Supersonic Robin

Good suggestion, and matches my thinking very closely - it's far beyond the realms of being "improbable" or "unlucky". The likelihood of us being on the receiving of such poor decisions so consistently (over a period of years) is so unlikely that it could almost be approximated to being impossible.

IMHO the performance issues had been there for quite a while. Even as far back as LJ's last few months, I think the underlying numbers had us looking like a bottom 3 side. Bar the 4/5 game purple patch at the start of the 2020/21 season, I think it's reasonable to say we'd been playing at a near-relegation standard for almost 12 months prior to Pearson's appointment. I agree that it got worse as the 2020/21 season went on though - the first few months under Holden weren't as bad as the last few. I also agree Holden was dealt a dreadful hand, but he was probably a bit out of his depth. That's not his fault of course - he was offered a job, accepted it, and did his best. The point on injuries is an interesting one IMO. There's certainly an element of bad luck there, but I also feel we brought it on ourselves a bit. IIRC, we didn't conduct a normal pre-season as COVID had pushed the previous season back and shortened the summer break. By comparison, I believe Brentford did conduct a normal pre-season that year and suffered far fewer injuries than us as the season went on. Similarly, the injury to Mawson was damaging, but how unlucky was it? If you're taking Mawson on loan then you know you're accepting a high risk of injury. IMO the decisions of the manager/club over the summer of 2020 did contribute to our injury crisis, it wasn't all down to misfortune.

I always find myself coming back to the same point on Pearson - people forget just how bad it was before Pearson took over. At the end of Holden's reign we were atrocious. We were getting battered most weeks. We were struggling to even have a couple of shots on target in games. Almost every underlying statistic suggested we were the worst side in the league, and it had been that way for months. IMO Pearson inherited the worst performing side in the Championship. Add in our severe financial issues and you quickly realise that the Bristol City manager's job was an incredibly challenging one - probably fair to say it was a bit of a poisoned chalice. Put simply, I think Pearson's remit for the first season or so was the following; Address the huge financial issues and improve the dreadful club culture, whilst keeping the club away from any real danger of relegation. So far, Pearson has been fairly successful in doing that. That's not to say Pearson is immune from criticism. He hasn't got it all right: - Simpson was a very poor signing (though a very cheap mistake in fairness). - We continue to look weak defensively. - It's incredibly frustrating to watch us throw away SO MANY games from winning positions. - Results wise, the start to this season has been disappointing. 1 point from Hull, Sunderland, and Wigan is abysmal (though we have also had some awful luck). I think this season will play a part in determining the longer team extent of Pearson's remit. Is Pearson here to ultimately get us into the play offs, or is he here to resolve the massive issues at the club and get us pointing in the right direction, before passing on to somebody else? If it is to be the former, then we probably need to see a bit more progress on the pitch this season. That certainly doesn't mean a top 6 push this season, but it probably does mean doing a bit more than just avoiding a relegation battle. If it is to be the latter, that's okay - to turn the club around whilst keeping us in the Championship is no mean feat, and NP deserves some credit just for taking on such a challenging and unglamorous job. What if Pearson can't even meet the latter objective of keeping us in the division? Well at this point in time, I'm fairly confident he can. I don't think we'll be one of the 3 worst teams in the league this year. No need to panic after just 3 games.

1. Agree with the sentiment, though not sure what meaningful action we could realistically take - maybe your general idea of awareness/pressure with the FA would be the way to go. It does feel like it's going from bad luck to just being utterly ridiculous at this point. 2. I believe Martin is our penalty taker (took 2 in pre season and 1 vs Reading last season?).

When people spell the names of players incorrectly (e.g. Wieman, Kallas, Massengo etc) People suggesting ridiculously over-simplistic solutions as though the players/manager/club haven't thought about it. (e.g. "Scoring goals is simple.....get it out wide and put crosses in the box. Why can't Pearson see this?") People that get annoyed at the manager for "being too boring in interviews" or "just standing there in games". I assume these people are confusing the roles of a football manager and a court jester? People with no ambition for the club. (e.g. "a club like us should be happy to just be in the Championship". *proceeds to watch Brentford win 4-0 against Man U in the Premier League*). Anyone that unironically suggests pay as you play contracts for older injury prone players who we clearly can't afford. Excessive use of the word "proven" when talking about signing players. Especially "proven 20 goal per season strikers". Posting updates from random and irrelevant games in the match day threads. ("Tranmere have just gone 1 up against Gillingham". Okay???). This also includes updates on Bristol Rovers games.

So you are counting Championship facilities as Premier league facilities. I'm out.

No, I'm not. You're misunderstanding either the concept or the maths. It is an average of ALL league finishes since the end of the 2012/13 season. That includes the 2 seasons we've played in League 1, and the 7 seasons we've played in the Championship. The result of that calculation shows that our average finish in the football league across that time period was 18th place in the Championship.

Yepp, completely agree with you on all of that. Fundamentally, I'm just making the point that the xG is an indication of yesterday's game not being the one-sided battering some are making out.

Sorry, I should have been more clear - it's an average of all league finishes since 2012/13 (including seasons in League 1), so: 36th (12th in L1), 25th (1st in L1), 18th, 17th, 11th, 8th, 12th, 19th, 17th The average of the above 9 seasons is an 18th place finish in the Championship.

Yeah, they had some financial issues when they were last relegated from the Championship in 2019/2020 - I think they received a points deduction that season. I believe the issues continued for a little while in League 1 and they struggled to put a senior side out for a few weeks before sorting themselves out.

If you were to reverse the question and ask Wigan fans "Would you trade your Premier League years, FA Cup win, and European appearances for the midtable Championship stability of Bristol City?" then I think the response would be a resounding "Hell no". In the case of Wigan, they haven't even fallen THAT hard. Since their relegation from the Prem in 2012/13, they've spent 4 seasons in League 1, and the rest in the Championship. Their average league finish in that time has been 23rd in the Championship. Comparatively, in that time we've spent 2 seasons in League 1 (and the rest in the Championship) with an average league finish of 18th in the Championship. We've done better than them, yes, but not significantly better.

I think it's probably time for a change. Lansdown has been a very generous and well meaning owner, and leaves a decent tangible legacy with things like the stadium and training ground, however he's not really been successful where it counts - on the pitch. It's depressing to consider how many clubs of our size and smaller have passed us by and achieved notable things in the last couple of decades. Wigan, Hull, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Swansea have all competed in FA Cup/League Cup finals in that time, some of them winning the competition. Brighton, Bournemouth, and now Brentford have established themselves as Premier League teams. It feels like a change at the top is required to change the longer term prospects for our club. Of course we have to hope that a new owner would be in it for the right reasons, but personally I'm more excited by the idea of new ownership than I am fearful of it.

Careful, you'll summon Mark Carter onto the forum! (that's if he's not busy stalking Michelle Owen of course)

Agree, OP - it's not all bad. In both games I think we've looked decent for large periods. Perhaps controversial given some of the negativity, but I think we looked the better team vs Sunderland. I still wouldn't be at all surprised to see us finish above them. xG wise, yesterday's game finished approx City 2 - 1.25 Sunderland. That suggests we were probably unlucky not to get something out of the game. Similarly, the Hull game finished Hull 1.55 - 1.05 City, but when you consider that 0.76 of Hull's xG came from that ludicrous penalty, it becomes Hull 0.79 - 1.05 City. Again, a game we don't really deserve to lose. Admittedly, we don't help ourselves. It's criminal to be conceding goals like Sunderland's first and second. Though I suppose one positive about conceding such soft goals is that it's something that's very much in our power to change? Equally, we seem to have periods where we lose any control over the game (e.g. the 20 mins after Sunderland's second goal). By no means should we expect to always have possession or always be attacking, but there's a difference between having to defend, and losing all control over the match. 0 points from our first 2 games is incredibly disappointing, especially given that we've played Hull and Sunderland. However, as frustrating as these games have been, there are definitely some positives in there.

I thought we looked to be the side of greater ability today. That's not to say we necessarily deserved the win - there are other elements that come into winning a football match beyond pure ability. It's hard to say whether we actually "deserved" more. Should we have lost today? IMO, no. But as others have said, if you give away soft goals and surrender all control over the match for long periods, then you invite the possibility of leaving with 0 points. I suppose you could flip the question around - does a team who concede 3 very poor goals deserve anything out of a game? (regardless of how well/badly they play outside of those 3 goals)

As much as this seems like a bit of a dramatic take from CC, I do have sympathy with the underlying point. Professional football matches should not be influenced by decisions as poor as the penalty decision we saw today. It makes a mockery of the league, and it's an insult to the players and managers that put so much effort into competing. Some will claim that it evens itself out over time - that certainly doesn't appear to be the case for us. Last season we were awarded the least penalties in the league, whilst also conceding the most in the league. Since the start of the 2018/19 season we've been awarded penalties less frequently than any team in Europe's top 31 leagues. Perhaps I'm just a bit hot-headed following today's game, but I'm sick of seeing my team drop points to poor officiating at a rate far higher than most teams experience. It's unacceptable.

Anyone know how close to full strength Bournemouth's team is? (or at least was for the first 60 mins or so)

Interesting point - I hadn't put much thought into the appeal to investors re space to expand, nor can I say that I know much about what investors are typically looking for in a club. I'd have thought we'd look like a fairly decent investment compared to many Championship clubs? How big an error do you think the decision to stay at AG as oppose to move to a new site was? A blunder in terms of our potential to grow, or just a bit of an obstacle to overcome? Could the new basketball stadium and full Bristol Sport package perhaps compensate for that?

I think you both make valid points. IMO we sit in an odd position as a club - we have a weird combination of high potential and low success, I can't think of many (if any?) other teams that are as "big" as us but have achieved as little as we have. Perhaps I'm an optimist, but I tend to lean further towards Bris Red's view of things here - I'm fairly confident we could sell out most weeks in the Premier League. Our attendances aren't that great relative to the size of our city, but that's because our history of achievement isn't either. As Bris Red said, how many other clubs can get 20k attendances in the Championship without top flight football for 40 years and without ever winning a trophy? The one positive about our historical underachievement is that it means we still have room to grow - and that includes attendances. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we're going to be getting 60k a week, but 30k a week seems very realistic for a club of our size in the Premier League. Maybe we would even see a larger surge in support as local 'glory supporters' finally have a local Premier League team to support?

Spot on. Footballer's don't go down easily "because they're big softies", they go down easily to make it clear to an official that they've been fouled, and to try and win a free kick/penalty for their team. In some cases, they stay down to exaggerate the injury such that the opponent receives a more severe punishment.

If true, that's a big loss for Huddersfield. I really rate him

Wouldn't read too much into this........we all know that the only valid source is the official site ?

Yepp. Transfermarkt is great for most stats, but poor for player valuations. In fairness, I imagine it's quite hard to produce a formula of any sort for player valuations. It's generally something that needs to be looked at on a player by player basis to get any accurate prediction.

Yepp, also part of the reason why I like the bright/busy goalkeeper kits that (theoretically) give a goalkeeper a small advantage by making him look bigger to a striker. As much as some fans accuse LJ of talking rubbish, the concept of marginal gains is very valid one.

That's bloody gorgeous ?