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Steve Cotterill interview


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1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Thanks Dave- vaguely remember versions of that, sounds a real **** up by the club, actually would've been reasonably affordable too. Gayle plus associated wages however...

Wonder if Fredericks too may have been happier to stay had we added Maguire and Gray to an already talented squad- Cotts wouldn't have been hacked off and may have used some of the loanees properly, plus wouldn't have needed quite so many too- Kodjia and Gray 3-5-2...wow!!

Fredericks, Maguire, Kodjia Gray? All strong sell on value 

Real sliding doors moment if all broadly accurate there!!

Seeing as Mark Little knocked him spark out in the dressing rooms after training for being a 'billy big-bollox' - I'd somehow doubt it.

Lasted all of 3 weeks before a magically instant move to Fulham appeared so everyone could save face.

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18 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

It would be fascinating to see how we’d have done had Cotterill been able to bring in Maguire/Gayle/Grey.

He clearly had an eye for a player as all three of those have done well. 

I don’t believe he’s the type of manager the board of the ‘modern’ Bristol City want. They want someone amicable who is easy to work with in the current structure. Someone who’s progressive and will occasionally get us good coverage in the national press. Johnson epitomises that.

Cotterill was old school and I imagine wasn't always easy to work with - that’s no criticism, to function in such a competitive industry you need to disagree internally. I’m sure LJ does too when appropriate, but I’m guessing is more tactful and diplomatic.

I really enjoyed watching the 14/15 side - just a shame it worked out how it did.

All fantastic players but would have took the club in a direction financially I don't think we wanted to go. Lansdown went that way a few years back and it ended badly 

Johnson has proved himself to be a fantastic coach. I look at Cotts as an old school manager. Give him the best players....and he will deliver you results. The players he went and bought that won that double were hardly unknowns, he just knew how to manage them 

I have been a big critic of LJ, but the club is in a place I don't believe we would be had Cotts stayed . Credit to the current set up 

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8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Allegedly much lower bids, circa £4m for Gray, £1.5m for Maguire were agreed with Brentford and Hull City and decent but not stupid wages too, before Cotts went on summer break.  Within budget I assume.

John Pelling, the fall-guy In this eventually (left the club) tried to negotiate them down.

Brentford were unhappy and Burnley were mooted to be showing interest, so up the fee went (£6m), and Gray’s wage demands.  Gray was only gonna go one place once Burnley were interested.  That’s why the attempt for Gayle kicked off (£6m + £3m add-ons).

Hull City were pissed off and doubled the price to £3m.  Suddenly budgets gone!

Cotts comes back, and was in a piss all tour to Portugal (I think).

That’s the story.

Yeah that’s the story - I remember a certain poster that knew Cotterill posted the full details a couple of years ago and it was along those lines.

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10 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Yeah that’s the story - I remember a certain poster that knew Cotterill posted the full details a couple of years ago and it was along those lines.

It's certainly Cotterill's version of events as I heard it from the horses mouth a couple of years ago. He was still angry about it. Two sides to every story though.

Whatever the exact details of what happened, the relationship between board and manager never recovered. 

Hugely regrettable looking back as with a couple of top additions (and I do think both Gray and Maguire were attainable at the time) and a happy SC I think we'd have done very well in that first season back in the C'ship.

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38 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

All fantastic players but would have took the club in a direction financially I don't think we wanted to go. Lansdown went that way a few years back and it ended badly 

Johnson has proved himself to be a fantastic coach. I look at Cotts as an old school manager. Give him the best players....and he will deliver you results. The players he went and bought that won that double were hardly unknowns, he just knew how to manage them 

I have been a big critic of LJ, but the club is in a place I don't believe we would be had Cotts stayed . Credit to the current set up 

Sums up my views exactly (other than being a LJ critic of course...:cool2:) and I got slagged off for not joining in the SC love-in.

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8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Allegedly much lower bids, circa £4m for Gray, £1.5m for Maguire were agreed with Brentford and Hull City and decent but not stupid wages too, before Cotts went on summer break.  Within budget I assume.

John Pelling, the fall-guy In this eventually (left the club) tried to negotiate them down.

Brentford were unhappy and Burnley were mooted to be showing interest, so up the fee went (£6m), and Gray’s wage demands.  Gray was only gonna go one place once Burnley were interested.  That’s why the attempt for Gayle kicked off (£6m + £3m add-ons).

Hull City were pissed off and doubled the price to £3m.  Suddenly budgets gone!

Cotts comes back, and was in a piss all tour to Portugal (I think).

That’s the story.

There's much more to this story Dave and it's been covered on this forum many times.

If your alleged situation was true...you would have to ask yourself, who put in the bids for these players and agreed them?

Any deal, would have to be agreed at the time, by the owner, board and financial director.

Our policy was, and is to work within FFP. Pelling the financial director was part of writing up that directive. He would know it inside out, and what budget we had to play with.

So any bid put in for players initially would be within budget and agreed by all party's at the Club.

So you have to ask yourself why Pelling chose to leave.

Are you saying SC went and agreed initial terms with players on his own, going ferrel, not knowing our budget and not consulting the financial Director and board and owner? Because that's how I understand it happened.

Hence what consequently happened afterwards.

Thankfully we now have our house in order and work as a team together.

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8 hours ago, SX227 said:

Seeing as Mark Little knocked him spark out in the dressing rooms after training for being a 'billy big-bollox' - I'd somehow doubt it.

Lasted all of 3 weeks before a magically instant move to Fulham appeared so everyone could save face.

Good point, had forgotten that.

Shame it didn't work out as he's clearly proven himself a capable player at Fulham and West Ham.

@spudski

Would Maguire and Gray at £1.5m and £4m have taken us over? Not so sure due to amortisation- would also have depended on wages of course.

Besides which, those 2 and Kodjia had there been an FFP issue would've been quite saleable.

Now Gayle, signing him with his wages may well have caused FFP issues at that time. The first 2? Not so sure.

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12 minutes ago, spudski said:

There's much more to this story Dave and it's been covered on this forum many times.

If your alleged situation was true...you would have to ask yourself, who put in the bids for these players and agreed them?

Any deal, would have to be agreed at the time, by the owner, board and financial director.

Our policy was, and is to work within FFP. Pelling the financial director was part of writing up that directive. He would know it inside out, and what budget we had to play with.

So any bid put in for players initially would be within budget and agreed by all party's at the Club.

So you have to ask yourself why Pelling chose to leave.

Are you saying SC went and agreed initial terms with players on his own, going ferrel, not knowing our budget and not consulting the financial Director and board and owner? Because that's how I understand it happened.

Hence what consequently happened afterwards.

Thankfully we now have our house in order and work as a team together.

Formal bids weren't put in for the players early in the summer. SC had spoken with Maguire and Gray's agents and knew the fees and wages he thought he could get the players for. He then went on holiday leaving JP and JL to tie up the deals and that is when the alleged renegotiations took place which pissed off the agents and clubs of those two players. 

That was the way SC worked. I recall him saying at a supporters Q & A that he wasn't bothered about missing out on signing Freeman in January 2014 as he knew the player had a release clause in their contract that we would trigger in the summer. A lot of fans in the room were skeptical at the time but sure enough we signed Freeman that summer. 

He knew the dark arts when it came to transfers and in fairness his recruitment record at City was outstanding. 

But SL/JL wanted recruitment to go in a different direction along the lines of the Brentford model and this was incompatible with SC's approach. 

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2 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Good point, had forgotten that.

Shame it didn't work out as he's clearly proven himself a capable player at Fulham and West Ham.

@spudski

Would Maguire and Gray at £1.5m and £4m have taken us over? Not so sure due to amortisation- would also have depended on wages of course.

Besides which, those 2 and Kodjia had there been an FFP issue would've been quite saleable.

Now Gayle, signing him with his wages may well have caused FFP issues at that time. The first 2? Not so sure.

Think about it mate...we aren't going to go in as a Club, agree terms, then try to renegotiate afterwards.

2 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Formal bids weren't put in for the players early in the summer. SC had spoken with Maguire and Gray's agents and knew the fees and wages he thought he could get the players for. He then went on holiday leaving JP and JL to tie up the deals and that is when the alleged renegotiations took place which pissed off the agents and clubs of those two players. 

That was the way SC worked. I recall him saying at a supporters Q & A that he wasn't bothered about missing out on signing Freeman in January 2014 as he knew the player had a release clause in their contract that we would trigger in the summer. A lot of fans in the room were skeptical at the time but sure enough we signed Freeman that summer. 

He knew the dark arts when it came to transfers and in fairness his recruitment record at City was outstanding. 

But SL/JL wanted recruitment to go in a different direction along the lines of the Brentford model and this was incompatible with SC's approach. 

And that's why it all broke down...SC joined this Club agreeing to work within the blueprint or 'Pillars' at the time.

After that Promotion he got Billy big bollox. And started doing everything his way...and not within the Club's remit, which he'd agreed to work with.

This is why we need the likes of MA...not rely on a football manager to speak to agents and agree terms without knowing the ins and outs of the budget at hand.

I'm sure you're also aware of all the promises made to contracted players, and them being told they would get better renegotiated contracts, and why Burt would only work with certain agents...plus other scenarios that can't be spoken about on an open forum.

Thank God we've moved on.

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3 minutes ago, spudski said:

There's much more to this story Dave and it's been covered on this forum many times.

If your alleged situation was true...you would have to ask yourself, who put in the bids for these players and agreed them?

Any deal, would have to be agreed at the time, by the owner, board and financial director.

Our policy was, and is to work within FFP. Pelling the financial director was part of writing up that directive. He would know it inside out, and what budget we had to play with.

So any bid put in for players initially would be within budget and agreed by all party's at the Club.

So you have to ask yourself why Pelling chose to leave.

Are you saying SC went and agreed initial terms with players on his own, going ferrel, not knowing our budget and not consulting the financial Director and board and owner? Because that's how I understand it happened.

Hence what consequently happened afterwards.

Thankfully we now have our house in order and work as a team together.

In league 1 we were a big fish in a small pond, so were in a position to build the best squad of players. That was not the case in the championship.

There was little doubt that Cotts' time was when we were moving to sustainability and I think I'm right in saying that EFL financial rules were either up and running or about to come in, and that there were different rules applying in the championship than on league 1.

I wondered at the time whether one of the problems might have been that ( like many fans at the time) he didn't believe that ffp was a "thing"/didn't understand it/didn't think it would happen or affect us. I  could well imagine that it could have been an issue to cause "disagreement" between the manager and board/owner. If he thought ( as did many fans ) that this was just an excuse for SL not sticking his hand in his pocket to back him, then it would also explain his not filling the bench as some sort of demonstration against the owner's lack of financial support.

Given how strongly SL obviously felt about the move towards sustainability and meeting ffp requirements, as evidenced by the way he has followed through that strategy in subsequent years, you can see how it could easily have convinced SL that with Cotts in charge he would have a continual battle over the future strategy. Obviously SL knew LJ and at the time LJ had a growing reputation as a young coach/manager, but in particular one with modern and progressive thinking.

Particularly with hindsight it is easy to see why SL would have decided to make a change and bring in LJ, but at the time you can also understand why the decision rankled with many fans. Costs was the hero, who only a year before had given many the best season ever, brought the feel good factor back to the club and high expectation for out first season back in the championship. For it to go sour so quickly was in itself a shock, and i think many fans were equally shocked when LJ was appointed. 

You have to remember that at the time SL was not regarded by many fans as he is now, and there was widespread scepticism about his 5 pillars and plans for sustainability, with many voicing their opinions that SL no longer wanted to put his money into the club. In that context LJ was seen as the cheap option, with SL appointing his mate as a yes man who wouldn't be prepared to stand up to the owner. Many felt that this was also a reason why SL didn't appoint one of many capable and experienced managers, whose names were bandied round as being very interested in the City job.

When LJ then went on his very rocky first couple of seasons, and in particular the long losing streak, it only served to cement in many fans eyes the folly of  appointing him in the first place and to enable them to make a comparison with what they thought Cotts would have gone on to achieve given the same time as LJ. As a result, and through  rose coloured glasses, Cotts' acquired an almost legendary status, which in a way he deserves, for delivering an exceptional season - for many the best they have experienced. 

For both Cotts and LJ I think it is all about time an place. Cotts was the right manager for us at the time he was appointed, and his achievements moved us from where we were ( a dark place indeed!) to where we needed to be - the championship. However, it is also easy to forget that under Cotts we were heading back to league 1. Would Cotts have achieved what LJ is now achieving? Obviously we can never know, but I think that LJ has the ability to take the club further than would Cotts, given all the same factors ( financial support, player acquisition) and that is mainly because he sees the bigger picture i.e. the club's long term strategy, and is willing to work within the owners plan, even though he may not alway be happy with the restrictions. 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

No he didn’t. Check the timelines.  It’s been mentioned many times on here. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35333639

Not far off...held responsible (by the club at least) for recruitment in 2014 albeit under a consultancy agreement.

Givenhe was appointed on a permanent basis 2 days after Cotterill left it could be assumed the Lansdowns saw him as a more valuable asset than Cotterill.

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11 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35333639

Not far off...held responsible (by the club at least) for recruitment in 2014 albeit under a consultancy agreement.

Givenhe was appointed on a permanent basis 2 days after Cotterill left it could be assumed the Lansdowns saw him as a more valuable asset than Cotterill.

Yes, alleged that he was in place well ahead of official announcement too, I.e. oversaw the sacking. 

Pretty well documented on here (and other sources) too that the recruitment stuff MA brought in (scouting system/ database rather than involved in the actual deal making) was not used by Cotts. 

Whatever your view on Cotts, he brought us good times, but he also didn’t help himself with “his ways”

Shame really. 

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4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yes, alleged that he was in place well ahead of official announcement too, I.e. oversaw the sacking. 

Pretty well documented on here (and other sources) too that the recruitment stuff MA brought in (scouting system/ database rather than involved in the actual deal making) was not used by Cotts. 

Whatever your view on Cotts, he brought us good times, but he also didn’t help himself with “his ways”

Shame really. 

Good summary, I get the impression that the club wasn't big enough for the both of them so Ashton's services were dispensed with as choosing him over SC at that time would have appeared scandalous.

Think Lansdown gave Cotterill enough rope to hang himself upon our return to the Championship and once we were in a place where sacking SC was no longer unthinkable and wouldn't have led to widespread outcry from the fans he brought back MA who presumably was his preference all along.

 

 

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13 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Do you now accept that Cotts brought through young and inexperienced players?  That was the thrust of your opinion, and the thrust of my response.

Bloody heck Dave, we've already got big cock talk in this thread, now you go and bring thrusts into it...  Dont encourage it ffs, gawd knows where this can go now..

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