Ian M

We're very lucky that in a time where we have absolutely no budget having already sold all our best talents and covid messing finances, that we have the best crop of players coming through as a group that I can remember in my 30 years as a City fan ?

This is why I keep saying Ashton going is equivalent to the period when Pulis left us with an aging squad, on big money, on long contracts. It took us years of treading water at L1 level before we were able to challenge again. Pearson's task is to attempt to do that at Championship level. 3 years to get that season off the books (or turn one of the Academy lads into a £40m sale)

Get the one that smells like suntan lotion and you can make some vague promise about going away when the pandemic is over. Don't worry, you'll never have to make good on that promise.

Until we fix recruitment at this club we won't succeed under any manager. We only enjoyed a level of success under LJ as some of the 50 odd signings were decent and able to improve the starting XI. But if you are bringing in those sorts of numbers you're gonna get 1 or 2 right. With our finances we can't repeat that approach unless a couple of our Academy lads end up going for Webster/Kelly/Reid/Bryan money. We really need to be identifying youngsters with decent potential that at any time we sign them, we believe we can develop them into top 6 Championship players within 2 years and hope that 1 season we get to keep enough of them at the club to get to the PL. Then we can get relegated and receive the bounce-back monies. Aside from that, with the current squad I'd look to pick a back 4 who can defend, 4 CBs if need be. 2 from James, Massengo & Williams in front. Then I'd be interested to see how Benayous and Scott got on in a 3 behind Semenyo with 1 other.

That's the hope, I'd say we stand an ok chance this year, mainly because of point deductions but I think we will also need to next season. The following season we should be able to push again if we are still at this level. I'm hoping along the way we can pick up 3 or 4 more Atkinson/Tanner type signings that will potentially improve for a push in 2 seasons time. I don't want to see more journeymen sign just to stay up, I'd rather take a relegation if that were the only scenario we stay up.

The problem is that whilst many say they are happy with that sort of finish in the current circumstances at the start of the season, the means of getting that outcome is a bunch of turgid performances. Finishing 13th to 19th at the end, a 4 match win run would be accompanied by a 12 match non-winning run

For me we are in a similar situation with Ashton leaving to when Pulis went to Pompey. The squad is pretty shit with a lot of average players in it on high wages and we are trying to tread water for a couple of seasons whilst waiting to turn that squad around. On the plus side we do get to blood some of our youth so when we are the other side of it, hopefully the likes of Scott and Benayous will be all the better for that experience.

Apparently the terrorists don't want to catch Covid this close to Christmas.

Even on brand new softs vs 30 lap old hards, Lewis made a good attempt at retaking the spot. On the same tyres only Lewis wins that last lap. Totally contrived result from Liberty Media and I think I'm done with the "sport" too. If it's just gonna be a pantomime like WWE then it holds no interest for me.

There will be DNFs tomorrow, lets hope Lewis and Max aren't amongst them to take this to the final race.

When the trade off for using public transport to travel to & from work is 5hours of my day vs 1.5 hours by car I am afraid car will always win out for me.

We're anything but a yoyo team, when we go down we are down for several seasons at least ?

Fake news, we have been drawing for 33 minutes of his career.

With Britain committed to banning the sale of combustion engine vehicles in just over 8 years time have we yet heard what the plan is for the 30% of UK drivers who do not have access to off street parking at home? Charging EV's needs to somehow become much quicker if we are expected to be able to all use a charging site as we do at present with petrol stations and I don't see that magnitude of improvement happening by 2030.

Gregor is acting like a keyboard warrior imo. Would he have the cajones to say that line to Pearson's face? He is only guaranteeing more treatment in future pressers.

And how many have we conceded in that time?

Who is Mercedes’ test driver these days now Ocon is in the Renault?

Seen outside the Wellington in Horfield

Certain areas of Academy expenditure certainly sit outside FFP though. If staff wages are included then are we missing a trick by not setting up weekly 5minute sessions with our first team squad and listing them all as player coachs?

In celebration of their unique (sic) kit ?

Someone needs to teach them the meaning of unique too as they constantly refer to their kit as being so when justifying why a mega rich investor should buy them...

Oh come on, if you supported such a small team wouldn't you want a memento of the day your side actually managed to get promoted to the Football League? I'm prepared to allow them some artistic license on the "invasion" part. Bless them.

Sky Sports are wrong. The new disciplinary rules about cross competition suspensions only apply to accumulated yellow cards. Red cards still see a player suspended for any competitive fixture. Therefore their thrashing by the QPR reserves counts as one of the 3 games.

They seem more confident than we are that we will make the Prem soon ?

The regular operator was sick and when we told them any idiot could perform the role, the agency sent us a gashead?