Pezo

That's the problem with a salesman like Ashton is everything looks good until you try to use the snake oil. Then when you do there are other reasons for the problems that cloud the picture - the first thing in most fans playbook is sack the manager. Oxford tried telling us and we were apprehensive about listening to them when we were selling players for considerably more than we ever had before and signing players left right and center. When you're in the middle of it it all makes sense sell players for large amounts, buy more players that (he says) needs only a little development and have lots of competition for places and ready made replacements. This is all fine from the clubs perspective but misses out the human element of players actually wanting to play and what happens when they don't. If Ipswich fans don't want to listen to us then fair enough IMO, you can't get someone to listen by shouting louder - they certainly know what our experience was. I wouldn't wish ill on them for being blinded by the bright lights of a dodgy salesman and if there was a way of separating there eventual pain from Ashtons then that would be preferable to me, it might take them 3 seasons to realise but they will eventually. I think the reason we're all over explaining this stuff to Ipswich fans is because in the grand scheme of things we actually quite liked Ipswich before Ashton got there, they are a good traditional club that I can't remember us having any issues with.

You don't find the problem with snake oil until you try to use it.

Can anyone actually do this? It would be like your boss at work saying they will choose when and how much to pay you on a weekly basis. Surely its very rare people can live like that.

If the accepted perspective is that Reading are either a big club or in London then we might as well just say we won the prem last season because saying something clearly just makes it true even if its the biggest bunch of nonsense ever.

Rusty stand would be a step up for them, I think it's just a generic picture of a football stand that happens to be rusty - you never know they might have taken the picture while at a better ground like Cheltenham.

That's a great shout

True, I guess it all depends on your lens?. if you take "games" we were consistent (ly bad). If you take a game we had minutes of quality and hours of poor performance.

We're looking consistent which is new/different. This is a result based on a found rather than a particular tactic or result that doesn't mean anything next week. The foundation might not return a win every week but it is a consistently good performance which I'm more happy about.

Teams that can't defend get relegated.

Anything less than 9 is disappointing now ?

I would agree but after GmG had a pop at Nige for not doing a post match interview in pre season Nige gave a public reaction both in his comments post Plymouth laughing and saying "this will be the only interview" and his next press interview with GmG where he came across as a bit of a cock.

These 2 need to be locked in a room for an extended period of time.

I'm more concerned by the ones we have left!

Fairly sure my steak pasty on Saturday was vegan.

Yes but we don't know what's happened to those other players last season whereas we know our previous pre season was awful. The other players conditioning was likely better going into the euros. I'm not sure everyone understands the impact of the situation Ashton and his cronies left us in - it's going to take a perfect pre season to get most of our players back to a championship level of conditioning and Kalas, Wells and Naggy aren't going to get that this season or next if we want them to play 90 mins right now. We're better off focusing on getting them right so they can make the difference in a few games time and for the rest of the season rather than them limping through the whole season. Kalas didn't play against villa because NP wanted the players that were going to be ready to play against Villa.

It wasn't a surprise that Kalas, Wells and Naggy didn't start - they didn't get back to training until after the squad went to Loughborough. All of them are trying to catch up with the pre season and I don't think they will be properly really ready for a few weeks yet. Naggy has had a long standing issue settling in the UK, it's just simply not for him and the championship doesn't really suit him either. He could keep trying to settle but after 2 years and less time on his contract than has already passed he must be thinking that he isn't ever going to settle so for his own mental state and the best for Bristol City I think he has called it correctly (if not a little late).

Borderline?

If we still had him and LJ I would definitely have him gone over LJ every day of the week. LJ knew what he was talking about and loved telling everyone, Mark Ashton has no idea what he's talking about but loves telling everyone what he thinks.

I don't see why not, it's all rails, trains and stations isn't it? As someone that has stood in queues outside underground stations following football games I can confidently say there isn't space there either and yet they manage. They manage because they can bring a train in every couple minutes and keep the crowd moving, our problem will be not being able to bring a train in evey couple minutes, we simply don't have enough trains.

Not sure how every London club does it with poxy little underground stations. The answer is queues and lots of trains (which is the actual problem).

So is this going to be part of, and an extension of Ashton Gate stadium or is it something next to Ashton Gate stadium? Will the flyers be paying rent to Ashton Gate? It's presented by Ashton Gate (which is our stadium even if it's in a separate company) whereas I thought it was something separate.

The football club and the stadium are separate companies but one is a subsidiary of the other. The Rugby, flyers and Bristol sport are peers in the hierarchy and are all "owned" by Pula. The Football club is registered with the FA so profits from the stadium as a subsidiary count towards FFP, Pula isn't registered so profits made by Pula (not that it makes sense to have profits in a holding company) don't count towards FFP. Basically for the same reason as if the rugby makes a profit that doesn't count towards our FFP but the rugby club pays rent to the stadium and that does count towards FFP.

It depends on what the 3, 4 or 5 million gets us in this market. If we get the next Toney then great - if we get the next Brunt then not so keen.

We can pretty much add Swindon as a slightly smaller diamond that we find on the way out of the manure as well.