italian dave

Just now, Sheltons Army said:

You’re still trying then 

Considering he also had more money to spend than any manager in our history

No manager in our history had the sort of money he had to spend, especially at league one level. 
 

it’s complete nonsense and fabrication

Just , merely , as an example You missed us buying Akinbiyi (£1.2m , Thorpe £1.35m and Soren Anderson £800k within 12 months in late 90s , then  

Exactly this. Another example: in the 90s we were able to take a promising young striker on loan from a top Premiership club (Andy Cole) and having proved his worth during his loan season we could afford to prise him from that club on a permanent move in the summer. Imagine having been able to that nowadays with Tammy Abraham.

I think the other thing that's often overlooked in the comparisons about who was able to sign who, is the issue of departures. I'm not sure there has ever been a manager at City prior to LJ who has had to lose his top players at the end of every season. It may have made good business sense, but to have to lose players like Kodjia, Kelly, Webster, Brownhill, on a regular basis is as much of a challenge as having the cash to sign players.

Back to the staring point today for this thread, I just took a look at the Sunderland forum. I suspect that there have been some, including the OP, who simply don't like LJ and have been waiting for the opportunity, which inevitably comes after a poor performance and a disappointing result (think last Saturday on here). 

What's quoted above from the Sunderland fans is very selective. Here are three quotes from a single page elsewhere on the forum, all last week.

"I like the chap... I like the intent as well, young manager, obviously a student of the game, intelligent insight"

"Early days. I think he's still not getting the message across to some of our thicker players."

"He'll get us out of this league. Our best appointment since big Sam. He needs time to sort out the mess he's inherited but supporters will respond to how he wants to play, pressing and taking a risk to win games. I think he is without doubt getting the club going in the right direction."

Just for a bit of perspective and balance. 

28 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Anyone else find these intense, circular battles over previous managers incredibly tedious.

 

 

I guess it takes our collective mind off the current one

4 minutes ago, JBFC II said:

To be fair, nobody in our history had had the spending power Cotts had with us. 
 

We could use the spending argument with Cotts and O’Driscoll as well. Footballs changed massively over the last 5 years, with transfer fees rising massively. That increase coincided with LJs reign, it’s not really a stick to beat him with

Exactly this. In the third tier, we used to be able to go out every summer and sign the best players from the league that season. Nowadays in the Championship we couldn’t even dream of that. 

7 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

Are you suggesting anyone else had even half the spending power that LJ had? Apples and Oranges. 

Not on ££s, of course not, and I’ve made that point. But previous incumbents were able to go out and sign the likes of Akinbiyi, Thorpe, Anderson, Andy Cole, Dziekanowski, David James, and so on. All relatively big signings for the time. You’d have to go back to the days of Des Williams and Terry Cooper to say that we were a ‘poor’ relation to most other sides in our league. (and ironically in those days made some fantastic signings cheaply and had some great times!)

 Cotterill gave us a fantastic season and promotion. Johnson gave us an unforgettable cup run and established us as a respected Championship club. Both had their strengths. Both had their weaknesses. It unravelled for both, in different ways, towards the end. 
I don’t get why for so many people liking one seems to require belittling the achievements of the other. Between the two of them the club progressed in a way no other did and in a way we certainly didn’t manage when we were chopping and changing managers every year with Pulis, SOD, McInnes etc etc

12 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

To be fair, you’d struggle to find *any* manager who couldn’t achieve a mid table finish if he was allowed to increase the wage bill from 13m to 37m. When you look at it like that, I’m not sure establishing us as a mid table side is quite so impressive. 

Well no-one else managed it in 40 years. And whilst football income and expenditure is very relative, previous incumbents weren’t unable to splash cash when necessary.

Terrible news. Wishing him all the best; always a player I had a lot of time for, and even as a bluebird!

Shoot me down but seems like a pretty fair, straightforward, reasonable approach by the club in difficult circumstances. 

On 26/11/2020 at 23:21, Selred said:

It all comes down to contact. You're more likely to hug a friend in your house than a stranger at Ashton Gate when you're socially distanced. 

Except when City score...! 

8 hours ago, Bouncearoundtheground said:

The 4K number will rise. I wouldn’t be surprised if the club sold more, the plan was to sell more when fans came back when they took them off sale at the start of the season but I’m not sure they were expecting a wait this long. 

As for next season, wouldn’t think it will be too different to usual. Club won’t want to miss a trick if we’re still flying and they’ll be very confident fans will be back in near full capacity next season. 

This will go way, way smoother than a lot of people on here seem to think. With the vaccine coming events all over the country due for summer including festivals have been given very positive indications. 

Of course we should still expect a few government howlers and backtracks... but we can be genuinely confident the overall prajectory is going to be positive from here. 

Keep the faith 

I can't see it rising much by, say, March though. And bearing in mind that Bristol is likely to start in tier 2 or 3, the starting point for Ashton Gate is probably going to be between zero and 2000. 

As long as they are still refunding some ST holders on a match by match basis, I can't see any way they'll want to add new ones.

I agree that there's reason for much more optimism about next season. And that we can be hopeful of getting back to much nearer normal, and normal capacity, by then. I didn't really mean to suggest that we won't be looking to sell more STs than this year, just wondering whether we'll be doing it in February, like we did this season! 

All conjecture, of course, and subject to ups and downs and as you say government whims, but I just think the restrictions and the uncertainty won't have gone away by Feb, and the government (probably rightly) won't be looking to declare life back to normal quite by then. 

But, yes, we will hopefully all be able to return to the Gate next season. And maybe even away trips too!

1 hour ago, Bouncearoundtheground said:

I wonder if STs will go back on sale in some capacity as the number increases. I and a number of others I know were waiting for an announcement such as this before wanting to commit as it seemed pretty hopeless a few months ago 

Wouldn't think any chance of that. We're already debating the different ways of restricting demand from existing ST holders so they're not likely to sell more. 

What's more debatable/interesting is whether and when they start selling next seasons.....

22 hours ago, Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan said:

I don’t think I appreciated at the time what a nice kit this was (I’m sure many will disagree).

To stay on topic I think it was around this time that the Sags were making everyone wet themselves laughing with their Tesco carrier bag shirt. Even by 90’s standards that effort was unbelievably shit.

I’ll disagree. Looks like a vicar with an apron on. Bloody awful. But you’re right: up against that Tesco bag look of the same era, it’s a world beater!!

6 hours ago, Super said:

I see Australia had 52k watching a rugby game in Brisbane today. How far are we away from this?!!

20,000 cases a day

8 hours ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Tony Thorpe was always going that, too perfection too.

Jet just used to stroll to the spot, casual as you like, coolest taker i ever saw.

I always thought there was a very smart technique to JET's penalties that he wasn't given credit for.

If you run up that slowly then by the time you're ready to strike the ball the keeper has to have committed to going one way or the other, and you can see which. If the keeper doesn't commit, then you basically just have to hit it low: he'll never get down in time.

Cool as **** to actually do it though and great to watch (provided they go in!)

9 minutes ago, GreedyHarry said:

Shouldn’t it have the Whatno Cup win listed for them? Just so we don’t get accused of inaccuracy.

Probably! And the Gloucester Cup.....oh, hang on...!!

9 hours ago, CiderJar said:

We have been in the league longer and are therefore the oldest league club. The Black Arabs was just a boy band back in the day.

 

 

An education for the saggy ones....

Bedminster FC were formed in 1887. Bristol South End were formed in 1894 and became Bristol City in 1897. They merged with Bedminster FC in April 1900 and joined the league in 1901 beating Blackpool 2-0 at Bloomfield Road in their first game. The club's highest-ever league finish was second in the top flight in 1906-07. They were FA Cup runners-up in 1909, and won the Welsh Cup in 1934. The club have also won the second tier title once, the third tier title four times, the Anglo-Scottish cup once, and the Football League Trophy a record three times.

The Black Arabs were founded in 1883 and entered the Bristol & District league as Eastville Rovers in 1892. The club moved into the Birmingham & District league in 1897 and then switched to the Southern League as Bristol Rovers in 1899. They were not admitted into the football league until 1920. They were placed in the Third Division South and remained there until 1952–53. They recorded their highest finishing positions in 1956 and 1959, a sixth-place finish in the second division. They had to apply for reelection to the football league twice before finally being relegated from it in 2015 having finished 23rd the season before, a year before it became a relegation place.

 

The best bits of that are not the first half of each - with all the dates and leagues - but the second half, listing the achievements during that time.

6 hours ago, TomF said:

Oh dear oh dear. Apparently they’ve complained to advertising standards as well

 

Thanks for posting. This has to be both the funniest and the saddest thing I've seen in a long long time!!

11 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, we subbed on 82 years and subbed off 90 years.

Blimey; I knew we were trying to inject a bit more experience this season......!

8 hours ago, Oh Louie louie said:

After his debut. one of the best ive seen from a young un in years.

He would have had a few teams watching him il bet.

Only stating the obvious, but we are going to struggle to keep this kid next year.

 

 

Not when we're in the Premiership!

On 21/08/2020 at 19:00, winsaw said:

Just seen on points west news that Ashton gate capacity with social distance is

5000 with 2m distance

11000 with 1m distance

Hopefully the government goes for 1m as that's most the season ticket holders getting in,

On 21/08/2020 at 19:35, Snufflelufagus said:

11000 would be more than enough. There will be a lot of people who won't want to go anyway.

5000 shouldn't be too far out. With all those people who were giving up their season tickets if/when DH was appointed....

So, you may have to arrive 3 hours before the start; and the toilets are closed. That's 5 hours without a wee. Do they judge everyone's bladder capacity by that of Dominic Cummings?

With yesterday’s announcements delaying any further relaxation to lockdown, October is looking less likely. It raises the real possibility that we’ll be into 2021 before there’s any prospect of fans returning, and I just don’t see how many L1 and L2 clubs can survive if that happens. 

Also tough if you enjoy away trips. Can't see much prospect of away fans being allowed for at least a year. 

Of the 12000, let's say 2000 are particularly vulnerable in some way and wouldn't want to go. Another 2000 miss any one particular game (work, holiday, family, whatever) : the club will have an idea of the average drop out rate. But could easily be down to 8000 that way.

How you organise the logistics of that, I have no idea!