Why is everyone so negative?

[BS4 on Tour...]

12 hours ago, JonDolman said:

So shooting from anywhere is a chance?

I remember Pulis used to count a long punt into the opponent’s box from inside our own half as a ‘cross’.....

[reddoh]

1 minute ago, core321 said:

Point proved, still can't even reply sensibly to my original post.

sorry point not proved but I know from years of experience you can't polish a turd and you can't reason with shite.

[Lrrr]

19 minutes ago, core321 said:

Goodness me, what's with all the aggression all the time?

After last season I have every right to hope the club is planning for a playoff spot. Calm down, its just a point of view on a forum....might want to change your pants.

...and at the end of day at some point City will need to spend and gamble for a premier league spot.

Interesting you interpret my post as aggressive (fwiw it wasn't) and shirk the question rather than answer it. We had a bottom third budget last season, even if we overspent on that we'd then be mid table in terms of spending, we can't compete financially with those at the top in terms of amount spent, but getting there without overspending is possible, Huddersfield and Cardiff (before chucking out for Madine, although he didn't really help) show it can be done, so about your last post we don't HAVE to gamble to get there.

[pillred]

51 minutes ago, hodge said:

Interesting you interpret my post as aggressive (fwiw it wasn't) and shirk the question rather than answer it. We had a bottom third budget last season, even if we overspent on that we'd then be mid table in terms of spending, we can't compete financially with those at the top in terms of amount spent, but getting there without overspending is possible, Huddersfield and Cardiff (before chucking out for Madine, although he didn't really help) show it can be done, so about your last post we don't HAVE to gamble to get there.

but spending on proven quality, not cheap I know, would probably considerably shorten the odds.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, core321 said:

Goodness me, what's with all the aggression all the time?

After last season I have every right to hope the club is planning for a playoff spot. Calm down, its just a point of view on a forum....might want to change your pants.

...and at the end of day at some point City will need to spend and gamble for a premier league spot.

You seriously expect playoff push like a sustained one after selling Flint and Reid?

It's a building season surely, the annual churn isn't really conducive to a big push IMO. Plus Fielding injury, Diedhiou 6 game ban...could all contribute to a slow start.

[BS4 on Tour...]

3 hours ago, dave36 said:

The player stepping up to replace Bobby was really consistent - carried right on from last season occasionally bursting into action but in the main avoiding getting involved - and before you start throwing daggers at me, he was voted the least impressive player on the pitch by the fans...

Who are you talking about?!

[BobBobSuperBob]

2 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Who are you talking about?!

Patterson I’d suggest

(Not sure if it was a quiz teaser   Do I win a prize if so ? )

[BS4 on Tour...]

5 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Patterson I’d suggest

(Not sure if it was a quiz teaser   Do I win a prize if so ? )

No prize cos it’s “Paterson” - that extra “t” cost you a fluffy wine gum....

[NOTBLUE]

We missed a physical presence up front,and I thought we sat about 10 yards too deep,the gaps between the defence to the midfield and midfield to the forwards were too far,need to be more compact.

[EnderMB]

11 hours ago, hodge said:

Interesting you interpret my post as aggressive (fwiw it wasn't) and shirk the question rather than answer it. We had a bottom third budget last season, even if we overspent on that we'd then be mid table in terms of spending, we can't compete financially with those at the top in terms of amount spent, but getting there without overspending is possible, Huddersfield and Cardiff (before chucking out for Madine, although he didn't really help) show it can be done, so about your last post we don't HAVE to gamble to get there.

I really wish we wouldn't think like this. It shows a lack of ambition that will see us relegated, instead of promoted.

You can achieve promotion through good ownership, but history shows that we've not had good ownership. It was only a year or two ago that Lansdown had to defend his tenure on BBC Bristol. Things have been building nicely over the years, but I think we've got a good few years before we can guarantee the off-pitch stability that would lead us to push for promotion.

I've got no problem with building something slow over time, but I do have a problem of the club selling us as a Premier League club when we're nowhere near. When there are at least six clubs ahead of us that have a better claim to promotion, we have no right to claim ourselves as a "Premier League club in waiting".

[Redrascal2]

On 05/08/2018 at 01:14, Ska Junkie said:

Isn't it all about expectations? I have no expectations to be threatening the top 6, that would be a nice bonus. Midtable would do me, that's about our rightful place isn't it? That to me, is stability, hence progress. 

Like you I have no expectations of top six but like to see some improvement year to year, lessons learnt and problems resolved. 

[Monkeh]

23 minutes ago, EnderMB said:

I really wish we wouldn't think like this. It shows a lack of ambition that will see us relegated, instead of promoted.

You can achieve promotion through good ownership, but history shows that we've not had good ownership. It was only a year or two ago that Lansdown had to defend his tenure on BBC Bristol. Things have been building nicely over the years, but I think we've got a good few years before we can guarantee the off-pitch stability that would lead us to push for promotion.

I've got no problem with building something slow over time, but I do have a problem of the club selling us as a Premier League club when we're nowhere near. When there are at least six clubs ahead of us that have a better claim to promotion, we have no right to claim ourselves as a "Premier League club in waiting".

I take it those 6 clubs are Stoke who spent the last 10 years in the prem

villa who spent 24 years in the prem

West Brom who is a yoyo club between the championship and the prem

Middlesborough who spent 20 years in the prem

Swansea who spent 9 years in the prem

and Derby who have yoyo'd between the championship and the prem.

 

[RUSSEL85]

Blimey, im scared to post on opinion on here myself sometimes . Its more of a good result than a bad result "in my opinion", there is always a hint of disappointment when losing a lead but I do think they will be up there or there abouts this season, and a few of my Forest pals were happy to come away with a point. They thought first half we looked a very good side but lost tempo 2nd half, especially after the early goal.

[EnderMB]

27 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

I take it those 6 clubs are Stoke who spent the last 10 years in the prem

villa who spent 24 years in the prem

West Brom who is a yoyo club between the championship and the prem

Middlesborough who spent 20 years in the prem

Swansea who spent 9 years in the prem

and Derby who have yoyo'd between the championship and the prem.

  

Yep, they're the first I'd put above ourselves for now, although at a stretch I'd also put Leeds and Forest ahead of us.

Either way, I'd be happy for a mid-table finish. It might not be enough to keep LJ in his job, but it's realistic based on how we stack up against other teams in this division. Other teams might have better squads, better managers, or simply spend more than us. All of these put teams ahead of us in the pecking order, and the longer we spend outside of the Premier League the less trust fans and players will have in our ambitions.

This, to me, is why we have players jumping ship to other Championship teams. It's not just the Premier League connection, but the fact that we're losing ours by claiming to be promotion bound despite not proving it. 

[Wrongagain]

16 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Who are you talking about?!

You an evening post reporter or BBC ?

You edit the post you quote only to omit the answer to your own question!

 then you ask a stupid question!

Is there any player other than Pato with 20 on their back?

Knob

[Guest]

6 hours ago, EnderMB said:

Yep, they're the first I'd put above ourselves for now, although at a stretch I'd also put Leeds and Forest ahead of us.

Either way, I'd be happy for a mid-table finish. It might not be enough to keep LJ in his job, but it's realistic based on how we stack up against other teams in this division. Other teams might have better squads, better managers, or simply spend more than us. All of these put teams ahead of us in the pecking order, and the longer we spend outside of the Premier League the less trust fans and players will have in our ambitions.

This, to me, is why we have players jumping ship to other Championship teams. It's not just the Premier League connection, but the fact that we're losing ours by claiming to be promotion bound despite not proving it. 

 in one

[Olé]

6 hours ago, EnderMB said:

This, to me, is why we have players jumping ship to other Championship teams. It's not just the Premier League connection, but the fact that we're losing ours by claiming to be promotion bound despite not proving it. 

I don't disagree with the effect you highlight (players realising we can't match their ambitions), but I disagree the cause is City simply not "proving it".

The only way City could "prove it", would be to pay salaries equating to what these other teams can pay - that just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

There are ways to get to the Premiership that don't involve the ultimate high risk gamble of paying Premiership salaries before you actually get there.

 

If City paid what Villa or Boro would pay Joe Bryan a week, I'm sure that he'd stay. But how do we pay Premiership salaries without getting there first?

Just because the club has upgraded the ground and is now spending record sums on players, don't mean it can do the same right away on salaries.

People need to look beyond transfer fees, they are assets, with limited deprecation (i.e. don't cost us much). Salary expenditure is the main outgoing. 

Villa and Boro pay Premiership salaries, because they're already paying Premiership salaries. 2-3x our wage ceiling is probably still a saving for them.

We don't pay Prem salaries as it would quickly re-base every players expectation and our wage bill (already c.100% of revenue) would double or treble.

However ambitious you want to be, you can't run a serious business if outgoings are 2-3x your incomings, so this isn't going to change any time soon.

We need to get to the Premiership first, being smarter with our money and player development, THEN we can establish a Prem funded Prem wage-bill.

[BS4 on Tour...]

2 hours ago, dave36 said:

You an evening post reporter or BBC ?

You edit the post you quote only to omit the answer to your own question!

 then you ask a stupid question!

Is there any player other than Pato with 20 on their back?

Knob

Firstly there is no such publication as The Bristol Evening Post.....and the post on here to which I replied, ie yours, made NO mention of Paterson...instead you included the line “please please please can we sign a 20 with ambition!” and that line doesn’t make any sense at all....clubs don’t sign numbers, they sign players....I actually thought you may have excluded the words ‘year old’ after ‘20’ or something like that ....and now you throw a childish insult from behind your keyboard...utterly pathetic...just calm down and don’t be so aggressive

[Lanterne Rouge]

8 hours ago, EnderMB said:

Yep, they're the first I'd put above ourselves for now, although at a stretch I'd also put Leeds and Forest ahead of us.

Either way, I'd be happy for a mid-table finish. It might not be enough to keep LJ in his job, but it's realistic based on how we stack up against other teams in this division. Other teams might have better squads, better managers, or simply spend more than us. All of these put teams ahead of us in the pecking order, and the longer we spend outside of the Premier League the less trust fans and players will have in our ambitions.

This, to me, is why we have players jumping ship to other Championship teams. It's not just the Premier League connection, but the fact that we're losing ours by claiming to be promotion bound despite not proving it. 

Maybe Norwich as well?

[BS4 on Tour...]

2 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Firstly there is no such publication as The Bristol Evening Post.....and the post on here to which I replied, ie yours, made NO mention of Paterson...instead you included the line “please please please can we sign a 20 with ambition!” and that line doesn’t make any sense at all....clubs don’t sign numbers, they sign players....I actually thought you may have excluded the words ‘year old’ after ‘20’ or something like that ....and now you throw a childish insult from behind your keyboard...utterly pathetic...just calm down and don’t be so aggressive

I just knew you’d post a ‘rubbish’ reaction to this post @dave36 ..... so, so predictable that you’d have no way of coming up with a reasonable, balanced response.....have a good evening...

[oldstandrobin]

21 hours ago, RUSSEL85 said:

Blimey, im scared to post on opinion on here myself sometimes . Its more of a good result than a bad result "in my opinion", there is always a hint of disappointment when losing a lead but I do think they will be up there or there abouts this season, and a few of my Forest pals were happy to come away with a point. They thought first half we looked a very good side but lost tempo 2nd half, especially after the early goal.

Sums up the match very well 

[RedRock]

Going for the Premiership is a gamble. We’ve been in an odds-on position to be promoted in the January window twice now and have not gambled. Strange, given SLs (successful) gambling on the stock market. 

The question is can we be successful doing a low-risk attempt?  I’ve my doubts - at least two of the three promotion slots will probably always be taken by the ‘monied ones’. Consequence is that there’s a low chance for those who don’t throw big money around. That leaves us fighting out with the likes of Brentford, who seem far more adept at the low risk approach than us. Manager, scouting, selling strategy seem far better than ours. Preston likewise. 

Our selling and buying in this Summer has been poor in my opinion. To lose four of your spine ( or threee - excluding Milan if you’re LJ)  in one window is rank bad planning. The replacements lack the quality that even the manager identified as a key asset - leadership - as well as other strengths in my opinion.

Think we’re going to be in the doldrums for a while now..  just hope players with ambition don’t avoid us as it will make the Premiership aspiration even harder to achieve. 

 

 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

36 minutes ago, Moor2Sea said:

Going for the Premiership is a gamble. We’ve been in an odds-on position to be promoted in the January window twice now and have not gambled. Strange, given SLs (successful) gambling on the stock market. 

The question is can we be successful doing a low-risk attempt?  I’ve my doubts - at least two of the three promotion slots will probably always be taken by the ‘monied ones’. Consequence is that there’s a low chance for those who don’t throw big money around. That leaves us fighting out with the likes of Brentford, who seem far more adept at the low risk approach than us. Manager, scouting, selling strategy seem far better than ours. Preston likewise. 

Our selling and buying in this Summer has been poor in my opinion. To lose four of your spine ( or threee - excluding Milan if you’re LJ)  in one window is rank bad planning. The replacements lack the quality that even the manager identified as a key asset - leadership - as well as other strengths in my opinion.

Think we’re going to be in the doldrums for a while now..  just hope players with ambition don’t avoid us as it will make the Premiership aspiration even harder to achieve. 

 

 

 

Odds-on?? Really?

Odds-on for playoffs maybe but not for top 2. Only side who were odds on at late 2017 or at the stage you mean, because we were 2nd by a point with all the top teams to play. Odds- on for the playoffs I'd agree, but at the same time nobody could have seen Fulham going 23 unbeaten or whatever it was- their record unbeaten run ever and the number of teams exceeding 2 points a game in the 2nd half of the season- which is usually a guarantee of promotion, traditionally.

Only team who were Odds-on at that stage were Wolves tbh in terms of automatic promotion.

[EnderMB]

14 hours ago, Olé said:

I don't disagree with the effect you highlight (players realising we can't match their ambitions), but I disagree the cause is City simply not "proving it".

The only way City could "prove it", would be to pay salaries equating to what these other teams can pay - that just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

There are ways to get to the Premiership that don't involve the ultimate high risk gamble of paying Premiership salaries before you actually get there.

 

If City paid what Villa or Boro would pay Joe Bryan a week, I'm sure that he'd stay. But how do we pay Premiership salaries without getting there first?

Just because the club has upgraded the ground and is now spending record sums on players, don't mean it can do the same right away on salaries.

People need to look beyond transfer fees, they are assets, with limited deprecation (i.e. don't cost us much). Salary expenditure is the main outgoing. 

Villa and Boro pay Premiership salaries, because they're already paying Premiership salaries. 2-3x our wage ceiling is probably still a saving for them.

We don't pay Prem salaries as it would quickly re-base every players expectation and our wage bill (already c.100% of revenue) would double or treble.

However ambitious you want to be, you can't run a serious business if outgoings are 2-3x your incomings, so this isn't going to change any time soon.

We need to get to the Premiership first, being smarter with our money and player development, THEN we can establish a Prem funded Prem wage-bill.

It's all a bit "keeping up appearances" for me. We're trying to push ourselves as what LJ calls "A Premier League club in waiting", but we're a mid-table Championship club with a habit of dropping off at the end of the season, selling our better players to our rivals, and being frugal.

I've got nothing against us building things slowly, and pushing towards the Premier League, but it's the unnecessary arrogance that I dislike. If we sacked LJ tomorrow he wouldn't get another job in the Championship, so he has no right to be talking about this club being ready, and if we were to look for a new manager tomorrow we'd struggle to get anyone with the experience and history of gaining promotion to the Premier League. 

The cold truth is that the club are lying to themselves, and not only does it affect the fans perception of the club, it affects the players. Selling players to division rivals is a poor move, but it's also a sign that these players feel that these teams have a better chance of promotion than we do. Losing Joe Bryan, a local lad, to a division rival is the biggest blow to our calls for promotion, because it indicates that Bristol City aren't capable of getting promotion.

[phantom]

The reason for me, at the end of last season if you had asked us all which three players would we not want to lose, 99% of supporters would surely have said Flint, Reid and Bryan

To lose one of them would have been a loss but to see all three go out the door is disappointing 

What I can't get my head around is how Steve L still talks about wanting promotion etc, there is certainly no movement at the club at present that points to backing those ambitions !

On the pitch it was just like last season all over again, start fast and well and drift out of the game the longer it went on

It just feels like we are stagnating at best, when we are primed to be ready to move forward

 

Of course on the flip side as a friend pointed out to me on Saturday, it wasn't that long ago we were looking forward to trips to places like Oldham / Stockport / Bury etc and being happy with results against them

[oldstandrobin]

1 minute ago, phantom said:

The reason for me, at the end of last season if you had asked us all which three players would be not want to lose, 99% of supporters would surely have said Flint, Reid and Bryan

To lose one of them would have been a loss but to see all three go out the door is disappointing 

What I can't get my head around is how Steve L still talks about wanting promotion etc, there is certainly no movement at the club at present that points to backing those ambitions !

On the pitch it was just like last season all over again, start fast and well and drift out of the game the longer it went on

It just feels like we are stagnating at best, when we are primed to be ready to move forward

 

Of course on the flip side as a friend pointed out to me on Saturday, it wasn't that long ago we were looking forward to trips to places like Oldham / Stockport / Bury etc and being happy with results against them

Phantom. But that's what supporting BCFC is all about. Take it from us who have been watching for nearly 60 years and before that our father's. we are a club in waiting...............and waiting..................and waiting.........................then 

[phantom]

29 minutes ago, oldstandrobin said:

Phantom. But that's what supporting BCFC is all about. Take it from us who have been watching for nearly 60 years and before that our father's. we are a club in waiting...............and waiting..................and waiting.........................then 

Completly agree @oldstandrobin maybe the club as a whole are trying to move forwards to quickly?

[Midlands Robin]

I, for one, remain cheerfully optimistic about the season ahead.

The squad has now moved on and further away from the promotion season. We've made a massive profit on two of those players (3 if Bryan's move goes through) which has been partly put back into new signings and I would imagine that the rest will cover the increase wage bill and plug some of our annual losses. 

The squad itself seems far better balanced than it has been up until now with at least 2 championship quality players available to fill every role on the pitch. 

Our first, and most of the second seasons in the championship were something of a shambles but no one can deny we had fun last year even though we know mistakes were made. If you look at our history in the second tier of football since we recovered from that 82 thing, this for me is the first time we've gone in to season 4 in the championship showing an increase in strength year on year. Just look at where we were 4 seasons after promotion in 1990 or again after 2007. Both periods showed a steady decline in performance, a rotating managerial door and the eventual assembly of two very poor squads of players leading to relegation and struggle. 

We have all the ingredients in place to be a regular top 10 finisher in this league despite not being one of the biggest spenders. Our pre-season may have been a bit lacklustre compared to last years but then we have lost what I would imagine was a big character in the dressing room Flint and we are integrating a good number of new players in to the team. Hopefully we will perform consistently all season and avoid the roller coaster ups and downs of the last few years, pressing for a top six finish all the way. Looking at some of the squads who would be hoping for the same sort of finish this season, we are certainly no worse than any of them. Perhaps we are not top 4 just yet but every season there is always one team who finishes around that area who, on paper, didn't look like a top four finisher either.

I'm not a happy clapper by any stretch but I'll take not getting beaten on the opening day, I'm loving the look of the squad we've assembled as I think its one of our most balanced championship squads I've seen at the Gate in my 26 years of watching and its a great feeling knowing that we are now seen by many outside the club as being rightfully a championship team and able to push up in to the upper reaches of the table. 

What's not to be positive about?

[Undy English]

48 minutes ago, EnderMB said:

It's all a bit "keeping up appearances" for me. We're trying to push ourselves as what LJ calls "A Premier League club in waiting", but we're a mid-table Championship club with a habit of dropping off at the end of the season, selling our better players to our rivals, and being frugal.

I've got nothing against us building things slowly, and pushing towards the Premier League, but it's the unnecessary arrogance that I dislike. If we sacked LJ tomorrow he wouldn't get another job in the Championship, so he has no right to be talking about this club being ready, and if we were to look for a new manager tomorrow we'd struggle to get anyone with the experience and history of gaining promotion to the Premier League. 

The cold truth is that the club are lying to themselves, and not only does it affect the fans perception of the club, it affects the players. Selling players to division rivals is a poor move, but it's also a sign that these players feel that these teams have a better chance of promotion than we do. Losing Joe Bryan, a local lad, to a division rival is the biggest blow to our calls for promotion, because it indicates that Bristol City aren't capable of getting promotion.

Spot on, agree entirely.

[Olé]

46 minutes ago, EnderMB said:

It's all a bit "keeping up appearances" for me. We're trying to push ourselves as what LJ calls "A Premier League club in waiting", but we're a mid-table Championship club with a habit of dropping off at the end of the season, selling our better players to our rivals, and being frugal.

I've got nothing against us building things slowly, and pushing towards the Premier League, but it's the unnecessary arrogance that I dislike.

Can't argue with that, we certainly do over-state our ambitions more than is necessary, but the club is selling a product to fans and the media at large.

I believe most of it is sincere: our investment in infrastructure and players (both capital assets so easier to account for financially) are nonetheless evidence of an intention to be big time, so the story isn't a complete lie, but at the same time, knowing we are financially handicapped against a lot of other ex-Premiership clubs money when it comes to wages, the club should probably soften their language knowing the impact repeatedly not retaining quality players has.

In LJ's case I'm not sure if it's arrogance or self-affirmation. "Belief" has long been a word this club has used, and I'm sure Lee is trying to convince himself and his players first and foremost - and that's no bad thing. It's actually Steve L who I think strays closer into the fantasy you call out - of course he has a right to be bold given the money he spends, but his last few interview remarks on expectations were totally at odds with a club that can't hold onto its best players.