ExiledAjax

I'll take number 4 if with a side of 2 please.

Made this post as a bit of a joke, but we really are in this mid-table-mini-league. Maybe that's depressing, or tinpot, or whatever, but it's where we are. I've included Hull and Swansea in the screenshot, but really they're acting as the bread in this gorgeous mid-table sandwich. It's really us, Sunderland, Watford, Cardiff who are the bacon, lettuce, tomato, and er...rogue slug(?) respectively.

It's a huge game in the battle for 12th place and a top-half finish. Something of a six-pointer in that regard.

A third consecutive 1-0 win for the City I think.

Wasserman is a massive agency so I'm not surprised we worked with them often in the past. Transfermarkt reckon they've got about 1,000 players on their books. Some of my colleagues do a lot of work with Wasserman and I'm absolutely not trying to say they are a "bad" or "difficult" agency. Agree with your assessment on each of them.

It's interesting perhaps that James, King and Williams are all use Wasserman as their agency. They may not be signed in with the exactly the same individual, but there will be a common approach and style of negotiation there.

Oh. Um. But the players and coaches have all changed to one degree or another, and in some cases even the actual clubs have changed. I'm not sure this really works as a method of comparing tbh Pop. Ultimately I think we'll see that the squad is the squad. And finishes where it finishes. When Pearson was sacked I think I said something like "Barney the dinosaur could manage this squad and it would finish 11th". Looks like they'll both finish with something around 1.3-1.4 ppg attributed to them. Bar the drama at the end of October this season has simply been forgettable.

I don't understand.

Ah the 64 on Pearson's website includes Fleming's 3 points. Intriguing. And should Manning get us to 60 then he technically exceeds Pearson's solo projection. Intriguing.

Correct. I would add that I think 71 is a pretty realistic target for us. In most seasons it would see you finish something between 5th and 8th. But yeh from where we are right now I'm expecting a final total of maybe 62.

Not sure about pre-season, but based on what Tinnion said on the radio a few weeks back the target is 71 points, or 1.54 points per game. Pearson was on 1.29ppg, and so on course for 64 points.

+ If we did, then I couldn't find an express mention by the club that those stripes were a rethink/nod/reimagining of any prior kit. There are ultimately only so many designs you can do with "mostly red and a bit of white" on a kit. Add in FA kit regulations and other factors and repeat or similar designs are inevitable. I focussed on looking for instances where the club had expressly said the design was "retro" in some way. Here's the press release from 2017 https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/new-home-kit-for-201718-revealed/ I didn't say they were specifically "retro", but they did lean on historic elements in their marketing, and the marketing uses this term "a nod" to past kits. Yes. I was just trying to find the last season where we didn't have any kind of retro/nod/reimagined element. I did not conduct a forensic or exhaustive review of our kits. I googled a bit whilst having breakfast. My methodology was not perfect. Yeh 80s/90s retro is en vogue because people (like me) who were young then now have disposable income and decision making power coupled with a powerful nostalgia and desire to relive their halcyon days. Jon, if you're reading this then announce a red and white tie-dye kit with neon trim now you coward!

It's been a thrill-a-minute season.

I took a trip down Google's memory lane as I wondered when we last had no mention of anything retro or similar. I make it 2017/18. 23/24 - for the second home kit in a row we went straight up retro "The red and white pinstripe shirt, which was inspired by the 1989/90 'Hirerite' kit..." 22/23 - straight retro home kit "City has turned back the clock for the 2022/23 home shirt with a 1950s-style kit for its men’s and women’s teams." 21/22 - nod, nod, nod with "‘One for the Bristol City’ is printed on the inner back hem and B.C.F.C. features on the back of the neck – both of which are a nod to when the club crest previously appeared centrally on a playing shirt." 20/21 - no nods, but a big tribute as "City have launched their new 2020/21 home shirt which pays tribute to the Ashton Gate Eight." 2019/20 - was a special year as this was the season we had the mash up 125 year kit "Including nine different kits dating back to the club’s 1894 birthdate...". A kit now notable for being what we wore in our final game prior to the Covid-19 shutdown. We also did a cringe-inducing April fool's joke where we announced that "Inspired by City’s 1909 FA Cup final kit, the club will wear a bold blue coloured away shirt next season." 2018/19 - home kit was "original", but this season it was the away kit that did the nodding with "...the return of the crest featuring a Robin perched on a football in front of the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge. It hints at the kit of the late 1980s, an era which saw City lift the Football League Trophy in 1986, followed by promotion from the old Third Division in 1989." 2017/18 - first season I can see where there was no nodding, no tribute, no retro.

Nope. IMO The green works as an accent colour, but green shirts don't work.

Not sure about this to be honest. Firstly, Liverpool is far from one of the UK's biggest cities. Leeds is bigger, Glasgow is bigger, I'm pretty sure even Southampton is bigger. Secondly, if home city size is a determining factor then how do you account for the fact that all of these cities have many other teams that are nowhere near the size of the ones you quote. It's perhaps more a case that home city size is a factor that gives a team the potential to be "big", but the more important factor is that they have the ability to capitalise on that potential. For example the Woolwich Arsenal are not a "big" team simply because they are based in London, they're big because long ago they became a franchise and moved from peripheral Woolwich to leafy Highbury, and disrupted Tottenham Hotspur's dominance of that area. They then used their connections to raise investment and became the first big spenders etc. They shrewdly, perhaps even nefariously, capitalised on the potential that their (new) location granted them, but it wasn't simply because of that location that they became "big".

Farke and Rosenior...ok. Personally I think that when you take into account the resources available to him and his experience Farke has just about met expectations. Rosenior has done well granted, so I see no issue there. McKenna will win it comfortably anyway tbh. Of those three players I'd probably go Summerville.

@Fjmcity to save derailing that other thread I'll answer your question here. Basically, I expect that for Bristol City the impact of the IFR will be minimal. We may have extra reporting requirements, and we might need to update or create a few policies - such as a fan consultation policy - but the burden should be low on us. As I said on the other thread though, there are a couple of things that Lansdown, Marshall and Rawcliffe should be aware of, and the need to prove that directors (and other senior people) are competent is one of those.

This is pretty much the only off field metric that's been shown to have a close correlation, maybe even a causal link, to league table position. The others you mention are pretty irrelevant. Transfer budget fluctuates depending on transfer receipts amd FFP/P&S rules, quality of training facility might have a small influence on the quality of player a club attracts, but if it does it's hard to quantify. Attendance/tickets sold is far from causal when it comes to team performance - if anything the link is reversed ie more success = more fans rather than the other way round. It's really just wage budget that matters, and in that regard I think we're normally ranked at around about 10th. One of the highest non-PP teams, but small fry compared to those teams. We're probably going to finish just below 10th this season. So it's going to be just worse than par, maybe a bogey for the season.

A fair summary. But the specific new competency element of the proposed new Directors test will be relevant to our board of two. As will, potentially, any terms of the new Code for Football Governance. As and when that is published I think we will see that changes to our board of directors is necessary in order to comply.

What do you mean? Could you elaborate please?

Good shout for an Ipswich player. They're relative lack of high ranking individuals I think supports McKenna's shout for manager of the season. He's got a team of limited players performing as a spectacular unit.

I think O'Leary's had it pretty easy given the defence in front of him. He's done very well, but I'd not back him for team of the season. Really for goalkeepers I like to look for someone who's worked bloody hard and has outperformed their defence. This season that means someone like Rushworth at Swansea who has saved 71.4% of an astonishing 192 shots on target (second only to the frankly ludicrous 238 that Rotherham's Johansson has faced) that have carried an average xG of 0.31 per shot. Those are ******* impressive numbers and Fbref suggest he's saved Swansea 6 goals this season, the best of any goalkeeper.

Dickie is definitely our only possible candidate for anything this season. He's been a delight, our best CB since Webster for me. I absolutely love a CB who can take the ball forward and ping those defence-splitters into the forwards. Nothing better. That he's also been an ever present in a very effective defensive unit is brilliant.

Ng's inclusion surprised me initially but I though back to our games against Cardiff and recalled that he was pretty influential. Then I checked stats and he's basically the highest-rated RB in the division both in terms of attacking and defending, so fairplay to him. Who would you have over Hladky? Hermansen?