Silvio Dante

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

A 21 year old striker who's scored roughly a goal every 225 minutes for two seasons (noted penalties) will have absolutely no issue at all getting a contract at a Championship club. 

Any club that feels they can give Tommy the right service will be queuing up for him.

I'd be surprised to see him stay tbh.

As would I, but as a bit of devils advocate here if he wasn’t one of our own would we be so bullish? The fact is that if you take out the penalties Tommys scoring record this season has been pretty poor (debate/discuss the reasons why) and there is an argument he’s regressed. I don’t think a Scotland U21 cap adds any real value so if we were looking at a player who say, played for Stoke and had Tommys record this season pre penalties would it be a deal many of us would be that keen on?

(FWIW I do think he’ll have suitors, I do think he’ll go but in view of the above I’m not sure we’re getting top dollar, particularly at this contract stage)

9 hours ago, IAmNick said:

Blimey.

If you look at the page source you'll see a JSON object in there full of stuff like this:

{
    "guid": "e79935ff-5695-4725-bedd-6126de0f4d53",
    "name": "W9",
    "type": "SelectedSeats",
    "free": 184,
    "soldOut": false,
    "isBlocked": false
  }
 

Then write a bit of code (or whack it in a spreadsheet if that's easier) and sum the free column. It's currently at 6331 free and will save you a lot of time!

 

I’d also guess that they haven’t reset the system as yet and this seasons ST seats remain classed as “sold” prior to today to ensure that people don’t transfer into them, so probably a futile exercise all round.

2 minutes ago, The Humble Realist said:

How has a player who has played less than 90 minutes for us got a 9 page post 

Because essentially the thread isn’t about him specifically but more around the due diligence process followed in the signing, whether we’re damaging his career, the possible reasons he’s got a season ticket for the bench but doesn’t touch the pitch and then a bizarre detour into a poster feeling a touch precious about facepalms.

If it was 9 pages on the performance against QPR I agree it would be very bizarre!

No, not City related. But the best show about football (other than the early years of Dream Team or possibly the Manageress) ever committed to television…definitely the best theme!

1 hour ago, TV Tom said:

I wasn't charged £25

I think he’s on about the charge Leicester are making.

20 minutes ago, cotswoldred2 said:

Sick of all the snidey posts tbh, just like a bunch of old 'wimmin' sticking in the boot when patently there is no justification at all, it says OTIB on the tin and yet some /most seem to delight in undermining this club and what it is obviously striding for. Is it a Bristol malaise that has to constantly attack individuals? The very people who have the best interests for Bristol City, I know football fans are fickle by nature but this forum currently is demonstrating a dislike for the club and most certainly the people who are employed by the club.

Dare anyone actually call out these posts they are quickly dealt with by a follow up of :laugh:'s or face palms....or even memes demonstrating to me they have lost the argument and resort to basic trolling.

This forum must be food and drink to the other lot, FFS show a bit of support.

But the issue is that you don’t debate. You’ve brought up a few times “The Truth” and when asked to expand have said “It’s something you deny” as opposed to giving any kind of coherent argument. You get the memes and facepalms not because others have lost - but because you can’t, or won’t, give coherent points.

In respect of being sick of snidey posts, I’d argue you’re equally as guilty - across multiple threads in the last 48 hours you’ve referred to “Nige Groupies” and brought him up unprompted on at least one thread. You’ve then just gone on a bizarre rant at @GrahamC when a valid point has been made about the providence of signing Medube (where Tinnion was very vocal on Twitter as to how good the signing was, so the player not playing is very relevant criticism).

Supporting a team isn’t assuming Brian Tinnion is infallible- in fact, evidence in senior roles is very much the contrary.

I’d argue that supporting a team is very much not just blindly shouting how awesome everything is - in fact, we often mock the other lot because of their lack of ability to critique, so it’s actually the opposite of your final sentence. You blindly not questioning and “FFS showing a bit of support” is actually the meat and drink to other fans.

If you want to avoid the facepalms, debate. Or keep shouting at clouds and think something’s happening that isn’t.

And for everyone else I apologise if this makes the Medube thread “hot” - we’re not signing him (we hope!)

(Aside on DM - I saw a theory earlier that we weren’t playing him so we didn’t alert teams to him. Utter nonsense. We’ve agreed a fee. If we want him he’s our player. He’s not playing because he was pony when he did play and because the coaching staff have seen him for 3 months and concluded he’s not good enough).

3 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

That is ok if one has or uses X which I don't. Was it on club website in another method?

Yup.

https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/young-robins-host-tigers-at-ashton-gate/

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I haven’t listened to TW’s pod, but I believe it is about sobriety.

It is. I find Wilkins an absolute moron both on Radio Bristol and Twitter when it comes to his knowledge/views of football, but I would never knock his podcast considering the subject and the likely challenges he’s gone through and continues to go through. I see Tinnion being on that more in the community sphere and it might be an interesting listen if they touch on the footballing drinking culture that was prevalent when Tinnion was a player.

1 minute ago, cotswoldred2 said:

Nige...please if only to shut the groupies up!!

Eh? You’re bringing Pearson into a thread that has nothing to do with him, and it’s not the first time. 
 

You seem to see conspiracy theories everywhere….

32 minutes ago, phantom said:

I know it is interesting to know how sales are going but does it really matter that we don't know?

 

In the grand scheme of things, of course not. But it’s our club, it’s a matter that people are interested in for many reasons - firstly in that the number sold if down heavily indicates that there is more discontent in the fanbase than many say (as this place is often - erroneously IMO - stated as not reflective) - and to be clear the reverse could hold in that more have been sold than anticipated but as the media team tweet when they’ve had a particularly satisfying dump, you’d have thought that would have come out by now.
 

And this season , the number sold in the South Stand - if decreasing markedly - may indicate that people were buying kids seats and not intending to attend. It’ll also confirm if that area may be a POTD hub.

Basically it doesn’t really matter. But if you want to get all existential none of the threads on here really do.

3 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

I'm not saying this wasn't publicised, but since it's the first u21 game at Ashton Gate since about October, I would have gone down to watch had I known about it.

To be fair, and I know you’re not saying it wasn’t publicised, it was on Twitter and the OS.

4 minutes ago, paignton red said:

Willem would be a good one.

This comes up every year.

They’re (currently) a second tier Dutch club who are typically in the lower reaches of the top flight.

From a friendly/revenue point of view it wouldn’t bring in many floating fans. Willem just aren’t a big name or a big club. It would no doubt be good for fans who are engaged in the link between the two clubs but that is in reality a very small proportion of the fanbase and doesn’t butter enough parsnips to make a game at Ashton massively commercially viable.

I get why people ask for it - but from a £ point of view I don’t see it happening.

(NB - Per Opta rankings the Dutch Eredivise is one step below the Championship and the second tier isn’t in the top 30. Competitive wise that makes Willem a Rotherham in real terms currently. There is a merit in playing them as a test of a team who should be a little worse than us based on current record, but the commercial side often wins out here)

31 minutes ago, Steve Watts said:

He's annoying because he takes after his old man....

I’ll set ‘em up, you knock ‘em down….

17 hours ago, E.G.Red said:

Well if the reports that Tottenham, Club Bruge and PSV Eindhoven were keen to sign him are true, someone somewhere must have seen something in him. If the terms of his loan allowed I would have liked to see him play a couple of U21 games to acclimatise to our style of play and then include him in the first team. Thought there were a couple of good touches when he did come on. Would like him get a chance  Saturday to show why we signed him.

Just looking those links up, it seems Fabrizio Romano did one tweet linking DM with the above and it was picked up by the Standard but then there were no further reports/links post that point. It smacks of an agent planting the story as opposed to genuine interest, and you’d have thought if they were genuinely interested they could have beaten Westerlo - particularly as he’s warming their bench before he warmed ours.

With the whole work permit debacle and what we’ve seen here in terms of not touching the side there appears to be more fiction than fact as far as Dire is concerned.

20 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Dunno if you saw/heard the interview that Dean Holden and his son Joey did with the BBC a few months ago, he'd just turned 16 and was playing for Oldham's youth team. Dean made the point that the academy system works for certain players, but definitely not for everyone, and they deliberately didn't put Joey into one because he wasn't physically ready at the time and the danger was that he'd have got lost in the system, not developed and be let go at 16 having lost his love for the game, as he'd seen happen to other kids in his time. Whereas he was able to carry on playing for local sides, socialise with his mates, concentrate properly on his education and be a normal teenager, and now he's making his way at Oldham.

It’s a conversation me and @Steve Watts have had a few times - there is a real thing in both youth coaching and as a parent where you have to realise that going x way is not the best both long term and short term even if it’s the accepted route. In a way, not being approached is the best thing as it means the kids enjoy it - if they’re good enough they will make it eventually as everyone gets watched.

Steve would probably agree though that we might take losing the one who could make it as he’s just so bloody annoying!

57 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Edward Woodward

41 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Desmond

Have you got one for 3-3 as well or are you starting to run low on tenuous cultural references…

13 minutes ago, Jacki said:

Football is a brutal environment and the power dynamic is so heavily loaded in favour of the clubs. Communication with players is dreadful in the main from what I see and hear.

I know of a second year scholar at one of the local clubs whose season ends next week and he still hasn’t been told if he has a pro deal for next year. I know of another lad who is a second year pro at a Championship club and he hasn’t been told what his fate is yet either. These lads work their backsides off, it’s all they’ve ever known in many cases, and even this late in the day some of them still don’t know it they have a job at the end of May.

My own experience is also one of poor communication. Unless you’re one of very few ‘chosen’ players in a club’s academy you turn up week in week out, have no idea what the future holds for you, and have to be where they tell you to be when they tell you to be there often at very short notice. As players and parents you know you just have to accept that’s how it is if you want to be involved, but it’s no wonder a lot of boys are lost to the game when they’re released. It’s very easy to become disillusioned when you put your heart and soul into something, get little feedback or encouragement, and end up getting rejected with minimal explanation as to why. As I say, you know what you’re getting into but it is a brutal environment. 

Great post.

My lad is an excellent keeper but I’m also realistic enough to know that the chances of him making it are likely to be limited, and that if he did get into the academy system, he’d be more likely to be one of the “making up the numbers” than one of the sure things. Nothing wrong with that - they need 11 to play a game and 10 of those are unlikely to make it. Thats the game.

But as a parent you weigh up the chance (which even if in the system is small) of making it as a pro, versus the damage that may be caused by being spit out by the system. 
 

Put it this way - knowing what I know, from speaking to parents and also posts like this, it would never be a straightforward decision.

27 minutes ago, cotswoldred2 said:

Christ, are you at all serious?

We are 6 unbeaten and storming the league. 

Why would you or anyone want to go backwards?

Oh! yea it's OTIB.

 

Can’t see them asking him either of those but you’re more than welcome to submit to the pod.

2 minutes ago, Fpcity said:

Did we release a lad who went on to play for Newcastle? Sure he was a winger? Maybe 10-15yrs ago? 

Rolando Aarons?

1 minute ago, Topper 123 said:

Nice friendly in Portugal would be nice 

5 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

I'm very glad the designated family area was in the Lower Dolman when my children were young.

Up in the God's, miles from the action, wouldn't have been the same at all, and we'd have sat elsewhere.

I can still picture my young son charging down the steps to the track when we scored with dozens of other excited kids to celebrate with the scorer.

Children like to be close to the action and see their heroes close up and there couldn't be a more unsuitable area than The Upper Lansdown to put them.

Block G in the Dolman when I was young.

With the upper Lansdown, I’ve only sat there once (lionesses game) and agree, it seemed that you were miles from the action. Great facilities up there as there is all over the ground now but I can’t think it’s conducive to kids really getting attached to the game as it’s so distant from the pitch.

I’m sure Stead was assistant there - can’t see from the statement whether he’s also gone.

Duff would seem a good shout but the statement suggests Devaney is acting as interim - if he gets them up then it’d be as equally a brave call not to appoint him permanently 

In 5th place in the division with a game to go…but lost four of the last five…

9 minutes ago, kmpowell said:

It's nothing to do with a NDA, Nige will likely be under terms defined in his Compromise/Settlement agreement. 

Lansdown is too shred a man to allow any sacked employee to speak ill of him/BCFC etc over any period of time. As part of Nige's severance, in the agreement there would have been clauses to say that he is not able to speak negatively about BCFC and its employees, else they can seek damages and the return of any settlement figure given.

IMO, anyone expecting this to be a BCFC slagging match, is going to be highly disappointed. 

That is... unless Nige didn't agree to any sort of financial severance, nor sign any financial compensation package. If he didn't, then it could be guns loaded and ships ahoy....

To clarify, my point was that “technically” as he’s being paid his current contractual wage until it expires (as is normal for football managers when sacked unless they get another job at a higher or equal salary), he’s still bound by the terms of his prior contract, so my use of NDA was more around he’s being paid as if he’s an employee - so as you say, he can’t speak negatively about the club.

My gut is that in view of the time left on contract (c9 months) and Nige being in relatively poor health at the time (so unlikely to get a new job for a period), he’s likely to still be on the payroll as opposed to coming to any kind of severance in order to have the guaranteed income - and at the end of the contract, other than commercially sensitive information, all bets are off.

Taunton manager departs: