robin for life

Obviously celebrated like he did, because he was ex Gas and nothing to do with game and that, just wanted to gloat at the City fans.

3 minutes ago, redysteadygo said:

Williams does this for him.

So basically between our two central midfielders we have a replica of a player who was rubbish for us 10 years ago, very reassuring. 

After that interview, a owner with a backbone would have sacked him. He has basically said everything is not his fault, and the teams attitude isn't right and the focus of the club is wrong. Players he is paid to manager and motivate and get the best from, and players that he needs to move on. Anyone listening to that would be put off our players. 

If Lansdown had an ounce of backbone in him, by 6pm NP's P45 would have been written up. No one is bigger than the club and he has quite simply said he is. Also publicly saying things like that, what player in their right mind is gonna give their all for him. The players will be like screw you now. That interview is the beginning of the end. 

Mind you if he replaced NP and sent us up next season, there would be a lot of threads getting bumped on this forum, and it would go into absolute meltdown. 

On 05/04/2022 at 13:37, Red-Robbo said:

 

Except N.O.N.C_ means "paedophile", not "homosexual".  (You can't write the word on this forum)

Actually means Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise

Its what prison guards wrote on the files of prisoners files of people who could be at risk, this could be sex offenders, wealthy, high profile, debt heads and so on. It was a label given to Vulnerable Prisoners. Over time, the term VP in jails was created, but to cons it would always be known as the I love you wing and not the VP wing. But it comes from the old filing system when a prisoner was highlighted as not to be on association with the general population. 

It does not mean someone is a Paedo, but is a label given to them. Although it covers a lot of prisoners who would be vulnerable in jail. Most prisons have VP wings nowadays, not all prisoners on them are Paedo's or sex offenders, but will be labelled as being on the N O N C .E  wing by mains prisoners. VP is the term used by staff, N.O.N.C.E by cons. 

Reminds me of Kilkenny, for every good ball they play, there's 5 bad ones and spends more time telling others to do stuff, than doing it himself. If only he knew how to point, he could be NK in disguise. 

If he walked he would get no payoff. I wonder if his constant digs at the team, players and how its run and the fact there is no money to spend, are him trying to push the Lansdowns buttons into sacking him. 

Will it happen: Unlikely

Could It Happen: Possibly

Would he take the job if offered: Absolutely

Would the fans get behind him: Doubtful

Could he win them around: Maybe

Should he have been sacked: No

Are we better since he left: No

Is his style of football entertaining: Yes

Did we look better under him: Yes

Would I personally have him back: Yes

49 minutes ago, fatchers said:

Won't be long before we get a suggestion that Gary Johnson as manager and Lee as his assistant would be on the cards. The dream team.  God help us.

More likely the other way round .....

Deserves his retirement and has been a brilliant manager.  Can't do anything but wish him all the best. Always think he had a secret soft spot for us and reckon we would have loved to manage us. 

John Aloisi

4 minutes ago, Roger Red Hat said:

So they didn't think he was a prem player!

If you're too good for the Championship, what are you ?

I get the impression you don't rate him, which is your opinion and fine, but you can't deny he hasn't been given a chance here, so when he has performed brilliantly at this level for years on end, it must raise a big question, WHY is he not given a fair chance in a team that is going backwards not forward and lacks quality?

Just now, Roger Red Hat said:

Didn't we get him from Burnley, where he hardly ever got off the bench?

Yes, but the season we got him, he was deadly for QPR and was player of the month, month after month. They wanted to keep him on loan, but Burnley recalled him to sell him to us. We proceeded to play him out of position, but still ended the season with 17 goals (10 of which for QPR).  He has not played in the same role as he had for QPR or Huddersfield for us, where he has looked a class above Championship. 

He didn't get a look it at Burnley, it was strange they signed him and never played him. I think they signed him thinking if they went down they had a player who would stay and help them go straight back up. 

Just now, Roger Red Hat said:

Just how is that?

As a winger with a free reign to cut in. He is not your natural striker, and he doesn't stick to one side. I remember him at Huddersfield, he was one minute on the left, next on the right and would just sprint through defences and appear for some great goals. He has one thing very few of our players have and thats vision. He is an excellent reader of the game and gets himself in the right position to help build an attack or finish it. You kind of need to give him a free reign. If we played him on left or right wing, with freedom to cut inwards as and when he felt like it and switch sides, he would be involved in a lot of goals. We need to play 5 at the back 3 in midfield , with him a utility player and one up top to probably get the best from him. He is a luxury player, who hasn't had a chance here. If he was given a free reign he would score and set up for fun. One of the very few premier league standard players we have. 

I think we'll see Joe Bryan and Marlon Pack return this summer and I think Semenyo, and Massengo will leave.

I think Wells will get his chance with Semenyo gone and Pack is a direct replacement for Massengo

Joe Bryan adds defence and midfield abilities and will allow Wiemann to play a more central role.

The issue with Wells is simple. Played correctly he is a £5m striker and HE IS HAPPY HERE. We wouldn't get £5m for him and he could be a vital attacking player for us given the game time. If we sold him, he would end up banging in 20 goals somewhere else, where we would be parting part of his wages, and got next to no money for him, if he starts next year how he's finished this season, then he could be the bit of quality we need up top. Selling him cheap can only have a negative impact on the club, and what we would get to sell him, we could not replace him with.

Semenyo is no better than wells, yet could get 10-12m for him. The one to sell makes perfect sense, and its not Wells. 

Wells up top with Martin and Wiemann in behind could be pretty deadly next year and we have enough promising youngsters to give cover. Semenyo is preventing us from seeing Wells real potential, that blocker wont likely be there in the summer, and we will get a huge fee for a very much unproven semenyo who may go on to be great, but we'll have a sell on, but theres no guarantee he wont just be another Bobby Reid and no better than Nahki!

On 02/04/2022 at 12:58, And Its Smith said:

Come back LJ

Having him back in some capacity on the coaching squad wouldn't be a bad thing, he would be a good number two for Pearson. 

6 hours ago, Davefevs said:

 

I guess we will start to build the picture when we know what is happening to those OOC this summer plus Baker:

• Andy King - If he can stay injury free, give him another year. He's solid at this level, he wont be on much money and with such a young squad, his experience is vital. An old head in the training camp, is no bad thing.
• Robbie Cundy - He's behind Atkinson, Kalas and Klose in the pecking order, can he improve, maybe, depending on how much he's on, give him two year extension and send him to league one on loan next season. If he does good, bring him back and see what he can do, if he struggles sell him to league one in a year.
• Callum O’Dowda - Release
• Timm Klose - 12 month extension, his experience is key and he's been solid.
• Nathan Baker - Release, gutting but I expect his careers over

Then we are into the likes of the players with no future (alleged / speculation) or too costly to keep based on minutes:

• Taylor Moore - - I suspect he will leave by mutual consent
• Tyreeq Bakinson - We wont struggle to sell him , many league one clubs will take him
• Kasey Palmer - Suspect he'll be sold on a free transfer to the MLS or A League. We wont get a fee but he'll be off our books
• Nahki Wells - I say keep him, unless someone comes in with an offer, which means we aren't paying him to play elsewhere. When he has played he has done nothing wrong and if we keep him, Martin, Wiemann, and Conway, we really don't need any more forwards which are the most expensive players to replace. I think he'll be happy staying and trying to get into Pearson's plans 

and then we are into those with a year left who cost us fees:

• Tomas Kalas - We must get him to extend his contract, he's a quality player in this league and a solid centre back. I expect him to sign an extension in the summer
• Dan Bentley - Again probably the best keeper I've seen us have in a long time, we must get him to extend his contract. 
• Han-Noah Massengo - Anything over what we paid for him, he'll be sold, and I don't think it would be a bad thing if we sell him.

Added to this I expect to see Matty James leave, Jay Dasilva sold, Semenyo sold and possibly Max O'Leary sold. 

 

It's all well and good, but depression is awful and talking doesn't always help. I've had massive depression issues for years and tried to top myself a couple of times. I am depressed more than I am Okay. I don't have many friends, through my own doings, and ruined my life years ago. Don't look for pity but the reality is I hate living life so miserably, but I don't want to kill myself and don't want to bring more shame on my family by doing so. If people don't know what living with depression is like, I don't think they can even discuss it with people, its something you have to experience to understand. Only the other day I was DM'ing someone on Instagram, a 25yo girl who is successful, talented and always been there to talk to for me, and she was on about ended it all and needing to go to hospital to sort things. This is the crazy world we live in. I genuinely don't think I have any friends in the world, outside of family no one cares about me, I've messed up in life too many times to blame anyone but myself, but its life. But depression is a killer, I would say at least half the day I'm depressed, I've just got used to living with it.

Sorry to those people who have lost loved ones, never nice. Thoughts to those suffering. 

Something of a hollywood movie that game today, if only they had some actors to create a script. Oh hang on a minute!

6 minutes ago, The Horse With No Name said:

Beats another thread about COD i suppose.

I dont get why everyone keeps Carping on about COD, 

Selling Andi Wiemann would make no sense. At his age there is no selling value, and we would struggle to recoup the £2m we paid for him, plus we couldn't replace him for £2m.

If there is 7 figures on the table for Semenyo, he has to be sold. He is not a prolific striker yet, and whilst he has good vision, movement and has a lot of promise, he is only a marginal improvement on what Bobby Reid was. Selling him for 10-12m with a sell on clause makes perfect sense, as he could be replaced with a good youngster on loan, an experienced free agent, or on a player proven at League one, who is young and could make the transition to Championship Football, and would probably only  cost 2-3m. 

Its financial sense to sell Semenyo, it makes no sense to sell Andi.

So annoying. One game was planning to be able to get to this season, now becomes a lot harder. 

Random thread winner of the year goes to Never To The Dark Side......

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Absolutely fair you put this side of the debate across.  Do you know why people like me keep posting about “£39m”?  It’s because people like me saw the direction of travel.  Covid just brought the financial mess forward.  It’s not really about the £39m loss.

Fair poin

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Quite simply, Revenues starting to plateau at just over £30m…but costs continuing to escalate every year as we paid more and more in fees and wages.  You don’t need to be a financial wizard (or an owner who’s made his riches in that field) to see that eventually bites you on the arse!!  The weird but is our owner, a financial wizard, let it happen. No investor puts their eggs in one basket, yet SL did….he basically subscribed to a “Sustainability” model (sustainable my arse) that relied on transfer profit to offset huge costs, increasing year on year.  Those fees especially committed us to costs (amortisation) beyond LJ’s rein.  Someone is feeling the pinch because of that….Holden started to feel the pinch, but only in not being able to spend much, he still had the benefit of a big squad, numbers-wise.  But it’s Pearson who is taking the real brunt of that.

But is that LJ's fault? If the club wants you to operate that way and encourages you to buy expensive young talent with a view to selling on, is it the managers fault if the club runs out of money before certain fruits come to fruition?

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Johnson’s transfers and were crippling the club (sanctioned by SL / MA).  18th (part Cotts), 17th, 11th, 8th, 12th (last 5 Holden).  Had he stayed in situ how much would he have continued to spend to move us from 12th, upwards again.  Was 12th a blip, or the start of decline.  Because in 19/20 he spent £25m in fees (plus signing on fees, loan fees, agent fees, etc, increased the costs by £6.1m against levelling revenues (even if Covid hadn’t struck)…and we went backwards.

Were we actually going backwards? I thought pre covid we were solid top half team, pushing for playoffs. When covid hit we were in a good position still. When the league resumed, we were awful. Had Covid not come, I think we would have secured our best league finish that season. 

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Its fine to say we made good money on certain players.  But the costs incurred in doing so was storing up a load of problems.

The big question, that will get a subjective response, is how would LJ being doing with this squad, under these constraints.  None of us can answer that, but he was moaning back in July 2020, when he’d pretty much been given everything he ever wanted.

I personally think in time Johnson would have got us to the Premier League. He had the contacts to get quality loans in and I think, this past season when there was nothing to spend, he would have got 3/4 good loan players in to fill the gaps. He also drove interest up in certain players by praising them. Bobby Reid was never worth 10m, but when the manager praises them week in week out in the press and brings attention to them it drives the price up. LJ was very good for raising profiles of players. Big managers at Premier League Clubs knew that, which is why they trusted him with their talent. I doubt any top Prem clubs would happily loan a future England player to NP. Johnson would have also utilised Wells better and he would have got rid of bad apples like Palmer. He wouldn't have waited for an offer to come in, he would have got him gone by hook or by crook. He got rid of players at Sunderland who still had 2 years on deals left and there didn't seem much interest in them. Johnson Jnr like Snr is a proper wheeler dealer, buying and selling is their bread and butter. He would sell Ice to an Eskimo. If we hadn't sacked Johnson, I think we would have been top 10 this season. Then with 2/3 sold in the summer, he would have drafted in what he needed in the summer to make a push for promotion.

I personally would love a Warnock / Johnson combo here myself, an old head to manage the team and get the tactics right, and the bright youngster to work on the players development and tactics and training. Johnson is a very good coach. Reminds me of a younger version of Southgate, good solid player who was well respected in the game, but struggled with club management. In a set up where you can pick the best players and nurture the squad you get results. I would not be surprised to see LJ part of the England set up in the next few years, maybe U17 or U20 level, he fits that mould nicely.  He was a better coach than he got credit for, it was his man management that let him down.