Bristol City owner Steve Lansdown flies in to address major issues at Ashton Gate

[marmite]

31 minutes ago, headhunter said:

You are, like me, asking for what longstanding supporters of Bristol Rugby now have!

Whilst the Premier League is the ultimate goal I don't think many would complain if we had a few years of the entertaining football witnessed in the first half of 17/18. The fact that it was a total collapse in the 2nd half is a different matter and a feature of every year under LJ.

Free flowing football like Newcastle under Keegan many years ago - strong at home and not set on containment both at home and away

Entertaining football? Ah yes I remember. It was 2014-2015 when we scored almost 100 league goals and won the league and Cup double. Now who was the manager

[Davefevs]

@ray savino

 

I also look at the try before you buy arrangement with Pearson was so each party could suss out their potential working relationship, particularly on SL’s side. He seems wary of bigger name, strong characters, which in football terms can empty his pockets.

Hes done a pretty good job of allowing smaller names, less strong characters to empty his pockets over the last 5 years

 

[REDOXO]

2 hours ago, ray savino said:

This all seems some such a mess of a situation culminating in poor performances and results on the field. From the outside it seems obvious that the powers that be should be able to see all the problems that the fans can see.

I can only guess that the positive scenario/conclusion on this is that there are significant actions and negotiations going on which are about to bring significant changes to the structure of the running of the football club.

If this isn’t happening with any scale of urgency measured against a timeline of preparing for a new season which includes the playing side and income (i.e. getting us punters to commit to another season), then we should all be shocked that seemingly successful and savvy owners would appear at worst ignorant and incompetent, or unaware, naive and complacent.

I would guess that SL knew for some time of MA’s circumstances/plans and may also be negotiating with new investors as we speak.

I also look at the try before you buy arrangement with Pearson was so each party could suss out their potential working relationship, particularly on SL’s side. He seems wary of bigger name, strong characters, which in football terms can empty his pockets. 

More importantly, I think he has seen this arrangement as like getting in an experienced troubleshooter business consultant in to evaluate the whole operation and file their report at the end of the season. Whatever is said in public, I’m pretty sure NP is and will be doing this. Remember, SL looks at his project which he publicly has stated is about ultimately delivering Prem football to Bristol City FC. and although timescales may have been a bit woolly on this, he would certainly think this model has failed in key areas and although there is progress in facilities and academy development, it is visibly going backwards. 

We can assume that the recent results has understandably cast doubts from SL on NP being here longer term. However, I think it probably has been (should have been!) a huge wake up call to just how the performance of our football operations has so badly regressed over the last few years (our year on year improvement had reversed since the last LJ season (to be generous with time scales - I actually think the seeds of this regression were sown after the 17/18 season). Whatever we think of NP, I think we can all agree that there needs to be a fundamental change in the future running and mentality of the football performance side, and let’s be honest, whoever came in under the present circumstances, would have really struggled under the present circumstances (and NP may not have been my first choice for Manager - but I do think he can be good for this moment in our history even if he doesn’t deliver the Holy Grail straight away, he may lay stronger foundations for someone else to do it soon after).

We’ve got a new High Performance centre - FFS let’s try living up to it now!

FWIW I could see NP will be taken on if he wants the job and will no doubt be giving an idea to SL what it will take, including the coaching and crucially recruitment side. I think it is happening but they can’t say publicly yet for all sorts of contractual reasons, etc, etc. 

If NP isn’t staying, then the biggest result and best legacy he can leave in his short reign can be the delivery of some pretty damning, yet constructive, home truths concerning the football operations of this club. It might, just might, waken our club out of years of complacency and a instil a winning mentality instead of it’ll do attitude amongst everyone...including many of us as supporters and I’ve been as guilty as any of this over the years as a lot of us.

Since I’ve supported City too many years ago, all I ask is to have a fair few more enjoyable moments of feeling immense pride of coming from Bristol and supporting this club. A winning mentality, but not just the results. The excitement, a winning attitude by showing some passion towards how we go about playing. That sense of anticipation of games coming up. Deep down its still there for me, as it obviously is for most people on this forum whatever their differing opinions. Win or lose it would be nice to feel we’ve enjoyed the whole event of going to a game again.

Yep, it is your money SL, and we are grateful to you for delivering facilities that are great and still have a stable football team to follow. But now the biggest challenge is for you to put your trust in appointing some experienced, demanding, driven and possibly spikey football people who can put things back on track. The whole philosophy that you have wanted doesn’t have to change. But a lot of the people who have so far executed your vision quite obviously need to.

Onwards and Upwards or Sideways and Downwards? Over to you Mr Lansdown...

OK Here was the scenario. MA was tasked with finding investment and or a buyer. He went out on a Frog kissing expedition and found some possibly interested parties. Talks with two or three businesses became ongoing and in one case went up a level.....Meanwhile the club stopped talking to the fans all news coming out of the club was censored and money for Holden was put on hold.....What happened next was one of the party’s that Ashton was talking to didnt fancy us because we were to expensive....BUT looking at available clubs reckoned Ipswich with their history and price was worth a gamble. Ashton contacted Ipswich and put the party’s together.

The rest is ongoing Ashton is off to Ipswich in May but is still here in order to assist a possible deal between SL and a third party who are negotiating around BCFC the entire BS group and ownership of facilities as as we speak.....Something may come of it something may not. If not then the frog kissing starts again.

Hope this helps!

[YorkshireSection]

7 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

OK Here was the scenario. MA was tasked with finding investment and or a buyer. He went out on a Frog kissing expedition and found some possibly interested parties. Talks with two or three businesses became ongoing and in one case went up a level.....Meanwhile the club stopped talking to the fans all news coming out of the club was censored and money for Holden was put on hold.....What happened next was one of the party’s that Ashton was talking to didnt fancy us because we were to expensive....BUT looking at available clubs reckoned Ipswich with their history and price was worth a gamble. Ashton contacted Ipswich and put the party’s together.

The rest is ongoing Ashton is off to Ipswich in May but is still here in order to assist a possible deal between SL and a third party who are negotiating around BCFC the entire BS group and ownership of facilities as as we speak.....Something may come of it something may not. If not then the frog kissing starts again.

Hope this helps!

Lets hope no one licks one of those toads that make you hallucinate, it could all get a bit messy and weird

!

[REDOXO]

2 minutes ago, YorkshireSection said:

Lets hope no one licks one of those toads that make you hallucinate, it could all get a bit messy and weird

!

This is not all weird already then! :laugh:!

Kissing frogs is a common phrase in M&A 

[mozo]

39 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

OK Here was the scenario. MA was tasked with finding investment and or a buyer. He went out on a Frog kissing expedition and found some possibly interested parties. Talks with two or three businesses became ongoing and in one case went up a level.....Meanwhile the club stopped talking to the fans all news coming out of the club was censored and money for Holden was put on hold.....What happened next was one of the party’s that Ashton was talking to didnt fancy us because we were to expensive....BUT looking at available clubs reckoned Ipswich with their history and price was worth a gamble. Ashton contacted Ipswich and put the party’s together.

The rest is ongoing Ashton is off to Ipswich in May but is still here in order to assist a possible deal between SL and a third party who are negotiating around BCFC the entire BS group and ownership of facilities as as we speak.....Something may come of it something may not. If not then the frog kissing starts again.

Hope this helps!

And where does Pearson fit into this?

[REDOXO]

18 minutes ago, mozo said:

And where does Pearson fit into this?

Pearson was the best available and was brought in. Having a manager in place that is well known in the business with a track record that can not be argued with is a massive advantage. The situation with his contract will play out dependent on what happens next but I fully expect Pearson to be here what happens as long as he thinks he is getting backed by whom ever is running the club!

 

 

[NOTBLUE]

57 minutes ago, YorkshireSection said:

Lets hope no one licks one of those toads that make you hallucinate, it could all get a bit messy and weird

!

Yeah! But the football would look amazing,especially in the new caftan style home shirt.

[Curr Avon]

Is this Steve arriving at the airport?

 

[Ivorguy]

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

[DaveF]

4 minutes ago, Ivorguy said:

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

I think you may be over reacting a bit here. In reality we have a couple of weeks until the end of the season so as long as something is sorted or close to being sorted by then things should be fine.

We aren't going down so the results until the end of the season don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

I agree that the lack of update is a bit frustrating though.

[REDOXO]

12 minutes ago, Ivorguy said:

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

Disaster is relegation. That is now highly unlikely! Crisis is a strong word and I’m not specifically sure what you are referring to?

However whatever happens a reset across the club is coming!!

[red panda]

28 minutes ago, Ivorguy said:

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

Pure speculation, almost certainly 100% pure steaming BS, and more and more negativity as usual from this poster.

I'll gladly eat humble pie if you are proved correct.  But I very much doubt this will be necessary.

[M.D]

The club, be it the Lansdown's or Pearson are not sitting around wondering what to do next..

There will be a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about and more importantly can't be revealed in the public domain as yet.

Im sure there is a plan in place they are working towards but as agonising as it is, we are just going to have to wait until the plan and people involved can be revealed.

[IAmNick]

4 minutes ago, M.D said:

The club, be it the Lansdown's or Pearson are not sitting around wondering what to do next..

There will be a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about and more importantly can't be revealed in the public domain as yet.

Im sure there is a plan in place they are working towards but as agonising as it is, we are just going to have to wait until the plan and people involved can be revealed.

Yep. Could be a lot of discussion even if Pearson is offered the job I think.

So much up in the air - do we get a new CEO? A DoF? If so what's Pearson's role and influence in other areas like recruitment? Can he bring his own staff? What's the budget like? Could the CEO change any of the above? Who's in control in the interim if it takes months to appoint someone?

All the questions we're asking I have no doubt Pearson is too before he'd take the job (assuming it's been offered) - the current situation makes it a lot more complicated than a formality handshake between him and Steve in my opinion.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, IAmNick said:

Yep. Could be a lot of discussion even if Pearson is offered the job I think.

So much up in the air - do we get a new CEO? A DoF? If so what's Pearson's role and influence in other areas like recruitment? Can he bring his own staff? What's the budget like? Could the CEO change any of the above? Who's in control in the interim if it takes months to appoint someone?

All the questions we're asking I have no doubt Pearson is too before he'd take the job (assuming it's been offered) - the current situation makes it a lot more complicated than a formality handshake between him and Steve in my opinion.

Agree with all of that and @M.D Post too.....hence more a reason to communicate that plans are progressing well but announcements can’t be made.

[M.D]

1 minute ago, IAmNick said:

Yep. Could be a lot of discussion even if Pearson is offered the job I think.

So much up in the air - do we get a new CEO? A DoF? If so what's Pearson's role and influence in other areas like recruitment? Can he bring his own staff? What's the budget like? Could the CEO change any of the above? Who's in control in the interim if it takes months to appoint someone?

All the questions we're asking I have no doubt Pearson is too before he'd take the job (assuming it's been offered) - the current situation makes it a lot more complicated than a formality handshake between him and Steve in my opinion.

I agree on that.

This is possibly one of the most important times in the clubs history, they have to get it right or we will continue to spiral downwards instead of up.

Not something that they can blab about to the media until its all in place, its a careful waiting time for the club and us fans..

 

[ray savino]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

@ray savino

 

I also look at the try before you buy arrangement with Pearson was so each party could suss out their potential working relationship, particularly on SL’s side. He seems wary of bigger name, strong characters, which in football terms can empty his pockets.

Hes done a pretty good job of allowing smaller names, less strong characters to empty his pockets over the last 5 years

 

Yep, you’re right. Sometimes invest that little bit extra in your management team to get it right off the pitch will cost you less on the pitch more often than not (although Mark Ashton may be an exception to this rule). 

I refer again to that Stuart Webber interview on the High Performance Podcast. Yes, he does blow his own trumpet quite a bit (must come with the territory, MA!) but was a great insight to in a nutshell is what our club needs. For this to happen SL has to prepare to be strongly challenged sometimes. As long as it’s constructive, a little disruption and boardroom confrontation now and again can be a positive thing. Blimey, we think SL might have found Cotts prickly, or Pearson might speak his mind too much, imagine if Brian Clough was doing an audit on our club at the minute - he positively thrived at having a ruck with the owners and authorities, but he oversaw (with Peter Taylor) two of the most incredible rises in success playing great football on crap pitches without having stars in every position at Derby and Forest.

Come on SL, get your management team right this time. You don’t have to like them, just respect there know-how. Get it right and it will lose you less on the field eventually - playing wise and in your wallet.

[M.D]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Agree with all of that and @M.D Post too.....hence more a reason to communicate that plans are progressing well but announcements can’t be made.

I can't see them saying that to the media, doesn't seem their style 

[Davefevs]

3 minutes ago, M.D said:

I can't see them saying that to the media, doesn't seem their style 

Agree, shows they’ve got their style all wrong.

[Northern Red]

59 minutes ago, Ivorguy said:

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

No it wouldn't.

Stop this.

[cidered abroad]

2 minutes ago, M.D said:

I can't see them saying that to the media, doesn't seem their style 

But they could say it to us, the backbone of the club, with thousands who keep turning up, come rain or shine, wins and losses, in the Championship or down to old Division Four. SL owns it financially but it belongs to us, the supporters because without us, SL has nothing to own!!!!!!!!

[M.D]

Just now, Davefevs said:

Agree, shows they’ve got their style all wrong.

completely, but I hope they are working on more important matters than communication at the moment!

hopefully that will come after the new blue print is in place, whatever that will be good or bad..

[M.D]

2 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

But they could say it to us, the backbone of the club, with thousands who keep turning up, come rain or shine, wins and losses, in the Championship or down to old Division Four. SL owns it financially but it belongs to us, the supporters because without us, SL has nothing to own!!!!!!!!

There should be some form of statement I totally agree, but I don't think we will hear anything much until a lot of things are in place and finalised.

[robin_unreliant]

Maybe if a lot of ST holders hold off on renewing they could feel some pressure to say something? 

[mozo]

1 hour ago, REDOXO said:

...

However whatever happens a reset across the club is coming!!

A reset can be done very well or very badly. Literally anything can happen!

[Major Isewater]

4 minutes ago, mozo said:

Literally anything can happen!

And probably will.

[REDOXO]

26 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

Maybe if a lot of ST holders hold off on renewing they could feel some pressure to say something? 

Possibly. But I wouldn’t bother. Season ticket threats are not as effective as some may think particularly now and much is going to be revealed anyway soon enough. Concentrate your efforts on not feeling queasy watching our performances. Alka Seltzer helps!

[maxjak]

1 hour ago, Ivorguy said:

Without a club update it all smacks of something gone wrong with SL’s  plans.

Prospective manager turned him down

Prospective HOF turned him down

External investor getting cold feet

The story thus given of difficulty of getting from Guernsey to Bristol has been shown by others to be nonsense.

A further defeat this weekend would begin to suggest this is moving from crisis to disaster.

 

 

 

 

Conspiracy theories abound....people need to chill

[Fiale]

Just hope someone somewhere is looking at a plan to actually have a competitive team in place for next season. If we wait to long we will be left with the dregs in available signings, and those who can't / don't leave as no one else wants them.