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2 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

I give you Cardiff and Swansea, two of our closest and most comparable rivals. 

Both below us in the league pyramid when SL took over Bristol City in 2001.

Compare their achievements to ours over the past 20 years. Quarter finals of a major european competition, two major cup final appearances, multiple seasons in the Premier League including top half finishes, multiple promotions to the Premier League. 

All done with a very similar level of investment to us, probably less in the case of Swansea.

Be interested to hear you, or indeed SL, argue your way out of that one.

To be clear, we aren't talking about both clubs being a little more successful than us, they have completely dwarfed our achievements since SL has been in charge, starting from a lower position. 

I believe that both the clubs you mention has the benefit of new stadia and significant investment and were well under way with their projects before FFP. Personally I do not follow the fortunes of other clubs because I am not a football fan but a Bristol City fan. On the rare occasions when I have had to watch a none Bristol City match, I find myself wishing it was over because I have no emotional engagement.  The two clubs that you mentioned also have had the benefit of parachute payments.  Our project is working to a different timescale and strategy with the aim of being sustainable.  The infrastructure income should prove very useful in this respect.  I remain very optimistic but do not mind if success is not immediate because we are competing in a very difficult league under difficult rules with teams that have the massive advantage of parachute payments.  I like the fact that so many fans are angry and frustrated that we have not won promotion yet. The fact is that we are, to one degree or another, in contention. I find it exciting and will not criticise the club for trying to do things in a sustainable manner. Makes very good sense to me.

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2 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Its not easy to produce those players consistently every season. Especially Kelly who is one of England's most promising centre backs. Under 21 regular.

The ones we sell from coming through academy or young signing sold for a profit is what pays our huge wage bill and is what generates transfer funds isn't it?

It seems hard enough as it is. But to go CAT 1 could really make things difficult financially. Though I am not one that really reads into all the financial stuff so better people on here for all that!

Another thing is would being Cat 1 really make us much stronger? Can we even pinch the best youth from cat 2 or lower academies around the country?

We would still be competing with the other cat 1 clubs to pinch some of those. And if they see a pathway at their cat 2 club then they might not want to move to a completely different part of the county to join us anyway.

 

Does Southampton's academy and the clubs approach make it more likely or less to produce the players it does from its academy?

How would an extra million (or two) pounds a season make things difficult financially for BCFC?  Academy costs are exempt v financial fair play rules. If viewed financially the academy has been a large profit making financial success. The FC loses money. 

Your last paragraph. Joe Bryan did not, neither Kelly and Reid. Bristol City's competition in the South West is  Argyle, Exeter, Rovers ... 

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1 minute ago, JonDolman said:

I think it costs a fair bit more than an extra million or 2 doesn't it?

Academy running costs are circa two million a season at Cat 1, Cat 2 its below a million - Figure for Cat 2 was 800k when City gained cat 2 status. 

Clubs can and do spend a lot more e.g. Man City.

 

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4 hours ago, glos old boy said:

Its not our ground we just play in it like others do, at a cost, we (the club) have no say on its occupants or its use.

What actual share does our club get from the catering/concerts corperate use etc? Can you give me a clue what this flow of income is/will be?

Many competitors have also passed us by while we just stay here nice and safe, persistantly cashing in on our assets and going no-where, nothing against our new manager (apart from his lack of exp) but there our so much better exp managers out there who could of put some fire and belief in the fans bellys, another chance for BCFC to make a mark....missed. 

Your last 2 sentences are a little superfan`ish imo, there are many fans who have/will follow our club all over the country and in all 4 divisions, whatever/forever.

I’d hope that a manager/head coach’s job is to put fire and belief into the bellies of the players. If he does that and it translates into performances on the pitch,  then surely that is what puts fire and belief into fans’ bellies. 

As an example, Mourinho was just the sort of better, experienced manager to put fire back into the bellies of Manu (and Spurs) fans who could;t wait to see the back of him! By comparison OGS was an underwhelming appointment, but he seems to have managed what Mourinho failed to do, as far as the team performing on the pitch is concerned.

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2 hours ago, awbb said:

Not that I am usually one to let facts get in the way of some mudslinging but laying the appointments of Lumsden and Osman at Lansdown’s door is mighty harsh!

Agreed. Way off beam with those I think. But hey, why let fact get in the way of a good rant.

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3 hours ago, Banjo Island said:

How have we learnt from our mistakes jon over the years lansdown has given us lumsden osman fawthrop tinnion and millen and now holden i cant see how weve learnt from our mistakes 

He came up trumps with Alan Dicks, Joe Jordan, and Terry Cooper to be fair...

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1 hour ago, Bat Fastard said:

For strategic reasons the ground is owned by another company within the group and all have the same owners.  Nothing wrong with that at all. In unforeseen difficult circumstances this could prove very useful! 
 

Unforseen circumstances? I thought, in your own words “I reckon that we are pretty well set and we have a great future.” - Please be consistent. 

You can hardly complain about the cash that SL puts into Bristol City and how he funds other clubs within the group.  You may have missed the times that he wrote off some pretty massive debts.

Sorry, small detail you missed. It’s interesting you were criticising Bolton and Wigan, when, under SL we did exactly the same thing (over spent) but just proportionally less, in the division below. The result, SL pays £50m to clear the debt, debt that was largely of his own making. So, not so different after all. 

It is a long race and has not finished yet. We do not have the benefit of parachute payments and we have to live within the constraints of FFP.  The income from the various infrastructure initiatives should help us be even more competitive as time goes on.

I don’t subscribe to the idea of promotion at any cost, but just out of interest, how long is this long race? Bare in mind SL has been owner for what, nearly 20 years?? Not because I’m in a rush personally to the prem, but because this lazy attitude of ‘it takes as long as it takes’ is a general excuse for incompetence IMO. I believe many others also subscribe to this, hence why they can asks questions....

I am not a super-fan but just an old duffer who loves his football club and finds it difficult to see why other fans adopt such negative attitudes towards every aspect of Bristol City instead of supporting enthusiastically.  I do not give conditional support as long as the club choose a manager or players that pass my personal tests of approval. I respect the highly intelligent board and owners and believe that they will do their best for the club after considering all the evidence. That does not mean that they will get everything right, because they are human beings, but I will not condemn them for any mistakes, just as I would not condemn a player for missing what looks like a simple chance.
 

If you find such support offensive, then I think that you have more of a problem than I do. 
 

You’re the one who keeps referring to other peoples kind of support, in fact you seem very keen to keep telling other people they have the ‘problem’, talking about how your support is unconditional, even that others ‘should go support someone else’. I think you even used the word ‘pgymies’. Personally, with that evidence, I’d perhaps stop and take a moment to reflect on what I was writing, not others. 
 

 

 

 

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56 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

 

Nothing wrong with having a prudent business model and being optimistic - the two go together very well. This IS consistent.  One could be optimistic because everything is well considered and assembled.

Please consider the difference between overspending that can be paid off by a wealthy owner and overspending that cannot be paid off. There is a subtle difference.

Nobody can tell how long it will take to get promotion because it will depend upon many variables. As long as we keep making progress we will be in with a good chance. Nobody really knows if there has been incompetence at the club because we do not know what has happened or is happening now.  All we can do is guess. Some on here take a very negative view and make up all sorts of stuff and then seem to believe it, others accept that we know nothing but are in good hands and as we can do nothing about it, we have to accept what happens and support our football club. There was never a time when Bristol City was ever run as a democracy....... unless you know better, of course!

Maybe Lilliputians would have been more accurate.

 

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15 hours ago, RedZepperin said:

He did mention Danny Wilson though.

 

He did indeed. I thought ok well he has kept that thought unto himself for what 20 years? So everytime a manager asked for funds I wonder if that crept up on the top of his cranium like an itch? It is quite common that. I suspect it did around the time Steve C went off on his holidays.

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5 hours ago, JonDolman said:

SL will be the first to admit the club made big mistakes over many years from when he took over.

As long as we have learnt from those mistakes, which to me it seems we have in how we now run the club.

When you say "the club" and "we" you mean SL dont you ? and by previously employing managers from within the club and failing and now doing the exact same thing how has ("we" "the club") SL learned from prev "easy option"  decisions exactly ? seems same old same old to me.

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4 hours ago, JonDolman said:

In how we run the club. We have a clear philosophy now which has got us to where we are.

Just because some inexperienced managers failed doesn't mean this one will.

Plenty of examples of inexperienced managers doing superb jobs. So for me the way the club is run was the big thing that needed changing, which we have now done.

Hows that then its still run by SL, who has the last say on everything, people he employs still get chucked under a bus and the "sustainability" "5 pillars" plan  still reigns supreme.

Meanwhile our club seems to like treading water and hoping that one day we will move forward a bit and we still dream of swimming in the big pond.

I can see we are still in the same div we were in over 50yrs ago.

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1 minute ago, JonDolman said:

I'm not talking about the appointment of the manager. I'm talking about how the club is run. Its very different to how it was years ago.

You are right we are now part of something much bigger and I think many fans miss how "it was years ago" pride, passion and belief seem long gone, replaced by corperate waffle and sustainability.

All thats left is hope that maybe this season which fades as each season passes.

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7 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

I've mentioned how we do things differently to how we used to do things above. 

We are not spending crazy money just to try and stay in the championship. Its a lot better how we are doing it now, and having built a very good squad of players.

We always build but always knock it down angain .....and where did this very good squad of players end up last season........lower than the season before I believe.

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4 minutes ago, glos old boy said:

You are right we are now part of something much bigger and I think many fans miss how "it was years ago" pride, passion and belief seem long gone, replaced by corperate waffle and sustainability.

All thats left is hope that maybe this season which fades as each season passes.

:reaper:

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5 hours ago, JonDolman said:

Its not easy to produce those players consistently every season. Especially Kelly who is one of England's most promising centre backs. Under 21 regular.

The ones we sell from coming through academy or young signing sold for a profit is what pays our huge wage bill and is what generates transfer funds isn't it?

It seems hard enough as it is. But to go CAT 1 could really make things difficult financially. Though I am not one that really reads into all the financial stuff so better people on here for all that!

Another thing is would being Cat 1 really make us much stronger? Can we even pinch the best youth from cat 2 or lower academies around the country?

We would still be competing with the other cat 1 clubs to pinch some of those. And if they see a pathway at their cat 2 club then they might not want to move to a completely different part of the county to join us anyway.

 

I have no opinion on Cat1, because I know so little about it and how it differs to Cat2, so can’t debate that bit.  Just using your post as a place to link.

@Lrrr has mentioned costs of getting and running Cat1....and I get the point others have made in terms of going back to SL and asking for a couple / few million when he’s already subsidising the football losses.

However, if youth is a genuine strategy and theoretically Cat1 will produce more and / or better players (I could be talking out of my arse) then those costs can be excluded from FFP.  That adds a different dimension to just extra cost.  It could be a trade-off....you can have £3m a year on Academy, but you’ve got to stick within £10m losses (instead of £13m).

Just throwing out the idea.

It might show more than lip-service to “youth”.  I dunno?

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1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I have no opinion on Cat1, because I know so little about it and how it differs to Cat2

Generally

  • Cost of taking another player
  • Cost owed if a pinched player goes on to play games in the 1st team (think its every 10 games up to a certain point)
  • Number of hours training required per week
  • Increased staff numbers required in certain roles
  • Certain facilities 
  • Ability to recruit nationwide under the age of 16 - Say Preston had a wonder kid, we'd have to wait until he was 16 to make a move at cat 2, cat 1 can move for them younger.

Probably some others too

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5 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

Nothing wrong with having a prudent business model and being optimistic - the two go together very well. This IS consistent.  One could be optimistic because everything is well considered and assembled.

Find me one City fan who disagrees with a prudent business model. Please do, fine me a quote, or a thread. 
 

Optimism has nothing to do with anything. What does optimism get you?   

5 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

Please consider the difference between overspending that can be paid off by a wealthy owner and overspending that cannot be paid off. There is a subtle difference.

So let me get this right, you think it’s OK for us to overspend when SL can pick up the bill? I thought you advocated for prudent business models. Which one is it?

5 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

Nobody can tell how long it will take to get promotion because it will depend upon many variables. 
 

Expand please. What are you variables?

 

As long as we keep making progress we will be in with a good chance. Nobody really knows if there has been incompetence at the club because we do not know what has happened or is happening now.  All we can do is guess.

So how do we know if  there has been competence at the club? How do you know the correct decisions are being made? It’s just a guess right? Unless you believe they are taken with the correct intentions, it’s Ok? What if we’re in the relegation zone in December?
 

Some on here take a very negative view and make up all sorts of stuff and then seem to believe it, others accept that we know nothing but are in good hands and as we can do nothing about it, we have to accept what happens and support our football club. There was never a time when Bristol City was ever run as a democracy....... unless you know better, of course!

 

So the negative views know nothing, but those with the positive know more? I find it astounding that you sit there believing you’re working on some kind of higher level because you’ve accepted you can do nothing about it. I think you are the epitome of ignorance. But that’s my humble opinion.

5 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

Maybe Lilliputians would have been more accurate.

 


My question to you is, why are you here? On the forum, that is, why are you here? 

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4 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

Find me one City fan who disagrees with a prudent business model. Please do, fine me a quote, or a thread. 

Judging by some of the posts on here there are many who wouldn't recognise a prudent business model if it bit them on the arse.
 

Optimism has nothing to do with anything. What does optimism get you? 

Optimism gives the drive for  achievement. Would explorers ever set off without optimism - or engineers design cutting edge technology, or would business people start businesses? Would a footballer try an audacious bit of skill or an outrageous attempt at goal?

So let me get this right, you think it’s OK for us to overspend when SL can pick up the bill? I thought you advocated for prudent business models. Which one is it?

It is prudent to know ones financial limits - I reckon that SL knows his better than people on this forum - maybe apart from you, of course.

So the negative views know nothing, but those with the positive know more? I find it astounding that you sit there believing you’re working on some kind of higher level because you’ve accepted you can do nothing about it. I think you are the epitome of ignorance. But that’s my humble opinion.

Kind of you to state your view, I will try to be more pessimistic in future if it makes you feel happy.


My question to you is, why are you here? On the forum, that is, why are you here? 

I am interested in trying to get people to understand that we can achieve more with a positive approach and that means supporting our team in an enthusiastic way. There are some on here who only criticise and even boast that they haven't been to a match in years because of some snowflake reason or another.

 

 

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On 30/08/2020 at 21:08, Phileas Fogg said:

Also, why were there dedicated questions on City Women? I know this’ll read badly so I hope people don’t take it the wrong way - but I’m sure 0% of listeners tuned in to hear about City Women’s team.

My question would be why don’t you fund the women’s side to compete at the top end of the league. 

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On 31/08/2020 at 08:29, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Did you think so?  I thought his response to the question about Birmingham was measured and reasonable.  He says he didn’t see that six weeks was particularly long to make such an important appointment, and that he was pleased we didn’t rush the appointment by appointing the first candidate who seemed appointable.  I think it was a very good point.  It is quite common in business for the candidate who seems strongest on paper to reveal shortcomings and unsuitability when interviewed.  Sometimes this has to be tested further by a second interview process, because the important thing is to get it right.  It takes an awfully long time to recover from making the wrong appointment.

Agree. I don’t recall how long the recruitment process for Steve Coppell took, but you can imagine Lansdown learning from that experience. 

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34 minutes ago, eardun said:

Agree. I don’t recall how long the recruitment process for Steve Coppell took, but you can imagine Lansdown learning from that experience. 

certainly, take longer to think about it this time and then choose someone aleady on the books and has little to no exp, I mean not like its failed before and before......but maybe this time it will um ......fail again.

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3 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

Judging by some of the posts on here there are many who wouldn't recognise a prudent business model if it bit them on the arse.

Steady now! Given your experience and knowledge of a prudent business plan, i'm surprised your not on your yacht in the south of France as you type, perhaps you could become a board member? 

Optimism gives the drive for  achievement. Would explorers ever set off without optimism - or engineers design cutting edge technology, or would business people start businesses? Would a footballer try an audacious bit of skill or an outrageous attempt at goal?

How many people have died climbing Mount Everest? I suspect they all set off with optimism....

It is prudent to know ones financial limits - I reckon that SL knows his better than people on this forum - maybe apart from you, of course.

So it's OK to knowingly, yet 'prudently' piss, excuse my coarse language, £50m against the wall? Doesn't say too much for that person's judegment, in my opinion. But hey, what do I know, 50 million here, 50 million there, peanuts for those with a prudent business model.

Kind of you to state your view, I will try to be more pessimistic in future if it makes you feel happy.

Your opinion one way or the other has no bearings on my happiness.

I am interested in trying to get people to understand that we can achieve more with a positive approach and that means supporting our team in an enthusiastic way. There are some on here who only criticise and even boast that they haven't been to a match in years because of some snowflake reason or another.

I am interested in why someone, who self professes to have a relaxed, and 'what will be will be' attitude to everything BCFC spends quite so much time on a football fans forum, set up to debate all things Bristol City.

@bcfc01- I'm just imagining OTIB made up of people with the same attitude....

Wupid Stanker said "So what we going to talk about today lads?"

Job Knockey said "Oh nothing, another day sticking with the plan guys!"

Fick Dace said "Yeah, but we lost and we're in the relegation zone....?"

Bat Fastard said "Now now, no negativity here, stick to the plan guys, these guys know what they're doing"

Wupid Stanker said "Yeah come on @Fick Dace, these guys are very rich and know what they're doing"

Bat Fastard said "Absolutely, and highly intelligent. You have to trust them...because"

Fick Dace said "Right, OK. So...nice weather..."

 

 

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