Ashton's Neglect

[Dolman_Stand]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I think you are right to raise / debate what you have above, it ain’t black and white is it?

I will always try to present a balance in my “arguments” for and against, might not feel an even balance.  In Mark Ashton’s case, the view is grey, but imho it’s dark grey, rather than light grey.  Others may see it the other way, that’s when good discussion can be held.  I think we hit poor discussion when posters can only look at it from one side.  It is fine to disagree with the other side but try to explain why is helpful.

FWIW, we did stay within FFP, so you can rightly argue that he only spent what he brought in.  My side of this debate is that with a diminishing squad in terms of asset value, the ability to sell players to cover the costs was trending towards coming to a head.  Covid has sped that up, Covid is not the root cause, “reckless” spending is the root cause.  That spending has been the focus of mine since the window of Jan 2018. My analysis over the months since reached a conclusion that the trend did not look good.  Rising costs, less players / less value to offset costs with player sales.

I think Mark Ashton saw that happening and bailed on us (and his responsibilities too).  He rode the good times and was a busted flush here as the going began to get tough.

He’s jumped ship to a club about to ride a big wave of investment.  He’s an opportunist is a polite way of putting it.

Just to follow up on your point RW this summer’s signing - the reason Nige has spent a few quid on transfers is because:

• he’s cut the wage bill (Bristol Post suggesting by a third - no mean feat, I’m not sure it’s quite that high from my estimates)
• he’s cut amortisation millstone going forward by about £6m p.a for the next two seasons, and another £5.5m in 23/24

Mark Ashton loaded the accounts with future costs.  It looks great to make £25m net in player sales in the 19/20 season, but if you spend £25m on fees plus all the other associated costs, you load costs in over future years.

Under MA with LJ and DH (even though DH wasn’t given much in way of transfer funds) they retained a large playing squad at a huge cost, disproportionate to income, and therefore the only way of staying “in budget / FFP” was to sell players.

Early days indeed, but not unreasonable to say we might well be getting more for our money with Nige in charge.

You have a much better handle on this than me so I can only bow to your greater knowledge but there is no way that this "gamble" mentality wouldn't have been signed off by SL as an educated risk IMO, losing 18 months of your largest revenue stream will have obviously impacted on this and if the Webster deal was done 12 months later (i.e. after Covid hit) presumably the same quantity of players and therefore wages wouldn't have been re-invested in and the future balance sheet therefore wouldn't have been as loaded. Also could SL have agreed to it on the basis he could fund it (or account it in a cleaver way for FFP) in another way should it not work out which it now hasnt?

Also Its probably not much of an argument but even with your analysis we can't be as badly positioned as a number of other Championship clubs so its not like we were being run compartively worse than our competitors?

I suppose what I don't like about it that you've got a greater level of financial understanding and can make a case for why you believe MA was a bad CEO whereas the majority of people don't and simply abused him because he wore a suit, had a Brummy accent, spoke in "business speak" etc and act like he was the spawn of satan. We've been in far worse positions as a club in my time following yet never seen anyone who the majority of the fanbase actvely want to see fail so much.

RE Pearson's summer "spending", from your points above, I cna't imagine the wage bill wouldn't have been substantially regardless of whever was here in the summer given the current circumstances and given we look like heading towards a mid-table finish on current form we haven't really been "set back years" at all.

 

 

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

You have a much better handle on this than me so I can only bow to your greater knowledge but there is no way that this "gamble" mentality wouldn't have been signed off by SL as an educated risk IMO, losing 18 months of your largest revenue stream will have obviously impacted on this and if the Webster deal was done 12 months later (i.e. after Covid hit) presumably the same quantity of players and therefore wages wouldn't have been re-invested in and the future balance sheet therefore wouldn't have been as loaded. Also could SL have agreed to it on the basis he could fund it (or account it in a cleaver way for FFP) in another way should it not work out which it now hasnt?

 

Part of the problem was that he’d sold all the “Adam Webster’s” if that makes sense.  There was no £20m player last summer, when Covid hadn’t really affected the transfer market, because most clubs thought we’d be back inside full stadiums in Oct 2020.  He’d looked good in the good years….Flint, Bryan, Kodjia, Reid, Webster and Brownhill.  Hell, he even benefitted from Bolassie to the tune of £4m!!  But last summer what was he left with.  You don’t make £10m on an £8m signing like Kalas.  So some flaws in his approach.  Not all sh1t, but a fair bit of it.  In some ways he was hamstrung by a manager who couldn’t make up his mind which system to play abd who was in his trust group.  That’s where his lack of skills in Talent ID and recruitment strategy let him down….he didn’t know enough about football (the playing side) to rein LJ in, nor do I suspect he wanted too, as each signing was a vanity trip.

12 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

Also Its probably not much of an argument but even with your analysis we can't be as badly positioned as a number of other Championship clubs so its not like we were being run compartively worse than our competitors?

There are some crappy clubs, but beyond the PP clubs I suspect we are trending towards the bottom of the clubs that’ aren’t Derby, Reading etc.  That’s a bit of a fall from grace.

14 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

I suppose what I don't like about it that you've got a greater level of financial understanding and can make a case for why you believe MA was a bad CEO whereas the majority of people don't and simply abused him because he wore a suit, had a Brummy accent, spoke in "business speak" etc and act like he was the spawn of satan. We've been in far worse positions as a club in my time following yet never seen anyone who the majority of the fanbase actvely want to see fail so much.

Thanks…but I think that is where his “personality” lets him down.  I could ignore that if he achieved here, but it’s another reason to dislike the bloke.  We should never have divisive appointments at our club really.  You can argue LJ was divisive too (some fans dislike him as a player, nepotism, etc), so to have 2 such characters was a double whammy.

17 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

RE Pearson's summer "spending", from your points above, I cna't imagine the wage bill wouldn't have been substantially regardless of whever was here in the summer given the current circumstances and given we look like heading towards a mid-table finish on current form we haven't really been "set back years" at all.

I guess this one about where you are drawing the line from, and I’m possibly being slightly biased.  If I go back to 18/19 when we finished 8th, that was the point to kick-on. Instead our costs have played a part in us going backwards….we treaded water in 19/20, a bad end saw us finish 12th.  Then last season….eeeek!  So looking at where we are now, I liken it to 16/17 and the journey from there.  That’s why I say we are set back.

But I can see why you think we aren’t in too bad a position to kick on….if we can maintain the improvement.  Nige should’ve had a better hand to deal with and future resources to invest to make us stronger, which is where LJ and MA were in 16/17, peaking sporadically over the next 2 seasons.  It was ok to talk year on year league position improvement, but if you go all-in on that without looking at the bigger financial picture (was always my argument you can’t look at league position in isolation) then you will find it hard to work out the reason why it went wrong.

Its all about opinions, the above is mine.  I think it has sound basis, but I’m always willing to hear another viewpoint.

 

(and I’ve finally worked out how to quote a section)

[shahanshahan]

6 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

He was chairman of the WFC board! So it was absolutely his remit to oversee it.

Richard Gould has now taken on that role, and is unsurprisingly bringing much-needed enthusiasm to the job. 

*checks all the replies this thread has had in case someone else had mentioned it already*

Mark Ashton was CEO of City men & chairman of Bristol City Women. While Richard Gould is CEO of City now, the chairperson is Gavin Marshall, even though Gould is also on the City Women board (as is Marshall on the City men/Bristol Sport boards). But yes, Gould is very enthusiastic

Edited September 15, 2021 by shahanshahan

[supercidered]

1 hour ago, Rudolf Hucker said:

Ok. Does she have a moustache?

If so, have you had her?

[Rudolf Hucker]

3 minutes ago, supercidered said:

If so, have you had her?

If she had a moustache, most definitely. 

[maxjak]

11 hours ago, Hampshire Red said:

Gamon has a very short memory or is very young. Do you remeber the Cup run, beating Man U, giving Man C a harder game than most prem clubs do and LJ taking us to the heights of the Championship when we expected to win every game? We have gone downhill since then and no single coach, player (nor MA) is to'blame' for that. We all know SL found MA to be the first person in football he could really trust and in your personal world one should think about that.

Most people on here seem happy to criticise MAand for some reason are happy to ignore and forget the good players he brought in and the great deals he did selling players for good money to fit the business model. Complaining about an ex boss at the club has become one of the biggest yawns on here. Let's get this terrible home run under NP sorted out before forgetting where we were at pressing the top of the Championshi

See you tonight? CoYRS

I have the number of a good psychiatrist if your interested?............or perhaps you could ring up your good buddy Mark for some advice?

[Hampshire Red]

Max, I am sure you do, your posts may it pretty clear you call them daily.

M.A Isn't my buddy, but an ex-employee of the Club i love

 

[TETBURY MASSIVE]

6 hours ago, Hampshire Red said:

Max, I am sure you do, your posts may it pretty clear you call them daily.

M.A Isn't my buddy, but an ex-employee of the Club i love

 

You really really need to get out more.... or pop off and support Mark Ashtons Ipswich....

[steviestevieneville]

On 15/09/2021 at 10:53, Hampshire Red said:

Gamon has a very short memory or is very young. Do you remeber the Cup run, beating Man U, giving Man C a harder game than most prem clubs do and LJ taking us to the heights of the Championship when we expected to win every game? We have gone downhill since then and no single coach, player (nor MA) is to'blame' for that. We all know SL found MA to be the first person in football he could really trust and in your personal world one should think about that.

Most people on here seem happy to criticise MAand for some reason are happy to ignore and forget the good players he brought in and the great deals he did selling players for good money to fit the business model. Complaining about an ex boss at the club has become one of the biggest yawns on here. Let's get this terrible home run under NP sorted out before forgetting where we were at pressing the top of the Championshi

See you tonight? CoYRS

**** me. What is it with you & the other Hampshire idiot . Is it something in the water down there or were you both banished from Bristol .

[Phileas Fogg]

7 hours ago, Hampshire Red said:

Max, I am sure you do, your posts may it pretty clear you call them daily.

M.A Isn't my buddy, but an ex-employee of the Club i love

 

Slightly poor taste to be making mental health jokes I think. 

[Kid in the Riot]

On 15/09/2021 at 09:30, Kid in the Riot said:

Now some people may have cynically seen those pictures of Pearson at the WFC game a few weeks back and thought he'd attended the game either for a photo op and good bit of PR, or because he was bored.

Not so, he has in fact been quite instrumental in helping out and providing advice to the WFC. So much so in fact that he recommended the new Head of Operations Grace Williams to the WFC, with whom he had worked with at Watford. He considers the WFC to be part of the Bristol City FC team and project, just like he considers everyone that works at the football club to be part of the project, from the ticketing team, to the media team, to the changing room cleaners to the bus driver. 

How encouraging and refreshing to have somebody in charge that takes such a keen interest in all aspects of the club. A far-cry from the previous regime.

Just saw this, below, from Abi Harrison on twitter. She's Bristol City WFC top scorer this season, and as you'll see it backs up what I said last year (above) about Pearson's influence on the WFC.

Compare & contrast Pearson's involvement with the WFC, whilst managing the men's first team, with Mark Ashton's complete disregard for the WFC, and it's like chalk and cheese.

We're heading in the right direction off-field under Nige.