Grey Fox

Or in other words, if you continue to flog off your best players at the very first opportunity, you won’t be as good.

19 hours ago, Davefevs said:

@spudski I look at that and other stuff after every game.

I wrote this pre season:

https://medium.com/@davefevs/bristol-city-pre-season-2023-24-fc862b965c6f

There are a couple of references in there to how we played last season, see - three buffalo girls go round the outside and pass the Dickie from the left hand side

Our of an age to remember those tunes!

But the plan was to play Scott and Knight and get passes into them on the turn.  That has become more difficult without Scott.

It is seriously difficult not to say “ I told you so” , sometimes

Talking to some Leeds fans after the match, they all felt we were the best they’ve seen at Elland Road this season. They were being genuine, not patronising.

We will be OK , but without Scott , a top half finish is the best we can hope for, injuries and fatigue (for a small squad) may scupper that.

1 hour ago, Son of Fred said:

Send him to the Bristol equivalent of the Russian front....

Weston Super Mare ?

On 04/10/2023 at 16:21, Port Said Red said:

Nevermind "miking up refs" they should "dashcam" them, so we can see what they see from their position. 

“Miking up” ???? Yesterday’s ref should have been “strung up”

3 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

We are in no position to stop a player going to a Premier League club. 

But we can plan for it, with two years remaining on the contract, agreement to sell next summer was not impossible. Brighton have managed their exits to the big boys , only allowing individual players to leave once they have a replacement in place.

But there again , Brighton , want to , and have , got somewhere 

Now , let’s go beat Leeds

3 hours ago, mozo said:

I'm still fuming about Andy Cole leaving...

The lack of a sell on clause also stings a bit.

Nigel Pearson , and the team , have done well with what we have. Should everyone stay fit , and our injured players return fit , we can improve, but the squad is thin, so further injuries and fatigue may scupper any chance of success.

Think where we might be if our current side included  a fit Alex Scott/ Tommy Conway.

That is the opportunity we blew.

3 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

A solidish base to add 2 or 3 and have a go at the playoffs this year perhaps. Had we done so.. 

Which we didn’t, as Uncle Steve confirmed we wouldn’t in , that, interview. So all this FFP stuff, as far as we are concerned, is simply piffle.

3 hours ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Yes I want promotion, but not until we are ready to go up and be completive, unlike some on here who are just desperate to visit the prem stadiums or have all the big teams coming to AG, whilst watching it again on MOTD, I have no desire for this if we are getting stuffed every week, and the talk on MOTD is we are a joke. But some will argue that an embarrassing year in the prem is worth it as we will then have parachute payments and maybe have a more chance of going back up.

Currently bar doing a Luton, the only way we will get up and be competitive is having youngsters coming though the academy or young players we can talent spot and bring in, who are future prem starts. I think SL did want to keep Alex, but the injury meant we had to take the deal, but this is were the much attacked by some "nest egg" comes in, as it will allow us to keep our young stars without the financial pressure on us and maybe start to develop a home grown team, we tried the chucking cash and it did not work and could have badly backfired.

With respect, did you listen to either of Uncle Steve’s interviews. He won’t be keeping “our young stars “, but where possible will be selling them to cover our annual running cost deficit. Only sale receipts above the deficit figure, will be available to spend (what football makes, football can spend).

What this means is the club’s focus is on finding, developing and selling players, not promotion ( unless we can do a Luton). With no ambition, we are never going to be “ready to go up “ under the current regime.

3 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We all know the system is horribly flawed at best, rigged at worst and we all know SL has been quite the advocate against Parachute Payments but the irony is that we now have a solidish base but yeah playoffs in most years the best that non Parachute clubs can realistically hope for IMO.

A “solidish base”, to achieve what, exactly?

Nothing,

On 29/09/2023 at 08:33, luke_bristol said:

This is just a franchise system by stealth and in all but name. Bit by bit they’ll continue to incrementally erode the ability of teams like ours to compete until eventually it’s not just incredibly hard, but impossible. 

Which is what has p@#&ed off Uncle Steve

1 hour ago, marcofisher said:

He would have had 12 months left on his deal and therefore his value would decrease. His injury was known as well as he missed the first game of the season because of it. 
 

He would not fire us to promotion as he would be either injured or out of match fitness for almost half of the season. So I would call that more of a “pipe dream” than a “promotion gamble”.

 

 

Good grief, 1) in 12 months his value may reduce but could equally rise depending on his form and the clubs interested in him, 2) clearly his injury wasn’t known, or at least the seriousness of it wasn’t, as Bournemouth & Boscombe would not have paid what they did, 3) neither of us know if he would have been injured if he stayed here, so he may have “ fired us to promotion “.

Remember , negative people have a problem with every solution

COYRs

5 minutes ago, marcofisher said:

So would you keep Scott for another year, when he can’t play for 3 months injured, and then sell him at £12million next summer?

I would say that is mediocrity in terms of decision making. 

His injury was unknown at that time , and part of the “gamble” for promotion, who knows he equally could have had a great season with us , and then sold for £37M. Or , with us, stayed fit?

The alternative is to always grab every deal , regardless if it is in the best interest of the club’s ambition to push forward. In other words, be a Selling Club or feeder to Bournemouth & Boscombe.

Is that what, you as a Bristol City fan want ?

5 minutes ago, marcofisher said:

So would you keep Scott for another year, when he can’t play for 3 months injured, and then sell him at £12million next summer?

I would say that is mediocrity in terms of decision making. 

A miracle 

3 hours ago, GrahamC said:

What does that mean though?

Ian used to bang on about us paying a couple of players huge money & they would make the difference.

Never once considering how that would go down in the dressing room & what if they didn’t work out.

We have paid players big wages (Kalas, Wells, Palmer!) in the past to exactly what effect?

I’m actually between both camps, we do need to give Pearson more funds but the REAL go for promotion idea is madness & after flirting with failing FFP recently, it would be far more likely to see us get a points deduction than go up.

What it means, is that you plan player exits at a time that suits the club ( in the case of Scott that would have been next summer, not this), and you spend only in the areas you need to ( with City that is invariably at Right Back) , so you have a team that can at least hope to challenge. By making positive decisions this typically encourages others (Pearson) to stay, others to want to join, and of course us , the supporters.

Mediocrity isn’t  a lifestyle

Without at least the ambition to challenge for promotion, what is the point?

In my opinion , Uncle Steve has had enough of the unfairness of the parachute system, and therefore does not intend to fund the club to the same level as previously. He hopes to cover our annual running costs deficit through player sales. 
The current side are an average Championship team (won 3 , drawn 3, lost 3), who will probably end up somewhere between 10 th and 15th . Nigel Pearson can do better, so will walk, and the only other question for this season will be if it’s Bell , Knight or Conway that gets sold first.

To continue in this way can only mean that , at some point L1 will be the destination.

The draw is on Monday 

40 minutes ago, pox219 said:

Shifting my two Dolman e-tickets for £15 each, send me a message if anyone interested. COVID has shafted me.

It’s a pox

Yes , East End 

On 06/09/2023 at 21:17, cityexile said:

Can only go back in my time, but this has got to be up there..

Saturday 21 August 1976. Arsenal 0, Bristol City 1.

Raymond Cashley

Gary Collier

Brian Drysdale

Geoff Merrick

Gerald Gow

Jimmy Mann

Gerry Sweeney

Trevor Tainton

Clive Whitehead

Paul Cheesley

Thomas Ritchie

Manager: Alan Dicks

And I was there, brilliant day out

Surely this interview only confirms everything SL said in his. In other words

, SL does not believe we can compete with parachute funded clubs (unless we call ourselves Luton) , so will not fund doing so.

The club will therefore need to look to sell players for say £25M each year to cover running costs,

Above £25M , what football makes , football can spend.

Therefore our plan going forward is simply to buy players with “potential “ from the lower leagues, develop them, and sell them on coupled with a few Championship grafters to ensure we stay up.

Which pees me seriously off

Trying to get my head around why the Saudi’s are doing this, there is only one thought, which although bizarre, seems to make sense.

That is that their Pro League is the vessel to start a new European Super League or more probably, a World League. This is the back door to create it. Matches could be played at clubs home grounds but also in Saudi (ManU v New York) in much the same way as the Qatar World Cup.

What do you think  

1 hour ago, Mr X said:

I'd have though Lansdown would have bought the Ice Hockey team so they could share the new arena with the Flyers as well. The Ice Hockey sells out almost every match at Cribbs with a 3k capacity. There's quite a few stadiums in the States that are shared by both basketball and ice hockey teams. 

Would it not make the court a bit slippy

10 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I've long thought he should have a 2-3 year deal on the table. Job he's done, progress we are making.

Now with the improved financial position he should be able to have room for say 3 more players in and I don't mean ones for the future worth positive though that can be.

But that is not what we do, but it is why imo, Pearson will not sign a new contract, and will leave at the en£ of this season.

Why , with the current regime / ethos would he stay ?

Which is all very sad, as I believe he is an excellent manager, who with the right backing could take us up, with the current support he gets, he can only keep us up.