GrahamC

Not really. It is undeniable that Ashton’s time with us saw uncontrolled, unsustainable spending & we didn’t go anywhere. He has now had undeniable huge success at another Championship club, so not difficult to draw the conclusion as to what our problem is.

Unless Conway leaves I doubt we’ll spent even half of £12m. If you listened to Tinnion in a recent podcast he as much as said this. Wells is going nowhere, he has one year left on his deal & is very happy in this part of the world.

In the past I’d have said this too, but Williams has been here 4 years, I also doubt Stoke are going to offer him significantly more in wages & so my hunch is he’ll be the only out of contract player staying on a playing contract next season.

That really is no surprise to anyone who has been watching closely. We signed Bird for the first team & Stokes for the squad in January, but they don’t arrive until now. Manning has been pretty clear that Twine is his main target & if he gets him then that’s the vast majority of the summer transfer budget used up, unless Conway goes. If Conway stays we already have our main striker & any further additions (back up keeper & possibly a striker) are going to be low cost ones.

Probably because every time they had the ball they immediately gave it back to us with a poor pass. League One team, we beat Blackburn 5-0 but I honestly thought that they were worse.

100% & I thought it reflected really well on Manning that he gave him what is certainly his last appearance at Ashton Gate. We’ve signed a number of veterans in the past, Jody Morris & Chris Brunt spring to mind & ended up with them on the wage bill yet not contributing. King has been in every match day squad since the start of the year, has filled in at the back on occasion without ever letting us down & I’ll bet he’s on the lowest wages he’s earned for a number of years. When you consider he arrived after a strange spell in Belgium where he didn’t play & was already approaching 33, he’s done himself & us proud. Love to see him stay on as part of the coaching staff, we’ll find out if he does over the next fortnight or so.

Interesting that since this happened Saints have lost all 3 games..

Completely baffling & embarrassing. Totally get running on the pitch to celebrate promotion, but running on the pitch against the worst Championship team I’ve seen in years in a non event game in the freezing cold is weird.

In League One. He wasn’t good enough at our current level. Massive gulf in standard, as Matty Taylor found out.

Particularly from someone who lauds Tony “2 Championship goals in my entire career” Thorpe. Conway’s career will far surpass that lazy waster.

Piece of piss to referee, apart from Tom Eaves (& how shit was he?) using WWF moves, it was a team who couldn’t play against one who didn’t want to get injured.

Starts for them today in what will be (barring a set of freak results) his last Derby game.

That’s 2 who definitely aren’t on the bench then.

I suppose you can argue Manning was a break from that. LJ was the previous manager we took from another club but due to his history with the owner it was hardly ground breaking. I just wish for once we would look to Europe, but think a combination of Tinnion being our technical director & an obsession with the fact that Benny Lennartsson didn’t work 25 years ago, means we won’t.

Probably not, because we’re consistently risk averse. Appointing Dean Holden, FFS. Alkmaar aren’t a big club, so if we wanted we could appoint this “type”, who could turn out to be the next De Zerbi or the next Jan Siewert, but we never do.

Huddersfield look nailed on to me, 1 point from the last 9 available & taken a couple of hammerings. If they win today they could well drag Birmingham down with them. Sheffield Wednesday’s last 2 look tough, so can’t see beyond them or Birmingham to join Huddersfield, depending on their result today.

Time will of course tell but replying to your last sentence, I really don’t think it will be. Twine permanently & a striker from the Belgian or French leagues & that’s your lot.

Obviously none of us know, but my take is they told him they didn’t think he was physically able to do the job & his view on this was what you said in your last but one paragraph, Fleming & Euell were his coaches & so they could do “day to day”. The club were scared of saying anything health related publicly, so came out with the story about poor results & even if you consider that we had a large number of players unavailable, that’s at least factual, but JL then bizarrely decided to add the “deconditioned” comment, which was far more disputable. Certainly if you believe his version of events, they said one thing to him & then another to the public.

I listened to about the first half hour (at which point I sensed they were running out of questions) & thought it was good. Big difference between believing all the answers & appreciating the questions being asked. Certainly find it barely credible we don’t have a budget set by now, the explanation that we don’t know who is staying is a red herring. Really can’t see the point though in mentioning for the millionth time that we didn’t put a sell on clause in for Andy Cole to someone who if he was alive back then, was probably at infant school. Different board, entirely different time, just like the regular mention of John Ward/Benny Lennartsson, it really is ancient history now.

Obviously guesses but these are mine; 1. Stokes yes, Murphy no. 2.Yes. 3. Seb P-H yes, Backwell possibly, Yeboah no. 4. Presumably we are expecting the first two to be available (if still here), the latter would sadly be a real leap of faith. 5. No.

Wouldn’t we still be able to get compensation in a year because of his age?

Think it is highly likely that’s exactly what will happen. Williams stays, James goes, Bird replaces him. Twine signs & we add a number 9 from Europe. If Conway goes then we add a second striker, though I’d think that player would be another viable starter, not “one for the future”. Beyond this if Bajic gets fed up with being on the bench every week & returns to France then a back up keeper joins. Cornick & Naismith would be 2 wild cards to depart, in either case if they did then because we must run on the second lowest squad numbers in the division we would have to replace them.

Agree, his first game in charge was a 0-0 draw v Birmingham, which by the standards of their season is probably one of the highlights. The ball is going to be in the air an awful lot when they have it & Evans is out of the Warnock school of low possession, loads of time wasting managers. Not expecting too much in truth.

The rumour is that Scott went from being on £4k a week with us to £40k a week at Bournemouth. He’s been on the pitch for at least part of 18 Premiership games so far this season. I’ll be amazed if he has even a moment of reflection as to whether it was a year too soon. As for Conway, like you I’ll be shocked if he signs another contract with us, & think that his next destination will be better than some on here. Wolves have been rumoured of late, plus if either Southampton or Ipswich went up I could see him at either of those.

Agree. In summary if we pick up cover for Max (almost certainly an out of contract keeper with Championship/L1 experience), a number 10 and a striker at circa £3m each, that’s our summer business done unless Conway leaves or the likes of Cornick or even Naismith are moved on. Nothing like the fanciful £15m-£18m mentioned on a podcast but enough to strengthen us in the obvious areas.