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Bat Fastard

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9 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

You keep mention ‘talented’ people at the club and now use that reference to the board.  

How has the board’s history with this shambles of a club actually proved they have any talent whatsoever at running a football club??

I’m intrigued

We are pretty well regarded as a club "on the up". Refurbished stadium, new training ground, supportive owner and a desire to build via a youth policy.  Of course there will be bumps in the road and we are currently hitting one. That does not mean that our people are not talented.

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1 minute ago, Bat Fastard said:

We cannot know what goes on behind the scene.  My instinct is to build and support because I reckon that that would be the cheapest and best way forward.  Klopp would struggle to get our currently available players to play as we would wish to see them play.  My neighbour is a Liverpool supporter and he is very highly critical of their manager because their form is not a good as last season.  Our opinions are projected by our life experiences.  I have never been divorced and yet some people seem to do this quite often. Are they happier as a result?  I have no idea.

So, in summary, stubborn facts get in the way according to you, but you present no facts and you will go on instinct instead, because you reckon.....

You just summed up several hundred / thousands (?) of your recent posts in this one.

 

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1 minute ago, Bat Fastard said:

You cannot know any of those things.  Mark Ashton is the hands on guy in charge because SL does not want to be in that role and lives on Guernsey.  That would not change unless by a like for like replacement or Jon stepping up.

I think it’s pretty clear that if Cook was here, Ashton wouldn’t be.

Lansdown - Jon or/and Steve - I speculate to suggest, had a choice. Appoint Cook and have a clear out of the back office or appoint Holden and maintain the status quo. 

Again, I speculate to suggest, Steve - being semi-retired - didn’t want the costs and particularly the hassle of a major backroom clear out, with the added disincentives of having to adopt a more hands-on role and being seen to ditch both of ‘his’ leadership appointees -LJ/MA - in such a short timeframe. He couldn’t delegate the role to Jon. 

Consequence, the easy and soft option of Holden/Ashton together with Ashton’s backroom ‘support’ team.

 

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1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

So, in summary, stubborn facts get in the way according to you, but you present no facts and you will go on instinct instead, because you reckon.....

You just summed up several hundred / thousands (?) of your recent posts in this one.

 

Well you can analyse how we get width and pace into our play using existing available players.  We cannot magic up these solutions. I have yet to hear any realistic answers beyond sacking people in management.  Any new chap would be faced with the same problems.  If you have the magic answer, please express it.

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2 minutes ago, RedRock said:

I think it’s pretty clear that if Cook was here, Ashton wouldn’t be.

Lansdown - Jon or/and Steve - I speculate to suggest, had a choice. Appoint Cook and have a clear out of the back office or appoint Holden and maintain the status quo. 

Again, I speculate to suggest, Steve - being semi-retired - didn’t want the costs and particularly the hassle of a major backroom clear out, with the added disincentives of having to adopt a more hands-on role and being seen to ditch both of ‘his’ leadership appointees -LJ/MA - in such a short timeframe. He couldn’t delegate the role to Jon. 

Consequence, the easy and soft option of Holden/Ashton together with Ashton’s backroom ‘support’ team.

 

You may well be right - we will never know. Covid and financial fair play when our income is constrained may also be issues.  Again we can only speculate. The injury crisis of real and hitting right now and that (in my humble opinion) is the main problem today.

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2 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

We are pretty well regarded as a club "on the up". Refurbished stadium, new training ground, supportive owner and a desire to build via a youth policy.  Of course there will be bumps in the road and we are currently hitting one. That does not mean that our people are not talented.

Yeah, and I’ll bet if you asked anyone in the football world about what they know of Bristol City on the pitch, they’ll reply that we’re perennail under-achievers  ....... at least that’s something we’re consistent at!

All the things you mention are great in themselves, but count for zilch if you keep ballsing up things on the playing side, as that is our ‘shop window’.  

As for bumps in the road, this is a pretty big one as, save for a couple of months, it’s lasted since 2015 and we still seem no closer to sorting it out!

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Just now, Bat Fastard said:

Well you can analyse how we get width and pace into our play using existing available players.  We cannot magic up these solutions. I have yet to hear any realistic answers beyond sacking people in management.  Any new chap would be faced with the same problems.  If you have the magic answer, please express it.

You are looking in the wrong place.  Look beyond your own created thread.

I write more than enough on tactical systems, personnel for those systems without repeating them here....just for you.

Perhaps rather than post back on here, go and read some of my 30k+ posts, and many of the other posters on this thread, who write far more besides this thread, much of which is coming up with countless answers / ideas.  Some of the posters on this thread (not me btw) are or have been involved in the professional game.  One in particular has worked directly for an ex-England manager.

But continue to keep your instincts to this thread, but you’re missing a whole world of excellent posters and post on the rest of OTIB.

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49 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

 

I admire your optimism matey, as you seem to keep assuming all staff employed by our club are at the very least, good at what they do, or maybe even experts.  

Evidence would seem go suggest that what we actually have is a disfunctional group who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.

 

Now I don't agree with this.

do believe that the current group could organise said piss-up, but - and leaving aside the liveliness or otherwise of the aforementioned liquid gathering, and the likely worthy aim of it to include sustainability and such like, and perhaps trying to make it a family friendly occasion with "pop" and balloons, and a bubble machine, and Mr Downsy organising some games and handing out lollipops and trite cheerfulness, rather than just going hell fer leather at it to get shit-faced - if people were also organising piss-ups around the country in say Norwich, Brentford, Barnsley and so on, and somebody decided to make a competition out of all these piss-ups, then we would never be in the top three of piss-ups, or top six. And we would excuse this by saying that the Watford and Swansea piss-ups had more money to throw at it, and ignoring the sad truth that this didn't appear to be an obstacle to the Brentford piss-up. 

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26 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

I come on here less these days because it tends to be that people compete to be as negative as possible and soon resort to sackings as the only remedy.  Businesses and football teams are built either with lots of investment or by organic growth. We are not permitted under the rules to expect SL to use his vast wealth to give us instant gratification and so we must build.  Continually tearing down the old management and replacing it with new people in the hope that you might do better next time usually leads to squads chosen by multiple managers and players who have to be moved on for a variety of reasons. This cannot build a really settled squad and certainly not an enterprise decicated to building by developing youth.  We have a little local difficulty and there is no need to turn a drama into a crisis.

So you do come on here to debate?

I think, if I may say, that you have fallen into the trap that many posters like you do. They come on here, see only the extreme views of negativity and focus on that.

You have your opinions, I have mine, other's have theres. Just because your opinions centre around supporting the club, doesn't put you on some higher level.

You and other posters like yourself (in fairness to you, this isn't solely you), IMO, are no different to those negative posters you mention. They express their frustrations towards the club, you in return on them. Different opinions, same actions. After all, why bother commenting and creating threads like this, if you didn't get frustrated by them and want to put you voice across?

Putting your voice across, just like the more 'negative' posters. 

The reality is there are a hell of a lot of members of OTIB in the middle grounds, swaying slightly one way or the other and are capable of debate without fixating on other posters - and I know for a fact that our debate on here is important, because our thoughts and moods are read by local press which in turn effects their questions to the club, which in turn effects the clubs actions. 

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32 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

We cannot know what goes on behind the scene.  My instinct is to build and support because I reckon that that would be the cheapest and best way forward.  Klopp would struggle to get our currently available players to play as we would wish to see them play.  

An opinion.  

Using your example here of one of the greatest coaches in the world and a great club we could come to an informed  - What Mr Klopp did instantly at Liverpool was outline what his football would be. He then quickly proceeded to move players into the XI and out of playing at all dependant of whether they had the skill sets to meet the big picture of what the football would be. 

Mr Klopp uses a clear methodology of big picture, storm (arc of change), norm, perform.

Mr Holden has not started the arc of change. He is doing something entirely different. 

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12 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

You are looking in the wrong place.  Look beyond your own created thread.

I write more than enough on tactical systems, personnel for those systems without repeating them here....just for you.

Perhaps rather than post back on here, go and read some of my 30k+ posts, and many of the other posters on this thread, who write far more besides this thread, much of which is coming up with countless answers / ideas.  Some of the posters on this thread (not me btw) are or have been involved in the professional game.  One in particular has worked directly for an ex-England manager.

But continue to keep your instincts to this thread, but you’re missing a whole world of excellent posters and post on the rest of OTIB.

Life is too short to spend more time on here. I dip in and out because I have better things to do than spend all day on the forum.  I will simply follow my eyes and reason and continue supporting City.  I don't believe that my theorising or even the theorising of worthies on here adds up to a hill of beans.  We can analyse until the cows come home but can influence nothing.  Its all a bit futile really. Such is life.

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29 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

We are pretty well regarded as a club "on the up". Refurbished stadium, new training ground, supportive owner and a desire to build via a youth policy.  Of course there will be bumps in the road and we are currently hitting one. That does not mean that our people are not talented.

This is what people who don’t know about Bristol City would say, yes. Much as commentators were describing our play under Johnson as ‘easy on the eye’ for about three years after we last played attractive football. 
 

If I was a fan of another club I’d probably wonder what Bristol City fans were moaning about - surely we should be happy as a mid table championship side given our history?

But that unequivocally misses the point. We have seen the awful football we’ve played for years and, in recent months have seen any kind of off the field philosophy (which arguably there was under Johnson) completely binned. And we have been told, repeatedly, by the club that we are a premier league club in waiting on the one hand, and yet see with our own eyes the club’s miserable lack of ambition or willingness to go outside their comfort zone. The club has become a shambles, not in the way that we used to be, but in the way in which it has cheerfully lost its soul and assumed all of us would be happy about it. 

 

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Just now, Cowshed said:

An opinion.  

Using your example here of one of the greatest coaches in the world and a great club we could come to an informed  - What Mr Klopp did instantly was outline what his football would be. He then quickly proceeded to move players into the XI and out of playing at all dependant of whether they had the skill sets to meet the big picture of what the football would be. 

Mr Klopp uses a clear methodology of big picture, storm (arc of change), norm, perform.

Mr Holden has not started the arc of change. He is doing something entirely different. 

My point was that the fan did not see any of that but blamed Klopp for what he regards as a failing season. I told him he was daft!

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6 minutes ago, windmillhillred said:

This is what people who don’t know about Bristol City would say, yes. Much as commentators were describing our play under Johnson as ‘easy on the eye’ for about three years after we last played attractive football. 
 

If I was a fan of another club I’d probably wonder what Bristol City fans were moaning about - surely we should be happy as a mid table championship side given our history?

But that unequivocally misses the point. We have seen the awful football we’ve played for years and, in recent months have seen any kind of off the field philosophy (which arguably there was under Johnson) completely binned. And we have been told, repeatedly, by the club that we are a premier league club in waiting on the one hand, and yet see with our own eyes the club’s miserable lack of ambition or willingness to go outside their comfort zone. The club has become a shambles, not in the way that we used to be, but in the way in which it has cheerfully lost its soul and assumed all of us would be happy about it. 

 

I agree that the football has not been very good in the last couple of years but I wonder if this is due to short term problems, such as those we face now, or basic methodology.  I still find great attraction in building a team with a youth policy and I hope we stich to that plan however much we are frustrated by "bumps in the road".

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11 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

My point was that the fan did not see any of that but blamed Klopp for what he regards as a failing season. I told him he was daft!

He is daft. Teams go through cycles. Mr Klopp is successful and the culture and principles he puts into place make success more likely.

There is little relevance  to BCFC here. Mr Holden is not putting into place similar. Mr Holdens methodology is with respect unclear.  You made a point about would any others do better? Its not unreasonable to expect to see parts of Mr Holden big picture on the pitch now.  Other Managers would do this quickly.

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1 minute ago, Cowshed said:

He is daft. Teams go through cycles. Mr Klopp is successful and the culture and principles he puts into place make success more likely.

There is little relevance  to BCFC here. Mr Holden is not putting into place similar. Mr Holdens methodology is with respect unclear.  You mage a point about would any others do better? Its not unreasonable to expect to see parts of Mr Holden big picture on the pitch now. Other Managers would do this quickly.

At the risk of repeating previous posts, I don't think we will see the true Dean Holden during a crisis like the one we are currently facing.  He would have agreed his "masterplan" with Mark Ashton and the other coaches and this would have been approved by the Lansdown family.  Trying to implement that plan is clearly very difficult right now.

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28 minutes ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

Now I don't agree with this.

do believe that the current group could organise said piss-up, but - and leaving aside the liveliness or otherwise of the aforementioned liquid gathering, and the likely worthy aim of it to include sustainability and such like, and perhaps trying to make it a family friendly occasion with "pop" and balloons, and a bubble machine, and Mr Downsy organising some games and handing out lollipops and trite cheerfulness, rather than just going hell fer leather at it to get shit-faced - if people were also organising piss-ups around the country in say Norwich, Brentford, Barnsley and so on, and somebody decided to make a competition out of all these piss-ups, then we would never be in the top three of piss-ups, or top six. And we would excuse this by saying that the Watford and Swansea piss-ups had more money to throw at it, and ignoring the sad truth that this didn't appear to be an obstacle to the Brentford piss-up. 

???
Sounds about right, so even compting in the second tier of the piss up in a brewery league, we still couldn’t make top six.

Sadly, that sums this club up perfectly. 

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11 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

Thanks Fordy. I admit that I am wilting somewhat and running out of steam.  I wish the current problems could be reinvented.

There is showing support, and there is blind faith. I think most of us now want to be proactive in reversing the collapse in form and results rather than just keeping our fingers crossed. 

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1 minute ago, TonyTonyTony said:

There is showing support, and there is blind faith. I think most of us now want to be proactive in reversing the collapse in form and results rather than just keeping our fingers crossed. 

Have you any suggestion beyond replacing the head coach though?

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1 minute ago, Bat Fastard said:

At the risk of repeating previous posts, I don't think we will see the true Dean Holden during a crisis like the one we are currently facing.  He would have agreed his "masterplan" with Mark Ashton and the other coaches and this would have been approved by the Lansdown family.  Trying to implement that plan is clearly very difficult right now.

If Dean Holden has a plan at all it should be implemented at all times.

After what is now a significant period of time we should now be able to see the  keystone behaviours of what will be his football.

He is putting onto the pitch teams that are now freezing and flighting not fighting.  The team lacks intensity, work rate, they are passive. Its not front foot football. That is a reflection of the person Managing and coaching them.  There are no excuses that must be put right very very soon. 

 

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1 minute ago, Bat Fastard said:

Have you any suggestion beyond replacing the head coach though?

To get us out of the immediate situation - no, however we look bereft of ideas on the pitch - irrespective of injuries. We are a sinking ship. A fresh pair of eyes and experience is required. In the longer term the whole organisation needs looking at - that includes coaching, recruitment, and leadership positions.

 

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2 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

To get us out of the immediate situation - no, however we look bereft of ideas on the pitch - irrespective of injuries. We are a sinking ship. A fresh pair of eyes and experience is required. In the longer term the whole organisation needs looking at - that includes coaching, recruitment, and leadership positions.

 

All that may be ideal but I cannot see how it would transform this season whilst we have half a squad.

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5 hours ago, Bat Fastard said:

We HAVE recruited England youth coaches. They are experienced in bringing on young players.  At the same time, amid all the injuries, covid, financial constraints and the like - they are under pressure to get results. If we played all young players in this league, we would likely be relegated.  There has to be a balance of old and young and that is all thrown out of the window if you lose all your left footers and have to play half the team out of position.  Whilst they are struggling with all these difficulties, my solution is to understand their plight and support them. Others on here seem to want to give them a good kicking when they are down.  Our higher impact players will return at some stage and after they have been nursed back to full match fitness, we may well see a different type of performance on the pitch.

These England youth coaches were only England youth coaches because they couldn’t get jobs with football, league clubs. This happens a lot, out of work coaches will take anything that’s about, until they can get back into the pro game full time.

As for “experienced in bringing on young players” I disagree, the coaches at these young players clubs are/were the people ‘bringing them on’. England youth squads would have been with our two coaches for 2-3 days before games, their clubs coaches would have coached them for 95% of the time.

The simple fact that they gave up coaching for England, to become number 2’s and 3’s at our club tells you all you need to know. 

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4 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

If Dean Holden has a plan at all it should be implemented at all times.

After what is now a significant period of time we should now be able to see the  keystone behaviours of what will be his football.

He is putting onto the pitch teams that are now freezing and flighting not fighting.  The team lacks intensity, work rate, they are passive. Its not front foot football. That is a reflection of the person Managing and coaching them.  There are no excuses that must be put right very very soon. 

 

He has no players who are able to give him width and pace.  The forwards have little opportunity to score because the do not get many decent crosses and they are not very well supported by midfield goal contributions.  Maybe when Pato gets back to full fitness, but we need a bit more than that. Left footed players needed!!

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Just now, Bat Fastard said:

He has no players who are able to give him width and pace.  The forwards have little opportunity to score because the do not get many decent crosses and they are not very well supported by midfield goal contributions.  Maybe when Pato gets back to full fitness, but we need a bit more than that. Left footed players needed!!

With respect, we haven’t played with width and pace for three years now. It was LJ who came up with this great plan in the first place,Holden has just carried it on. This is one of the main reasons we have been dire to watch for three seasons!. 

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1 minute ago, Portland Bill said:

With respect, we haven’t played with width and pace for three years now. It was LJ who came up with this great plan in the first place,Holden has just carried it on. This is one of the main reasons we have been dire to watch for three seasons!. 

We did not manage to replace Eliasson - and we really miss the assists.  But even if we had him and he sustained a torn hamstring and was out for three months, how would that help right now?  Good full backs can give width and Dasilva is a great player....but injured.  Hunt can show superb quality in delivering crosses, but looks knackered.  O'Dowda can give pace and provide excellent crosses....but he is injured. Pring, Weimann - injured. Where do we conjure up the playing qualities that we need right now?

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26 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

If Dean Holden has a plan at all it should be implemented at all times.

After what is now a significant period of time we should now be able to see the  keystone behaviours of what will be his football.

He is putting onto the pitch teams that are now freezing and flighting not fighting.  The team lacks intensity, work rate, they are passive. Its not front foot football. That is a reflection of the person Managing and coaching them.  There are no excuses that must be put right very very soon. 

 

Keystone behaviours ?

What we are watching is more like the Keystone Cops.

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