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Is Pearson to get real grit installed in the mentality of City?


extonsred

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'He (Alex Ferguson) said that determination was a key attribute in his success, reminiscing on a formative defeat as a young manager to Albion Rovers when he was in charge of East Stirlingshire. His team lost 5-2 and he said he “made sure my players had a mental toughness from that moment on”. He added: “My mindset every time I played a game of football was to win – that was the only thing that mattered.”'

The above quote is from a brief BBC review of a film about Alex Ferguson's life. 

Why has an Alex Ferguson not come to lift us out of our mediocre successes?

Oh the despair felt so often here in Bristol, repeatedly, every few games, every season - as soon as there is hope it is dashed pretty quickly. Yes we get a 'second level' promotion team from time to time but what is it to date that prevents City gathering a team together that has the grit, the resilience, the will to actually expect rather than hope to win. The mindset has just not been there. 

We do not as is oft repeated have a divine right to be a Premier league club. There is no doubt however in my mind that we should really be able to expect to have a Premier league team in Bristol. We have a great owner who has given us the foundations that encourage us to further believe we should be a top tier club. There is no doubt we have the crowd potential to fill the ground match after match. How then is it that season after season, and way before SL, manager after manager we have produced only very average club and team achievement? 

Bristol is a great City, a great City to live in, a great City culturally, it has great connections to anywhere in the country. Everything is there that leads us to expect better. Then why oh why are we unable to translate our potential into success on the field? It Bristol really a soft touch City? Is it the place that people come to to lead a better life rather than be built up through the historical grit and determination that is the history of so many places with much less 'potential'. Is there a history of fighting for our survival that focuses the mind and image of towns and cities elsewhere. There are few clubs / places outside the top tier,  Bournemouth, the East Anglian clubs maybe, that have not had to fight in the same way as the industrial, post industrial towns like Burnley, Wigan, Stoke etc. We have wealth and financial clout in abundance and this has developed to crazy levels in the last couple of decades. 

It has long been an undercurrent of our thinking as fans that we are a City where players come to have a 'good' life, come to retire, come to a club that is used to being just OK!! They will get paid well, they will live well, reasonably sized crowds will turn up - craving success but certainly not expecting it. Is the collective psyche just not there?  

I hope (notice I don't expect) that in NP we have finally learnt our lesson. He is certainly the most high profile manager appointed in recent times who has been there, done it and knows the mental strengths required as a club to be successful. It is  early days but I hope beyond hope that he can see and buy into the long term ambitions of us fans. After yesterday I hope he doesn't begin to think we are a no hoper club, the job is just too big for him, if so it will be for most. On our side are we prepared to be patient long enough to give him the time to change the team, the club culture - to instil in all about the club an expectation and will to win 'at all costs' as Ferguson demanded of his  teams?? 

We can carry on hoping as we have for decades but there is no doubt that under the right leadership that that hope can and should be turned into expectation. Is it really possible that we can make that step up - before my time is up at least? If we do then we should be able to stay there or thereabouts. 

Night time musings! 

 

 

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As a supporter who first watched City a year before Atyeo arrived, City have always tried to play football on the pitch rather than the aerial version at some other clubs.

Maybe it was Atyeo's influence or maybe it stems from a long way back, that we "play the game" in the correct way.

Even in this twenty first century, cynical, winning at all costs, society it is still evident at home games that we do not like seeing the dark arts from our team.

I've often wondered why we have only been "up there" for four short years since 1911 while other similar sized clubs either live permanently "up there" or bounce regularly between top and second tiers.

Pearson for me, has hammered the nail sweetly on the head by saying we are too passive. It's about time that we, like many other clubs supporters, DEMAND promotion from this league instead of just hoping it may happen once in a lifetime!

Perhaps, and I may he guilty as others, we prefer entertainment rather than Fergie's WINNING.

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12 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

As a supporter who first watched City a year before Atyeo arrived, City have always tried to play football on the pitch rather than the aerial version at some other clubs.

Maybe it was Atyeo's influence or maybe it stems from a long way back, that we "play the game" in the correct way.

Even in this twenty first century, cynical, winning at all costs, society it is still evident at home games that we do not like seeing the dark arts from our team.

I've often wondered why we have only been "up there" for four short years since 1911 while other similar sized clubs either live permanently "up there" or bounce regularly between top and second tiers.

Pearson for me, has hammered the nail sweetly on the head by saying we are too passive. It's about time that we, like many other clubs supporters, DEMAND promotion from this league instead of just hoping it may happen once in a lifetime!

Perhaps, and I may he guilty as others, we prefer entertainment rather than Fergie's WINNING.

I think that’s true. I don’t go back as far as you “only” 1980 and I’ve never seen us play a top flight game. Actually I must be as long standing a fan as there is to have not seen top flight football. 
I wonder whether now is a turning point? We’re not winning at home, have consistently been wining at home for years AND now we’re not even entertaining at home.  I dread to think what the atmosphere would be like if we were all in there....

Couple of observations.... someone with more data than me could probably tell us how bad we’ve been at home since the opening of the revised stadium. I bet it’s awful. Is there a link between stadium and form? 
 

The other recurring theme is managers coming in and rooting out the soft underbelly at the club only to be replaced by managers who toughen things up again. The only managers I’ve know be truly successful were those who toughened.... Cooper, Jordan, G Johnson, Cotts. Thankfully NP seems in a similar mould. Partly it comes down to recruitment. We keep signing nice players without a blend of grit/leadership/nastiness. You need all of that at this level. 

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2 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

As a supporter who first watched City a year before Atyeo arrived, City have always tried to play football on the pitch rather than the aerial version at some other clubs.

Maybe it was Atyeo's influence or maybe it stems from a long way back, that we "play the game" in the correct way.

Even in this twenty first century, cynical, winning at all costs, society it is still evident at home games that we do not like seeing the dark arts from our team.

I've often wondered why we have only been "up there" for four short years since 1911 while other similar sized clubs either live permanently "up there" or bounce regularly between top and second tiers.

Pearson for me, has hammered the nail sweetly on the head by saying we are too passive. It's about time that we, like many other clubs supporters, DEMAND promotion from this league instead of just hoping it may happen once in a lifetime!

Perhaps, and I may he guilty as others, we prefer entertainment rather than Fergie's WINNING.

We are football snobs at City , we want our teams to play like the top clubs but until we get to the top we will not be able to attract and pay these types of players capable of pretty, flowing football week in week out. 

What is our option ? 

Fight and scrap your  way to the top with a team of motivated athletes but we turn our noses up at teams like Cardiff or Watford as they sail past us . 
 

We can do it in the third division as we are biggish fishes in that pool but now we are minnows compared even to the aforementioned clubs who have achieved much much more than us despite being similar sized. 
 

So what do we want ? 
What does success look like to our club ?

Are we prepared to do what’s necessary to compete at the highest level ?

This club has been too cosy and run like a gentleman’s club for far too long. 
 

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I wrote on another thread about player culture that has been allowed to manifest since the departure of Steve C. 

LJ's lack of maturity and naivety allowed players to become comfortable with below par performance, which inevitably led to them missing the next game. I felt there was no responsibility instilled into the players, that ultimately led to this becoming the "way of life" at city. 

This problem was enabled and enacted during DH reign as it was very much business as usual. 

I was struggling to find a word that summed us up. Thanks to NP for giving me that word. Passive. 

This will changed I believe going forward as a player clear out is inevitable and the dawn of new era will be rolled out. 

Player responsibility for their individual performance will be at the forefront and improvement will undoubtedly follow. 

This will be the key to success. The right man at the helm. 

Stevo 

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Just an addition to my previous post. In the 1990's a City chairman, Mike Fricker, said to me that BCFC board prefer to be a big fish in the Third Division than a little fish in the larger lake of the Second Division.

And even going back to Harry Dolman. At an Annual General Meeting, he said to sharholders "We will never be a Tottenham Hotspur" in a reference to a cup loss to Spurs in the League Cup Semi Final. I shouted out that I don't want us to be Spurs, just Bristol City in the First Division! I don't believe he was too impressed.  

 

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