How “safe” are we

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

I figured we would end up lower mid table, hopefully that will still pan out to be true, I do worry about how we sort out next season though, we will have several strong side come up from L1 and we will still be remodelling the team/treading water financially. 

[ExiledAjax]

Completely safe. 

[Sturny]

We’re safe this season but what about next? Not confident at all unless the defence gets some good additions 

[pillred]

33 minutes ago, Out of his pie crust said:

This season we will be safe. Next season and for the foreseeable future I believe it will be a fight to stay in the division. I hope I’m wrong 

Thought the same today, if our some say players of the future and we all know who they are supposed to be  ( and if they are that good why are we in  the position we are in ) leave in the summer I fear for next season, NP who I have to say has disappointed me so far has a lot to do, season tickets will be a hard sell for next season I have seen 11 games at home call me unlucky if you like but have witnessed only 2 wins in the last year yes that's right 2, I could go on but you get my drift.   

[Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan]

1 hour ago, City oz said:

Yes as good as safe. Another extra 4 points will make it comfortable. I find it hard to believe as at the beginning of the season our expectations were much higher all round.

What?

[slartibartfast]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

Completely safe. 

At last, somebody talking sense !  Anyone want to take odds that we WILL go down.............No?, thought not !

[Alex_BCFC]

There is about 10 games to go and the gap is 16 points. We will win a couple more before end but as I said before we probably already have enough. I don’t think Reading will catch us let alone any of the 3 below them. We may however finish 20th which would be disappointing as a few weeks ago we were starting to look better but it’s gone backwards lately. 

[Davefevs]

4 hours ago, AG City said:

I think we finished last year on 51 points and 19th with a -22 goal difference...and it was a horrendous season.

This season we are on 40 points, with a -18 goal difference - with away games still to play at Blackburn, Bournemouth, Stoke, Derby and Huddersfield.

It will be some indictment on Pearson if we manage to finish below 19th with less points and a worse goal difference!!

I totally get the sentiment, but you could easily argue that’s probably the expectation….loads of players Jeff the club last season, a small number signed, and the costs have been reduced by 20%+.  There’s some context to the situation I guess.  Today was poor overall, not dismissing that.

[fgrsimon]

Not safe for until it's mathematically so. 

Yes the gap is big but the worry is that there are so few teams below us now. So it needs one of the bottom 3 to put a very good run together and Reading to hit some decent form. Unlikely but certainly not impossible as it's not unknown for teams at the bottom to suddenly hit play-off form or better in the last few games. Wycombe last season for example. 

We of course are capable of collapsing completely.

Edited March 6, 2022 by fgrsimon

[Wanderingred]

We are one of the three worst teams in the division. Fortunately, we will be saved by the financial irregularities of Reading and Derby but we won’t be so lucky next season. I have  zero confidence that those in charge know how to make the right decisions. 

[Red white and red]

I’m not concerned about the rest of this season at all. In fact, I’d be happy to write it off now. Next season is a huge worry. Unless we see a drastic change in the defence and midfield we will be struggling again. Also, if Scott, Semenyo, Massengo etc leave, then we HAVE to replace them. No good just paying that money off of the debt as the playing staff will suffer. If Pearson is in charge next season, give him all of that money. Let him form a decent side that actually has some tactical awareness, and a bit of an idea how to defend and tackle. My concern is the powers that be will interfere and Pearson will walk away. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

[Guest]

March; will be lucky to get a point we have to stop these 3 scoring...unlikely,

Blackburn a; 0

Barnsley a; 0 (chance of a draw or 3pts but they will be fighting for survival and we dont seem to give a sh1te atm)

WBA h; 0

April; Peterbro and Hull best chances of 3pts cant see too much else.

Bournemouth a 0

Peterbro h; must be 3

Stoke a; 0

Sheff u h; 0

Derby a; 0

Hull h; must be 3

Huddersfield a; 0

We should get at least 6 pts which should be enough....just; there can be no mistake though we are very poor and need to wake up and that includes our manager, who dispite his "history" is also poor.

Edited March 6, 2022 by gl2

[Pezo]

2 hours ago, Wanderingred said:

We are one of the three worst teams in the division. Fortunately, we will be saved by the financial irregularities of Reading and Derby but we won’t be so lucky next season. I have  zero confidence that those in charge know how to make the right decisions. 

That's not what the league says. At the moment Reading, Barnsley, Peterborough and Hull are still worse than us.

If you don't include the points deductions then we would be 4 points ahead of Reading with them having a game in hand.

What happens when 3 of them get relegated and are replaced by say Rotherham, Wigan and Sheffield Wednesday fresh with confidence off the back of a promotion?

[Pezo]

1 hour ago, Red white and red said:

I’m not concerned about the rest of this season at all. In fact, I’d be happy to write it off now. Next season is a huge worry. Unless we see a drastic change in the defence and midfield we will be struggling again. Also, if Scott, Semenyo, Massengo etc leave, then we HAVE to replace them. No good just paying that money off of the debt as the playing staff will suffer. If Pearson is in charge next season, give him all of that money. Let him form a decent side that actually has some tactical awareness, and a bit of an idea how to defend and tackle. My concern is the powers that be will interfere and Pearson will walk away. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

And that's the catch 22, give Pearson all the money to replace the sold players and we get a points deduction or don't replace them and surely get relegated with the players we have. The reality is going to be treading a very fine line between both those situations and hoping neither happens but seeing how the club has been managed in the past we're more likely to sell the players, buy a load of dross, get the points deduction and still get relegated.

[Bizyer]

10 hours ago, David Brent said:

We’re only 15 points off the playoffs 

That's the spirit

[Bodiesaffer]

Are hands are tied with our FFP.  That’s what’s going to stop us progressing up the table.  Nothing has changed we are improving under NP, slow progress yes.  Consistency is what we need and key next season.  I’d like to keep all of our younger players, however we need cash so a couple of big transfers out could solve are problems.  I’m hoping we see the next few stepping up. That’s where I think the plan of progress is developing are own.

 

[johnbytheriver]

We are not safe! We are in free fall! And anymore crazy team selections like yesterday will see us plummet into the relegation abyss! What is pearson playing at? This is no time to experiment ,

certain youngsters have proved their worth, but should Sam Bell be selected in a defensive role ahead of Pring and Atkinson? He is a centre forward ffs .Great 2nd half performance but!

the stable door was open! and the horse had already bolted

 

[Sturny]

Hope it’s not another great end to the season where we hear “if the season went on for a couple more games we would’ve gone down”.

 Why are we always so rubbish second half of the season?! 

[Loosey Boy]

6 minutes ago, johnbytheriver said:

We are not safe! We are in free fall! And anymore crazy team selections like yesterday will see us plummet into the relegation abyss! What is pearson playing at? This is no time to experiment ,

certain youngsters have proved their worth, but should Sam Bell be selected in a defensive role ahead of Pring and Atkinson? He is a centre forward ffs .Great 2nd half performance but!

the stable door was open! and the horse had already bolted

 

I’m with you on this - if Barnsley were to beat Stoke on Tuesday (accepting that they are likely to lose to Fulham on Saturday) and then us next Tuesday, they could be level with Reading and I still think they could catch us, based on our current form…..

[Tookster]

We are safe, but in need of some good business in the summer. The NP 3 year plan. Fully expected an uncomfortable season and expected to finish 18th. Since Christmas (around the QPR game), I have largely enjoyed watching us play and we have moved from celebrating a goal on target (last year) to a goal scoring team. Bolster the defence and keep 2 of our 3 key players in the summer. Personally, I would sell Massengo to keep Scott and Semenyo (if possible)

[BigTone]

13 hours ago, Pezo said:

It's next season I'm worried about!

Indeed we need to get rid of a lot of dross and replace with quality. Problem is that never seems to happen.

[Pezo]

Just now, BigTone said:

Indeed we need to get rid of a lot of dross and replace with quality. Problem is that never seems to happen.

We need to get rid of a lot of dross that doesn't need to leave and if they do will involve them taking a pay cut (so ain't going to happen). We need quality for bargain prices which I see very little evidence of us being able to achieve.

Anyway I think that's enough of all this positivity, time to look forward to playing Shrewsbury in a couple seasons .

[Pezo]

7 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Good recruitment and probably just as importantly the right tactics and training should not require much money in the transfer market.

I don't know clubs finances, but I assume quite a number of other clubs won't be spending much in the summer. So it should be a similar challenge for a lot of teams.

Look at Huddersfield, Luton, Millwall, Preston, Coventry, Blackpool.

All doing better than expected on limited budgets. Preston certainly are now since Lowe joined them.

Lowe has only lost 2 of his 15 games in charge so far.

It shows what can be done.

Well the clubs finances are a mess, we need to sell players this summer to not get docked points for FFP (or P&S as I think the cool kids call it).

None of those teams have a profit of near 20m disappearing off there FFP ledger with the costs of KP, JD and Kalas (the players we signed because of that £20m) remaining. Then there is the COVID losses of near £-37m that are going to be on our FFP balance sheet for the next couple seasons.

All those teams came up after us except Preston - so we're all it different areas of the cycle, Preston never had a big sale so never waisted money but we have already and we are going to be constrained by it for at least a couple more seasons if we get our recruitment right, if we screw up our recruitment now then we're either getting points deduction and going down or getting the wrong players and going down.

[Red-Robbo]

15 hours ago, Kodjias Wrist said:

I feel two wins would be enough. Posh at home should be one of these.

 

My thoughts too. 

Ultimately, I want Pearson to pull us out of this bad patch and return us to the home form we showed earlier this year.  To finish lower than we did in 20/21 isn't really indicative of ongoing progress. 

[GrahamC]

2 hours ago, Loosey Boy said:

I’m with you on this - if Barnsley were to beat Stoke on Tuesday (accepting that they are likely to lose to Fulham on Saturday) and then us next Tuesday, they could be level with Reading and I still think they could catch us, based on our current form…..

Would you like to make a bet that Barnsley will catch us?

That a club with 5 wins in 34 games makes up a 17 point deficit over 12 games & who has a worse goal difference than us by a margin of 7?

[Davefevs]

43 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Good recruitment and probably just as importantly the right tactics and training should not require much money in the transfer market.

I don't know clubs finances, but I assume quite a number of other clubs won't be spending much in the summer. So it should be a similar challenge for a lot of teams.

Look at Huddersfield, Luton, Millwall, Preston, Coventry, Blackpool.

All doing better than expected on limited budgets. Preston certainly are now since Lowe joined them.

Lowe has only lost 2 of his 15 games in charge so far.

It shows what can be done.

Quite simply, none of those clubs in their current phase of development were saddled with a cost base of £60m.  Their low cost base allowed them to remain competitive, and more importantly flexible. Sad to say, but MA and SL allowed us to become a “cost juggernaut” that takes time to turn around.  Last summer was heavy lifting…so much of this summer is dependent on contracts of the likes of Massengo, Kalas, etc, or potential sales of Scott or Semenyo.

It is out of Nige’s control to a large extent.

Its a really poor position to be in.  We got too big for our boots, and we gambled on an inflationary transfer market that they never put any contingency plans in place for.  The saving grace, to some extent is that we have Scott, Semenyo and Massengo as assets that can alleviate part of the problem…but you then potentially have a weaker squad as a result.  The proverbial “shit sandwich”!

8 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Fair enough I never really look into the ffp stuff. But I think Tanner, Klose, James signings show what is possible in a transfer market on a limited budget. Unless the likes of Klose and James are on more than we can afford in the next window when looking to bring in similar types of experience on a free.

We can't be making mistakes like Simpson, Baker and King signings again.

But I don't think we should need as much as some fans think anyway.

You ought to, it would help you understand why comparing Bristol City to the clubs you list above is the wrong comparison bucket.  We are more Reading, Brum, Derby, etc in reality.

You are right that with good recruitment we can ease the pain, but even I’m starting to reflect that sitting here today, year two is gonna be a tough one too.  Maybe we are two years behind Huddersfield, etc.  That’s a tough one to take though.

That can of course change if we can move on Wells and Palmer.  Maybe we get small fees for Bakinson and Moore? Lots of moving parts though.  We will know more as the summer goes on.   I’m quite worried though.

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, JonDolman said:

Good recruitment and probably just as importantly the right tactics and training should not require much money in the transfer market.

I don't know clubs finances, but I assume quite a number of other clubs won't be spending much in the summer. So it should be a similar challenge for a lot of teams.

Look at Huddersfield, Luton, Millwall, Preston, Coventry, Blackpool.

All doing better than expected on limited budgets. Preston certainly are now since Lowe joined them.

Lowe has only lost 2 of his 15 games in charge so far.

It shows what can be done.

This is such a simplistic take though.

How many of them started in the position Pearson did with horrendous overspending on shite leaving us in a perilous position re FFP?

None.

We have a badly under balanced squad, who is Coventry or Preston’s version of Palmer? A highly paid totally pointless squad member.

They don’t have one.

Edited March 6, 2022 by GrahamC

[And Its Smith]

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Quite simply, none of those clubs in their current phase of development were saddled with a cost base of £60m.  Their low cost base allowed them to remain competitive, and more importantly flexible. Sad to say, but MA and SL allowed us to become a “cost juggernaut” that takes time to turn around.  Last summer was heavy lifting…so much of this summer is dependent on contracts of the likes of Massengo, Kalas, etc, or potential sales of Scott or Semenyo.

It is out of Nige’s control to a large extent.

Its a really poor position to be in.  We got too big for our boots, and we gambled on an inflationary transfer market that they never put any contingency plans in place for.  The saving grace, to some extent is that we have Scott, Semenyo and Massengo as assets that can alleviate part of the problem…but you then potentially have a weaker squad as a result.  The proverbial “shit sandwich”!

You ought to, it would help you understand why comparing Bristol City to the clubs you list above is the wrong comparison bucket.  We are more Reading, Brum, Derby, etc in reality.

You are right that with good recruitment we can ease the pain, but even I’m starting to reflect that sitting here today, year two is gonna be a tough one too.  Maybe we are two years behind Huddersfield, etc.  That’s a tough one to take though.

That can of course change if we can move on Wells and Palmer.  Maybe we get small fees for Bakinson and Moore? Lots of moving parts though.  We will know more as the summer goes on.   I’m quite worried though.

Irrespective of everything here, Pearson has overseen an embarrassing defence that is not improving.  Let’s not ignore that as well.  He shouldn’t get a free ride because of the financials  

[GrahamC]

33 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Quite simply, none of those clubs in their current phase of development were saddled with a cost base of £60m.  Their low cost base allowed them to remain competitive, and more importantly flexible. Sad to say, but MA and SL allowed us to become a “cost juggernaut” that takes time to turn around.  Last summer was heavy lifting…so much of this summer is dependent on contracts of the likes of Massengo, Kalas, etc, or potential sales of Scott or Semenyo.

It is out of Nige’s control to a large extent.

Its a really poor position to be in.  We got too big for our boots, and we gambled on an inflationary transfer market that they never put any contingency plans in place for.  The saving grace, to some extent is that we have Scott, Semenyo and Massengo as assets that can alleviate part of the problem…but you then potentially have a weaker squad as a result.  The proverbial “shit sandwich”!

You ought to, it would help you understand why comparing Bristol City to the clubs you list above is the wrong comparison bucket.  We are more Reading, Brum, Derby, etc in reality.

You are right that with good recruitment we can ease the pain, but even I’m starting to reflect that sitting here today, year two is gonna be a tough one too.  Maybe we are two years behind Huddersfield, etc.  That’s a tough one to take though.

That can of course change if we can move on Wells and Palmer.  Maybe we get small fees for Bakinson and Moore? Lots of moving parts though.  We will know more as the summer goes on.   I’m quite worried though.

Sums up my thoughts entirely & also I’m not at all convinced our recruitment team are up to it.

There will be ample time to discuss this when the actual football stops but there are so many variables here that the solution, which is a significant re-structure of the playing squad is far easier to write than to achieve.

Until we know who is being sold, we can shift & is being released (the last one is far easier to predict) we have no indication of the amount of scope we have to facilitate the required change.

Edited March 6, 2022 by GrahamC

[Davefevs]

Just now, And Its Smith said:

Irrespective of everything here, Pearson has overseen an embarrassing defence that is not improving.  Let’s not ignore that as well.  He shouldn’t get a free ride because of the financials  

Yep, it’s been v.poor Dave.  I was horrified by our opening 15 minutes defensive structure (not just defenders) yesterday.

He doesn’t get a free ride from me, but I recognise the constraints he’s under.

What I don’t “buy” is changing the manager changes all of that, like some do.  We are in a very delicate situation, trying to reset AND stay in this division.  Typically, Bristol City need a relegation to reset, and we go through the sane cycle.

We might just need Pearson to guide us through this rocky period for someone else to take advantage of the foundations.  Now is not the time for that “someone else”.  To some extent Cotterill and then Johnson benefitted from O’Driscoll’s foundations.

I really don’t want this season to end in a whimper, but it might do.  Glimmers of hope that Williams now back and James and Atkinson too, and over a couple of games they get up to speed and give us a bit more “strength”….Tanner too.  It’s not much to hold on to, but it’s something.  It then becomes all about the summer window…and who knows how that will pan out.