firstdivision

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

All good summaries above. A decent performance. 
 

Just the effing result and the effing referee!!!! Arghhhhhhh

I agree with your other post, Dave, about the lack of yellow cards as well. Hull were quite sly and the ref failed to control it. 

Also, could you imagine any referee in the entire world giving that penalty for us in a match at, say, Old Trafford or Anfield. The Stretford End or the Kop would laugh and Man Utd or Liverpool would just play on. 

Hull manager reaction: below

My reaction: 1/ yeah, until it happens to you in three weeks’ time and then it will be 100 per cent not a penalty. 
2/ if you think he was a yard and a half away from the goal, then your judgement is severely impaired. 
 

"I believe Benjamin [Tetteh] had the time to really make a goal so I should not think why would he go down, they didn't break his leg but probably they touched him enough to get this penalty. It was a yard away, one-and-a half yards away from the goal. 

"I don't want to say it's 100%, but it's a penalty which was almost a goal so he would not go down, that's what I want to believe."

8 minutes ago, chinapig said:

His loss is a huge blow. Without his power and pace we are nowhere near as threatening. His mere presence scares defenders and creates space for others. Let's hope he is back in September but with our record of underestimating how long players will be out I'm not holding my breath.

I think we have a dilemma with Scott as well. He is an 8 not a 10 so we are unlikely to get the best out of him playing 3-4-1-2. But we don't really have the players to suit 4-3-3.

Yes, we need him on the ball. He found it hard to do that today in a team with our limitations.
 

I thought Conway for Scott was a good change. Conway has something about him. 

I thought it was a largely poor game between two ordinary sides. Of course, we shouldn’t have lost.
 

The penalty looked ridiculous; the defection, unlucky in one way, but we could have defended the situation much better.

I’m extremely realistic about this season (unlikely to be much better than last) and nothing I saw today has changed my mind. Without Antoine, we look a bit predictable going forward. We’ll need to cut out the daft goals. And hope the refs start seeing some pens for us. 

1 hour ago, And Its Smith said:

This is my stab. Sure everyone will take 10th. 
 

1.  Norwich 

2. Middlesbrough 

3. West Brom

4. Burnley

5. Sheffield United

6. Watford

7. Coventry

8. Millwall

9. QPR

10. Bristol City

11. Sunderland 

12. Luton

13. Stoke

14. Preston  

15. Hull

16. Blackburn 

17. Swansea

18. Blackpool

19. Cardiff

20. Huddersfield

21. Wigan

22. Rotherham 

23. Reading

24. Birmingham

I would definitely take 10th. My feeling is that it's extremely optimistic. 

Seasons can take different routes: I can see a relegation scrap (key injuries, loss of confidence) or a season better than last (few injuries, improved defending in tough situations) but my hunch is that 10th is right at the upper end of what we can achieve.

For a thread that was criticised when it started, it’s now onto a third page.

I think it’s a perfectly valid and interesting question. Bottom half of the bottom half and he will be in trouble, I would think. 

I don’t want us finishing lower than 15th. I would be reasonably happy with that as long as there are no relegation worries.

As ever, a Championship season is tricky to predict accurately. That’s what makes it make it fun. 

4 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

I am a bit disappointed to see that we play both Sunderland and Wigan in our early opening fixtures. Whilst they are teams from the division below they often make up for their deficiencies with extra motivation and energy.Also they are used to winning.

I much prefer to play them after six to eight weeks when they run out of steam and the bubble has burst.

So we will need to be on our game from the off to avoid dropped points. I don’t agree with Bristol Live that it is an easy start.

 

Definitely. Play relegated sides in your opening games and promoted sides after about 8 weeks (ideal world).
And while I’m here: how can an equitable fixture computer come up with Norwich (a) on Wednesday and Burnley (a) on Saturday? 

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

Tipping us to go down (with Reading & Birmingham) on Sky this morning.

Thank **** for that, as there can’t be a pundit who knows less than him, he said Rotherham would survive (ok then) but then had to be prompted because he clearly didn’t know their manager’s name.

Absolute *******.

I’d prefer every pundit to tip us for relegation. The more the merrier. 

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

The kind of quote we heard all season re his recruitment.  At various stages I responded by asking whether it’s best to wait until the end of the season. Well, we are almost here…one week to go.

Here’s my view.  Not meant to be right or wrong, so more rationale than “rating”

Fees Paid:

Atkinson: started well, suffered mid season through illness / form but has come back strong.  More than happy with Rob.

Tanner: low expectations of minutes overall, and injuries have hampered progress, but looks a decent signing for the future.

Free Transfers:

James: a bit like Atkinson, started decently, mid-season injury, come back well.  Probably more influential than we think.

King: just hadn’t played enough, although I thought he was decent when he played

Klose: bloody excellent

Re-signings:

Weimann: stellar, nothing else to add, other than done this on a smaller wage

Baker: was playing well until injury…such a shame.  Was a risk, didn’t pay off

Simpson: poor signing, only mitigated by him being on a low salary / coaches salary.

 

My view is that although the above shows a mix of results, I would go with a positive overall (others may disagree), and I’d certainly have no issues with Nige making the decisions on who to sign this summer with limited budget.

 

Slight cop out on King, Dave, if you don’t mind me saying. Why did we think we’d keep 32/33yo King fit when his playing record since 2014-15 has been desperately poor? Not much good playing ok when you’re fit if you’re barely fit. Poor signing for me. 
 

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I think we will want more than £10m, nobody will offer what we want, and he will still be here next season.

I hope you are right, Dave. 
He’ll be worth (much) more than £10m in a year or two when we will eventually have to sell him because of the demand for him.

48 minutes ago, One Team said:

Anyone else watched the pre match press conference with NP?

It may well be a strategic comment for potential interest but not quite what I wanted to hear after months of comments about players moving on. 

May mean nothing ultimately but there are quite a few who simply aren’t good enough and need to move on and a couple of others we probably need to sell to finance improvements. 

Why did you think for one moment he’d be able to move on players that are on good contracts and won’t get a better deal elsewhere? 
No one seemed to ask that key question when he was making statements about getting rid of players.

10 hours ago, Red Army 75 said:

Standard has dipped, so Stroud doesn’t seem that bad anymore. Gavin Ward is the one I shudder at when we get him . 

And me. The players know he’s poor, too. 

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Terrible, inconsistent.  Not a clue.

I was waiting for him to disallow Dasilva’s goal for being a fluke.

Superb play from Antoine to set up JDaS for the goal. A few on here would have had him off the field. He’s the first name on my team sheet because he can lift us from the ordinary.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Of those that have played first team football here are the list of players OOC this summer:

King - 1 year option - we don’t know if club option, player trigger or both (if it’s like Martin’s it’s not likely he’ll have triggered on appearances)

Cundy - no option (already exercised that last summer)

Britton - no option (already exercised that last summer)

O’Dowda - 1 year option - likely to be club-option based on age when signed

Klose - no option

 

So little room for manoeuvre. How does he get players out that he doesn’t want? That’s  the question no one seems to ask him. They’re on decent contracts and will tend to sit on them - unless we waste more money by giving them incentives to leave, I suppose.

Just now, Pezo said:

While I agree it's not investigative journalism it's a mouth piece.

Sorry,  I don’t understand that reply. 
The interview was on Radio Bristol. Not the club’s Twitter feed. 

3 hours ago, Gazred said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bwm21c

45 mins onwards for the juicy bits!

The interviewer completely misses the chance to ask the obvious follow-up question about the club being passive: ‘that’s quite a statement. Can you explain more?’

Makes the mistake of not listening to NP’s answer.

12 minutes ago, CHAZ MICHAELS said:

Semenyo at Swansea also - a pretty obvious penalty not given.

For me, the ones against Swansea, Forest, QPR, WBA (the lean-in arm ball one) and Bournemouth were definite penalties. The Preston ones - no. The Coventry one might have been outside the box but the ref didn't even give a foul. Ridiculous. The Fulham one - haven't seen. 

Part of the problem is that some of the fouls have been relatively innocuous and so easy not to give. Eg Saturday. (It was actually a really poor decision by Lloyd Kelly to challenge for the ball like that.) 

Sod's law when we do get one - in about 2026 - it will be  soft or the foul non-existent or when we are 3-0 down.

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

No, that’s what I saw, we failed to string any passes together until his arrival onto the pitch.  I thought he was part of the reason we did better in the final 25-30 mins.  

In context, Alex Scott had a poor game today (finished better at RWB / RB).

I post as I see….No favouritism.

I agree. 

It’s a 1-1 thrashing. Like playing against a pack of wild dogs. They do everything at speed. No disgrace to lose to them. They are on another level. 

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Yeah, we should move on from LJ, but you know he lives in all of our heads!!!

My view was he did good things and bad things.

With all these things it’s rarely black or white.

What is important for me going forward is:

- a coherent recruitment strategy (imho it should be low cost and focussed (not purely though) on younger players)

- a style of play aligned to the above and vice-versa

Until this summer’s window is over it’s really difficult to judge how far into that journey we are.  My gut feel is that the foundations will be firm enough to build on post-summer, not pre-summer.  That might sound like further behind than we would like (it probably is) but we can’t really know until we know what is happening with Massengo, Semenyo and Scott, nor until we know about Palmer, Wells, Kalas, O’Dowda etc either.  I’m gonna enjoy the comings and goings.

 

Yes, good and bad. Definitely. But not to be reviled.

I have a question for you, Dave, re:16-19. I deduce from your figures that we lost about £39m in those three years (£104m minus £65m income on transfers). If so, is that really so bad if you have a rich owner? Isn’t that the luxury a rich owner affords you. It allows you to take risks and make mistakes without the consequences being too great (until something unforeseen like Covid knocks you off course, of course).
 

21 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

The reality of that is that it cost us more than £65m to replace them with worse.  That’s the flipside of that coin.  Not having a go at you, it’s just a bug-bear of mine when only one half of the argument is put forward. Sorry

The 4 seasons from 2016 to 2019 (minus 5 games of Holden) we spent £155m in Wages and Amortisation.  We lost £104m in those 4 seasons, without those sales.

Can you always replace players with ones of similar quality or similar attributes though? Webster and Brownhill, for example. 
Plus, a manager can be hampered by selling players he doesn’t want to sell. As NP will probably experience this summer.

The other thing is that NP - and most other EFL clubs - are/will be operating in a market that has changed radically, one in which the bottom has fallen out. There could/should be some relative bargains compared to LJ’s time. So not easy to compare like for like. 
We were spend happy in the ‘good times’ before COVID-19 changed quite a bit and when MA was ‘in control’. 
I guess my overall point is that I find the constant and general snide remarks about LJ a bit tedious. Let’s move on. Face reality now. It’s reasonable to question NP as we discussed recently about comparative squad strength between the first half of last season and this season. 

 

19 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Good post, and loads there that I agree with completely.

Just a couple of comments though:

Why the need to bring a dig at LJ into it? I just don't understand why so many of the debates on mangers on here descend into completely pointless and irrelevant comparisons between manager a and manager b. Whether you intended that or not, it's what's happened (see the posts subsequent to yours) and I don't get what relevance it has to the rest of what you're saying. Every manager is different, working in different circumstances, at different times, with different objectives and different staff around them. They (pretty much) all do the best job they can for Bristol City. Why does expressing support for one seem to require having a dig at another?

NP doesn't have a squad that's entirely his own -true - but very few managers do, especially given the average length of tenure. It's part of any manager's job (in football as elsewhere) to work with what you've got. And whilst I agree that motivation is just part of the jigsaw, it is a significant part.

Which leads to the points you make about objectives and about agents. The objective has certainly changed from the 'buy cheap, sell high' strategy that MA ran and LJ had to work with. I was encouraged that NP suggested recently the new strategy might focus not just on the academy (rather than buying in) but also on retaining our best players. I think, in retrospect, that the previous strategy had two flaws. One, we ended up with a focus that was entirely on the 'sell high' without any thought of having replacements etc lined up - and that's what broke LJ in the end. Secondly, it must be an agents dream because it establishes absolutely no buy in to Bristol City for any player - they know that they are being bought in order to be sold. I hope NP is right, but iy will be a big part of his job to get those good young players to buy into a future with Bristol City.

Lastly, I agree NP rarely talks bollocks, but that's because he rarely says anything at all! I have to admit that I've stopped listening to his pre and post match interviews for the most part - so maybe I'm being unfair - because I find them pretty inane. He just states the obvious - I can hear most of what he says post match from the people sitting around me during the game! It's the way he is, I guess. Like any City manager I'll support him because he's the City manager - and I sincerely hope you're right. he's clearly got strengths - but I don't see his interview technique as one!!

I agree. The digs at LJ are tedious. He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. But he helped to give us some good times as well as some frustrating times.
He had some cash but the players sold while he was manager generated plenty of cash too - and weakened the team. We should move on. I find the notion that LJ caused NP’s problems - and somehow makes him immune to questioning - increasingly laughable. And a cop out.

Surely he’s been more hamstring by COVID-19 than LJ. 

35 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I’m looking forward to it too….and he will have to do it on a fraction of the budget, and that therefore will take a bit of time to achieve and patience from fans.

 

 

…although the one before the previous manger did (have to) sell about £65+m worth of players if I’ve added up Reid, Bryan, Flint, Pack, Kelly and Webster correctly. 

5 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

@firstdivision

Lies, damn lies and statistics!

Ignoring the tail end of last season when Pearson took over a sinking ship and kept us up, where is any part of this seasons results within a country mile of LJ's super record of 11, yes ELEVEN, points from 72 available?

Yes we have squandered too many by conceding in the last five minutes of matches, especially at home, but in the opinion of many supporters, we are at lest now trying to play as a team and to actually attack the oppostion goal a helluve lot more than your little hero did!

I don’t have heroes. I’m a little too old and grown up for that. 
But I am very much looking forward to NP making us play-off contenders like a couple of past managers have done.