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Agreed tbh unless we got into the play offs I think Pearson wont be here next season and unless we are in a relegation scrap he wont be sacked. I also think that we may be holding most of Scott money back for the new manager to invest how he sees fit. i would also like to see 3 players not as fussed about a striker would prefer a winger and make Cornick the back up striker to Wells (until TC is fit) attacking midfielder and another defender, don’t think Max has done a lot wrong

Bristol City F.C. 1) Where will City finish this season, Top 2, 3rd - 6th, 7th-12th, 13th - 18th, or 19th -24th? 7th-12th 2) What will be City's exact final League position? 10th 3) How many points will City get this season? 64 4) Will City win 18 (or more) league games this season? Yes 5) Will City score 60 (or more) League goals this season? Yes 6) Will City concede 60 (or more) League goals this season? No 7) Who will finish as City's top scorer, League & Cups? Tommy Conway ? How many goals in total will City's top scorer (whether the player named in Q7, or not) get? 17 9) Who will be City's 2nd top scorer, League & Cups? Nahki Wells 10) How many goals in total will City's 2nd top scorer (whether the player named in Q9, or not) get? 12 11) How many academy graduates will make their City debuts this season in League or Cups? 4 12) Who will make more 1st team apps. in all competitions, Harvey Wiles-Richards or Stefan Bajic? Wiles-Richards 13) Will City sign a new goalkeeper this season, either permanently or on loan? No 14) Will Alex Scott still be a City player on the last day of the season? No 15) Will Zac Vyner still be a City player on the last day of the season? No 16) Which of the new signings, McCrorie, Dickie, Knight & Roberts, will make the most appearances. this season in League & Cup? Dickie 17) Which of these 4 players will make the least number of appearances? McCrorie 18) Will Jason Knight score 5 (or more) goals in all competitions? Yes 19) Will Anis Mehmeti score 7 (or more) goals in all competitions? No 20) Will Harry Cornick score 8 (or more) goals in all competitions? No 21) Which month will Ayman Benarous make his first on - field 1st team appearance for City this season? December 22) Which month will Rob Atkinson make his first on - field 1st team appearance for City this season? December 23) Will City sign a striker either in this window, or the January window? No 24) Will Seb Palmer-Houlden score 10 (or more) goals for Newport in all competitions? Yes 25) Will he be recalled in January? No 26) Who will be City's player of the season? Jason Knight 27) What will be the Official attendance for City's first home League game against P.N.E. to the nearest thousand? 23K 28) What will City's average League attendance be this season to the nearest thousand? 20k 29) In which round will City be knocked out of the F.A. cup? 5th 30) In which round will City be knocked out of the Carabou Cup? 3rd 31) How many City players will be sent off in all competitions this season? 5 32) Who will be the first City player to be sent off this season? Tanner 33) How many penalties, in all competitions, will City be awarded this season? 2 34) How many penalties will City score? 2 35) How many penalties will be given against City this season in all competitions? 5 36) How many penalties will the opposition score? 5 37) Will any City player score a 1st team hat-trick this season? Yes 38) Which young City player out of Araoye, Yeboah, Leeson, Knight-Lebel, Francois & Taylor-Clarke, will make the most 1st team apps, in all competitions? Leeson 39) Will Nigel Pearson still be City manager on the last day of the season? Yes Gas 1) Will Rovers finish in the top half (1-12) or bottom half (13-24) of League 1? Bottom half 2) What will be Rovers final league position? 14th 3) What will be Rovers official average League attendance to the nearest thousand? 8k 4) Will Kane Wilson score against Rovers? No 5) Will Joey Barton still be Rovers manager on the last day of the season? Yes Rivals, Cardiff, Swansea & Plymouth 1) Who will finish higher, Cardiff or City? City 2) How many points will City get against Cardiff, 0,1,2,3,4 or 6? 4 3) Who will finish higher, Swansea or City? City 4) How many points will City get against Swansea, 0,1,2,3,4, or 6? 3 5) Who will finish higher, City or Plymouth? City 6) How many points will City get against Plymouth, 0,1,2,3,4 or 6? 4 Lee Johnson's Hibs 1) What position will Hibs finish in the SPL this season? 5th 2) Will Lee Johnson still be Hibs manager on the last day of the season? No Ashton's Ipswich 1) Who will finish higher, Ipswich or City? City 2) Will Ashton still be at Ipswich at the end of the season? Yes Old Boys 1) Will Joe Bryan score for Millwall against City this season? No 2) Will Antoine Semenyo score 7 (or more) goals for Bournemouth in all competitions? No 3) Will Kasey Palmer score against City this season? No 4) Will Callum O'Dowda score against City this season? No Championship 1) Which club will finish top of the Championship? Leicester 2) Which club will finish bottom of the Championship? QPR

He did sign them off and is covering them. He has been a generous owner which is to be commended but there are lots of threads on here criticising him and his involvement or lack thereof in footballing matters. he admitted that he left footballing matters to Ashton and let him have too much power whilst blame should be apportioned to him (and has been), most should go to the person who caused the mess the fact he is a bristol born billionaire gives him a certain amount of slack with some of our fanbase imo the ones who want him out know he’s looking for an external investor so are satisfied with that. with regards to losses 99% of clubs lose money and spend what they cannot afford (you lost 12 million on your last accounts up from the previous year) so you can’t really beat him up for that. All our debt is owed to him and not external creditors. With all the horror stories you see with clubs like wigan, derby, bury its a case of be careful of what you wish for and why people are happy for him to take his time finding the right investor flipping it around why did you guys put up with Marcus Evans for so long? Also if he were to buy another club wouldn't some of your fans warn that club ls fan what he was like? Wouldn’t some fans keep an eye on what was happening at said club and talk about it?

Our owner has been with the club for nearly 25 years he has rebuilt the stadium and a state of the art training facility. He has spent a lot of money on the club (hundreds of millions) but generally on the footballing side has made a lot of errors in judgement. He is currently looking for external investors which is how Ashton came into contact with your owners He admitted his failures and that in part as well as moving to guernsey where why he got in ‘a footballing man’ in ashton to oversee the football operation. He has been criticised by our fan base for his part in the Ashton debacle. But having to cover such large losses incurred by Ashton have meant he’s changed the structure of the club so 1 man does not wield as much power as Ashton did. Ashton’s replacement Richard Gould was the polar opposite to Ashton and done well to clear a lot of the mess created before becoming CEO of ECB (basically the top man in Cricket) our new CEO was Crystal Palaces CEO for 20+ years.

Congratulations on literally getting nothing right in you post about us we are predominantly a division 2/ 3 team which has had one stint in div 4 and a couple in division 1. No-one on here has claimed we have a better history than Ipswich because we know thats not true and there is not a lot of hate on this thread about Ipswich, but of am ex employee of ours. If you think its strange mention Ashton to Watford fans and see the reaction. The only reason the thread is 70 pages as anything on him goes into one thread instead of having a load of different ones. we were already in the champ and our ground was already built (and is now a lot better than the antiquated Portman Road). We had a young exciting side which had actually won league 1 (and got more points than you did last season) and a number have gone on to play in the prem when Ashton came in. He sold all that team some for good money others for not (he sold luke ayling to leeds and Luke Freeman for 250k each as two bad examples) he gutted our scouting department taking charge of it, spent more money in fees than anyone in our history (he broke our transfer fee twice) signing some 70 players, trebled our wage bill in the process squandered what was our best chance of getting to the prem. the season he left our squad was worse than when he joined. we were lucky not to be relegated and lost £38 million in one year. As a result we have had to have 2 seasons of austerity getting the last of Ashtons high earners who cost large fees this summer. there is undoubtedly an interest in how you will do because of Ashton, as there is a large gap between league 1 and the champ and who you will sign. IMO you have made you best signing already in McKenna who has proven to be a good coach.

yep going by the accounts when Lee Johnson (and Mark Ashton who came in just before) came in our Wage Bill (including all non playing staff) was just under £15.5 million p.a. When he left in 2020 it had raised to £27.3million The season Ashton left it was over £30million!

Sheff Utd is a good example and your right their recruitment was excellent. Can Ashton replicate that sort of recruitment at this level? From experience here, the answer is no. Our list of players is the same with the exception of Chaplin who whilst at 26 could improve but was a 1 goal in 5 game player at Champ level would need to improve substantially for them to be at the top of this league. With regards to Hirst I think he'll stay at Leicester now they have been relegated I don't think they'll struggle but do feel they are being overhyped massively. my prediction currently is they'll be a midtable/ lower midtable team, obviously we need to see who they (and everyone else) signs before we can have a proper guess.

My work has an office in Ipswich so I keep an eye on them for that reason. McKenna's a good coach granted but lots of young players? from tranfermarkt they had the third oldest average age in league 1 (27, ours is 25). Leif Davies, Wolfenden, Clarke and Broadhead would fall under that bracket and Walton should be a decent keeper. at this level Chaplin, Ladapo, Evans and Luongo have been average at best in the champ and are late 20's, early 30s. Morsey was decent but 32 this year. Burns, Donacien, Burgess, Harness do not have a lot of Champ experience and are late 20s. Hirst was a loan. They are currently reminding me a bit of us in the summer for 15/16, done well in league one and think that will automatically transcribe into success at a higher level. not realizing how much the champ has moved on in that time. knlowing Ashton though I imagine it will be a busy summer for them anyway! agree with most though with Wolfenden when I hasve seen him has impressed me think he could do well at this level.

They’ve already had to take a £20million loan. https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/west-bromwich-albion/2023/01/17/west-broms-20m-loan-helps-fill-black-hole-from-premier-league-payments/

They had to take an emergancy loan to see through this year (and thats with parachute money) next season without parachute money could get very messy

if Luton don’t go up I can see him going there in the summer currently got Drammeh on loan and Edwards will know him from FGR

The results are poor and Nige bears responsibility for that but I’d ask who was of any value when he joined? He’s undoubtedly helped improve/ raise the value of Scott, semenyo (last season was his proper breakthrough season) Conway, Pring, Vyner (has improved massively this season), Weimann had his best season ever under Nige, and last season you could say Massengo though the contract situation put paid to that. I’m in 2 minds as to whether nows the right time more due to no-one out there out of work appeals to me (if Critchley was still available I’d say yes) but he does deserve credit for firstly giving a lot of our younger players a chance and improving them I think yes Scott was played ahead of Palmer last season and recently Weimann, semenyo over wells last season and Conway over Martin& Weimann. to be honest his signings haven't been brilliant imo the best has been Atkinson who he’s not playing or the resigning of Weimann whos playing out of position! genuinely don’t think there’d be much difference!

Bit unfair IMO when he sold the club to Goldberg he had just banked £200 million from the sale of his company dont think they expected him to blow it in 2 years! His story is insane! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Goldberg_(football_manager) the creditors of the first administration chose Jordan as his offer was the best to recover the losses so not his fault.

A lot of my mums family are palace fans. He came in when the owner Ron Noades was looking to sell up (probably why his sales and marketing experience appealed!) sold the club (but kept the ground) to a bloke (Mark Goldberg) who bankrupted himself trying to fund it hence the first administration. Simon Jordan (yeah the one from talksport) agreed a deal with the creditors took over and run it until 2008 when he wanted out and looked to sell. He was rumoured to have had financial troubles himself and basically told the club to be self sufficient. The club went into admin again in 2010 and was brought by a consortium of palace fans who apart from seeling a stake to a rich yank still control the club. The mos relevent words you’ll hear are from steve parish their chairman and one of the fans who brought them out in 2010, I’m really impressed with this appointment. https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/former-crystal-palace-ceo-lands-bristol-city-role/

I believe it came about when Leeds where going through all their troubles, they were already relegated from the Championship so put themselves into administration to try and avoid the a points deduction the next season, ihe rules were changed to avoid any similar attempts in the future https://www.theguardian.com/football/2007/may/04/newsstory.leedsunited1. Please see @ExiledAjaxresponse if the accounts have been audited it makes the EFL's position a bit more secure. the only elephant in the room now is Covid, we could argue that prior to Covid we were not in danger of breaching FFP rules, that Covid was an act of god, which affected us due to our player trading strategy. we are in unknown territory with this! Purely guesswork but I imagine there will be a punishment this season which is not as severe as previous ones given out. Thank you for that, makes sense I would guess it will be a similar time as last year.

Private companies have to file their audited accounts within 9 months of the companies year end I believe our year end is 31 May, so in theory the end of February 23, though last year we filed our accounts in December/ January. time Under EFL rules, the deadline for a points deduction to be applied this season is the 4th March 2023. I would imagine however the draft accounts are already with the auditors at this time and the EFL has had sight of them already. Whilst @Mr Popodopolous has given a very detailed post on past deductions. I believe this years will be more complex as the clubs mention were in financial difficulties prior to Covid, this years 3 year cycle will show the full impact of Covid. I think it will depend on how far away we are from the relegation spots and the amount of points deducted as to whether we accept it this season links where I got this info if anyone is interested https://www.icaew.com/technical/financial-reporting/uk-regulation-for-company-accounts/filing-requirements-for-uk-companies https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules--regulations/efl-regulations/section-3-the-league/ https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03230871/filing-history

I think they will spend big this summer. Mind you it would take a lot of money just to make their loans this season permanent! Be interesting to see what they do.

Their local reporter seems to think so. Forest is my bet however, they had a bid rejected at the end of January. He would fit their style of play and cooper has a proven record of developing players I would be disappointed to see him go this summer but I feel it is likely with the interest in him

Thanks Dave will listen later, don't know if this was mentioned in there, I just saw it on FLW. Sound very promising! https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/couldve-been-a-100m-sprinter-exclusive-guernsey-boss-tony-vance-on-new-bristol-city-teenage-striker/

On the bournmouth end thwir local reporter thinks something could happen https://www.dorset.live/sport/football/football-news/cherries-mailbox-premier-league-prediction-7061460

Wells, unlike Weimann has played the majority of his career centrally up front, he has never scored 20 league goals in one season. His best season was the season he joined us were he got 18 goals, 5 for us 13 for QPR. Keeping Wells as our back up striker would cost the club a minimum £2m from an accounting perspective. For a club in our financial situation that money could be spent more effectively imo. it hasn’t worked out here for Wells. He’s been a model pro but we have not seen value for money in terms of goals/ performances. I can imagine at his age as well he will want to play in as many games as possible. I think it would be best for all parties if he left in the summer. completely agree with this, we definitely need to start succession planning especially with the number of ooc players next summer. This is a key part of Brentford's strategy https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2718752-brentfords-moneyball-way-to-beat-football-teams-with-huge-budgets.amp.html

Next season: Dependent on how the summer goes but at the moment, I'm hoping for a mid table finish, maybe breaking top half, with an improvement defensively/ seeing games out. Financial aspects: Others can give a better idea but from what I have seen, I don't think we will get a points deduction though it will be very tight. I believe due to the amount we lost last year we have had to submit a a plan to the EFL showing them how we plan on how we will improve this position and remain complaint with the regulations. There are also rumour that EFL will be changing the FFP rules going forward. https://www.nottinghampost.com/sport/football/football-news/nottingham-forest-accounts-championship-ffp-6941904 From a financial perspective this summer and next summer, the main priorities will be to reduce the wage bill. Other teams: Luton are an extremely well run club with a clear plan of how they wish to progress from Board Level down, their scouting has also been excellent and they have a clear way of how they wish to play. this has been the case for a number of years and has already seen them promoted a couple of times. Forest have a better squad than us and were massively underperforming under Hughton at the start of the season (throughout his whole reign truthfully). Cooper (in my opinion the best young coach outside the Prem) has got them performing,

I’ll stick to our published accounts thanks transfer profit means little if we are not going to reinvest it wisely. I agree the reinvestment was poor that was my original point about MAs/ LJ’s legacy is that we have an unbalanced squad with little/ no funds to change the squad easily. I have already gone over the players you mentioned. The latter 2s value has been increased thanks to Nige’s management this season. ?? actually in my original point I mentioned FFP, which includes what we have spent! So no I have not changed parameters nor am I backtracking. If you want to look at the players I labeled has dross lets do it. Lets look up the definition of dross first shall we? https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/dross I have said LJ/ MA signed some good players, they also signed some dross. I have named the dross from my perspective that are still in the squad None of these players I mentioned have repaid their fees to Bristol Cityin terms of performance (quality) on the pitch or will make us any money upon disposal (value) therefore in terms of their quality or value to Bristol City can be considered dross. I would love that to change but unfortunately cannot see it happening. Has Wells (who has had a very good career elsewhere) been worth the reported £4 million we paid for him? I don’t think so. will we recoup the money we spent on him? Highly doubtful. With the exception of the odd game have Vyner or Moore looked like solid championship quality defenders? I’d say no. Will we make any money when both leave? I’d be pleasantly surprised. Will we recoup our fee on Moore? Again highly doubtful. Have Palmer or O’Dowda, shown any consistent quality for us at this level? I’d say no. Will we get anything near the combined 5 mil we paid for them? No When they all leave, I will wish them well in there future careers, careers which have stalled at city leaving them surplus to requirements, thus the dross of the squad. I brought up players who quite frankly were average during the LJ/ MA and have improved under Nige. The facts speak for themselves. It is not a separate discussion as without This season under Nige they would not be valued as they currently are, or even if they would be considered good signings or not!

I didn’t say all their signings were poor. Out of the 50 + signings they made and over trebling of the wage bill I would expect some good signings! By Dross I meant O’Dowda Palmer, Wells, Moore, Vyner (whose contract was extended under MA) who are taking up a large portion of our wage bill. Bentley has been a good shot stopper but lacks in other areas which is why Brentford sold him but has more than earned his fee/ wages. Kalas has done ok for us but I don’t think he has justified the fee and wages paid. Dasilva I do not think has performed as consistently since his loan was made permanent. Scott, Massengo, Semenyo and Pring have all improved immeasurably under Nige. With regards to his signings They have been a mixed bag. I have been pleased with Atkinson overall bar his slump midseason when he had his illness, James started well but since returning from injury has been poor. As he was 29 when we brought him in, I doubt he was brought in with a mind to sell for a profit. I have liked the look of Tanner but I am concerned with the injuries (which tbf from the recruitment side, he never had prior to signing). Weimann is having his best season ever under Pearson and was a good resigning. Baker looked good prior to his concussions and I doubt we’d have the problems at the back, we have had he been fit. Klose has been an decent short term signing. Its only king and Simpson which have been poor IMO and at least both were on 1 year deals on low wages unlike others from the MA/ LJ reign.