Davefevs

Look after yourself Mate.

I’ll update my tables later.

I always thought that until I heard a radio interview with Joe Sims, although googled it and appears you are are right. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/there-truth-behind-urban-myth-4941098

Will be interesting to see how West Brom play today as they transition from Ismae-ball to Bruce’s mixed style. Solid back 3 of Clarke / Bartley / Ajayi, protected by Livermore, suggests getting the ball around the sides of them might see the most success. Livermore might not be the DM he was previously but he’s a presence and more than capable of disruptive play, picking up lots of niggly fouls without getting cautioned. He needs winding up, cue Alex Scott! Grant and Robinson up top (Carroll from bench) will stretch us down the sides too. I really rate Townsend at LWB. Gonna be a tough afternoon. I’d bring Pring back in at LWB to add some physicality too. Would feel harsh on Dasilva, but Pearson does say about picking the team he thinks is best for the match, so sometimes horses for courses might be the way to play it. Not forgetting Furlong’s long throws from the right. It would not wholly surprise me if we went big standard 442 today.

I get the impression Hughton and Cook’s non-appointment might’ve been more that when they saw / heard the cluster#### they didn’t want it anymore. In Cook’s case, the story I heard was that he actually started talking down his own ability during the interview when he heard what what Ashton / JL had to say. Could be bullshit, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Guy from who ran the Bristol Zoo car park on behalf on Bristol City Council (cough, cough) has applied to run the scheme. ??? (I understand there are plans to make a film about it, can’t remember which Bristolian actor is involved in the project)

Funny you mention Gow and Hunter. Have you listened to @headhunter’s interview on FBC pod with Alan Dicks. I won’t spoil it, but worth a listen re Dicks’s comments on these two.

Welcome back @vt05763

Is someone being hung! ?

Yes, it was quite interesting to hear.

Loans aren’t free! The point I’m making is that the way we operated was about to catch up with us. The money was running out! We were unable to sustain the levels of spending. The talent available to sell was running out. There wasn’t another Webster or Kelly to plug the £30m “gap” each season (between revenue and cost), which would’ve meant no investment in new players. Thanks for your various replies though. Differences of opinion are totally fine.

Good post overall. ?? My challenge is that you say players are playing worse but make no reference to those that are playing better. Id hazard a guess that Pearson is on the same money as Johnson was at the end of his tenure, between £500k-600k p.a. Holden I’m sure would’ve been on much less, say half of that.

Just seen Nige down screwfix buying a packet of cable-ties!! ?

I saw Joe Parkinson on Soccer AM a few years back. An Everton player who retired through injury and he’d ballooned. He explained how difficult it was for him once out of the daily training regime to adjust.

Absolutely fair you put this side of the debate across. Do you know why people like me keep posting about “£39m”? It’s because people like me saw the direction of travel. Covid just brought the financial mess forward. It’s not really about the £39m loss. Quite simply, Revenues starting to plateau at just over £30m…but costs continuing to escalate every year as we paid more and more in fees and wages. You don’t need to be a financial wizard (or an owner who’s made his riches in that field) to see that eventually bites you on the arse!! The weird but is our owner, a financial wizard, let it happen. No investor puts their eggs in one basket, yet SL did….he basically subscribed to a “Sustainability” model (sustainable my arse) that relied on transfer profit to offset huge costs, increasing year on year. Those fees especially committed us to costs (amortisation) beyond LJ’s rein. Someone is feeling the pinch because of that….Holden started to feel the pinch, but only in not being able to spend much, he still had the benefit of a big squad, numbers-wise. But it’s Pearson who is taking the real brunt of that. Johnson’s transfers and were crippling the club (sanctioned by SL / MA). 18th (part Cotts), 17th, 11th, 8th, 12th (last 5 Holden). Had he stayed in situ how much would he have continued to spend to move us from 12th, upwards again. Was 12th a blip, or the start of decline. Because in 19/20 he spent £25m in fees (plus signing on fees, loan fees, agent fees, etc, increased the costs by £6.1m against levelling revenues (even if Covid hadn’t struck)…and we went backwards. Its fine to say we made good money on certain players. But the costs incurred in doing so was storing up a load of problems. The big question, that will get a subjective response, is how would LJ being doing with this squad, under these constraints. None of us can answer that, but he was moaning back in July 2020, when he’d pretty much been given everything he ever wanted. And if you count Semenyo and Massengo future transfers as Johnsons, you can’t include Kelly, Bryan, Reid, Flint, Kodjia, etc. That is called “having your cake and eat it”!! Semenyo and Massengo also weren’t worth £25m last season (that’s the year of £39m loss). Personally I don’t think they’re worth that today either.

Derby fans on twitter starting to see Quantuma as the devil now they can’t blame Gibson, the EFL, Mr Pops (?), etc.

We need to find a couple of real nuggets, and cheaply, that can come in, gel immediately and improve us. That might be a youngster breaking through (e.g. Scott), a lower league “find” or an OOC player (freebie). We can’t solve our problems by buying solutions…not in the transfer fee sense. I think we lost a bit of that focus very quickly once we survived our first season back in the Champ. Above is the players we signed in 16/17. Situation isn’t quite the same, but is off the back of a struggling season. Admittedly we had a small squad, the likes of Baker, Odemwingie, Pearce, etc who we had on loan had gone back, although Tomlin and Matthews returned. So we did have to bring in some players to boost the numbers. Trying to look at that season’s recruitment and who would match up with what we need this time around, I.e. who might we look at this summer. Forgot positional needs for the mo’, just talking about good recruitment. Magnússon would be Atkinson, but we couldn’t afford him this time around. I’d pick: Taylor Wright Brownhill £1m outlay in 16/17, probably cost half that now. Possibly Paterson too. If we could pick up three of the ilk of that group of 4, then that would be success imho.

Did he now? I have him muted, so I only saw Will was replying to him, when I copied the post. He’s a bit touchy then isn’t he? The master of changing the point of the discussion when challenged.

“His contact at the club”

Here’s next season’s squad as it stands. Dunno if that makes you feel worse or not! ?

Yep, they read the same website as Ian Gay. I had the conversation on the podcast with Ian about the accuracy of these salary websites, but he obviously chose to ignore me (his prerogative), and then uses them as the basis for his ITK status.

You are going to offend one of them with that post ???

No, I just mean I’m not privy to that stuff, I’m only commenting on what I know Gould is up to….perhaps better if I’d said non-football rather than non-playing “stuff”.

No, it means just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.