Jump to content
IGNORED

MA, SL or LJ


BCFC1512

Recommended Posts

The players we have signed, in the main, represent a new era for City. The majority are young with the best of their careers to come and while it may not bring immediate promotion, they appear to be players who will entertain us.

The two who have left us go with my best wishes but they, and some others still here, had become stale and very predictable.

So we didn't get the Arsenal player. The biggest disappointment for me is the injury to Janneh that means his career development is on hold for at least half a season. Maybe Semenyo will flourish along with Szmodics and Palmer and become a goalscoring trio that will be more effective than we were last season.

One step at a time though and the priority now is to quickly lift ourselves from the bottom of the league before it becomes a habit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread aged well..

on paper, ON PAPER we have a very good squad and for that I am grateful, also what a fun transfer window. 

Mental note though, I must look up the definition of proven, it’s starting to be almost as mis used in football as ‘franchise’

Second mental note: remember hard and always that OTIB is only a small snapshot of fans and I must continue to love my football club in spite of some of the *putting it kindly* dim witted comments that have festooned this corner of the internet these last two days

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Simon bristol said:

Please share this with us then? You have a large recruitment team, you have 3 months, and you want a striker. You then dont sign one until ypu realise the one you have been after has buggered off at the last minute and signed for someone else. You then panic and end up with a striker who has scored about as many championship goals in the last few years as matty taylor. Fantastic.

so the 11 new players... 2 of those are gilmartin and rowe. No one else in the championship was about to offer these 2 contracts.

we release fielding, and knowing that max is coming through, sign bentley for millions, and then no one is completely clear whether he would start above maenpaa, assuming both are fit, then send max out on loan.

szomidics has come up 2 leagues, and is presumably one for yhe future, just like adelakun last year who never got a chance or a loan. Might be ok, but is a massive risk to rely on him for us this season..... and has since effectively been replaced by palmer and messengo,,, chances of much game time are pretty small.

kalas and dasilva are obvious signings and good business.

we go to america for team building. 

Palmer, we know all about him. Talented, didnt play much last year, lj says he wants him for a pre season, so we sign him just as pre season ends. Pretty much ineffective against leeds.

hopefully the 3 foreign lads come in and do well. Cause if nagy doesnt settle, or cant deal with the pace and power that leeds showed, then we have nothing else having sold pack.

im hoping messengo is a prodigy, and is fantastic, cause if the rumoured fee of 8 million is correct, and an 18 year old kid doesnt settle, then oh dear.

 

Sure. I've had a bit of an insight into the workings of a football club and also experienced behind the scenes of a deadline day, including today, so would be happy to share my opinion. Strap yourself in because this is going to be a long post. I'm only going to address the striker debate because it was clearly the focus of our window.

City are an unfashionable club from a Premier League perspective. We're one of five Championship clubs without any Premier League experience which counts for a lot when attracting players from both the top tier and from overseas. We have to get players to buy into the 'project' which is so commonly referred to by Johnson and Ashton. We can't provide the same assurances as teams with a recent history of top flight football so we have to put in significantly more groundwork. Thankfully, we can demonstrate an upward trajectory both on and off the pitch which allows players to buy into it. 

Furthermore, I believe there are seven clubs (from memory) that will receive parachute payments in 19/20 which gives them a significant financial leg up when it comes to recruitment. Of those without parachute payments, there are a number of clubs whose commercial/matchday incomes significantly outstrip out so competing is challenging. There's also the other band of clubs who are bending the FFP rules to gain an advantage. We're trying to build a sustainable and honest model built on maximising our commercial income and optimising our recruitment. 

The two factors are huge when bringing players in. We're a gamble for any player wanting to play Premier League football because we can't illustrate that we're going to get to the promised land any time soon. This makes acquiring players with Premier League experience a real challenge and buying someone of the Dwight Gayle tier a real struggle. Players are obviously motivated by money too but because we're operating without parachute payments, and building a sustainable model, we can't go for broke to sign what is considered to be a 'proven' striker. Another key thing is that very, very few players dreamt of playing for Bristol City as a kid. We're not at the top of the food chain if we want to sign 'proven' players and therefore we're struggling. 

We've been ambitious in this window attracting Nketiah as he'd probably be the most high calibre player which we've signed since David James. A couple of Arsenal season ticket holders I know thought I was joking when I linked him with us a month or so ago as he's not too far from challenging Aubemeyang or Lacazette in their view. Nketiah also would much rather be playing every other week for Arsenal than playing every single game for Bristol City. Therefore, he wanted to join the pre-season tour with Arsenal to stake a claim for the starting XI for next season. We have had to put in significant groundwork with both himself and Arsenal to prove we are worthy to secure his talents. This meant we would have to be patient.

The alternative is to sign unproven talent from League One/Two where the queue of clubs is a lot smaller and we're a big fish. Fans won't be happy with this because they know we've received a significant windfall from recent transfers. It's also disappointing as they're considered a risk and the club are criticised for having a lack of ambition. If we did our business early for an attacker, we'd end up with a striker of a lower calibre that is desperate to play for Bristol City. For the reasons above, this is rare for a player of the calibre that we desire and if we did do our business early, we would probably end of the Kieffer Moore ilk and that wouldn't be too inspiring.

All of the business happens towards the end of the window because players are keen to see how the market develops and who becomes interested in them. If you move too early, you may miss out on future opportunities to move to a bigger club. Additionally, the later in the window you move, the more bargaining power you have financially, as clubs panic and are desperate to tie up any deals before the window closes. Similarly, the transfer market is like a house chain and as one transfer occurs, a replacement is signed and the chain continues.

As an example, to have signed Dwight Gayle a month ago, we would've had to put in an offer financially that he can't refuse which is obviously above what any other club would put forward [this was never going to be the case because of the financial constraints above]. Alternatively, Ashton would have to don his best suit and convince him that we're the hottest project at the moment and together we'll be in the Premier League next year. This was never going to happen as other clubs who are more likely to be promoted would gazump us and he'd hold out until the end of the window. 

We approached this window correctly, we had identified our target early on and began working on it months ago. We were in pole position out of around 20 clubs until Leeds entered the market a couple of days ago. The DoF of Leeds is connected to Emery which obviously counted for a lot. We waited for the pre-season tour to end and Eddie to become available. When we had an indication that he is likely to come here, we correctly booked the medical for the morning before deadline day to wrap it up as quickly as possible and provide a buffer day if anything went wrong. Throughout this saga, some of our secondary targets such as Joao and Moore were approached by other clubs and we let them fall by the wayside to follow Nketiah. Again, this was the appropriate thing to do when pursuing our main target. We were genuinely unlucky over the past few days and so many Championship teams were pursuing the same targets. We struggled for the reasons above but to acquire Afobe this evening was a good piece of business based on the time restraints. 

Edit: bloody hell that was a long post - congratulations to anyone who takes time out of their day to read it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, wendyredredrobin said:

Pretty much.  Another deadline had passed and we had signed everything except the striker we clearly needed.  I hit the roof and over reacted I'm afraid.  Apologies to Mark for that.  I've calmed down now.

It's been a really mad transfer window for a change and I really hope we've made the right calls this time.

A bit worried about Saturday though.  With all the activity, what team is Lee going to play?

Fair play for apologising but, next time, wait before pressing ‘submit’. You look like gas otherwise. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, RedRock said:

Good we have refreshed the midfield - on paper looks good.

Good we have refreshed the back line, although jury out on keeper and we desperately needed a pacy centre-back to replace Webby to complement Kalas.

 

Big fail on the forward line. Benik ok to alternate with Fammy, but we needed a fast ‘baller man up there. A little alarming that the likes of Reading, Wigan and Brentford secured their men and we were left waiting at the altar. Doesn’t look now like we have a Plan B (should be an A) for our attack. Risk being that we will see a continuation of the dire ‘hit and hope’ tactics of last Sunday rather than the slick ‘pass and move’ football of a couple seasons ago.

Loads of deadwood at the Club which we’ve failed to shift that isn’t great for team morale either. 

 

Forget the January window. We don’t do those. So, next Summer, for the love of God, make the attack the priority Mr Ashton.

Not sure I get what your saying could you explain in more detail .....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, thanks to coppello for his efforts.

This is all very well written, but its clear that our financial position was well known and documented. It was alwAys expected that the likes of gayle were unlikely to come here. Once the  webster money was secured, 7/8 million was spent on messengo, which is massive money for us, when we still needed that striker. We had that money, and should have prioritised the striker position. 

Looking back, with no contractual agreement held for nketiah, someone should have given a deadline for the transfer to complete.. it was just naivity to focus on one target and allow it to go into the last but one day without getting anything signed. When that fell through we were screwed, and afobe is about as good as we could hope for at that point.

as an aside, afobe was an expensive signing for a parachute payment club,,, what do we think we are paying for this loan, compared to the cost of gayle?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Simon bristol said:

Please share this with us then? You have a large recruitment team, you have 3 months, and you want a striker. You then dont sign one until ypu realise the one you have been after has buggered off at the last minute and signed for someone else. You then panic and end up with a striker who has scored about as many championship goals in the last few years as matty taylor. Fantastic.

so the 11 new players... 2 of those are gilmartin and rowe. No one else in the championship was about to offer these 2 contracts.

we release fielding, and knowing that max is coming through, sign bentley for millions, and then no one is completely clear whether he would start above maenpaa, assuming both are fit, then send max out on loan.

szomidics has come up 2 leagues, and is presumably one for yhe future, just like adelakun last year who never got a chance or a loan. Might be ok, but is a massive risk to rely on him for us this season..... and has since effectively been replaced by palmer and messengo,,, chances of much game time are pretty small.

kalas and dasilva are obvious signings and good business.

we go to america for team building. 

Palmer, we know all about him. Talented, didnt play much last year, lj says he wants him for a pre season, so we sign him just as pre season ends. Pretty much ineffective against leeds.

hopefully the 3 foreign lads come in and do well. Cause if nagy doesnt settle, or cant deal with the pace and power that leeds showed, then we have nothing else having sold pack.

im hoping messengo is a prodigy, and is fantastic, cause if the rumoured fee of 8 million is correct, and an 18 year old kid doesnt settle, then oh dear.

 

I get the feeling your a...................glass half empty kind of person?   Most of your observations are negative in the extreme, try to have a little faith, try a little more research, and try to stop whining ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, maxjak said:

I get the feeling your a...................glass half empty kind of person?   Most of your observations are negative in the extreme, try to have a little fsith, try a little more research, and try to stop whining ?

I get the feeling you are a jumped up little ****, is that negative enough for you?

its my opinion, you want to discuss opinions fine, you want to criticise me, **** you

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

9 minutes ago, Simon bristol said:

Firstly, thanks to coppello for his efforts.

This is all very well written, but its clear that our financial position was well known and documented. It was alwAys expected that the likes of gayle were unlikely to come here. Once the  webster money was secured, 7/8 million was spent on messengo, which is massive money for us, when we still needed that striker. We had that money, and should have prioritised the striker position. 

Looking back, with no contractual agreement held for nketiah, someone should have given a deadline for the transfer to complete.. it was just naivity to focus on one target and allow it to go into the last but one day without getting anything signed. When that fell through we were screwed, and afobe is about as good as we could hope for at that point.

as an aside, afobe was an expensive signing for a parachute payment club,,, what do we think we are paying for this loan, compared to the cost of gayle?

As I asked you earlier without a reply, WHO SHOULD WE HAVE GOT IN YOUR OPINION, and at what cost??? It seems to be an easy task to just go and get some striker who will get us a guaranteed 20+ goals going by all of your posts today, and our management team have done a terrible job. So who and at what cost? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Simon bristol said:

I get the feeling you are a jumped up little ****, is that negative enough for you?

its my opinion, you want to discuss opinions fine, you want to criticise me, **** you

Thanks for confirmimg my initial impression...........A whole 126 posts, and already a seasoned Mumpsimus

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, bissellredhead said:

Let's just see what he does this season.......

Why would we wait to see how he actually performs in real life when it is much quicker (and therefore more efficient) to slag him off because some 15 year old Stokie on an Internet forum (when he should be looking at Porn), says he’s rubbish?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, wood_red said:

 

As I asked you earlier without a reply, WHO SHOULD WE HAVE GOT IN YOUR OPINION, and at what cost??? It seems to be an easy task to just go and get some striker who will get us a guaranteed 20+ goals going by all of your posts today, and our management team have done a terrible job. So who and at what cost? 

Should i consult my team of 30 recruitment guys to answer that?

i recall throwing out the following names in the last month or 2. Dont know what their fees and wages would have been, because quite frankly im not privy to that information...

edouard, morelos, zahore, griffiths, reid, bowen, austin, ntekiah in that i would have been pleased with him, mcburnie, nelson, greenwood, brewster, cant think of any others at the moment. Dont know about abroad, but we were obviously looking at genoa, bologna and monaco players.

it was never easy finding that striker but at the end of the day the ntekiah transfer fell through and it stuffed up the clubs plans.... we can blame emery or leeds all we want but its us who pays for it. We had 20 million from the webster sale, we should have put a deadline on the ntekiah transfer, and then moved on.

that ok?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, maxjak said:

Thanks for confirmimg my initial impression...........A whole 126 posts, and already a seasoned Mumpsimus

Dont stress little man, Ive been on here for years under an old user name,, a mumpsimus??? Haha, Do you think i give a flying toss what you think? You dont agree that the way we have gone about our striker business in a haphazard way?? Actually, forget that,,,, i dont care?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you a little bit tired Simon? You seem rather aggressive after a day of negativity on your keyboard.

The only trouble with your list of strikers is how many would come here due to fees and wages? I doubt many wouldn't mind some of them but they are just unfeasible options for us as a club, I suppose we can blame LJ, SL and MA for that problem though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, wood_red said:

Are you a little bit tired Simon? You seem rather aggressive after a day of negativity on your keyboard.

The only trouble with your list of strikers is how many would come here due to fees and wages? I doubt many wouldn't mind some of them but they are just unfeasible options for us as a club, I suppose we can blame LJ, SL and MA for that problem though.

McBurnie cost Sheff Utd an initial 17.5m plus add ons to 20m and 40k per week.

I didn't bother looking at any others on that list - no point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

McBurnie cost Sheff Utd an initial 17.5m plus add ons to 20m and 40k per week.

I didn't bother looking at any others on that list - no point.

Nah im not tired, its fine.

on checking earlier, we are still 10 million up on transfers this summer, and we are 10 million ish up on last summer. Gayle is very expensive we all know that, but that loan could have been financed for a year if we wanted to do it. Nketiahs loan fee was allegedly 3 million, plus wages, afobe was probably on 30 per week at stoke, and we will be covering most if not all of that. I dont know what celtic would want for edouard, they paid 9 million or so last year, maybe they would take 13??? Who knows??? What would ollie watkins be? 10? By all means lets have a discussion on your list of affordable strikers... make the assumption that the 7/8 million for messengo wasnt spent on another midfielder, and was saved for a striker?

how about juckiewicz? Cheap transfer fee, older, but really played his part in che adams success last year. Him along side fam would really have given fam the chance to score goals and not just do the physical stuff?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Simon bristol said:

Nah im not tired, its fine.

on checking earlier, we are still 10 million up on transfers this summer, and we are 10 million ish up on last summer. Gayle is very expensive we all know that, but that loan could have been financed for a year if we wanted to do it. Nketiahs loan fee was allegedly 3 million, plus wages, afobe was probably on 30 per week at stoke, and we will be covering most if not all of that. I dont know what celtic would want for edouard, they paid 9 million or so last year, maybe they would take 13??? Who knows??? What would ollie watkins be? 10? By all means lets have a discussion on your list of affordable strikers... make the assumption that the 7/8 million for messengo wasnt spent on another midfielder, and was saved for a striker?

how about juckiewicz? Cheap transfer fee, older, but really played his part in che adams success last year. Him along side fam would really have given fam the chance to score goals and not just do the physical stuff?

What's wrong with Afobe?

Stoke and his style were not a great match- ours has potential to be. Plus a pretty toxic culture there (at Stoke) according to a number of posters on here- unlike here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Simon bristol said:

Should i consult my team of 30 recruitment guys to answer that?

i recall throwing out the following names in the last month or 2. Dont know what their fees and wages would have been, because quite frankly im not privy to that information...

edouard, morelos, zahore, griffiths, reid, bowen, austin, ntekiah in that i would have been pleased with him, mcburnie, nelson, greenwood, brewster, cant think of any others at the moment. Dont know about abroad, but we were obviously looking at genoa, bologna and monaco players.

it was never easy finding that striker but at the end of the day the ntekiah transfer fell through and it stuffed up the clubs plans.... we can blame emery or leeds all we want but its us who pays for it. We had 20 million from the webster sale, we should have put a deadline on the ntekiah transfer, and then moved on.

that ok?

Edouard - Would take a massive fee

Morelos - Rangers want a stupid amount for him, horrid discipline record

Zohore  - £8m seemingly and a hefty wedge, after the Chelsea lads we wouldn't have had that sort of money available till after Webster

Griffiths - Out of our reach

Reid - Tried and failed, nothing we could have done here.

Bowen - The lad Hull want about £20m for?

Austin - Chose WBA over us, if we really wanted him we'd have gone for him earlier than deadline day, on a chunk as well you'd expect

Nketiah - Tried and failed

McBurnie - £17m plus initial fee with add ons

Greenwood - Do you fancy sticking around Man Utd's first team squad or coming to us and rotating your game time...

Brewster - Klopp has publicly said he sees him around first team squad this season

Nelson - If he's not getting a chance at Arsenal then there's links of him being loaned to the Bundesliga 

The problem with your logic of 'we're £10m up this season and last season' is that on average we lose about £12m a season, the amount we were up last season went towards the large loss of the previous year to comply with ffp. This summer our £10m up will offset that £13m again to keep us in a good place FFP wise.

Jutkiewicz I would have agreed on before he signed a new contract, after losing Che Adams they'd have wanted a very big fee for losing both strikers.

As for recruitment team, it ain't 30...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

What's wrong with Afobe?

Stoke and his style were not a great match- ours has potential to be. Plus a pretty toxic culture there (at Stoke) according to a number of posters on here- unlike here.

Will have to wait and see, but. Much like nakhi wells, his career has been on a downward spiral for 3 years or so. If we have had to sacrifice kelly and webster, then someone whose career is going the opposite way, whose transfer value is likely to increase, was clearly what we should have been going for. If last weekend ashton had said we want the deal signed for nketiah, then we would still have had 5 days to secure an alternative.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

What's wrong with Afobe?

Stoke and his style were not a great match- ours has potential to be. Plus a pretty toxic culture there (at Stoke) according to a number of posters on here- unlike here.

Careful Mr P this is descending into a reasoned debate - with facts

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can understand why some feel let down and Mark Ashton Lee Johnson and Steve Lansdown do need to shoulder some of the blame. They raised expectations with their comments regarding a "proven no.9"

The club can't be held responsible for the young lad not showing up for a medical or for the fact Emery has a mate working at Leeds. When we looked at alternatives it was too late in the day. Austin was always going to pick West Brom over us and Bobby Reid was bound to choose Fulham for several reasons.

As others have said and with hindsight we should have moved on from Nketiah earlier, but it looked nailed on he would join us. Maybe we should have scouted a forward/striker when we were scouting Nagy, Pereira  and Messengo.

I don't think Afobe was such a panic signing as some believe and I think he may surprise a few. I hope we will continue to search for that goalscoring no. 9 and maybe bring him in in January. It's going to be interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...