Merrick's Marvels

26 minutes ago, Johnny Musicworks said:

According to the report in the Mail today, Reading have agreed a 6 point deduction with another 6 suspended.

If true, they've played a blinder. Not that I thought they'd finish below us with a full 12 point deduction! 

1 hour ago, JoeAman08 said:

Anyway, the point of all this is, I don’t think HNM is going to be too keen to sign a new deal here. So, if we get a decent offer in January we definitely need to consider it. Gould talked about moving some business up to January that we might have left until the summer. I imagine that means outgoings as well as incomings with our finances as they are. 

Certainly agree on this 

2 hours ago, JoeAman08 said:

I think HNM would back himself to go anywhere and get minutes. I think he is better than Reed at Fulham so I do think he could get that at Fulham. 

Crikey, I'd bite your hand off for a straight swap!

Reed would improve us immediately - a proven midfielder in the Championship who would dovetail with James to provide a solid base to the midfield or rotate with him as the no.6.

Not meant as a criticism of Massengo either - he'll be an excellent player, one day. Once he's learnt how best to direct his energy and in a team where the other players complement his strengths.

Unfortunately we don't have the time to wait for him to learn his trade or the time (or resources) to re-build the team with players who complement him.  

42 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I think the context is important too.

Spending £8 million on a defender to make a statement of intent towards promotion makes no sense at all when

a) we flogged his defensive partner at almost the last minute and could not get a replacement in

b) we flogged a key midfielder at the even more last minute and signed two very different midfielders and then had no balance in the team

c) we spent the summer arseing around failing to sign a striker and then scrambled at the absolute last second for someone with an unlucky injury record who got an unlucky injury.

d) we flogged our key midfielder in the January transfer window and failed to replace him with a loan from Hull

One heck of a summer, that one. 

We can now see that's when we began to falter and, since then, have been going backwards at a rate of knots. 

Hats off to all those responsible.  

9 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

To be fair to Kalas though the context here was that we signed him permanently at around the same time as we sold Webster for a club record £20m & with no indication of any likely pandemic to decimate income or the transfer market.

I would argue that he isn’t the problem, we have struggled to extract value from loads of signings in recent years & as this summer’s Euros showed, he is plenty good enough but many of his team mates (past & present) are not.

I would still argue there's absolutely no need for BCFC to be signing expensive defenders from the likes of Chelsea when there are plenty of alternatives capable of playing Championship football at a much cheaper cost.

Atkinson is just the latest example of the quality to be found lower down - if you care to look. Ashton didn't. Sheffield Utd went to the Prem on L1 centre halves. Cardiff have blokes from Plymouth. Flint did perfectly well for us. And so on, tons of examples out there. 

I don't mind splashing the cash on a quality striker. But to my mind, defenders are not where we should be pushing the boat out - because there's no need to.  

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

But you aren’t gonna exercise O’Dowda’s option, nor are you likely to re-contract Kalas or Bentley at improved terms, you’d be looking to bring them down (imho). For O’Dowda to stay he’s gonna have to do a Weimann and take a wage drop.   Which leads to a concern that you can’t even wait til next summer, you need to move them on in January.  That’s a big gamble in our current position.

 

If anyone - anyone - offers O'Dowda new terms I'll personally hunt them down.

50 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I’m wondering about Kalas. Very good defender but - partnership with Webster aside - he has rarely been part of a solid defensive unit. I think he is a good player but imagine he is on a hefty wage and am open minded as to whether he is value for money on that.

When you see Atkinson playing competently alongside him you begin to wonder what exactly is the value for money we're getting out of Kalas

I agree with you - I think he's an excellent defender. At times in the last 18 months he's absolutely bust a gut for our club. So this isn't about him as an individual - this is about how we've got ourselves in such a financial pickle.

Cut to the chase - Bristol City can't afford £8 million quid defenders on sky high wages. We got ahead of ourselves with expenditure on that scale - or rather Ashton did, thinking he was a big time charlie. Not just expenditure on Kalas but several others too.   

27 minutes ago, Jerseybean said:

Bristol City have 23 players out of contract over the next 18 months, including Han-Noah Massengo, Tomas Kalas and Dan Bentley, what’s the full picture look like?

Davefevs the stage is yours…

Imo, FFP constraints - and the need to create room for meaningful incomings - will see at least one of those sold.

And if - in 18 months time - we've achieved the necessary overhaul of the squad and stayed in this division and still have Pearson at the helm, I'll be delighted and amazed in equal measure.  

3 minutes ago, Redpool said:

He isn’t in my view. Being built up as a future Liverpool Manager but based on what? At the moment, it would be a huge step down to go from Klopp to Gerrard

A step down, for sure. But that's because there isn't a step up!

If you've got just about the best manager you can hope to get, where do you go from there?

(Steve Lansdown told himself as he watched Lee Johnson lose 9 games in a row)    

19 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

You want a sacking . That is all .

Easily the worst post you've ever made.

So to be clear, I absolutely do not want a sacking and, if you're looking for an argument with the anti-Pearson brigade, you've taken aim at completely the wrong target.

Oh dear.  

What worries me most is Gould making a direct correlation between Pearson's absence and the down turn in results - then saying we're going to do nothing about Pearson's absence! 

Even if that's a short term position, there's an air of fiddling while Rome burns about it. Meanwhile, others are taking decisive action - Villa sacking their manager after looking at the trajectory of their results over this whole year (not just their last 5 defeats). Our form has to be the worst in the entire 4 divisions over that period, yet here we are, umming and ahhing about what to do. 

I fully expect results in the next few games to force the owner's hand though.    

14 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Injuries not helped with losing Atkinson and James recently.

I do think though there isn't much difference from start of September in performances to now.

How many games have we been the better team in since Cardiff which was all the way back in August.

Peterborough game, and some would argue they were better. Certainly they were in how they passed the ball but I felt we were the slightly better side in that one.

Other than that I'm struggling! I think we have been 2nd best in 11 of the 12 games since that Cardiff game. Up to that point it had not been too bad but that was a long time ago.

Results since the last international break - LLLWLL 

Results immediately prior to that break - DDWDLW 

However we rate the performances, results - which are all that matters - have fallen off a cliff and have us on a massive downward spiral

Lose the next 2 or 3 and he's toast, along with Pearson. 

This poor form, along with the uncertainty surrounding the manager, can't be allowed to drift along. 

It appears no-one at the club wants to take decisive action but results on the pitch might force their hand.  

46 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

I’m not calling you a liar - but I find it astonishing that a club employee would be so loose lipped in such a short conversation with a stranger.

If that is the case, I’d say the problem is with that guy.

I'd guess it's someone who coaches one of the younger age groups and is part-time.

By the sound of it, their day job might just be full-time moron. 

12 minutes ago, TomF said:

I’d be getting Shakespeare in ASAP. If we want Nigel back he’s his true right hand man and knows the score 

No-one can be sure when - or even if - Pearson will be back at work. Everything's up in the air.

On that basis, I'm not sure why Shakespeare would want to come here, at least until there's much more clarity about Pearson's situation 

4 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

Yes but he could be available at the end of November.

We can't wait that long!

18 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

maybe he’s worried about letting his emotions get away from him !!! He has history 

When Martin and Benarous contrived to tackle each other late in the Barnsley game, Pearson went apeshit - I was looking right at him - absolutely apeshit. 

1 hour ago, Olé said:

Hey mate nowhere did I ask for a boot camp - just to keep things in proportion so that at our level there is always an element of aspiration in players. 

This wasn't a flog the players post nor a shout at them more post it was that we have simply broken the fundamental link between environment and results. 

If you did a graph of our time back in the Championship and drew 2 simple lines - one environment one results, one is an upward line, the other is an n curve.

In other words at an unprecedented point where players are most indulged but output is the worst. This doesn't need the riot act just some balance. 

Yeah apologies, I took your post and ran with it a bit! 

26 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Atkinson had time to turn inside and roll a simple pass back to Bentley thus retaining possession. Instead he sliced an upfield punt out for a cheap throw in about 10 yards up the pitch.

Yes, I was pitchside at the other end of the Lansdown so didn't have the best view of Atkinson's options. I was sure going 1-0 down was self-inflicted though - same as far too many other occasions.

47 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

3. “We had possession and we had chance to get the ball up the pitch (their first goal)” - this less thought provoking, but sense that the ball into Wells aerially against Roberts stemmed from a pass back to Atkinson who had to clear under pressure.  I think the pass was from Dasilva.

 

Last Saturday, Barnsley's goal came from our own throw in.

Pring (I think) goes backwards to Atkinson instead of up the line away from goal. Atkinson is in a tight spot, close to the touchline and under pressure, manages to do no more than punt the ball straight out of play - Barnsley now have a throw in from basically the same position we were in and, with a few simple touches, had opened us up and were in on goal.  

Yet again, we fail to do the absolute basics - execute a simple throw in! - and gift the opposition easy opportunities to score.

Beyond infuriating.

Less carrot, more stick. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

An understandably emotive response from the OP, given our current form. And given the time, money and energy required to travel home and away through thick and thin. Respect.

Unfortunately, we all know that a 2 week boot camp with Pearson dialling the fire and brimstone up to 11 won't resolve our root problems.

These can be boiled down to one thing - he's been left with a dysfunctional group of players that, no matter which 11 you put together, don't work as a team. Was it Aristotle who said something about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts? Well he sure wasn't talking about the City - our whole, our team, is currently very much less than  the sum of its parts.

Time and money are the only things capable of correcting this, i.e. with a radical overhaul of this squad. The way we're going, even Pearson's staunchest supporters may be wondering if he'll be the one to get that time and money. Here's hoping. 

As for the next 2 weeks, if the media bods are banished from the training ground, if we're spared more video of that scouse bloke doing the same warm up routine yet again, spared more video of Rennie telling us how much fitter the players are (yes, but the usual suspects never stay fit, do they???), spared more video of Pearson going "yeah...." and then staring into the middle distance in despair, spared more video of Barton and his inane questions... then job's a good 'un.            

8 minutes ago, maxjak said:

What a non-event of a Press  Conference ? ........Nige says we should be shouting from the rooftops about Matty James, as he is the best midfield coach at the club?   And Dan Bentley says we are a young squad (Really?) on a learning curve...Ha!     What a waste of time ,effort, and breath.  Why do they even bother?

The bench at Brum looked like a kindergarten class, dressed in hi-vis jackets, on a trip out from primary school.

26 minutes ago, Shaun Taylor said:

When Lou Macari was manager here in the mid 80's he had the players running along the ridgeway at 6am on a Sunday morning if they hadn't performed the day before and didn't matter if it was home or away and what time they got back on the Saturday evening.

Was that in between visits to the bookies and buying brown envelopes at WH Smith? 

2 hours ago, Redandproud said:

"WHAT"?

It was a light-hearted response to your post yesterday :