Davefevs

1 hour ago, Cannybluff said:

I'm unsure on this, I think what happened was we had some good players at a high financial boom time, sold them for a lot of money and went to the model of acquiring players who were mainly identified within a data model whose value would increase.

To some extent it was a decent idea but the market totally fell through with covid and nobody was worth owt with a hefty wage bill to boot.

That meant that the model couldn't possibly work and we had a very difficult time getting back to an even keel. 

As mentioned he was a very good businessman within that model and negotiated well with purchases and sales of players. Whether we made the most of the talents we had isn't necessarily down to him.

 

I'd surmise he's good when given a big pot to play with, not so good at the steady Eddie constraints stuff... risk and reward. Not sure Lansdowns are happy gambling, particularly these days following covid and ffp.

 

 

The problem with that model / approach is you need top, top, top recruitment and a manager with a football identity to recruit towards.  We didn’t have that.  Luton did.  They exploited a market of undervalued players that fitted their style of football.  You could see clubs like City having a snobbish attitude to buying someone like Elijah Adebayo for example.

Also, assuming you churn those players regularly, you only make a profit against their book value.  That becomes harder the more better established players you buy.  No disrespect to players like Weimann or Hunt, especially Weimann, but you were unlikely to ever get the money back on them.  Their fees were sunk.

you also need a steady stream of Academy players too, because they are pure profit.  You can’t do it all on “buy then sell”.

Someone like SL should know that “having your eggs in one basket” (one method) is poor investment advice.

Squad building is an art.  Very few get it right, very few get the time to get it right.

Could’ve sworn a regular banned poster told me he’d had his fun with OTIB for a few months.

Over to you mods @Ian M / @phantom easiest one yet!

36 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

The only duty of the owner of a club is to leave it in a better position than it was when they took it over.

For all the "might have beens" can anyone seriously argue that the Lansdown family has not improved the club under their ownership?

If I was really cynical, I might suggest that turning a business with £9m in debt to one with £200m might counter some of that positive feeling?

10 minutes ago, Red Homer said:

Markus Henriksen was pretty bad!

Was quality on debut…having not played for months, but LJ flogged him to death.

6 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Injured or just out of favour?

Dunno

Hasn’t played since Feb, was seen at Shrewsbury last week, catching up with his former loan teammates.

6 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Annoying as today was some people seem to have entered a deep depression about it.

Perversely it might not be the worst thing in the world, will focus a few minds in the hierarchy that we aren’t the finished article.  It possibly balances out a couple of the games in the last 7 where maybe the result exceeded the performance.  Get us back on a level.

10 minutes ago, Mr Hankey said:

The same Paul Cook that is with Chesterfield in non-league? Granted, i know they just got promoted, but lets not pretend he is a good manager - probably could of had Man City’s CEO and he still would of been crap.

Give Ashton his credit. You say not “overplay”  what he’s done at Ipswich, yet he single handedly delivered (McKenna) the reason that they have had back to back promotions - Ashton deserves all the credit possible in the role he is doing in my opinion

7 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

It's fairly tricky for us to accurately assess success of his role, but from what we can see - whilst he's been there they've been promoted twice, and employed a fantastic manager. "Let’s not overplay what he’s done at Ipswich." seems a bit disingenuous based on this.

I know you nailed your colours to the mast on Ashton, so it's probably a bit of a kick in the nuts, but there's nothing wrong with giving him credit where it's due - and I think it's difficult to argue he's done anything less than a really good job based on what we can see.

What I’m saying is that if you allow him to interfere too much in the stuff that the people with football knowledge should be doing then he’s dangerous.

Keep him in his place of football “administration” and he’ll deliver.

It is clear that in his opening months at Ipswich he did what he did here, got involved in recruitment, used his small pool of favourable agents, etc, etc.  But he got McKenna in, the Pension fund guy came over and spelled out the objective…and it’s gone great.

6 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I think at the moment we are significantly weaker. 

King's experience leaving the building is going to be huge. 

I don't think James is going to stay so that's another big loss. Twine will be a loss too. 

Then we have question marks over Williams and Conway. 

Of course we have Bird to come in which excites me but we have to replace all those players and replace them with better and I think that's going to be difficult. 

When / if those materialise we can reflect appropriately.

2 minutes ago, East Londoner said:

I’ve heard suggestions our disallowed goal might’ve been onside so that would be three offside decisions that went against us albeit with three different linos in those two games 

No, definitely off.  Tight, but off.

18 minutes ago, RedM said:

I've seen it happen a few times before yes. QPR away one season we had made our own way to London and not used the CATS coaches, so hung about a little after waiting for the crowds to go. The players all had their own luggage and were getting Ubers etc and heading to airports straight after the match. I was surprised there was no end of season debrief etc.

I guess they holiday then return to collect their summer instructions before they holiday again and then return for pre season?

Heading for airports, or possibly heading for hotel to get ready for end of season “party” night out.  I too would be surprised if they were straight off tonight to Dubai, Vegas, wherever, but you probably know a bit more than me.

15 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I know he's an annoying git, but Ipswich's success definitely evidences the theory that it's the Lansdowns (not Ashton) who are the real problem.

Far too easy to excuse Ashton from the blame based on what he did at Ipswich.  He was in the thick of it here aided on both sides, up and down the hierarchy.

Let’s not overplay what he’s done at Ipswich.  He may have identified a diamond in McKenna, but it’s McKenna who has delivered.  He didn’t do well with Cook did he?

He is a leopard whose spots won’t change, but cage him correctly and he’s a good football businessman for your club.  If Ipswich hadn’t done that, he’d have run amok with their finances.

25 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Next season the Nige comparisons stop both sides of the argument. Manning gets judged on what Manning produces from now, either way. He chooses who to retain, he rubbers stamps the recruitment, it’s his team from July, no argument.

Indeed.  Hierarchy have set their expectations.  We will know in August whether they’ve backed up those expectations with a suitable squad.  Then the baton is firmly in Manning’s hands.

I have no doubts we will be competitive, but the question will be whether the squad will be sufficiently stronger to Mount that challenge.  Hopefully it will.

10 minutes ago, Harry said:

Jon 11:23 : “this change gives us the best chance to move us forward” or something like that. 

Is that a bible reference?

The season isn’t over yet, surely we can have a meltdown over the retained list first!

2 minutes ago, BigTone said:

I would just like to say thanks to @Jerseybean for his efforts with all of the Match Day threads.  I know this season has not been all we had hoped for but everyone enjoy the closed season and hopefully some much needed sunshine.

Happy hols all.

Condensed version: Ta JB

5 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

I think that makes us and PNE as the clubs who have been in the Championship for the longest time 

Think qpr too

7 minutes ago, ORANGE500 said:

The Rotherham and Norwich managers whose knowledge of football might just be on a par with yours take a very different view and said City could be one to watch next season. Perhaps you could have taken a more rational view on this afternoons game and concluded it was completely meaningless and indeed means nothing, 

No game is meaningless.  You think LM thought it was meaningless?

Thats not to say go overboard in our reactions, but nor can you pick and choose either.  Mike’s critique is fine, and he raises a number of options of things that could’ve been differently.

Great interview on BBCRB right now.  What a bloke.

12 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Marinovic

Wasn’t a loan

5 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Rodri?  No, not that one, the one we had in 2019-20.

Wasn’t a loan

A game to give Stoke credit, sometimes you find a team who give you a really rough afternoon.  They were in our faces, their movement was good, too often 3 CBs vs 1 striker and then overloads elsewhere.

Thought Sykes gave no defensive support to Roberts, often 2 v 1.

+++++

Season since Easter has been positive, but plenty of work to do.  The run has recovered us back to around where we should’ve finished.  Now for Manning to use preseason and improve us / carry on the trend.

4 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

I hate this on the beach excuse - what were Stoke doing then?

Just said same on BBCRB 

1 hour ago, Curr Avon said:

We can't cope with the pace of Manhoef and Bae Jun Ho. Go to a 3-4-2-1, by subbing Sykes and McCrorie, for Zak and TGH RWB with Roberts LWB?

That’s what we did play for the first 57 minutes Mark!

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Not seen any play but seen the stats..how have we set up?

McCrorie, Tanner, Dickie, Roberts

Sykes Twine, Mehmeti

That is interesting, it feels and sounds lopsided just looking at the personnel.

No, stuck with 3421, Sykes LWB.

LM’s pre-match interview suggesting no coaching role at City next season (no idea if offered or not).

1 minute ago, IAmNick said:

Interesting... sort of, and we're roughly where I'd expect.

I wonder why he chose 24 though? Is that the end of the compensation age or something?

I also think he really wanted 4 graphs, because that last one is pointless!  It'd be more interesting imo to relate it to debuts, or total minutes played (incl previous seasons) - for example, a Jason Knight (23, almost 200 appearances) is not really comparable as youth to a debut/breakthrough season player imo. So how many minutes has a club given youth players as a proportion of the total minutes they've played in their pro careers? Or at this level?

Great minds.