bcfcredandwhite

3 hours ago, VT05763 said:

Not sure it will be. there is no expectation on results or performance currently, just the 3 year rebuilding project. As many have said 1 point above the drop will be considered success and this group of players could manage themselves to that position.

Why? When this group achieved successive top half finishes under LJ?

‘…all things must come to an end…’

…… yes - Barnsley’s losing streak!!!!

I’ve said before on another thread that I’m disappointed with the situation. I expected better from a Nigel Pearson side. Having said that, I think it would be stupid to sack him - unless we drop into the relegation zone. 
NP should be able to steady us. We’ll see. A loss to Barnsley would be disappointing (understatement) and some serious questions will be asked, but too soon for a sacking imho. 

On 25/10/2021 at 01:07, Harry said:

I’ve had a long break from otib. But I’ve conceded and just had to come back given the debate of late. 
 

Firstly, let me be quite clear on this. I don’t want to see Pearson sacked, but he has an awful lot to prove, for me.
 

However, there is something that I’ve not seen mentioned in the Pearson debate/state of the club debate in these recent turgid weeks. 
 

Recruitment. 
And specifically, the Recruitment Department. 
 

Let me explain. When Pearson arrived, we’d been a few years down the line of a pretty horrendous player recruitment process. You all know my thoughts on Ashton (and I’m glad you all finally saw what I was telling you all 4/5 years ago!). 
The recruitment team basically consisted of Ashton and…..ummmm, no one else. He was the CEO, but was essentially acting as the Director Of Football, the Head of Recruitment and the Chief Scout, all rolled into one. Too much power for one man. Yes we know, we’ve been through that story all summer and autumn. 
 

Once he departed, what were we left with. Well, you’ll see it was made very clear in the Post article a couple of weeks ago. We have a chap called Sean Gilhespy and he has a team of 3 or 4 data analysts and a couple of interns. Yep. That’s your lot. Gilhespy himself was historically a data analyst too. 
So in short, we’ve got 4 guys and a couple of unpaid uni-leavers who all come from a background of number crunching and data slicing. Yes, they’ve all done their uni courses in football analytics, but none of them have any experience of professional football, nor of actual player talent identification. 

Gilhespy is now the person who is taking the calls from the agents and is the first port of call for any recruitment queries, player availability, transfer talk etc. 
Now, if I was to tell you that I know a number of agents in the game, all with a healthy bounty of players, and I said to you that Mr Gilhespy doesn’t answer his phone or his emails, you might be pretty disappointed. 
I have no cross to bear and no reason to doubt that Mr Gilhespy is a nice enough chap and may well be a good data cruncher, but he is not the person who should be talking to agents about player transfers. I know through these agents with whom I have contact that he is seen as utterly useless and completely out of his depth. Data cruncher - no problem. Acting Head of Recruitment - wow!!! Unreal. 
 

I think, though I can’t be 100% sure, that we are probably the only professional football club in the country who doesn’t currently have a Head of Recruitment or Chief Scout. That is the real scandal that is currently going on at our club. We’ve got a chap who did a uni course on football data analysis as our Head of Recruitment and 3 of his data crunching pals running the show. We’ve got an absolute amateur in charge of taking calls from agents, which he invariably doesn’t answer. It’s an utter utter shambles. 
Steve Lansdown seems to be happy continuing with this amateur recruitment set up that Ashton left him with, a set up which SL is probably happy with as he thinks we’re finding gems from an in-house database and not having to talk to those dirty agents touting their players around. Oh, how sweet and innocent. **** your morals Steve. This is football. You alone are not going to change the moral fibre of this sport. If you want to run a recruitment department which ignores player agents then you’ll always be 24th in line in this division for a players signature. 
 

Let’s bring this back to Pearson. 
We all know the Leicester story. Nige was a strong manager, with trusted assistants, but backed up with a head of recruitment in Steve Walsh, who pretty much signed the title winning team. 
The recruitment position is so so essential. Without Steve Walsh and Craig Shakespeare, Nige doesn’t put that Leicester team in the position he got them. That’s not to play down his achievements, Nige clearly had a major influence on that squad, but he was not responsible for putting that squad together and he also had an assistant coach, without whom he hasn’t really achieved any modicum of success (for reference, look at Pearson’s record with and without Shakespeare). It ain’t very pretty. 

Fast forward to February 2021. Pearson joins us. It’s clear that Ashton is departing. It’s clear that Pearson is a manager who needs his trusted back room team. We know for an absolute fact that Pearson is not a man who likes/wants to deal with agents. It’s clear that we are under financial constraints. 
Given all of that, what’s the most important thing we needed. Yep, you’ve guessed it - a Head of Recruitment. 
I must confess, I was absolutely amazed that we didn’t manage to bring Steve Walsh in. He should have been the first person SL needed to call once Ashton was on his way. 
We’ve left a huge void in one of the most important roles at a football club. Even more so given what was required and the financial situation. 
 

Ultimately we’ve made 7 signings so far under Nige. 3 of them were clearly his own call from the Leicester connections. Obviously 2 young prospects with very very little pro football on their cv’s. But we have to add Weimann and Baker too, both of whom should easily have been released. Both were on high wages and hadn’t really proven anything over the previous season or 2. Yes, they both took pay cuts, but they are still incredibly handsomely paid and still 2 of the higher earners we have. 
Both should have gone. But the problem was this - we had no head of recruitment. So we had no idea of any other players we could realistically have brought in to replace them. So I’d imagine Nige had to reluctantly accept their return - there was nothing else on the table!! 
 

If we’d employed a proper experienced head of recruitment when Nige joined in Feb, and also employed some proper experienced talent spotters (ie Scouts and a Chief Scout) to actually physically get out there and watch 10-20 games a week, rather than crunch some numbers on a computer, we might’ve given Nige a very different looking squad this season. 
 

The simple fact that we have a Manager who doesn’t like the recruitment/agent side of the game, a new CEO who isn’t particularly responsible or experienced in that part of the game and a data crunching head of recruitment who ignores calls from agents, topped off with an owner who seems to actively encourage us to steer away from those pesky agents and try to implement our own holier than thou model, basically puts us at the bottom of the list for player availability. 
There were plentiful deals that could have been had in the summer had we acted early enough or shown any semblance of interest in, and we could’ve improved this squad without having to shell out high wages to 2 returning players and 2 other 35 year old has-beens. 
The fact there is a tight financial situation is the very reason we shouldn’t have signed Simpson, King, Baker & Weimann. It’s the very reason we needed proper experienced people running the summer recruitment and dealing with the players and agents, the very reason we should’ve been in conversation for the best deals we could possibly get rather than ignoring the calls and thinking we could do things our own way. 
 

Nige has effectively signed 7 players. 5 or 6 of them featured in pretty much every game this season. So whilst this is still far from being “nigels squad”, half of the outfield first team each week IS his squad. 
Therefore, yes, we can begin to judge Nige on this teams performances as he has 7 of his own players around him and he really really should have been doing much better than what’s gone so far.

But, in his defence, he’s being handed an absolute shit-show of a recruitment team. 
 

My thoughts - Pearson will be given time. No doubt.  But he should rightly take some flak for performances this season. He really should be getting more fight from these players. But, we are going absolutely nowhere - correction, we are going backwards at a rate of knots, until we get a proper recruitment team on board. 

Lansdown needs to pull out whatever stops he can, and bring in a Head of Recruitment as a matter of absolute urgency. This needs to be supplemented by a host of scouts (not just 2 or 3 part-timers, we need countless bodies in every area of the country, an army of scouts watching 20+ games a week between them and reporting to a Chief) - actual physical scouts going and watching players and having conversations with agents and other scouts at games - it’s called networking. And you can’t get that from looking at a bunch of numbers on a screen. Without that network, there is zero relationships, and without relationships with agents, you are bottom of the list when it comes to an agent placing their player with a new club. 

I have zero problem with the data analysts. It’s a perfectly valid part of the modern game. But they shouldn’t be the first port of call on player recruitment. They should be there to back up any scouting reports, not to be the instigators of player ID. And Sean the number crunching shy-guy certainly shouldn’t be the person responsible for speaking to the agents. 
 

This is where change is paramount. And must be effected immediately. 
Everything else that’s being argued about on here is purely secondary - without a properly functioning recruitment team, we will go backwards, fast. 
 

Anyway - good to be back.

You seem to be ‘in the know’ about the recruitment setup. I’m not, so I bow to your superior knowledge and, assuming it’s true then there isn’t much to disagree with here - except your references to Weimann who, IMHO, is one of the few players (along with Kalas, Bentley, Massengo And Semenyo) from the ‘old’ regime who emerge with any credit.

PS
Yes, I know, I’ve changed my tune on Massengo - I used to think he was another of Ashton/LJs ‘duds’ but he’s improved a lot of late and looks like he has an exciting future ahead. I was wrong about him and I’m delighted!!

Has it opened yet?

Well done Nagy!!!

I've not had many happy away days. I've seen us lose to Forest several times, lose to Preston, lose to Hull, lose to Stoke, lose to Mansfield, lose to Swindon, lose to Walsall, lose to Watford........... even lose to the gas at Twerpton 
I know I've been to many others - mostly during the Terry Cooper days, but they must have been pretty boring because none of them spring to mind.

In fact, I can say that in all my years I've seen us beat Carlisle and Walsall in the Fisher Price cup final, get an underserved win at Blackpool. first game of the season in the pouring rain with Steve Brooker getting a 'smash & grab' goal (Particularly harsh on Blackpool because our GK should have been sent off for making a 'save' outside the box). I saw us beat Brighton last game of LJs first season in charge which p155ed on Brighton's promotion parade! I also saw us beat Reading away a couple of seasons ago - one of Brownhill's last games for us with Paterson getting the only goal.

Although a win is always nice I honestly can't say any of those were particularly memorable away days. Most of the away games I've been to have been pretty rubbish!!!

23 hours ago, Abraham Romanovich said:

Just playing devil's advocate, but are most managers in reality all about the same level and once in a while more by luck than judgement stumble across the right formation to suit their players. 

Phil Brown had enough about him to outfox GJ at  Wembley and their they both are until yesterday managing in the 5th tier.

Was he a good manager once or as subsequent events have shown just a false dawn

In PB's case I think his ego was the problem and his reputation never recovered.

 

Sorry I don't agree with this. 

GJ was undone by a combination of a first-team player being taken ill the day of the match (McCoombe??) forcing GJ to re-jig his squad at the last minute, followed by an awful injury to Orr (fractured cheek-bone) during the game and a wonder-strike from an old dinosaur who had never hit one like that before and would never recreate that again. 

I think Hull were lucky on that day - or perhaps WE were REALLY unlucky, rather than Phil Brown 'out foxing' us with clever tactics.

Some heartbreaking stories on here. 

The closest I came to 'proper' depression was in 2003 when I'd lost  my job and couldn't find another. I began to BELIEVE that I was unemployable - I would never work again and my life was pointless. The money was running out and I had a wife and 3 kids to somehow support. I would go back to bed after everyone had gone to school (the wife was a teacher) and just try to shut out the world. I would get up again at about 11:30 and apply for 20 jobs per day online before going down the local pub for a few beers. That was my routine. The beer bit sounds nice, but it cost more money and I was racked with guilt afterwards - every day.

During that awful time I had to be very strict with myself to keep going. It really was like another person in my head telling me to keep it together. 

Luckily, I landed work in November of 2004 and have been in employment ever since. 

Since then I've lost my mum and I've suffered a really serious illness myself (Sepsis), which required major surgery and I was in hospital for 6 weeks, but even through those dark times I never felt as bad as I did in 2003-4.

Depression is real and can consume you if you allow it. 

Stay safe everyone, take care and be nice. Friends and family were my best aids during my dark days.

59 minutes ago, Calculus said:

... kept a surprising number of clean sheets.

 Because nobody scored in his box?

(I’ll get my coat…… )

I'm assuming he's been jabbed - seeing as he's been called up?

I personally am satisfied with the progress we are making. 

I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed about our dismal end to last season. I admit that I had expected more from a Nigel Pearson team and there wasn't anything in those performances to make me want him to continue managing our team. I would have thought that the players would have been desperate to impress their new manager - particularly the likes of Diedhiou who's contract was coming to an end, but the players seemed not to care. 

However, this season we are seeing the squad begin to gel and I do like the new midfield partnership. There have been a dew poor performances (eg Millwall) but overall I'm optimistic - and I'm sure a home win isn't far away. 

So - all good as far as I'm concerned. 

1 hour ago, Simon bristol said:

The affair was well known, as is the threat to whack lee johnson. But overall just rubbing it in peoples faces that he could make money from a talent with no application or effort,,,, with kids looking up to him

Really? 
I had no idea about threatening to hit LJ - apart from on these chat rooms where apparently Flint was another one who wanted a pop at LJ. In fact, apparently the whole squad wanted to attack LJ - and even the Tea Lady was ready to pour boiling tea over him after the squad had sparked him out!!!!!!!

I’ve never seen anything official about Tomlin though……

17 hours ago, downendcity said:

It’s scary reading for sure!

This gave me nightmares when I was a little kid.....

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj_zfmq66HzAhUKTsAKHRsdDqYQwqsBegQIDRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQSHd2rnkRTE&usg=AOvVaw2m56fvwQk3dnr2j2kYdJ-x

40 minutes ago, Sweeneys Penalties said:

dont remember a lot being wrong with the weather, though there was a wacking great Black Cloud over that Open Terrace. As soon as I saw Sinclair visibly trembling I knew we were in trouble

Perhaps you're right - maybe the whole experienced made me remember it like it was raining!!

On 24/09/2021 at 14:43, maxjak said:

Well what a surprise?  i was Tempted in, to read a piece by Hollowhead on today's Bristol Post website with regard to the new initiative to re introduce standing at soccer grounds, I should have known better?  Given the opportunity to make some serious points and insight into the issue....Hollowhead, given so many choices as examples, decides to regurgitate May 1990 at a Bath building site.?    Quite probably my worst ever experience at an away match, and i have been to a lot, standing on a ramshackle terrace on crutches, due to a broken leg suffered playing football a few weeks before, it started badly, and then got worse.   It was just the most horrendous capitulation to a pumped up Gas side, who just blew us away with route one football that we just couldn't cope with.  i spent a depressing 90 minutes teetering on my wooden props, trying to stay upright,   hating every minute, and wishing i'd   stayed home.  I have just rewatched the video through gritted teeth, made even worse by Malone's wittering monstrosity of a commentary, and it is still the horrible mess I have tried to forget.  .

So thanks a lot Hollowhead for stirring up a memory i have tried to suppress, you just couldn't help yourself could you FFS?   Apparently you got a great Buzz from the game?, well you know where you can stick that Buzz don't you?          Anyway time is a great healer, and as we gradually move onwards and upwards under Uncle Nige, I take great solace in seeing our sad neighbours slow decline towards Non-league    football as some kind of reward for my worst ever 90 minutes   at an away game.   Any other away game horror stories out there?               

I was there at that game.
Horrible weather. Horrible ground. Horrible football. Horrible result - and not even any pubs open - and then a horrible miserable drive home. 

Altogether a rather horrible experience. My first, last an only trip to Trumpton.

I was always amused by the ‘horses arse’ chant - usually aimed at one of our own during the Terry Cooper and Joe Jordan days. 
The ‘Adam’s Family’ song always makes me giggle too - the wife tries to sing it and gets all the relations wrong, like ‘your brother is your sister, your uncle is your auntie..’ actually more amusing than the intended lyrics !!!!

18 minutes ago, PHILINFRANCE said:

I fear it is the latter.

The importance of the word ‘last’ touch depends on whether or not such touch was deliberate or a save (whether by the goalkeeper or a defender is immaterial).

The misjudged header by Taylor Moore against Middlesbrough was a deliberate ‘touch’ and allowed the previously offside Assembonga (spelling) to go on to score.

Yesterday, Palmer was offside when Martin shot, and the goalkeeper’s intervention was a save, rather than a deliberate touch, so he remained offside when he shot.

Ergo, the goal should have been disallowed for offside.

I get you - so a save isn’t classed as a ‘deliberate attempt to play the ball’ then - even though it is??!!!

A block by a defender however would be??

again, not arguing- just trying to understand. 
 

EDIT - ignore. Just read Cityexile’s post -  and re-read yours properly!! 

Not arguing - plenty of people have said he was offside including the pundits on Quest last night, but didn’t their keeper play him back on from the original save? I thought that if the ball came off an opposition player then you were no longer offside? Van Nistelrooy made a rather successful career from that type of goal poaching. 
Have the rules changed or do I simply not understand them?

3 hours ago, Dredd said:

About time this was being discussed. I don’t mind pre match drinks, I don’t feel the need to get a pint during the game, but if I feel like a half time pint I detest having to neck it in 10 minutes. Would be much nicer to be able to take it back to my seat and enjoy it during the second half

I don't see why beer in plastic bottles can't be taken to your seat - the same as coke, lemonade or any other drink, but if you're one of those people who needs a p!55 immediately after a beer then don't do it. You should know your own body. It's really annoying when people are constantly pushing past whilst one is trying to watch a game. 

I'm one of the 'lucky' ones who can drink about 4 pints before needing the toilet, so it's easy for me to say I suppose. 

1 hour ago, Bristol Rob said:

Quite agree.

I quite like my match day routine which does involve a pre match pint, but to watch the game with a pint in my hand, knowing that if we score, there will be idiots who decide they need to lob beer in the air... less so.

Odd how beer throwers don't feel the need to throw a cup of bovril when we score.

I think it's fine if we're playing at home - we hardly ever score!!!

10 hours ago, Ska Junkie said:

Sh1te fullback though 

He certainly was for us - but he played ok for Bolton when they were in the Prem, so he must have had SOMETHING about him. I remember being puzzled about how crap he was at the time. 

Didn't he have a serious injury though - maybe that hit his confidence such that he could never be the player he was?

Great away win!

Didnt see the game but the stats suggest we mugged them!

happy days!!

I’m amazed that anyone would seriously want NP gone at this stage of the season. 
This thread has to be a wind-up surely?