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The Lee Johnson Thread (Merged)


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If he goes there, at least that should mean we stop paying gardening leave on the remaining three years of his deal.

As for the appointment, he needs to deliver promotion - something he’s not got on his CV as a a manager. The Mackams are a massive club and the fans won’t accept his bullshit. Bar six months of his time here, they can expect uninspiring hoofball, tombola selections, players to be thrown under the bus when things go wrong, him to take the glory when things go well. Good luck to him and the long-suffering Sunderland fans. 

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3 minutes ago, tin said:

If he goes there, at least that should mean we stop paying gardening leave on the remaining three years of his deal.

As for the appointment, he needs to deliver promotion - something he’s not got on his CV as a a manager. The Mackams are a massive club and the fans won’t accept his bullshit. Bar six months of his time here, they can expect uninspiring hoofball, tombola selections, players to be thrown under the bus when things go wrong, him to take the glory when things go well. Good luck to him and the long-suffering Sunderland fans. 

Sorry, just a quickie off topic light bulb moment - Long gone chocolate bar from the 70's?

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10 minutes ago, tin said:

If he goes there, at least that should mean we stop paying gardening leave on the remaining three years of his deal.

As for the appointment, he needs to deliver promotion - something he’s not got on his CV as a a manager. The Mackams are a massive club and the fans won’t accept his bullshit. Bar six months of his time here, they can expect uninspiring hoofball, tombola selections, players to be thrown under the bus when things go wrong, him to take the glory when things go well. Good luck to him and the long-suffering Sunderland fans. 

Maybe he has learned from his mistakes here . He is an intelligent man so why would he make the same errors ? 
 

I hope he gets the job and does well. 

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56 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

@Riaz £10 to winners charity says LJ won’t make the playoffs with AFCS. 
 

By the way, @Davefevs were currently still neck and neck with who’ll have the better season for City: Morrell or Walsh! Interesting battle that one!

You missed out the important point: no sugar daddy pandering to his every whim. 

Fordy,

If @Riaz doesn’t take the bet I’m happy to. Not saying he’ll get them to the playoffs but should at least get them close.

 

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1 hour ago, petehinton said:

No chairman, owners want out, fans expect to be champions, what could possibly go wrong. Hell of a career risk. 

Or....a huge opportunity, because if he does get them going....

1 hour ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Lets hope bailey wright, hasnt bought a house up there.

And i thought my luck was bad!

LJ thinks he is great human....

1 hour ago, Lrrr said:

Don't think it'll be an issue, Bailey should be fine at league 1, just wasn't the standard needed for a play off push at championship level. If anything better for him as Johnson would probably look to him to be a leader within the squad again.

....yep, think he’ll be a go-to player in terms of acclimatising to the club.

1 hour ago, Fordy62 said:

@Riaz £10 to winners charity says LJ won’t make the playoffs with AFCS. 
 

By the way, @Davefevs were currently still neck and neck with who’ll have the better season for City: Morrell or Walsh! Interesting battle that one!

You missed out the important point: no sugar daddy pandering to his every whim. 

What’s the rules here....am I stuffed?

37 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Not sure about that, they have consistently struggled to score goals since getting relegated (Will Grigg has been a disastrous signing) & a lot of really mediocre sides like Burton & the blue few have taken points of them, hardly an indication of a squad with a lot of ability...

That having been said, he was never going to get offered a bigger job than this, I personally think they are a bit of a mess both on the field & off it, but they are a huge club (definitely top 20 in England) if someone gets them going.

Ability / potential - not necessarily fulfilling that is different.

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Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

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3 minutes ago, Mackem33 said:

Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

You have probably heard the quote when he was good he was very very good but when he was bad he was horrid well that sums up Lee to a tee.

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8 minutes ago, Mackem33 said:

Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

I think it will be a good appointment. Yes he had his streaky times but he’s passionate and made  us a solid championship team, just couldn’t take us to that next level. He also had some fans who never really got behind him, due to their belief as a player he’s was only In the team due to his father being manager. Bailey Wright was his captain, so it will be interesting  going forward.  Good luck for the future. 

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If it's any consolation many of us were pretty underwhelmed with his appointment for us.

Will always remember being at Charlton seeing him in the crowd and thinking it was a very controversial appointment. 

For us it stemmed from him as a player, he was either liked or hated by supporters and many felt he was only regularly in our side because his dad was our manager then.

This was epitomised in our play off final when our right back went off injured. Rather than bring on a replacement centre half and move a defender across that also played right back, he was brought on and arguably our best performing centre midfielder was moved to right back. 

You will have real highs with great performances  but you will also get spells of awful football and results. 

League one may suit him better, but he always felt like everything was being over compliment. 

Your fanbase will either lap up his quotes, interviews and anecdotes or you will think he's bat shit crazy.

4 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

Spanner in the works for Gloucester as well or will he find a new assistant?

 

I thought Sunderland appointed a director of football yesterday? 

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24 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Maybe he has learned from his mistakes here . He is an intelligent man so why would he make the same errors ? 
 

I hope he gets the job and does well. 

I suspect he’s too arrogant for that, Major. As always, happy to be proved wrong though. 

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Just now, E.G.Red said:

I think it will be a good appointment. Yes he had his streaky times but he’s passionate and made  us a solid championship team, just couldn’t take us to that next level. He also had some fans who never really got behind him, due to their believe as a player he’s was only In the team due to his father being manager. Bailey Wright was his captain, so it will be interesting  going forward.  Good luck for the future. 

It'll be interesting if he comes back for anyone in January? 

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He’s not a bad coach and did his level best for us.

For whatever reason he could never get us over the line. We therefor fired him and appointed somebody the board believe can.

If he came back next season he would get a clap from me.

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1 minute ago, tin said:

I suspect he’s too arrogant for that, Major. As always, happy to be proved wrong though. 

I’m not sure  it’s arrogance more over zealous . Lets  his passion run away with him which sometimes overcomplicates matters. If he keeps it simple and doesn’t overanalyse he’ll do well. I’m sure Bailey would have already given the players the heads up.

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4 minutes ago, pillred said:

You have probably heard the quote when he was good he was very very good but when he was bad he was horrid well that sums up Lee to a tee.

It was SHE, and a mention for Lee Trundle too!

There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

She stood on her head, on her little trundle bed,
With nobody by for to hinder;
She screamed and she squalled, she yelled and she bawled,
And drummed her little heels against the winder.

Her mother heard the noise, and thought it was the boys
Playing in the empty attic,
She rushed upstairs, and caught her unawares,
And spanked her, most emphatic.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Mackem33 said:

Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

Had some good times here, very under appreciated the job he done for us on here because of some weird personal agenda against the bloke, so ignore half the replies you get. But took us from certain relegation (under a manager who is a god to some on here) to a team challenging at the top end of the championship. Turned a few players into gems that we managed to sell on for a lot of money. You’ve got a good manager and I’m sure he will do a good job for you.

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4 minutes ago, Mackem33 said:

Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

Will run through highlighted parts in order

  1. Under Lee Johnson I think I've seen the best football I've seen at Ashton Gate but also some of the worst. Towards the end he focused on trying to maximise shooting position potential, upgrading xG of shots to give the shooting player the best chance to score. So you'd end up with perhaps 4 or 5 much better chances per game rather than a couple and a lot of shots from around the edge of the box. Could be frustrating to usually be out shot by the opposition. 
  2. He split the one here, but that was more due (at the start) to his history of being a player here, claims of nepotism (Gary was a former manager who signed Lee) that a small section of fans had never forgiven him for and never gave him a clean slate. He can be an extremely interesting manager to listen to when he doesn't drift to cliche's and repeat anecdotes too often. But he's an extremely hard working head coach which was evident and very innovative or adaptive of good ideas he's seen elsewhere.
  3. Lee's most successful time here was reaching the league cup semi final having beaten Man Utd in the quarters and 3 other prem teams (Palace, Watford and Stoke) along the way. People point to a lack of a play off spot here but he took over when we were facing relegation. He'd moved us in the right direction season on season but couldn't get us over the 6th place line. Given you're already at that point if he improves you guys any you'll be back in the play offs. 

Bit extras 

  • Was willing to work within a model where he had to lose his best players regularly. 
  • You will change formation/starting XI regularly, whether rotation or resting players or countering opposition etc he matched up oppositions a few times and it worked tactically, remember matching Sheffield Utd 3 at the back specifically. 
  • He worked better at developing players 23-26 than 'young' players, but did also manage to take some players older then that to another level as well. Some players haven't developed as some would hope but no manager is going to develop every player they have. Also less inclined to give academy players a chance if his neck is on the line. 

Overall I'd say he's probably a good candidate for you guys, if he can take you up he's definitely the sort of manager you'd want in place to take you from a promoted side to a mid table championship side, after our first full season under him we never looked like getting relegated under him. 

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1 minute ago, E.G.Red said:

I’m not sure  it’s arrogance more over zealous . Lets  his passion run away with him which sometimes overcomplicates matters. If he keeps it simple and doesn’t overanalyse he’ll do well. I’m sure Bailey would have already given the players the heads up.

That’s OK, you’re entitled to your opinion and I respect that. I thought the way he always refused to take any responsibility and threw players under the bus when things went wrong was extremely arrogant. The same with making bogus claims like we’ll be in the Europa League five years after he joined. I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the point. 

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14 minutes ago, Mackem33 said:

Afternoon! Sunderland fan here! 
 

interested to read the comments on this thread. As it looks like we’re about to appoint Lee Johnson, I wondered what the overall thoughts are on here in relation to him? Good appointment for us? What’s his football like? & Does he have the ability to bring together an extremely unhappy, frustrated and disheartened fan base. 
 

To explain the underwhelming reaction from the majority of our fans, we’re on the verge of announcing a takeover with a multi-billionaire, talk of Poyet coming back got a lot of us excited again, the past few years have been nothing short of painful for us Sunderland fans, so the idea of a manager coming back in who is still loved from his previous tenure, was a nice escape for a bit. 
 

We’re desperate for a bit of success, by that I mean, just a club we can love again, Donald and Co have destroyed us, selling of assets, lying about fans and making full blown stories up about us! 
 

Hopefully it’s a time to start looking forward again. 
 

Good luck for the rest of your season, would be great to see you lot go up and give the PL a really good shot! 

Ps. Bailey Wright looks a level above at this level, very impressive defender!

Cheers!

Baileys a very good pro. What sums him up is he played while injured for several weeks for the need of the club. Because of that in part he missed out on tournaments for Australia, and was probably unfairly slated.

As for LJ, you’ll find a mixed bag here. I think we’re all unanimous that it was time for him to go, but also some never really warmed to him from the start due to disliking him as a player, alleged nepotism and replacing Cotts. I personally think he’s a good manager and a decent appointment for you - needs to work with a small squad as otherwise the temptation to Tombola kicks in, but in 18/19 probably gave us the best football for many a year before it faded. He’s also prone to overthinking at times.

If you want to see the view, read the “Lee Johnson - Evolution of a Manager” thread on here.

Also, hope for a season 3 of Sunderland Til I Die. With LJ there, it’ll be like season 3 of the Office...

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32 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

Nobody has mentioned his coup de grace behavior in post match interviews.

The slagging of individual players who are then usually not seen again until he's run out of selection options (because he's done the same to half the squad).

I've seen to it! @Riaz I think you may enjoy this...

 

Hi Sunderland fans,

 

Hope you're all keeping well. I've joined the board to attempt to give you a balanced view on Lee Johnson. I'm afraid I might find this hard though as I'm sure you find out on reading this post.

 

Lee Johnson was appointed following the sacking of Steve Cotterill. Cotts had just given us our best ever season, albeit it at league one level. We won the league at a canter amassing 99 points and just for good measure we won't the Mickey Mouse trophy. Regrettably things didn't fare so well in the Championship and at the first sign of trouble, he was booted out with us third from bottom, two points from safety with half the season gone. Our chairman, Steve Lansdown offered Cotts no backing whatsoever and was very quick to pull the trigger.

 

This brought about the appointment of Lee Johnson. Poached from Barnsley where he'd done quite well. They'd eventually get promoted off the back of his start to the season, although they had recently endured their record losing streak under LJ and so the reality is that the Barnsley fans weren't exactly massively upset to see him go.

 

Things changed dramatically when LJ was appointed. you may be aware of LJ's dad Gary. He was a legend of a manager for us and took us to the play off final in 07/08 with a squad that performed well above the level of the players contained within it (remember this point). It was during this time that Steve Lansdown (owner) struck up a lasting friendship with the Johnson family - alarm bells ringing at all?

 

A closed cheque book for Steve Cotterill suddenly opened wide and players that Cotts hadn't been allowed to sign (Lee Tomlin - 20k wages, our highest earner being on 13k) were suddenly given the green light. On the back of these signings, including your own (I think) Adam Matthews, Tomlin and Peter Odemwinge, Lee Johnson guided us to safety.

 

In the coming seasons we'd see signings authorised left, right and centre. For millions and millions of pounds. Money was thrown about like we've never seen before - some (including me) would say because of Lansdown's fondness for Johnson. And we established ourselves as a team that would flatter to deceive. It cannot be ignore that admit it all Lee Johnson stumbled across a formula to have us playing scintillating football and we were neck and neck with Wolves up until Christmas at the top of the league, until we'll crumbled away in extremely poor fashion that saw us go on a remarkable streak of results that looked like that welsh train station with the really long name, these runs included a record 8/9 L's in a row and another similar run. And a number of fans took to christening him streaky Johnson as he'd manage to paper over the cracks (my opinion) with a couple of wins and a draw thereafter.

 

Signing wise, Johnson signed a lot of dross. He signed foreigners that played next to no minutes, including the NZ goalkeeper who had arguably the worst performance any player has ever had for Bristol City ever, or maybe even any football team ever. There were a few like this. Players he talk up, pay a lot and then not play.

 

Things weren't all bad on the transfer front though. He'd sign Adam Webster for 4.5m from Ipswich and sell him to Brighton for up to 26m and he signed Josh Brownhill for a pittance and sell him to Burnley for 7m (although this was pretty obviously always going to happen given his obvious talent).

 

Johnson also played a pretty uninspiring midfielder (who I'd have happily let go on a free) up top. Bobby Reid was in his last chance saloon at Bristol City when an injury crisis saw Johnson play him up front in a very successful pre season. We'd go onto sell him to Cardiff for 10m and he now remarkably pays his trade with Fulham in the Prem. Johnson can take full credit for that. 

 

He's also sell Johnathon Kodjia (15m to Villa), Aden Flint (7m - i forget whether to Cardiff or Boro) and Joe Bryan (6m Fulham), and whereas pro LJers would have you believe this was LJ's work, they were already at City (and had performed well) and so I'd suggest his credit in the transfers is extremely limited.

 

Post that defeat to Wolves, our football became awful. The worst we've ever seen at Bristol City. At the opposite end of the spectrum to what we'd seen earlier that season - hence why i used the phrase 'stumbled across a formula' earlier in this write up, it genuinely wasn't me being disingenuous. We were crap and Ashton Gate became anything but a fortress. We were weak, football was awful and more and more often fans would be calling for his head. But his good family friend Steve Lansdown stuck with him. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad, away from home we became masters of nicking a 0-1 win on the road, but this would (in my opinion) paper over the cracks of the dour home form.

 

We'd regularly enjoy a decent enough start to the season and then fade away dramatically to 8-12th spot and given the tens of millions of outgoings and then now bulging wage structure, Johnson left us with a bloated squad with players in it that we knew were quality (Tamas Kalas - 2 promotions to prom), but somehow they managed to look like sunday league players.

 

Don't get me started on playing players out of position, we'd see players shoehorned into the starting line up at the expense of someone who genuinely would play in the position that he needed to fill. Then there was the 'Johnson Tombola' - if you want a steady and consistent line up then I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Our star left winger - who'd finish last season at the top of the assist making charts, couldn't get a run of games in the team no matter how well he played - can you imagine his stats if he'd got a fair crack?

 

Then there's the credit taking. If we won "They players stuck to my plan brilliantly", if we lost he'd single players out. I seem to recall a game where we lost heavily. He brought on a sub at half time (or there abouts) with us 2 or 3 down, the proceeded to blame him when we lost 4-0. Our ability to hold a lead became nothing short of awful - do you recall when we were 3-0 up against you at half time and drew 3-3? Awful. Blaming players is something Johnson does equally as well as taking credit himself. And he's good at excuses, blaming Villa beating us on the positioning of the away fans and excuses too... there was a time when we got completely trounced by Brentford nd he said something like "After their third goal, we more than matched them" - we lost 3-0. You getting the picture yet? 

 

Now comes my favourite point about Lee Johnson. The Johnsonisms. He is completely full of shit. As i understand it, there was quite a David Brent type character on STID? I never got far enough into the series to meet him, but LJ is more than a match for him. It got to a point where i couldn't listen to him. Win lose or draw I couldn't stand hearing what he had to say. It was just an embarrassment - I hope you'll learn exactly what it is that i'm referring to - but let just say you'd be well placed to start a thread on "Johnsonisms" on your forum and it'll be well populated very quickly.

 

I'm afraid I can't bring you much joyful news about your impending appointment of Lee Johnson. There were many points during his tenure where i'd have taken anyone to replace him - literally anyone - the football was that bad.

 

He does silly things, like  measure the length of the grass, spend a shift in A&E, go to an army training camp, spend a night in the kitchen of a Michelin starred restaurant and his latest boast is to have sat down with someone who's amassed 9,000 hours of army interrogation - this is the sort of bullshit that might impress the newspapers, but in reality when he's playing a LB at CD, or a winger in CM don't really matter. He's calls them the 1%'s, but the 90%'s that matter, he couldn't seem to master.

 

So good luck Sunderland. I'm afraid to say you're going to need it. When you hear sky Sports refer to Bristol City playing a fast attacking expansive brand of football, the reality is that they're basing it on 4 months out of 5 years. The rest was rubbish. There came a point they'd say it every time we where on TV.

 

I hope that A Bristol City fan can come on here an give a good counter argument. As you can tell from above I'm absolutely no LJ fan, and I might have undersold some of his strengths (thinking about the opponent strengths rather than our own is another one). There are City fans who like him, but they tend to be the ones who deliberately ignore that he only got the job because the owner is essentially his god father and backed him with more finances that we've ever seen before.

 

Good luck lads and lasses. I fear you'll need it. Because at Sunderland he'll be without his biggest strength - Steve Lansdown.

 

Fordy

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

I've seen to it! @Riaz I think you may enjoy this...

 

Hi Sunderland fans,

 

Hope you're all keeping well. I've joined the board to attempt to give you a balanced view on Lee Johnson. I'm afraid I might find this hard though as I'm sure you find out on reading this post.

 

Lee Johnson was appointed following the sacking of Steve Cotterill. Cotts had just given us our best ever season, albeit it at league one level. We won the league at a canter amassing 99 points and just for good measure we won't the Mickey Mouse trophy. Regrettably things didn't fare so well in the Championship and at the first sign of trouble, he was booted out with us third from bottom, two points from safety with half the season gone. Our chairman, Steve Lansdown offered Cotts no backing whatsoever and was very quick to pull the trigger.

 

This brought about the appointment of Lee Johnson. Poached from Barnsley where he'd done quite well. They'd eventually get promoted off the back of his start to the season, although they had recently endured their record losing streak under LJ and so the reality is that the Barnsley fans weren't exactly massively upset to see him go.

 

Things changed dramatically when LJ was appointed. you may be aware of LJ's dad Gary. He was a legend of a manager for us and took us to the play off final in 07/08 with a squad that performed well above the level of the players contained within it (remember this point). It was during this time that Steve Lansdown (owner) struck up a lasting friendship with the Johnson family - alarm bells ringing at all?

 

A closed cheque book for Steve Cotterill suddenly opened wide and players that Cotts hadn't been allowed to sign (Lee Tomlin - 20k wages, our highest earner being on 13k) were suddenly given the green light. On the back of these signings, including your own (I think) Adam Matthews, Tomlin and Peter Odemwinge, Lee Johnson guided us to safety.

 

In the coming seasons we'd see signings authorised left, right and centre. For millions and millions of pounds. Money was thrown about like we've never seen before - some (including me) would say because of Lansdown's fondness for Johnson. And we established ourselves as a team that would flatter to deceive. It cannot be ignore that admit it all Lee Johnson stumbled across a formula to have us playing scintillating football and we were neck and neck with Wolves up until Christmas at the top of the league, until we'll crumbled away in extremely poor fashion that saw us go on a remarkable streak of results that looked like that welsh train station with the really long name, these runs included a record 8/9 L's in a row and another similar run. And a number of fans took to christening him streaky Johnson as he'd manage to paper over the cracks (my opinion) with a couple of wins and a draw thereafter.

 

Signing wise, Johnson signed a lot of dross. He signed foreigners that played next to no minutes, including the NZ goalkeeper who had arguably the worst performance any player has ever had for Bristol City ever, or maybe even any football team ever. There were a few like this. Players he talk up, pay a lot and then not play.

 

Things weren't all bad on the transfer front though. He'd sign Adam Webster for 4.5m from Ipswich and sell him to Brighton for up to 26m and he signed Josh Brownhill for a pittance and sell him to Burnley for 7m (although this was pretty obviously always going to happen given his obvious talent).

 

Johnson also played a pretty uninspiring midfielder (who I'd have happily let go on a free) up top. Bobby Reid was in his last chance saloon at Bristol City when an injury crisis saw Johnson play him up front in a very successful pre season. We'd go onto sell him to Cardiff for 10m and he now remarkably pays his trade with Fulham in the Prem. Johnson can take full credit for that. 

 

He's also sell Johnathon Kodjia (15m to Villa), Aden Flint (7m - i forget whether to Cardiff or Boro) and Joe Bryan (6m Fulham), and whereas pro LJers would have you believe this was LJ's work, they were already at City (and had performed well) and so I'd suggest his credit in the transfers is extremely limited.

 

Post that defeat to Wolves, our football became awful. The worst we've ever seen at Bristol City. At the opposite end of the spectrum to what we'd seen earlier that season - hence why i used the phrase 'stumbled across a formula' earlier in this write up, it genuinely wasn't me being disingenuous. We were crap and Ashton Gate became anything but a fortress. We were weak, football was awful and more and more often fans would be calling for his head. But his good family friend Steve Lansdown stuck with him. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad, away from home we became masters of nicking a 0-1 win on the road, but this would (in my opinion) paper over the cracks of the dour home form.

 

We'd regularly enjoy a decent enough start to the season and then fade away dramatically to 8-12th spot and given the tens of millions of outgoings and then now bulging wage structure, Johnson left us with a bloated squad with players in it that we knew were quality (Tamas Kalas - 2 promotions to prom), but somehow they managed to look like sunday league players.

 

Don't get me started on playing players out of position, we'd see players shoehorned into the starting line up at the expense of someone who genuinely would play in the position that he needed to fill. Then there was the 'Johnson Tombola' - if you want a steady and consistent line up then I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Our star left winger - who'd finish last season at the top of the assist making charts, couldn't get a run of games in the team no matter how well he played - can you imagine his stats if he'd got a fair crack?

 

Then there's the credit taking. If we won "They players stuck to my plan brilliantly", if we lost he'd single players out. I seem to recall a game where we lost heavily. He brought on a sub at half time (or there abouts) with us 2 or 3 down, the proceeded to blame him when we lost 4-0. Our ability to hold a lead became nothing short of awful - do you recall when we were 3-0 up against you at half time and drew 3-3? Awful. Blaming players is something Johnson does equally as well as taking credit himself. And he's good at excuses, blaming Villa beating us on the positioning of the away fans and excuses too... there was a time when we got completely trounced by Brentford nd he said something like "After their third goal, we more than matched them" - we lost 3-0. You getting the picture yet? 

 

Now comes my favourite point about Lee Johnson. The Johnsonisms. He is completely full of shit. As i understand it, there was quite a David Brent type character on STID? I never got far enough into the series to meet him, but LJ is more than a match for him. It got to a point where i couldn't listen to him. Win lose or draw I couldn't stand hearing what he had to say. It was just an embarrassment - I hope you'll learn exactly what it is that i'm referring to - but let just say you'd be well placed to start a thread on "Johnsonisms" on your forum and it'll be well populated very quickly.

 

I'm afraid I can't bring you much joyful news about your impending appointment of Lee Johnson. There were many points during his tenure where i'd have taken anyone to replace him - literally anyone - the football was that bad.

 

He does silly things, like  measure the length of the grass, spend a shift in A&E, go to an army training camp, spend a night in the kitchen of a Michelin starred restaurant and his latest boast is to have sat down with someone who's amassed 9,000 hours of army interrogation - this is the sort of bullshit that might impress the newspapers, but in reality when he's playing a LB at CD, or a winger in CM don't really matter. He's calls them the 1%'s, but the 90%'s that matter, he couldn't seem to master.

 

So good luck Sunderland. I'm afraid to say you're going to need it. When you hear sky Sports refer to Bristol City playing a fast attacking expansive brand of football, the reality is that they're basing it on 4 months out of 5 years. The rest was rubbish. There came a point they'd say it every time we where on TV.

 

I hope that A Bristol City fan can come on here an give a good counter argument. As you can tell from above I'm absolutely no LJ fan, and I might have undersold some of his strengths (thinking about the opponent strengths rather than our own is another one). There are City fans who like him, but they tend to be the ones who deliberately ignore that he only got the job because the owner is essentially his god father and backed him with more finances that we've ever seen before.

 

Good luck lads and lasses. I fear you'll need it. Because at Sunderland he'll be without his biggest strength - Steve Lansdown.

 

Fordy

 

 

^ Ignore this

9 minutes ago, ReggyRed said:

Had some good times here, very under appreciated the job he done for us on here because of some weird personal agenda against the bloke, so ignore half the replies you get. But took us from certain relegation (under a manager who is a god to some on here) to a team challenging at the top end of the championship. Turned a few players into gems that we managed to sell on for a lot of money. You’ve got a good manager and I’m sure he will do a good job for you.

^ This is the truth

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2 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

It is also arguably exactly what Sunderland would want. Someone who can come in, get them out of L1 (which IMO would be LJ's biggest challenge) then cement them in the top 6 or 8 of the Champ - which LJ has already done with one team, us.

It would make Sunderland 'til I Die the spiritual third season of The Office (assuming the new owners continue to allow Netflix through the doors)

1) Id just point out He’s yet to get any side in the play offs , let alone promoted after 400 or so games as a manager

2) When did he ‘cement us’ in the top 6.....or 8 in the Championship


Did I miss something

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16 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

I've seen to it! @Riaz I think you may enjoy this...

 

Hi Sunderland fans,

 

Hope you're all keeping well. I've joined the board to attempt to give you a balanced view on Lee Johnson. I'm afraid I might find this hard though as I'm sure you find out on reading this post.

 

Lee Johnson was appointed following the sacking of Steve Cotterill. Cotts had just given us our best ever season, albeit it at league one level. We won the league at a canter amassing 99 points and just for good measure we won't the Mickey Mouse trophy. Regrettably things didn't fare so well in the Championship and at the first sign of trouble, he was booted out with us third from bottom, two points from safety with half the season gone. Our chairman, Steve Lansdown offered Cotts no backing whatsoever and was very quick to pull the trigger.

 

This brought about the appointment of Lee Johnson. Poached from Barnsley where he'd done quite well. They'd eventually get promoted off the back of his start to the season, although they had recently endured their record losing streak under LJ and so the reality is that the Barnsley fans weren't exactly massively upset to see him go.

 

Things changed dramatically when LJ was appointed. you may be aware of LJ's dad Gary. He was a legend of a manager for us and took us to the play off final in 07/08 with a squad that performed well above the level of the players contained within it (remember this point). It was during this time that Steve Lansdown (owner) struck up a lasting friendship with the Johnson family - alarm bells ringing at all?

 

A closed cheque book for Steve Cotterill suddenly opened wide and players that Cotts hadn't been allowed to sign (Lee Tomlin - 20k wages, our highest earner being on 13k) were suddenly given the green light. On the back of these signings, including your own (I think) Adam Matthews, Tomlin and Peter Odemwinge, Lee Johnson guided us to safety.

 

In the coming seasons we'd see signings authorised left, right and centre. For millions and millions of pounds. Money was thrown about like we've never seen before - some (including me) would say because of Lansdown's fondness for Johnson. And we established ourselves as a team that would flatter to deceive. It cannot be ignore that admit it all Lee Johnson stumbled across a formula to have us playing scintillating football and we were neck and neck with Wolves up until Christmas at the top of the league, until we'll crumbled away in extremely poor fashion that saw us go on a remarkable streak of results that looked like that welsh train station with the really long name, these runs included a record 8/9 L's in a row and another similar run. And a number of fans took to christening him streaky Johnson as he'd manage to paper over the cracks (my opinion) with a couple of wins and a draw thereafter.

 

Signing wise, Johnson signed a lot of dross. He signed foreigners that played next to no minutes, including the NZ goalkeeper who had arguably the worst performance any player has ever had for Bristol City ever, or maybe even any football team ever. There were a few like this. Players he talk up, pay a lot and then not play.

 

Things weren't all bad on the transfer front though. He'd sign Adam Webster for 4.5m from Ipswich and sell him to Brighton for up to 26m and he signed Josh Brownhill for a pittance and sell him to Burnley for 7m (although this was pretty obviously always going to happen given his obvious talent).

 

Johnson also played a pretty uninspiring midfielder (who I'd have happily let go on a free) up top. Bobby Reid was in his last chance saloon at Bristol City when an injury crisis saw Johnson play him up front in a very successful pre season. We'd go onto sell him to Cardiff for 10m and he now remarkably pays his trade with Fulham in the Prem. Johnson can take full credit for that. 

 

He's also sell Johnathon Kodjia (15m to Villa), Aden Flint (7m - i forget whether to Cardiff or Boro) and Joe Bryan (6m Fulham), and whereas pro LJers would have you believe this was LJ's work, they were already at City (and had performed well) and so I'd suggest his credit in the transfers is extremely limited.

 

Post that defeat to Wolves, our football became awful. The worst we've ever seen at Bristol City. At the opposite end of the spectrum to what we'd seen earlier that season - hence why i used the phrase 'stumbled across a formula' earlier in this write up, it genuinely wasn't me being disingenuous. We were crap and Ashton Gate became anything but a fortress. We were weak, football was awful and more and more often fans would be calling for his head. But his good family friend Steve Lansdown stuck with him. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad, away from home we became masters of nicking a 0-1 win on the road, but this would (in my opinion) paper over the cracks of the dour home form.

 

We'd regularly enjoy a decent enough start to the season and then fade away dramatically to 8-12th spot and given the tens of millions of outgoings and then now bulging wage structure, Johnson left us with a bloated squad with players in it that we knew were quality (Tamas Kalas - 2 promotions to prom), but somehow they managed to look like sunday league players.

 

Don't get me started on playing players out of position, we'd see players shoehorned into the starting line up at the expense of someone who genuinely would play in the position that he needed to fill. Then there was the 'Johnson Tombola' - if you want a steady and consistent line up then I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Our star left winger - who'd finish last season at the top of the assist making charts, couldn't get a run of games in the team no matter how well he played - can you imagine his stats if he'd got a fair crack?

 

Then there's the credit taking. If we won "They players stuck to my plan brilliantly", if we lost he'd single players out. I seem to recall a game where we lost heavily. He brought on a sub at half time (or there abouts) with us 2 or 3 down, the proceeded to blame him when we lost 4-0. Our ability to hold a lead became nothing short of awful - do you recall when we were 3-0 up against you at half time and drew 3-3? Awful. Blaming players is something Johnson does equally as well as taking credit himself. And he's good at excuses, blaming Villa beating us on the positioning of the away fans and excuses too... there was a time when we got completely trounced by Brentford nd he said something like "After their third goal, we more than matched them" - we lost 3-0. You getting the picture yet? 

 

Now comes my favourite point about Lee Johnson. The Johnsonisms. He is completely full of shit. As i understand it, there was quite a David Brent type character on STID? I never got far enough into the series to meet him, but LJ is more than a match for him. It got to a point where i couldn't listen to him. Win lose or draw I couldn't stand hearing what he had to say. It was just an embarrassment - I hope you'll learn exactly what it is that i'm referring to - but let just say you'd be well placed to start a thread on "Johnsonisms" on your forum and it'll be well populated very quickly.

 

I'm afraid I can't bring you much joyful news about your impending appointment of Lee Johnson. There were many points during his tenure where i'd have taken anyone to replace him - literally anyone - the football was that bad.

 

He does silly things, like  measure the length of the grass, spend a shift in A&E, go to an army training camp, spend a night in the kitchen of a Michelin starred restaurant and his latest boast is to have sat down with someone who's amassed 9,000 hours of army interrogation - this is the sort of bullshit that might impress the newspapers, but in reality when he's playing a LB at CD, or a winger in CM don't really matter. He's calls them the 1%'s, but the 90%'s that matter, he couldn't seem to master.

 

So good luck Sunderland. I'm afraid to say you're going to need it. When you hear sky Sports refer to Bristol City playing a fast attacking expansive brand of football, the reality is that they're basing it on 4 months out of 5 years. The rest was rubbish. There came a point they'd say it every time we where on TV.

 

I hope that A Bristol City fan can come on here an give a good counter argument. As you can tell from above I'm absolutely no LJ fan, and I might have undersold some of his strengths (thinking about the opponent strengths rather than our own is another one). There are City fans who like him, but they tend to be the ones who deliberately ignore that he only got the job because the owner is essentially his god father and backed him with more finances that we've ever seen before.

 

Good luck lads and lasses. I fear you'll need it. Because at Sunderland he'll be without his biggest strength - Steve Lansdown.

 

Fordy

 

 

I agree with this version Awful "Head Coach" worst football i've seen 

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