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downendcity

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Everything posted by downendcity

  1. If he's brilliant then he is someone that fans have been telling the club to sign for ages. If he's does well then he's someone who SOD had earmarked to sign. If he does reasonably well, then he's a Burt signing. Ife he does only OK then he's a SC signing. If he is poor then he's a Jon Lansdown signing - especially of there was a queue to sign him. If he's carp then he's yet another rubbish decision by the owner.
  2. Knowing our fans impatience, if JC signed for us in the January window he would have to perform by eastertime or he would get crucified. Apologies for the irreverence.
  3. A player that divides fans' opinions. He should fit in perfectly at City!
  4. The thing is, daft as it might sound, how many of the other league clubs have an owner as wealthy as Steve Lansdown? Apart from the mega bucks owners at the top of the tree ( by and large) most league clubs are owned by wealthy, but not mega wealthy owners and I think I am right in saying that Steve is one of the wealthiest owners in the football league. I suspect fans of all league clubs get frustrated if they do not feel they are progressing, challenging for promotion or are at the wrong end of the table but that frustration is tempered by the basic understanding of the limits to their ambition i.e. their financial clout. By comparison, I think that for a long time many City fans frustrations have been aggravated because of the belief that Steve's wealth should somehow mean almost guaranteed success. The whole premier league circus and the way the game has been publicised and promoted over the last 10-15 years has created the impression that it is all about money. You only have to look at Chelsea and Man City, where mega wealthy owners have come in a and transformed a club into winners and I wonder how many City fans have thought the same should have happened to us, because of the money Steve Lansdown had and has at his disposal? Our recent spectacular plunge from championship contenders to league 1 relegation candidates has exacerbated those feelings of frustration, and they must have been further fuelled by Steve's announcement that the club had to become self sufficient financially, because of the impact of football's new financial rules ( some fans even interpreted this as proof that Steve has lost interest in the club!). I'm not suggesting fans are to blame for the club's situation, but I do think that for some time too many fans expectations have helped fuel the over hyped backlash against SL who, for the most part, has got into hot water as a consequence of mistakes made when trying to provide what fans wanted.
  5. That's the same degree of certainty that can be applied to every statement made as to whether we would be better of with or without SL. If you qualified it by saying we are better off with SL than with the Venkeys,Tan or Risdale then the percentage changes dramatically, and therein lies the nub of the problem as all SL's critics assume that a new owner would be better than the current one. If SL went everything depends on who replaced him and while we could be lucky in having a another billionaire fan of the club willing and able to lose a fortune on the club, the chances are that as a struggling league 1 outfit, we would have a wealthy, but nowhere near as wealthy, businessman, knowing just as much about running a football club as SL. With less wealth, the new owner would be able to risk less money, so would be more careful about how he spends it, would appoint his/her own people in key positions, who could be just as good/bad or even worse than the present incumbents. If the new owner had less wealth, then would he/she be prepared to fork out the money for a redeveloped AG ( forget AV as Lansdowns own the land so if they go I suspect a lucrative housing project is top of the list) and would he/she be prepared to fund the academy, bearing in mind the new owner might be more concerned about the return he/she is getting on their investment rather than subsidising a loss making business? Many fans have demanded a new manager at regular intervals, as we have struggled over the last few seasons, and their wishes have been granted and we have seen each new manager fare worse than his predecessor. Our track record for changing people only for things to get worse is 100% successful since GJ, and I worry that we could achieve the same 100% success rate by changing the owner. I'm not an SL arse/shoe licker but I think I am a pragmatist.
  6. That's how successive governments seemed to have worked!
  7. Free Nelson Mandela - Steve Lansdown not prepared to dip his hand in his pocket so goes for the cheap option.
  8. RMLF, You are absolutely right and I well remember your posts earlier in the season when, although you were sceptical about SOD as manager, you pointed out that SOD remaining manager was not integral to the success of the 5 pillars strategy. What you also mentioned back then becomes very important now, in that, for the long term strategy to continue and work, the new manager has to buy in to the boards plan and this will be the crucial part of the appointment. While the temptation will be to appoint some one who will keep us up, I hope it will not be at the expense of the long term strategy in terms of playing style, bringing on young players, the academy etc. etc.
  9. Always has been the case, and always will be.
  10. Along the same lines as a comment Dennis Skinner made in Parliament a few weeks back. "Half the tory members opposite are crooks", he said. He was asked to withdraw the comment. "OK, half the tory members opposite are not crooks"
  11. Since Ashton Vale was announced, and with the impact of financial fair play rules I've always felt that, as far as our stadium is concerned, doing nothing would never be an option. Ashton Vale would have given the best chance of putting in place all the facilities that would enable the club to maximise income both on match day and also on non-match days - hotels, conference facilities etc. I don't think that AV is necessarily dead in the water, but suspect that SL realises that to get it will take a long game, so in the meantime the only alternative is to make the most of AG through redevelopment. Ok it might not give us a hotel and conference facilities, but we can get better spectator facilities and some corporate boxes in place and while we are in league 1 will we really miss a 30,000 capacity? At the time AV was announced we could conceivably have been a season from the prem. Realistically, and with the new football philosophy, player recruitment and bringing through young players we are at least 5-7 years from a shot at the prem - baring something quite remarkable so will we need the ability to increase the capacity of AG if, during that time other stadium options materialise - either AV resurfacing or your idea of SL having a trick up his sleeve.
  12. Would have been nice to get some sort of result to keep our run going but I never reallistically expected anything from the trip to Blackburn, so am not disappointed. We can do nothing about our rivals results, apart from when they play us, and I reckon it's those games, against the other teams at the bottom, that will define our season.
  13. I know that sometimes supporting City can be a pain in the ar5e, but that is just too much.
  14. Sorry Tom, your behind Aizoon's hedgehog in the predictions pecking order.
  15. On the question of selection dilemmas, would you have Rachel Riley up front or at the back?
  16. Am I getting as bit ahead of myself if I start the match thread for the Yeovil game on Aug 31st?
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