Yes is the answer. It is better. When Cotts left us we had the smallest squad in the Championship, with so little flexibility that we could only play in one formation and any injury had to be covered by an emergency loan.

Tammy Abraham has the same number of goals as Kodjia got, but with 12 games to spare. 

We now have IMO more talent and depth and flexibility in the side and the fact that we aren't getting the most out of it tells you more about Johnson's coaching and man management abilities then it does about our players. 

The early season form and the odd moment, like in the away draws recently, show what could be achieved with this squad with the right manager.

We also have spent no more than we got, while at the same time have increased revenues this year. Squad expansion to a sane level has been cash neutral.

Cotterill's low level of spending was not a strength, but was his downfall. It had to be corrected.

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EnclosureSurge

EnclosureSurge

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Ashton may have been behind some duff signings and put focus on signing these unnecessary Girolamos for the future, but the players we have are waaaay better than 4th bottom. Maybe the recruitment team are cack, but I'd be willing to bet every single manager in this division would be getting more out of Fielding, Bryan, Golbourne, Flint, Magnusson, Pack, Brownhill, Tomlin, Abraham, Hegeler, Wilbraham and one or two others. It's rubbish to think this is the 4th worst squad in the div.

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EnclosureSurge

EnclosureSurge

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38 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

Oh ! He's only been with us a few months . Why is it all quiet ? Why the club not said anything ? 

Doesn't suit Bristol Sport's "happy-clapping, everything is positive, The Project is good, we're on track, we're not in the relegation zone, we "just need to dig deep", look at the stadium!, the infrastructure is coming along, the future is bright (look at Girolamo!), the fans and their negativity are the problem" agenda (and that's a big agenda).

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