GrahamC

Dean Holden levels of rigour when that particular vacancy was “advertised”..

Agree with all of that, one thing is certain he’s an interesting bloke. Thought the tributes that he paid to both Webster & Baker were very generous, too. FWIW I have consistently said I wouldn’t have kept him on but fully get the argument put forward by others that if he’d been willing to accept much lower terms & then stayed fit, we would have got a bargain. Certainly wish him well at Schalke, do hope he stays fit & gets a decent run in their side.

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, they are going to develop the Mem one stand at a time over many years, aren’t they? The advantage is it’s their ground already & in the area where a lot of their support is based (North Bristol), plus they must have the capability of making that funny stand that backs on to the car park & only occupies part of one of the sides a lot bigger, but that bit is going to be extremely expensive. Disadvantages are it will take a very long time, require plenty of money to do even the most minor upgrade & it is highly unlikely that at the end of this (if they ever manage it) they’ll have a ground holding much more than 15,000. Oh well.

Least surprising part of this? “The Mayor’s Office is trying to keep the deal alive”. Anyone still believe that this would be the case if it was us? Absolutely clueless if you do.

Which also suggests the ballpark figure being quoted on here isn’t too far from the truth. Have to say if that was the case & this implies we weren’t remotely interested in budging, you do wonder why we even offered him anything in the first place. Still confused as to when Alexander & Lansdown are saying this offer was spent elsewhere in our budget, as the player we signed presumably as his replacement (Rob Dickie) was the first one through the door back in early June.

I’d go further. I don’t think their ground is suitable to stage any matches at league standard until they resolve this. If they have to switch games to the second half of the season or play home ones at Forest Green or Cheltenham then tough. Their stand shambles is pretty hilarious but this isn’t, they have I understand struggled to comply with the minimum seats for league football rule & initially offered Barnsley no seats for those with disabilities, not sure how (if?) they got around this one but it really isn’t acceptable.

Weird then that new owners have been found by the likes of Coventry, Derby, Huddersfield, Ipswich & Sheffield United in very recent times. Sort of understand the latter with Prem money but hard to avoid the conclusion SL is either asking too high a price or doesn’t want to relinquish control because we are no less attractive than the other 4, arguably more so than a couple of these.

You don’t fancy doing it again by any chance? ?

Gary Rowett, Neil Harris & Mark Hughes are 3 to start off with.

I thought the financial situation at Fleetwood had markedly changed since their former owner went to prison? In terms of size of football club I’d argue that the disparity between Sunderland & Fleetwood & us & Watford was considerably different.

Whatever your view on him going from Sunderland to Fleetwood in just over 18 months isn’t a great career trajectory.

Great post but without discussing the relative merits of Pearson & GJ, I’d argue you perfectly described the latter’s legacy. ”The pissheads sobered up or effed off” Wilson & his band of drunkards, then SL’s great mate Tinnion (hopelessly out of his depth as a manager) couldn’t achieve this. GJ’s abrasive Cockernee manner was exactly what was required, “shape up or fackin’ ship out”.. He definitely lost the plot towards the end but absolutely he rid us of the waster culture tolerated (encouraged?) by Wilson & that Tinnion clearly couldn’t break.

Without looking it up I’d say probably Ronnie Sinclair in goal & Glenn Humphries as the other CB.

Post Cheesley that probably has to be it & I reckon was the side for the Coventry game too (I was there). It contains arguably our greatest defender in Hunter, Gary Collier (plus Sir Geoffrey) who won’t be far behind as our next best, our greatest ever midfielder, plus Thomas Ritchie, and loads of all time greats like Sween, Tainton, the late Chris Garland, Whitehead & Mann. Looking back (I was only 13 then), that was some side.

Or one that was ever fielded in a game.

You’re sort of ignoring the fact these players are currently at Premier League clubs & the whole we haven’t the budget for their wages bit, aren’t you? Mbappe is really good at football, too.

That would be the same keeper who has been on the bench for them for every Premiership game so far? Seeing as we know now there is absolutely nothing left in the budget for Pearson to spend, that suggestion is Kasper Schmeichel signing levels of “not going to happen”. Mind you I’m sure you were also suggesting Keiffer Moore. I wish that we had a more experienced alternative to Max (not necessarily to start) but it seems we can’t afford it.

Exactly where I am. Gary Johnson achieved more than any manager at City in over 40 years. Opinions are opinions but that’s a fact. If you don’t rate him it can’t be based on results. I love Cotts but he didn’t get much of an opportunity in the Championship for all the reasons we know, still think we’d have stayed up under him but obvious the rules changed when he left. Which leads me on to LJ, the Man U game was incredible but he received backing like no manager before or since & didn’t achieve much with it. 17/18 side was a truly excellent one, though.

Yep & the Piercy article today suggests as you say, that Nige likes the area very much & wants to carry on with the job that he’s started & in my opinion, is doing extremely well. Absolutely no reason to doubt that is the case just because he’s 60 now.

Same as the Massengo situation, absolute horseshit for Alexander to claim last night the compensation for him was “already factored in”. HNM (well, mainly his Dad) pissed about nearly all summer before going back to their first offer from Burnley, so it is ludicrous for him to claim we knew all along what the compensation figure would be, when as I understand it, the rules are different if he joined an English club as opposed to a foreign one. I guess they will say Gardiner-Hickman was signed on loan instead of Thomason, Tim is absolutely spot on however about Bryan, no way is his replacement signing (Haydon Roberts) on the same money, the Kalas contract, HNM, loads of this narrative simply doesn’t ring true.

He isn’t reading this, he couldn’t give a **** what City supporters think. His comments in the recent past along the lines of “it is my money and club and I’ll do what I want” tell you everything about how we are viewed, as an income stream who should be forever grateful & uncritical.

Belarus is currently in UEFA, that’s pretty much the antithesis of a democracy. Russia was also in it until invading Ukraine. Azerbaijan & Kazhakhstan are in UEFA & aren’t remotely democratic & not sure Israel is a democracy as I would describe a true one, based on not allowing a great percentage of citizens living on land it is stealing on an ongoing basis the right to vote. Turkey’s elections are consistently described as not “free & fair”, either.

First bit, yes. Who says we are “top 8?” We have only played 5 bloody games. We know the money isn’t up front, but Alexander is now saying the plan all along was to sign those 4 players for about £4.5m because we knew Scott was being sold & SL was only a guarantor if that didn’t actually happen. What sort of a plan is that? Spend £4.5m & get whatever up front for Scott to cover, clearly a darn sight more. Bloody good job about the Academy too because it is obvious now that even after taking a significant amount off the wage bill & being at least £25m up on transfer fees this year, we couldn’t even field a team let alone have our tiny squad otherwise. It all makes little sense to me still.

He was on loan to Wimbledon last season then featured for Swindon against us in a pre season friendly but clearly they didn’t want him. No.

Kicking off in 20 minutes at home to Wigan. Bajic starts, along with Knight-Level, Araoye, Idehen, Taylor-Clarke, Sam Pearson & Yeboah of those involved with first team experience.