Well done Steve .. you called it right

[ashton_fan]

For all the stick Steve Lansdown's taken on here I thought it only fair to give him credit in turning things around following the disastrous mid-season spell. By sticking by LJ we've done better than our relegation rivals who are all on their second or in some cases third manager. If LJ had been sacked we'd probably have ended up with one of those managers. In previous seasons that's what happened, sometimes we escaped relegation with a short-term new manager bounce but then had problems the following season, and having several managers in a short period wrecks the balance of the playing squad.

Looking at the problems we've had I think there were two issues which caused things to go wrong. Firstly, Kodjia leaving which was never planned. We were meant to have Tammy and Kodjia playing together. Once Kodjia had gone Engvall was hastily purchased but it was a gamble which did not come off, although he may still be useful given more time. We were short of forward options until the new players were purchased in the January window (with SL supplying the funds), then things started to improve. The second main reason was Korey Smith not being available until recently, he has been a key player the last couple of seasons and we didn't manage to get replacements of the same calibre as him, what a difference it's made now he's back.

Next season should be better since we only need a few additions in the summer, not wholesale change like we had this season. Despite what many on here have said about spending millions with the Kodjia sale our net spend on players wasn't that high.

So well done Steve, also the stadium has been brilliant with the biggest crowds since we were in the top flight in the 70's.

[Bar BS3]

Some on here simply won't accept this, but you are correct. 

SL had the courage to stand by what they are trying to achieve. Kept faith in the man he has in charge (granted, he must have started having some serious doubts and been close to pulling the trigger!) 

In my opinion, SL has shown exactly why he is in his position, with well over a billion quid behind him and most of us, aren't! 

Well done SL. You've certainly held your nerve and our club will come across well to the wider football world for it. 

[supercidered]

4 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

Some on here simply won't accept this, but you are correct. 

SL had the courage to stand by what they are trying to achieve. Kept faith in the man he has in charge (granted, he must have started having some serious doubts and been close to pulling the trigger!) 

In my opinion, SL has shown exactly why he is in his position, with well over a billion quid behind him and most of us, aren't! 

Well done SL. You've certainly held your nerve and our club will come across well to the wider football world for it. 

I do agree with a lot of the first 2 posts in this thread.

SL took a position and gambled that it would pay off. It has paid off and we can only guess what would have happened had he sacked LJ at any given point.

However, and its a big however, we shouldn't have been in the sh!te in the first place and the decision to have LJ in place at outset is still by no means proved to be the right one. We are safe with 1 game to spare, the next summer is a massive one and I hope SL is proved correct in his belief of LJ & Co. Loads of ifs and buts, I just don't think I can go through it all again next season!

[Bar BS3]

Just now, supercidered said:

I do agree with a lot of the first 2 posts in this thread.

SL took a position and gambled that it would pay off. It has paid off and we can only guess what would have happened had he sacked LJ at any given point.

However, and its a big however, we shouldn't have been in the sh!te in the first place and the decision to have LJ in place at outset is still by no means proved to be the right one. We are safe with 1 game to spare, the next summer is a massive one and I hope SL is proved correct in his belief of LJ & Co. Loads of ifs and buts, I just don't think I can go through it all again next season!

You'd prefer the "unparalleled success" of being a gashead..?!

Good, or bad, it's quite remarkable how rarely it is that we have a boring season. 

Love it! (Now that we are safe!) 

[supercidered]

Just now, Bar BS3 said:

You'd prefer the "unparalleled success" of being a gashead..?!

Good, or bad, it's quite remarkable how rarely it is that we have a boring season. 

Love it! (Now that we are safe!) 

That is true for sure. Never boring. I would like a boring mid table finish next season!

[Spike]

I am one of the many who won't accept it, not because I feel Steve was wrong but because it's far too early to say he was right. He may have been right that we didn't go down but we still haven't progressed have we. Last season we finished 18th on 52 points, currently this season we're 17th with 54 points and a game left to go, however last season we had a prolific goalscorer at the end of the season still in our books in Kodjia, this season our prolific goalscorer is Tammy, who is going back to Chelsea.
We've spent over £10m on players and arguably still need a prolific striker, two better full backs and arguably a winger at the very least and should we lose Flint too one hell of a center back.

In terms of the fans, we're divided, many want the manager gone, many want him to stay.

Yes there is some progress such as the attendance but how can we be sure that will continue if we have a poor recruitment drive in the summer?

I want to make it clear, I think SL wants the best for this club but I still stand by my opinion that SL is not good at making football decisions, only time will prove me right or wrong but I still think it would be nice to see this club show some real intent with a big signing or two and a better manager. For now I'll just accept the big signings as it's obvious LJ is going nowhere. 

[Bar BS3]

Just now, supercidered said:

That is true for sure. Never boring. I would like a boring mid table finish next season!

Then people will complain that we didn't make a push for the play offs..! 

[supercidered]

Just now, Bar BS3 said:

Then people will complain that we didn't make a push for the play offs..! 

Yea there will be people but I need a breather from this stress! 

[WTFiGO!?!]

Let's see if we're struggling in December, shall we?  

The simplicity and fickleness commonly expressed is astounding, at times.

Well done SL, now. During Winter 95% on here wanted him out.  SL has not had a good recruitment track record, neither has collective opinion.  It must've been about 95% on here eating humble pie re Steve Cotterill - 12 months on.

We seem to have an obsession with attempting to devise an extremely complex situation, that we largely know nothing about.  And no one ever seems to acknowledge it.  LJ in, LJ out.  Haters, agendas, super fans, happy clappers..... because we all love being 'put in a box'.

As my dear old Grandma would've said "it's just stupid.  Why is everyone so stupid!".

No doubt, this will fall on deaf ears and guess what; I just don't know anymore. 

 

 

[simon uk]

Cant agree he called it right. Its a coincidence that we scraped enough points to make it safe by the 45th game, and that wasnt the masterplan. Im sure that the club would acknowlwdge now that that emphasis on so much youth last summer was a mistake in the short term, and should anything happen to 2 or 3 senior pros, we could be in big trouble, and thats what happened. Likewise continuing with an inexperienced manager out of principal was potentially a disaster waiting to happen, and after months of changes to the team, he finally stumbled across a formation, mainly relying on the league 1 spine, to get a few results together.

Finally, selling kodjia was always possible once the first interest from villa was made. The club struck gold with tammy, essentially allowing the club to reinvest 15 million on the rest of the squad, and tammy coming in for essentially free to supply the goals. If that hadnt worked we would have been relegated. 

Now next season we have to figure out how to replace 20 goals again, we spent the kodjia money, and we have a lot of players who the head coach has brought in, but dont play, presumably on good money.  We might have some money to spend, but does anyone seriously trust lj with it after the last year? 

Would love to be proved wrong but i really cant see how we will be any better next year, even if we got tammy back next year, he couldnt be expected to score many more, and the rest of the squad would be as bad as this year, unless all the young players brought in automatically get much better from having the summer off... and why should we expect engvall, taylor moore, cod, etc to significantly improve?

It really beggars belief that huddersfield, preston, barnsley etc can do so well with shrewd ownership and management with limited resources and yet again we flounder trying to survive while blowing money all over the place.

Oh well, we shall see.

[And Its Smith]

I suggested on here when we got promoted with Cotterill that there would be plenty who would want him gone by January.  

Lets not get ahead of ourselves.  If we are bottom three in December then people will say Lansdown got it wrong and we have wasted another season. 

Why does it have to be so black and white on here?  Johnson should have been sacked but wasn't. Now he shouldn't be sacked.  We will only know if he is the man for definite in another 6-9 months.  

Any 'I told you so' posts now are premature 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

4 minutes ago, RedDave said:

I suggested on here when we got promoted with Cotterill that there would be plenty who would want him gone by January.  

Lets not get ahead of ourselves.  If we are bottom three in December then people will say Lansdown got it wrong and we have wasted another season. 

Why does it have to be so black and white on here?  Johnson should have been sacked but wasn't. Now he shouldn't be sacked.  We will only know if he is the man for definite in another 6-9 months.  

Any 'I told you so' posts now are premature 

The op should have the addition of 'for now'.

 

[ashton_fan]

Just now, Esmond Million's Bung said:

The op should have the addition of 'for now'.

 

This is always the case with football, there are so many variables anybody who thinks they can predict the future is kidding themselves. All you can do is make the best guess as to what will happen next, that's what makes it all so interesting.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

Just now, ashton_fan said:

This is always the case with football, there are so many variables anybody who thinks they can predict the future is kidding themselves. All you can do is make the best guess as to what will happen next, that's what makes it all so interesting.

of course it could also say 'got lucky', the next 6/9 months will tell us more.

I believe that LJ has everything to prove.

[054123]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

Some on here simply won't accept this, but you are correct. 

SL had the courage to stand by what they are trying to achieve. Kept faith in the man he has in charge (granted, he must have started having some serious doubts and been close to pulling the trigger!) 

In my opinion, SL has shown exactly why he is in his position, with well over a billion quid behind him and most of us, aren't! 

Well done SL. You've certainly held your nerve and our club will come across well to the wider football world for it. 

It's not that i don't accept it, I just see it for what it is and put it into context.

We flipped a coin and managed to just do enough in the end, to stay up.

I wouldn't call it a success.

By any measure the past 2 seasons have been poor, but as the blind faith city fan that I am, we'll go again next year and see what happens.

If we improve, brilliant, if we are battling relegation for a third year in a row, turning out God awful performances, my opinion will be the same. Until of course we end up beating relegation with a game to go, then cue the back slapping all around, obviously. 

[robinreliant]

Year upon year bar the mid 1970's I've put up with mediocrity. It's what being a football fan is all about. You choose a team to support and go with the flow.

Other than the likes of Man U. Spurs. Arsenal. Chelsea etc us die hard fans we are the true fans who enjoy the occasional cup run, a flirt with a promotion from L1 to Championship. That's how it's always been. So what now. SL is the man who wants this to change and he is going to do what he can to make that change happen.

He has made mistakes the same as we all do but when we make mistakes we should learn from them. Perhaps not pulling the trigger on LJ was something that he had learned i.e not panicking. We won't know what would have happened if he had but we could of ended up like Brum and in deep trouble. Selling Kodjia wasn't something he wanted to do. It was forced on him by the player. Kodjia was an unknown who we turned into a star and Villa came knocking on his door. His head was turned.

As for big money signings, we have to be attractive as a club to make those happen and lets face it we aren't as attractive as the likes of Villa Leeds Newcastle etc.

However SL is trying to change the way we are perceived and at this moment he is doing his best to do just that. If he turned his back on this club who would replace him ?. To  be honest it's a frightening prospect if he ever did.

[Pickle Rick]

30 minutes ago, simon uk said:

Cant agree he called it right. Its a coincidence that we scraped enough points to make it safe by the 45th game, and that wasnt the masterplan. Im sure that the club would acknowlwdge now that that emphasis on so much youth last summer was a mistake in the short term, and should anything happen to 2 or 3 senior pros, we could be in big trouble, and thats what happened. Likewise continuing with an inexperienced manager out of principal was potentially a disaster waiting to happen, and after months of changes to the team, he finally stumbled across a formation, mainly relying on the league 1 spine, to get a few results together.

Finally, selling kodjia was always possible once the first interest from villa was made. The club struck gold with tammy, essentially allowing the club to reinvest 15 million on the rest of the squad, and tammy coming in for essentially free to supply the goals. If that hadnt worked we would have been relegated. 

Now next season we have to figure out how to replace 20 goals again, we spent the kodjia money, and we have a lot of players who the head coach has brought in, but dont play, presumably on good money.  We might have some money to spend, but does anyone seriously trust lj with it after the last year? 

Would love to be proved wrong but i really cant see how we will be any better next year, even if we got tammy back next year, he couldnt be expected to score many more, and the rest of the squad would be as bad as this year, unless all the young players brought in automatically get much better from having the summer off... and why should we expect engvall, taylor moore, cod, etc to significantly improve?

It really beggars belief that huddersfield, preston, barnsley etc can do so well with shrewd ownership and management with limited resources and yet again we flounder trying to survive while blowing money all over the place.

Oh well, we shall see.

Sorry, you lost me when you called it a "coincidence".

[petehinton]

The constant 'i told you so' 'i'm right you're wrong' attitude on here whenever something happens is really tiresome these days. It's as if people were advising SL directly or something.

[RaspberryRed]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

Some on here simply won't accept this, but you are correct. 

SL had the courage to stand by what they are trying to achieve. Kept faith in the man he has in charge (granted, he must have started having some serious doubts and been close to pulling the trigger!) 

In my opinion, SL has shown exactly why he is in his position, with well over a billion quid behind him and most of us, aren't! 

Well done SL. You've certainly held your nerve and our club will come across well to the wider football world for it. 

I certainly wouldn't like to play poker against him with his steely nerve 

[Bar BS3]

14 minutes ago, 054123 said:

It's not that i don't accept it, I just see it for what it is and put it into context.

We flipped a coin and managed to just do enough in the end, to stay up.

I wouldn't call it a success.

By any measure the past 2 seasons have been poor, but as the blind faith city fan that I am, we'll go again next year and see what happens.

If we improve, brilliant, if we are battling relegation for a third year in a row, turning out God awful performances, my opinion will be the same. Until of course we end up beating relegation with a game to go, then cue the back slapping all around, obviously. 

Where did I call it "success"..?

What I did say, was that SL has been proven right in having the courage to stand by the faith that he had in LJ being able to turn things around. 

If we can cut out, or even just reduce, the bad middle part of this season, then there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about a higher finish next season. 

[Major Isewater]

6 minutes ago, RaspberryRed said:

I certainly wouldn't like to play poker against him with his steely nerve 

Steely nerve my elbow . He was bricking it and it showed in his interviews.

This was a man under severe pressure and paralysed by it.

For the first time ever SL lost his calm .

[BobBobSuperBob]

Massive gamble - he called heads

And it came down heads

Fair play , but don't anyone try and say he could actually foresee the dramatic turn around in results that's kept us up

Time will reveal so much more

Astounding how a noticeable few are going way over the top off the back of the recent recovery with 'I told you so type threads'

Its been great but let's see what bearing it has going forward ...

[SecretSam]

Hiring and firing hasn't done us any good, just led to continual transition and under performance.  But it takes guts to stick with one person when it's easier to bin them.  Whether it's the right person is another matter; but LJ and his team and the players turned it around in brilliant style, even after the horror show at Preston.

[RaspberryRed]

9 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Steely nerve my elbow . He was bricking it and it showed in his interviews.

This was a man under severe pressure and paralysed by it.

For the first time ever SL lost his calm .

@Major Isewater my 'Sunglass face' was obviously too subltle as It was intended as sarcasm. As far as I'm conerned GT made him look a stuborn, petulant numpty. He showed his true colours that day and combined with his previous pop at some fans then I lost some respect in him

[CotswoldRed]

Well done SL. I'm genuinely pleased for him. 

Next season will be the proof in whether he was ultimately right. We achieved nothing this year. 

LJ has now had enough time. He cannot be granted another abject season of tinkering and mediocrity. 

[Major Isewater]

11 minutes ago, RaspberryRed said:

@Major Isewater my 'Sunglass face' was obviously too subltle as It was intended as sarcasm. As far as I'm conerned GT made him look a stuborn, petulant numpty. He showed his true colours that day and combined with his previous pop at some fans then I lost some respect in him

Both Steve Lansdown and I are often fooled by ' sunglass faces ' .

 I agree with you in part , but you'll never know which part . 

[REDOXO]

Stick or twist

SL made the decision to bring in a young manager who had not managed at Championship level and endow him with multi millions to spread around on young (largely) players in many instances without experience of playing in this division.

yes some went straight to development and others went into the first team squad with the additions of ONeil, Tomlin and Matthews as senior pros. This was then supported with Djuric, Hegler and yet another mediocre goal keeper, underpinned by a super buy at centre back from PNE

We lost Ayling and Freeman who simply would not sign to plat another year under LJ, ODonnell who started the season as being hailed as a Prem goalkeeper in waiting that inexplicably turned to mush etc.

SL must have been pretty pissed off watching the season develop. GON, Tomlin, Hegler Djuric Magnusson Cotterill et al finished the season largely on the bench. Many of the players that found themselves playing in our run were here under SC with the additions of Patterson who has been discarded a few times by management as has Brownhill. With Taylor Tammy and Wright  

Taylor has shown enough to see he will be a very good player next season. Wright a great buy both picked up at knock down fees due to short contracts. 

My point. You are not going to get them all right, that is clear. So over looking Engval among others are we now thinking we have a good enough squad for next season with a couple of additions, the off loading of some pros and the bringing in of a burgeoning development squad. 

Personally I think LJ stumbled across a hungry team having gone back to the drawing board a dozen times. Yes I will grant that Little has been a revelation and Smith finally looks decent, which is a clear form issue, but the most obvious point is he didn't keep chopping and changing, kept a settled side and actually came through with a team with the much vaunted City DNA. 

Firing LJ will not happen unless it goes wrong next season very quickly very early. LJ does not have a huge amount of support as many feel he is an apprentice manager/coach who has nearly taken us down. SL deserves credit for having faith in the guy, but the decision to bring him here was flawed. 

Still hope springs eternal and I hope LJ does better business and makes better decisions next season. 

 

[Up The City!]

1 hour ago, Spike said:

I am one of the many who won't accept it, not because I feel Steve was wrong but because it's far too early to say he was right. He may have been right that we didn't go down but we still haven't progressed have we. Last season we finished 18th on 52 points, currently this season we're 17th with 54 points and a game left to go, however last season we had a prolific goalscorer at the end of the season still in our books in Kodjia, this season our prolific goalscorer is Tammy, who is going back to Chelsea.
We've spent over £10m on players and arguably still need a prolific striker, two better full backs and arguably a winger at the very least and should we lose Flint too one hell of a center back.

In terms of the fans, we're divided, many want the manager gone, many want him to stay.

Yes there is some progress such as the attendance but how can we be sure that will continue if we have a poor recruitment drive in the summer?

I want to make it clear, I think SL wants the best for this club but I still stand by my opinion that SL is not good at making football decisions, only time will prove me right or wrong but I still think it would be nice to see this club show some real intent with a big signing or two and a better manager. For now I'll just accept the big signings as it's obvious LJ is going nowhere. 

Although you are correct I feel your forgetting that in the summer we had a major over haul. We sort of took a step back (which has turned into a tiny step forward) to take a big step forward in the future.

[Monkeh]

Don't agree with the call and I still don't, but he got it right hats off to bim

[Jack Dawe]

56 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

Where did I call it "success"..?

What I did say, was that SL has been proven right in having the courage to stand by the faith that he had in LJ being able to turn things around. 

If we can cut out, or even just reduce, the bad middle part of this season, then there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about a higher finish next season. 

Big "if" there.

SL has been proven right not to sack LJ this season; but we are yet to know if he was "right" to appoint LJ in the first place.