"City's problems two years in the making" - BP

[SecretSam]

Article in BP about how selling on players and not replacing them has led us to here

[SecretSam]

3 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

Article in BP about how selling on players and not replacing them has led us to here

Interesting that the supposed "yes man" LJ was actually opposed to some of the sales, as we didn't have replacements lined up

[Bristol Oil Services]

The way to keep Webster, at least for one more year, was to finish top six and win the play-offs. We were 5th with six games to play, won just one of the last six and finished 8th. Can we have an article and a good look at that run in?

[Unan]

All a bit of nothing 

[SecretSam]

Just now, Moments of Pleasure said:

The way to keep Webster, at least for one more year, was to finish top six and win the play-offs. We were 5th with six games to play, won just one of the last six and finished 8th. Can we have an article and a good look at that run in?

[GrahamC]

It’s a good piece (Piercy writes well) but the central Webster bit is overblown for me.

They offered £20m, so we were never going to turn that down & the permanent signing of Kalas earlier that summer was always made in my opinion in the knowledge that Webster would probably go.

Nathan Baker cost us £3.5m & started that season on the subs bench, with Bailey Wright also in the squad, though about to have an injury hit season, something we didn’t anticipate because prior to this his availability record had been excellent.

With Moore starting as a Webster type we did have 4 good enough defenders, it was in midfield where it went wrong.

Pack wasn’t replaced, neither Nagy or HNM (just 18 then) were that player & brilliant as Brownhill was, he couldn’t do it all himself.

There is no mention of whether LJ was happy to sell Pack (we know he didn’t want to sell Brownhill) but for me it wasn’t the Webster sale (as we were never turning down £20m) but the Pack one that started the problems.

[spudski]

This is why imo, football needs to get rid of transfer windows.

We have FFP in place to control spending, so why keep transfer windows?

What's the point in having a recruitment team working all year, building a team with diligence, only for all that hard work to be torn up by selling a player/s, and having to panic and replace with make shift?

You can't stop a player from wanting to better himself, but at least stop the madness.

They want clubs to run properly, but all transfer windows do is encourage inflated prices and panic.

It contradicts the ethos of FFP and running a club dilegently.

[archie andrews]

9 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

It’s a good piece (Piercy writes well) but the central Webster bit is overblown for me.

They offered £20m, so we were never going to turn that down & the permanent signing of Kalas earlier that summer was always made in my opinion in the knowledge that Webster would probably go.

Nathan Baker cost us £3.5m & started that season on the subs bench, with Bailey Wright also in the squad, though about to have an injury hit season, something we didn’t anticipate because prior to this his availability record had been excellent.

With Moore starting as a Webster type we did have 4 good enough defenders, it was in midfield where it went wrong.

Pack wasn’t replaced, neither Nagy or HNM (just 18 then) were that player & brilliant as Brownhill was, he couldn’t do it all himself.

There is no mention of whether LJ was happy to sell Pack (we know he didn’t want to sell Brownhill) but for me it wasn’t the Webster sale (as we were never turning down £20m) but the Pack one that started the problems.

Not replacing pack been our biggest downfall imo.... 

[cityloyal473]

Tomorrow's EP headline: Bears defecate in woods. 

[1960maaan]

1 minute ago, spudski said:

This is why imo, football needs to get rid of transfer windows.

We have FFP in place to control spending, so why keep transfer windows?

What's the point in having a recruitment team working all year, building a team with diligence, only for all that hard work to be torn up by selling a player/s, and having to panic and replace with make shift?

You can't stop a player from wanting to better himself, but at least stop the madness.

They want clubs to run properly, but all transfer windows do is encourage inflated prices and panic.

It contradicts the ethos of FFP and running a club dilegently.

While I get your point, wasn't the window brought in to stop rich clubs (usually) asset stripping smaller clubs near the end of a season to help their Trophy/Promotion/whatever push ? Example close to home, Goater went to Man City with about 8 games to go. Ironically in this context Wiki says last day of the window but the point remains. With 8 games left and 4 points behind Watford with a game in hand, we lose our best striker and lose 3 , draw one of those 8 and miss the title by 3 points. 
I think trying to keep the transfers out of the season was to try and make it a more even competition through the year. I doubt anyone likes it, unless you are one of the bigger fish. I guess in a perfect World there would be no transfers during the season, but I'd probably complain about that too. I hate that you can recruit through the summer, do a Pre-season, start playing games and still lose an important player because the window ends 2/3 weeks into the new season. 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

24 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

It’s a good piece (Piercy writes well) but the central Webster bit is overblown for me.

They offered £20m, so we were never going to turn that down & the permanent signing of Kalas earlier that summer was always made in my opinion in the knowledge that Webster would probably go.

Nathan Baker cost us £3.5m & started that season on the subs bench, with Bailey Wright also in the squad, though about to have an injury hit season, something we didn’t anticipate because prior to this his availability record had been excellent.

With Moore starting as a Webster type we did have 4 good enough defenders, it was in midfield where it went wrong.

Pack wasn’t replaced, neither Nagy or HNM (just 18 then) were that player & brilliant as Brownhill was, he couldn’t do it all himself.

There is no mention of whether LJ was happy to sell Pack (we know he didn’t want to sell Brownhill) but for me it wasn’t the Webster sale (as we were never turning down £20m) but the Pack one that started the problems.

But the issue is about leadership, not just good centre halves, and that’s what we’ve been lacking.  We have been screaming out for an on-field leader for the whole of 2021, and Kalas clearly isn’t it.  Look at the leadership we had in the last promotion team: not just Wade Elliott, but the likes of Korey Smith, Aden Flint, Aaron Wilbraham and Marlon Pack.  Big strong personalities on the field and in the dressing room.  That’s what we’ve been lacking. 

[Robbored]

It’s longer than two years - more like 4 or 5.  
 

Reid, Bryan, Kelly, Pack, Brownhill et al..........it’s a long list, none of whom were adequately replaced. Really poor recruitment by Ashton.

[headhunter]

Losing Webster was a blow but not unexpected so surely Ashton and the recruitment team had replacements lined up, not least because the likely internal yet still relatively inexperienced replacement, Lloyd Kelly, had been sold at the start of the summer.

Let's not lose site of the fact that City only won 4 of their last 15 games, a collapse that will be the hallmark of each season under Johnson.

[GrahamC]

6 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

But the issue is about leadership, not just good centre halves, and that’s what we’ve been lacking.  We have been screaming out for an on-field leader for the whole of 2021, and Kalas clearly isn’t it.  Look at the leadership we had in the last promotion team: not just Wade Elliott, but the likes of Korey Smith, Aden Flint, Aaron Wilbraham and Marlon Pack.  Big strong personalities on the field and in the dressing room.  That’s what we’ve been lacking. 

So was Webster a leader?

Personally I think that Wright was, as you say Pack was, Korey was & all 3 of those started that season still with us.

The article is framed too much around Webster going, which was always likely & for me as I said before, the sale of Pack was the big & less understandable error here.

[tin]

55 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

Interesting that the supposed "yes man" LJ was actually opposed to some of the sales, as we didn't have replacements lined up

LJ said one day he'd write a book to let us all know about what he had to deal with here.

The bottom line is Ashton shouldn't have sold off the family silver without replacing it first. 

[steviestevieneville]

1 hour ago, SecretSam said:

Article in BP about how selling on players and not replacing them has led us to here

More to the point is the amount of leaders we sold in brownhill , pack , Wright , Webster & not replaced them . We got a squad full on tarts now. 

[sh1t_ref_again]

37 minutes ago, cityloyal473 said:

Tomorrow's EP headline: Bears defecate in woods. 

Is that the bristol bears?

[Lrrr]

42 minutes ago, cityloyal473 said:

Tomorrow's EP headline: Bears defecate in woods. 

Well their new training ground is in a wooded area…..

[Kid in the Riot]

Wonder if it's a coincidence that this article has appeared after LJ was back in Clifton this weekend

Anyway, very good article that aligns with what the likes of me and @Harry have been saying for ages in terms of how much say LJ really had in incomings/outgoings. 

Bottom line is that LJ had to keep selling his best players and leaders each season whilst being expected to mount play off challenges paying lower midtable wages. 

Given that context and especially what has happened since he left, it looks like he wasn't doing such a bad job afterall. His teams had much more fight and spirit than the current group does. They battled for results and got them. 

[Clutton Caveman]

21 minutes ago, Robbored said:

It’s longer than two years - more like 4 or 5.  
 

Reid, Bryan, Kelly, Pack, Brownhill et al..........it’s a long list, none of whom were adequately replaced. Really poor recruitment by Ashton.

Lets face it, we are a selling club. We simply cannot generate enough income to remain within FFP rules and pay the crazy players salaries without selling. In past seasons with such a high volume of home supporters owning season tickets, results on the field don't really reflect that strongly in terms of income. As such we must be very invested in finding good new talent like Brentford to make sure the overall quality of the team remains at a competitive level and we must be sure that the dressing room they come into is results focused

[Bristol Oil Services]

18 minutes ago, tin said:

LJ said one day he'd write a book to let us all know about what he had to deal with here.

The bottom line is Ashton shouldn't have sold off the family silver without replacing it first. 

I'd imagine Lee will have his view of events, putting himself in perhaps a more favourable light; and Ashton will have his view, differing from Lee's, no doubt.

Either way, Steve has been dozing at the wheel and perhaps firing Lee when he should've bombed out Ashton, but we will never know for sure.

We'll always be in the dark about all this whatever the individuals come out and say after the event.

[Robbored]

3 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Bottom line is that LJ had to keep selling his best players and leaders each season whilst being expected to mount play off challenges paying lower midtable wages. 

So did other Championship clubs, not just City.  Brentford have been used as a prime example.

[petehinton]

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

It’s a good piece (Piercy writes well) but the central Webster bit is overblown for me.

They offered £20m, so we were never going to turn that down & the permanent signing of Kalas earlier that summer was always made in my opinion in the knowledge that Webster would probably go.

Nathan Baker cost us £3.5m & started that season on the subs bench, with Bailey Wright also in the squad, though about to have an injury hit season, something we didn’t anticipate because prior to this his availability record had been excellent.

With Moore starting as a Webster type we did have 4 good enough defenders, it was in midfield where it went wrong.

Pack wasn’t replaced, neither Nagy or HNM (just 18 then) were that player & brilliant as Brownhill was, he couldn’t do it all himself.

There is no mention of whether LJ was happy to sell Pack (we know he didn’t want to sell Brownhill) but for me it wasn’t the Webster sale (as we were never turning down £20m) but the Pack one that started the problems.

LJ wasn’t happy to sell Pack at all. The total opposite actually. Cardiff doubled his weekly wage and once he heard that it was hard for them to convince him to stay, but LJ was pretty hysterical over it. 
 

I also personally don’t get the frustration over the sales. There’s isn’t a single club in the division that would’ve turned any of those bids down. The fees are absolutely incredible for this level. The issue has been the poor recruitment in replacing them. 
 

More of a poor recruitment issue than a ‘selling club’ issue for me. 

[1960maaan]

Selling players is never the problem, it's been said before every club is a selling club until you get to the top few , even the Liverpool lost Coutinho , Man Too lost Ronaldo etc, etc. Not to mention Southampton. Where we fell down was and has been for a while, recruitment. We've been told there are always lists of players that we are watching, we have not made the right choices, maybe LJ was indulged too much, even Holden bringing in mainly players at the end of their careers. We need to assemble a squad, a team that works together. Pearson has his work cut out, if we find a gem we will only be able to keep them so long. Players are ambitious, eager to earn the big bucks and will want to move on. As has been said, success gives you a little time, but like Southampton has learnt, the way to reach your best level is always having an eye on the next player, because someone bigger will always want your best.

[GrahamC]

Just now, petehinton said:

LJ wasn’t happy to sell Pack at all. The total opposite actually. Cardiff doubled his weekly wage and once he heard that it was hard for them to convince him to stay, but LJ was pretty hysterical over it. 
 

I also personally don’t get the frustration over the sales. There’s isn’t a single club in the division that would’ve turned any of those bids down. The fees are absolutely incredible for this level. The issue has been the poor recruitment in replacing them. 
 

More of a poor recruitment issue than a ‘selling club’ issue for me. 

Thanks.

This is where the planning bit goes awry though, isn’t it?

No direct criticism of Nagy but what we needed at that point was a ready made Championship proven replacement, the sort of midfielder that we come up against every week, pretty much.

As Pearson said at the weekend sometimes you have to step outside the model to bring in the right type, look at Wilbs, recruited to almost universal derision (2 goals in 3 years I think someone said, nearly 35 when he arrived), bloody worked though, didn’t it?

[TonyTonyTony]

Webster was good business. Losing Pack was damaging, but for the money you can understand it. For me the noticeable change in performance came when Josh was sold. Dont get me wrong i understand we had to sell, but that was a real damaging blow. Add to that losing Korey Smith, who has played 36 games at Swansea this season - you literally ripped the heart out of the midfield. We havent been right since

[steviestevieneville]

11 minutes ago, petehinton said:

LJ wasn’t happy to sell Pack at all. The total opposite actually. Cardiff doubled his weekly wage and once he heard that it was hard for them to convince him to stay, but LJ was pretty hysterical over it. 
 

I also personally don’t get the frustration over the sales. There’s isn’t a single club in the division that would’ve turned any of those bids down. The fees are absolutely incredible for this level. The issue has been the poor recruitment in replacing them. 
 

More of a poor recruitment issue than a ‘selling club’ issue for me. 

But the article is about a lack of leaders & the reason we’re so weak currently . Not replacing them as leaders not just players. 

[Red Exile]

11 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Thanks.

This is where the planning bit goes awry though, isn’t it?

No direct criticism of Nagy but what we needed at that point was a ready made Championship proven replacement, the sort of midfielder that we come up against every week, pretty much.

As Pearson said at the weekend sometimes you have to step outside the model to bring in the right type, look at Wilbs, recruited to almost universal derision (2 goals in 3 years I think someone said, nearly 35 when he arrived), bloody worked though, didn’t it?

Agreed - and as a consequence I feel Nagy's qualities are often unappreciated.

 

 

@GrahamC just sent you a message about seats and season tickets

[Taz]

The biggest issue doesn't relate to loing one single player, but more the fact that we were constantly being told that we planned 2/3 transfer windows ahead, so we should always have had a replacement lined up should someone be sold.

Did we have replacements lined up, or is it more that the replacements being lined up weren't good enough?

For all of their good PR and supposed "intelligent sounding" interviews, between Johnson/Ashton/Lansdown, collectively they dropped the ball.

[Numero Uno]

53 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

But the issue is about leadership, not just good centre halves, and that’s what we’ve been lacking.  We have been screaming out for an on-field leader for the whole of 2021, and Kalas clearly isn’t it.  Look at the leadership we had in the last promotion team: not just Wade Elliott, but the likes of Korey Smith, Aden Flint, Aaron Wilbraham and Marlon Pack.  Big strong personalities on the field and in the dressing room.  That’s what we’ve been lacking. 

The thing is that a "leader" doesn't even have to be that outstanding in terms of their position. Obviously they have to be Championship standard but, if they get other, better technically players playing to their potential and doing the job they've been sent out there to do, one or two "average" players with "strong" leadership will get the job done. What also tends to happen is that "non-leaders" up their mentality when playing with leaders and then you end up with what we had in 2015......a strong dressing room.