"We got into 'this scenario' by spending £15m on young players"

[Olé]

I'm paraphrasing, but that's effectively what the EP are today reporting LJ has said in reaction to (apparently) Simon Grayson saying we'd spent a lot of money this season and massively underachieved. "You get inconsistencies with young players."

It's the usual blame anyone but me. Now it's new young players who are to blame (the ones he hardly ever plays). We're not even close to the youngest team in the division, the 50 youngest Championship starting 11's this season and not one of them was us*.

*most were Barnsley or Brentford, some Wolves, Huddersfield or Leeds - all above us.

 

Here are the comments - look out for the standard issue Johnson virtue signalling (Barnsley references) and misdirection (vast selling, Newcastle £45-50 million).

I guarantee you there is not a single thing that Lee Johnson will ever take responsibility for. And with the support he gets from the owner, who would blame him.

"Well I think it's a fair comment as far as we feel like we should have more points on the board. I think [on] our money spent, well it depends how you look at that"

"By selling Jonathan Kodjia, Luke Ayling and Luke Freeman for vast sums of money and then to build for the future. A lot of the money we've spent this year was for young players .. and that's what we wanted. That's what I bought into as head coach. And that's how you get into this type of scenario, because you get inconsistencies with young players."

"But hopefully, with a bit of luck, as you see with Barnsley's progression, if you can stick with it and continue to the plan you get the players come through, very valuable assets, and a performance on the pitch and a contract that the players are locked in."

"That's how we've got to do it at Bristol City because we're not like the Newcastles who can go and pay £45-50 million in the Championship to go and get promoted."

[Hillzider]

No but we are Bristol City who can spend £15m in the Championship  and get relegated.

[Super]

We're so lucky to have him...

[Dynamite Red]

The bloke is an idiot, end of.

[Olé]

By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely fine with a club that invests in, plays and develops good young players as a strategy to develop.

That's what Brentford, Barnsley, Leeds and many others are doing. We are not. We are buying young players at top prices and treating them like idiots.

We haven't given any of the young players a vote of confidence in the side, we've given them either awful or complex instructions no one can execute.

The problem has never been the strategy (one reason I miss @spudski is he was spot on about the fundamentals) the problem always was the leader.

[DingleRed]

4 minutes ago, Olé said:

By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely fine with a club that invests in, plays and develops good young players as a strategy to develop.

That's what Brentford, Barnsley, Leeds and many others are doing. We are not. We are buying young players at top prices and treating them like idiots.

We haven't given any of the young players a vote of confidence in the side, we've given them either awful or complex instructions no one can execute.

The problem has never been the strategy (one reason I miss @spudski is he was spot on about the fundamentals) the problem always was the leader.

Completely agree. LJ has failed to get the basics right - walk before you run etc.

[Roger Red Hat]

12 minutes ago, Olé said:

if you can stick with it and continue to the plan

Obviously LJ has been to the George Osborne school of planning. One that allows you to trash what you were planning, economy, football club progression, that sort of thing.

 

[Kid in the Riot]

12 minutes ago, Olé said:

The problem has never been the strategy (one reason I miss @spudski is he was spot on about the fundamentals) the problem always was the leader.

Please, he's not a leader.

[BCFC_Dan]

Up until January this was largely true.

We cannot compete for the players who are fit, motivated, experienced and in their prime age-wise. Those players go to bigger payers (and please, ignore the transfer fees; they're utterly irrelevant compared to wages). We have to look at the margins and that means young players, old players, lower division players and foreign players.

We did largely sign young players in the Summer and they have proved inconsistent and underachieved, which is to be expected. This is the model that Johnson was asked to work with and he's done it. He could have done better, but he's not wrong about young players and if you look back you'll see he was saying much the same thing back in August / September.

However he was backed pretty heavily in January and whilst he's been unlucky with Djuric getting injured he was still able to bring in an experienced defender, midfielder and two strikers, even if only one of them had Championship experience.

If it were such a big issue then he could field the following team:

Fielding (29); Little (28), Flint (27), Hegeler (29), Golbourne (29); Cotterill (29), Smith (26), O'Neil (33), Tomlin (28); Djuric (26), Wilbraham (37)

That XI doesn't contain a single player below the age of 26 and aside from a couple of injuries is perfectly viable.

So whilst I think he isn't wrong in what he says it's far from his only option to play young players in every game.

[cityloyal473]

30 minutes ago, Olé said:

I'm paraphrasing, but that's effectively what the EP are today reporting LJ has said in reaction to (apparently) Simon Grayson saying we'd spent a lot of money this season and massively underachieved. "You get inconsistencies with young players."

It's the usual blame anyone but me. Now it's new young players who are to blame (the ones he hardly ever plays). We're not even close to the youngest team in the division, the 50 youngest Championship starting 11's this season and not one of them was us*.

*most were Barnsley or Brentford, some Wolves, Huddersfield or Leeds - all above us.

 

Here are the comments - look out for the standard issue Johnson virtue signalling (Barnsley references) and misdirection (vast selling, Newcastle £45-50 million).

I guarantee you there is not a single thing that Lee Johnson will ever take responsibility for. And with the support he gets from the owner, who would blame him.

"Well I think it's a fair comment as far as we feel like we should have more points on the board. I think [on] our money spent, well it depends how you look at that"

"By selling Jonathan Kodjia, Luke Ayling and Luke Freeman for vast sums of money and then to build for the future. A lot of the money we've spent this year was for young players .. and that's what we wanted. That's what I bought into as head coach. And that's how you get into this type of scenario, because you get inconsistencies with young players."

"But hopefully, with a bit of luck, as you see with Barnsley's progression, if you can stick with it and continue to the plan you get the players come through, very valuable assets, and a performance on the pitch and a contract that the players are locked in."

"That's how we've got to do it at Bristol City because we're not like the Newcastles who can go and pay £45-50 million in the Championship to go and get promoted."

He's a turkey, an absolute turkey.

"with a bit of luck..." PISS. OFF.

"We're not like the Newcastles..."  No, but we're also not like the likes of Burton, Rotherham, and Wigan who we are currently competing with.

Johnson makes me want to puke.

[Evy11_BCFC]

30 minutes ago, Olé said:

I'm paraphrasing, but that's effectively what the EP are today reporting LJ has said in reaction to (apparently) Simon Grayson saying we'd spent a lot of money this season and massively underachieved. "You get inconsistencies with young players."

It's the usual blame anyone but me. Now it's new young players who are to blame (the ones he hardly ever plays). We're not even close to the youngest team in the division, the 50 youngest Championship starting 11's this season and not one of them was us*.

*most were Barnsley or Brentford, some Wolves, Huddersfield or Leeds - all above us.

 

Here are the comments - look out for the standard issue Johnson virtue signalling (Barnsley references) and misdirection (vast selling, Newcastle £45-50 million).

I guarantee you there is not a single thing that Lee Johnson will ever take responsibility for. And with the support he gets from the owner, who would blame him.

"Well I think it's a fair comment as far as we feel like we should have more points on the board. I think [on] our money spent, well it depends how you look at that"

"By selling Jonathan Kodjia, Luke Ayling and Luke Freeman for vast sums of money and then to build for the future.

"That's how we've got to do it at Bristol City because we're not like the Newcastles who can go and pay £45-50 million in the Championship to go and get promoted."

He quite often uses the selling of Kodjia to justify our spending this season and also Newcastle's outlay of £50m to ''go and get promoted,'' yet fails to mention that they sold Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Townsend for a combined £55m+.

[Northern Red]

You wonder sometimes if even he doesn't believe what he's saying. 

[GrahamC]

Expect that is another Stockhausen collaboration then, like the complete bollocks a week or so ago about how the "atmosphere around the team had improved since Pemberton left".

Utter nonsense being spouted but is never challenged..

[BS4 on Tour...]

19 minutes ago, Evy11_BCFC said:

He quite often uses the selling of Kodjia to justify our spending this season and also Newcastle's outlay of £50m to ''go and get promoted,'' yet fails to mention that they sold Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Townsend for a combined £55m+.

That is a very good point - we could have easily spent £50m if we knew we would recoup all of it and more by selling just three players....his selective sound bites are very annoying....he must think we are all idiots to believe any of it.

And on the 'buying young players to develop' bit - he says "...that's what I bought into as head coach..." which seems to suggest it wasn't his idea and if they don't develop sufficiently to be attractive future assets then, once again, it isn't his fault. Almost distancing himself from it already.

Even if I am being a bit paranoid and seeing things that aren't there, he has driven me to this! Help! Stop the world I'm getting off...

[bearded_red]

He really is somehow managing to get even worse isn't he.

[Eddie Hitler]

So was the plan to buy lots of young players for big money, get relegated, then get promoted in three years' time then?

I have to say I'm confused.

[Olé]

26 minutes ago, Evy11_BCFC said:

He quite often uses the selling of Kodjia to justify our spending this season and also Newcastle's outlay of £50m to ''go and get promoted,'' yet fails to mention that they sold Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Townsend for a combined £55m+.

And they've got a younger team than ours....

[cityloyal473]

6 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

 "atmosphere around the team had improved since Pemberton left".

 

Never saw that - where was that posted?

['Orns]

I seem to remember the summer we bought Akinibiyi, Anderson et al under Ward (and / or Benny, possibly) we spent the second most of any club in the summer, only Bradford spent more

Pretty sure we went down, and Bradford went up

We have previous

[pnefcok]

I doubt Grayson said what he did in order to have a dig at Johnson or to play games pre-match, he never does it and isn't that type of manager. He was probably just stating a fact which cannot be argued with, and Johnson has tried to dance around it.

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

[Olé]

1 minute ago, pnefcok said:

I doubt Grayson said what he did in order to have a dig at Johnson or to play games pre-match, he never does it and isn't that type of manager. He was probably just stating a fact which cannot be argued with, and Johnson has tried to dance around it.

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

Completely agree mate and think Grayson's point was quite reasonable. I will be trying the Charnock later!

[Dynamite Red]

2 minutes ago, pnefcok said:

I doubt Grayson said what he did in order to have a dig at Johnson or to play games pre-match, he never does it and isn't that type of manager. He was probably just stating a fact which cannot be argued with, and Johnson has tried to dance around it.

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

Our young players are in loan to Djurgardens, Aalborg and Bury.

[Super]

4 minutes ago, pnefcok said:

I doubt Grayson said what he did in order to have a dig at Johnson or to play games pre-match, he never does it and isn't that type of manager. He was probably just stating a fact which cannot be argued with, and Johnson has tried to dance around it.

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

You don't have to bother with mind games to defeat us... Always quite liked Grayson good manager at this level.

[DaveInSA]

We have a squad of about 30 players. None of them know if they will be playing, or in what position they will be playing. 

If I read in an E Post report that "defensively we switched off" again, I'll spontaneously combust. We do this nearly every game. And still no wholesale changes to the back 4. Some of our players are not good enough. It's about time LJ picked the right team with the right formation.

Surely he must go in the summer?

['Orns]

5 minutes ago, pnefcok said:

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

Bitch

[gamon]

Give me Grayson over Johnson any day of the week.

[cidercity1987]

What a coincidence that 'Barnsley's young players' started achieving just as Johnson left....

Perhaps that is what's required here?

[cityloyal473]

6 minutes ago, pnefcok said:

 

We have quite a lot of young players too (signed for a lot less money than the players LJ has bought for you) and they have been pretty consistent all season to be honest. It's not an excuse for Johnson regarding your league position.

No it's not an excuse.  But it is in the world of Lee Johnson where nothing, but nothing is your fault. 

We are 40 games in and this guy has decided we need to "go back to the drawing board".  He is beyond incompetent.  Although, he will point out that he got Barnsley promoted last season (despite not being in charge) and led them on their solid campaign this year (despite not being in charge), so obviously not that incompetent.  In fact something of a miracle worker managing to run two clubs concurrently.

 

[cityloyal473]

1 minute ago, gamon said:

Give me Grayson over Johnson any day of the week.

I'd take Larry Grayson over Johnson.  Could tell Johnson to 'shut that door' on his way out.

[Super]

3 minutes ago, gamon said:

Give me Grayson over Johnson any day of the week.

I would take Larry Grayson over him...