Are You Satisfied With The Season We've Had?

[Luke_Ciderhead]

A resounding YES for me.

Yes we've finished lower than last season and we are dissapointed with our recent poor fun that has seen us drop out of the playoff picture. However, heres why the season has been a good one as far as i'm concerned:

- The atmosphere at Ashton Gate has come on leaps and bounds. The fans have really pulled together and made the gate an intimidating place for opposition players to come. We are finally being praised for the noise we make after years of being outsung by 50 Colchester fans!! The bounce around chants have really got the place rocking.

- The new stadium plans. As well as steadying the ship on the field, Steve L has revealed that in the new stadium he has a viable plan to take BCFC to the next level. We know that we are in good times and can only progress off the field with him at the helm.

- Cole Skuse. Started the season with many of our fans (including myself) writing him off as simply not good enough for this level of football. However over the course of the season we have seen his transformation into an aggressive and powerful midfielder that is all over the pitch, breaking up opposition balls and making crucial tackles. Cole has been an absolute joy to watch this season and he could be one of our big guns next year.

- Nicky Maynard. OK he's frustrated us....but we've all seen his potential. With a bit more experience and better service from the midfield, we have a potential 20+ goal a season striker here. The lad is absolute class and again could be a big player next year!

- Liam Fontaine. My player of the season. His form has dropped off a bit recently but his performances throughout most of the season has been superb. A real solid and reliable centre back. With these three players plus Carey we have a really great team backbone that need to be built on next season for us to progress.

- Gary Johnson. The guy has taken plenty of stick this season from ungreatful fans. However even during our poor run, he stuck with his task, and persevered with the group of players we have instead of giving in to calls for lots of new blood. Against everyones expectations, he turned our form around and two months after some people were calling for his head, we found ourselves 4th in the table after 8 wins in 10.

- Away form. City have won eight games away from home this season. I've seen wins at Charlton, Reading, Coventry, Southampton, Plymouth and Watford. Some of these grounds are places i'd never thought i'd see City play at in the dark days of League 1, yet alone win so convincingly there!! We've suffered a fair few dissapointing performances too but we need to put it into perspective and remember how far we've come.

- Crowds. City have an average attendance of 16742. Our highest since 1980.

Overall, we cant deny that we are a tad dissapointed to be where we are after last seasons heroics. However, when you read all of these points, you can really see that we are progressing as a club. Our chairman has a long term viable plan to move BCFC forward both on and off the pitch.... our manager has proven that he is the right man by turning round poor mid season form when many people thought we'd sink without a trace. We've witnessed the improvement and coming of age of a few of our key players .... And of course theres nothing like retrospect....three years ago, there probably isnt a single City fan out there that wouldnt have taken a promotion, a playoff final and a top half Championship finish in the next three years!!

Well done BCFC for an enjoyable season. The next step is to ship out some of the dead wood and "passengers" in our team and try to move to the next level!!

[cider head]

YES.

There is room to improve and city will, city have not been relegated back down to league 1 where we took

9 seasons to get out of so i'm not expecting miracles in the CCC too early, the season has not been that much of

a disaster.

[SJC]

Absolutely Yes.

Tougher league, something everyone agreed on but now some are forgetting . . . .

There was no way in hell that, after gaining promotion and taking the league by storm in successive seasons, Johnson was going to make wholesale changes to the squad. I very much take issue with those that say 'this squad has taken us as far as it can' as that is a very blunt phrase to describe a very complex situation. We are currently nine points off the play-off pace but can point to several events throughout the season which demonstrate, unavoidably, that it has been a term of fine margins - examples include McIndoe's last minute penalty miss vs. Forest, Elliott's wrongly disallowed goal vs. Swansea, Derby's smash and grab at Pride Park, costly lapses in concentration or errors at home vs. Cardiff, Preston, Derby and Watford to name a few.

Of course I'm sure all clubs can point to such events, but it maybe the case that things that 'went our way' last season have simply not done so this.

Whilst I reject that overly simplistic phrase, this summer should see a decent amount of transfer activity and rightly so. Johnson has shown his loyalty and, however you paint it, we have fallen short of out admittedly wildly exaggerated expectations following on from last years outrageous successes.

I posted the following on 3rd August 2008;

"The target for this season will be to emulate what we achieved last year, for what possible reason would we aim not to progress . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . {however} id suggest we're looking at a 5th-12th finish."

In my honest opinion we have consolidated this year and, realistically, that was exactly what I was 'hoping' for.

[Alex_BCFC]

YES

But next season is a big one. These players have taken us this far but can't take us much further (well some of them). We need 3 or 4 top quality players to reach the Prem. Maybe even 5 or 6.

I'm happy with our position this season but we should be playing better football. When we play it on the floor we look reasonable- when we hoof it we struggle.

[Barrs Court Red]

Yes.

In short my expectations have been met on the pitch, we've built the new training ground and seem the be pressing ahead with Ashton Vale.

I also appreciate the openess from the chairman and manager this season.

[mark1.1964]

yes. second season syndrome not for us as predicted by some.

[WarksRed]

YES

i always felt it would be a four or 5 year rebuild to get close to looking upwards ..........

least season ..... we were the unknown, teams didn't work us out, and we almost crept in.

this season ..... teams knew what we were about, we maybe didn't adapt enough, but the aim was to stay up, we have, maybe not to comfortably, but we did,

next season will be tougher, we could be playing West Brom, Newcastle, Sunderland, Reading, Leeds, Leicester, .. any one who's not happy with us playing the likes of those teams must be missing something.

promotion the season before the new stadium is finished would be perfect, .. New Stadium, Premier League, we'd need those 40,000 seats

August this year will be 50 years since i watched my first game at the gate, i've seen great players and crap managers, GJ'S in the top three we've had, In SL, we've got a chairman who wants what we want, not just some money juggling clown on an ego trip.

the futures rosy, the futures RED,

well it is from where i'm sat.

[Ryan 7]

Yes, however rather disapointed in a way when GJ and SL both publicly stated they wanted a top 2 finish, but the players we signed in both transfer windows shown those ambitions wasn't really ever going to be met.

Another top 10 finish (hopefully), and now an established Championship side. Can't ask for anything else considering we were on a 9 match losing streak in League One plummeting us to bottom of the league only 3 years ago.

CTID

[Guest churchill gaffer]

Yes still a very good season

To many home draws though

Another poor division. 12 home draws, a couple of those wins and we would have made the play offs

So still a good season, but with the Refs making the right decisions we would have made the play offs again (And I am a Ref, 29 years)

We had a season of injuries, this season. Last season we did not have any bad injuries to affect the squad, until the play off final.

Lets hope GJ makes some decent signings this time.

I think with Trundles wages, this will hold him back though (Trundle has another season with us, getting money for nothing)

Come on other teams PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get him from us!!!!!! IMO IMO!

[Dave Youell]

YES

Just look at the others that were in the play offs with us that stayed down, overall I'm happy. My aim was top 12 minimum this season.

Next Season top 8

[screech]

Yes.

This squad needs 2 or 3 new faces just to stand still next season, 4 or 5 to push on for the play offs in my opinion.

Mid table predicted and happy with that.

[Steve from Wales]

YES

Championship is the best of English leagues, it is a realistic place where the players are of sufficient celebrity status but respect the fans on an equal level. City are and always will be a quality 2nd division side with the level of support to justify this. This league is much more entertaining and lets face it who wants to be like Chelsea, Man Utd but it as good going up the Arse' in '76.

[Economou]

Satisfied, disappointed with finale of course.

However the team was disrupted with injuries, especially defensively. How often were Carey/McCombe/McAllister/Wilson(J) not available, not forgetting Wilson(B) & Ribs long term injuries. Throw in Williams & Marv's absences and we did pretty well to finishl,hopefully, in the top 10.

Looking forward to next season, hopefully we'll keep Marv & Dele.

[milo1111]

YES. satisfied with the league placing which is probably going to be top half.

feel we have slightly missed an opportunity in that GJ seems to over rate our midfield and doesnt play our best combinations. really feel we could of made the PO's with a stronger MF. also wished we had given the 4-3-3 a bit more of a go as well with maynard and sproule either side of bola. i think he missed a trick there. but overall grateful to GJ and the boys this season for what they have done but concerned about the likes of bola and marvin not being here for next season.

[The Man In Black]

Yes, although as a small side note it's a shame we haven't entertained at home this year. Twelve home draws, most of anyone in the league.

But my main aim at the start of the year was consolidation. Considering that many said we would be one-season wonders being just outside the play-offs isn't a bad result. Where we go from here is important.

[Barry]

YES i am happy with the outcome of the season. However, slightly frustrated by the journey with the inability to close games out or captialise when on top of the game. I think with a few good signings this will come.

The future looks bright

[WTFiGO!?!]

It was alright.

All things being relative we'll only know in hindsight. If we do progress from this in the coming years, which I think we will, then it'll be remembered as a season of consolidation, if we regress then it'll be remembered as the start of the downward spiral.

Any extreme opinion either way at this point would be puerile.

[BigP]

Yes,

Very happy to be a settled CCC club, but this will be our biggest and most important summer in (my) living memory. Need competition on both flanks of midfield and a young and exciting left back to challenge McAllister and possibily a striker please (thats assuming we have no major departures). I think the spine of the team is good, just need to forge a partnership between Cole and Marv, i like LJ for the record but would have him as a squad player.

All in all, an good year, but we do need to make progress every year, as this league seems to get stronger annually.

Really excited about next year for some reason...........Cooooooooome ooooooon youuuuuuuuuuu reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds!!!

[mjdcharmth]

A resounding YES for me.

Yes we've finished lower than last season and we are dissapointed with our recent poor fun that has seen us drop out of the playoff picture. However, heres why the season has been a good one as far as i'm concerned:

- The atmosphere at Ashton Gate has come on leaps and bounds. The fans have really pulled together and made the gate an intimidating place for opposition players to come. We are finally being praised for the noise we make after years of being outsung by 50 Colchester fans!! The bounce around chants have really got the place rocking.

- The new stadium plans. As well as steadying the ship on the field, Steve L has revealed that in the new stadium he has a viable plan to take BCFC to the next level. We know that we are in good times and can only progress off the field with him at the helm.

- Cole Skuse. Started the season with many of our fans (including myself) writing him off as simply not good enough for this level of football. However over the course of the season we have seen his transformation into an aggressive and powerful midfielder that is all over the pitch, breaking up opposition balls and making crucial tackles. Cole has been an absolute joy to watch this season and he could be one of our big guns next year.

- Nicky Maynard. OK he's frustrated us....but we've all seen his potential. With a bit more experience and better service from the midfield, we have a potential 20+ goal a season striker here. The lad is absolute class and again could be a big player next year!

- Liam Fontaine. My player of the season. His form has dropped off a bit recently but his performances throughout most of the season has been superb. A real solid and reliable centre back. With these three players plus Carey we have a really great team backbone that need to be built on next season for us to progress.

- Gary Johnson. The guy has taken plenty of stick this season from ungreatful fans. However even during our poor run, he stuck with his task, and persevered with the group of players we have instead of giving in to calls for lots of new blood. Against everyones expectations, he turned our form around and two months after some people were calling for his head, we found ourselves 4th in the table after 8 wins in 10.

- Away form. City have won eight games away from home this season. I've seen wins at Charlton, Reading, Coventry, Southampton, Plymouth and Watford. Some of these grounds are places i'd never thought i'd see City play at in the dark days of League 1, yet alone win so convincingly there!! We've suffered a fair few dissapointing performances too but we need to put it into perspective and remember how far we've come.

- Crowds. City have an average attendance of 16742. Our highest since 1980.

Overall, we cant deny that we are a tad dissapointed to be where we are after last seasons heroics. However, when you read all of these points, you can really see that we are progressing as a club. Our chairman has a long term viable plan to move BCFC forward both on and off the pitch.... our manager has proven that he is the right man by turning round poor mid season form when many people thought we'd sink without a trace. We've witnessed the improvement and coming of age of a few of our key players .... And of course theres nothing like retrospect....three years ago, there probably isnt a single City fan out there that wouldnt have taken a promotion, a playoff final and a top half Championship finish in the next three years!!

Well done BCFC for an enjoyable season. The next step is to ship out some of the dead wood and "passengers" in our team and try to move to the next level!!

[Guest DanC]

Absolutely Yes.

Tougher league, something everyone agreed on but now some are forgetting . . . .

There was no way in hell that, after gaining promotion and taking the league by storm in successive seasons, Johnson was going to make wholesale changes to the squad. I very much take issue with those that say 'this squad has taken us as far as it can' as that is a very blunt phrase to describe a very complex situation. We are currently nine points off the play-off pace but can point to several events throughout the season which demonstrate, unavoidably, that it has been a term of fine margins - examples include McIndoe's last minute penalty miss vs. Forest, Elliott's wrongly disallowed goal vs. Swansea, Derby's smash and grab at Pride Park, costly lapses in concentration or errors at home vs. Cardiff, Preston, Derby and Watford to name a few.

Of course I'm sure all clubs can point to such events, but it maybe the case that things that 'went our way' last season have simply not done so this.

Whilst I reject that overly simplistic phrase, this summer should see a decent amount of transfer activity and rightly so. Johnson has shown his loyalty and, however you paint it, we have fallen short of out admittedly wildly exaggerated expectations following on from last years outrageous successes.

I posted the following on 3rd August 2008;

"The target for this season will be to emulate what we achieved last year, for what possible reason would we aim not to progress . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . {however} id suggest we're looking at a 5th-12th finish."

In my honest opinion we have consolidated this year and, realistically, that was exactly what I was 'hoping' for.

I think next season The Championship is going to be even stronger than this year so I Feel it will be even more difficult to progress even if we do bring in some extra quality.

[cswhitlock]

YES

Undoubtedly we could have done better the only no for me this season has been the inability to keep composure when a goal up and find the killer second but a fantastic consolodation season. Early doors nerves were jangling but always kept faith that we could turn it around. One or two results different and we could have been in the pray offs but thats life all in all good season.

One thing we do need though is to improve our options in midfield as has been done to death on here but 2 of the 5 central players arent good enough at this level. Skuse has come on leaps and bounds Johnson is a good effective player and i think he will and should be pushed by Artus next season as GJ cant give the lad a contract and then say you arent ready when he evidently is. Williams needs a full pre season injury free and i think we will see a very good midfielder. i am glad Noble has gone on loan and wish him well his goal against palace was legendary but his inability to stop celebrating that goal ever since has cost a good creative player his place at this club. Defensivly we are pretty sound Carey ok is getting on but we have good replacement with J.Wilson and also i think Ireikpen will be a good signing if we keep him on. Mccombe really must go now he wont be fit early doors again next season due to the shin splints and i think that is reason enough good centre back but not this level L/B & R/B we are ok but need competiotion but good players not squad players.

Finally loyalty has got us this far we need a bit of quality and ruthlesness now

[Nibor]

Yes, cautiously.

I'm not so bothered about the league position, top half was my only real expectation there.

Positives:

- Maynard was a good signing

- Williams is a good player

- Akinde looks a great prospect

- Progress of Skuse

- Progress of Fontaine

- Training facilities

- Moving forward on stadium

- No second season syndrome

- Crowds

- Renewal reward on season tickets

Negatives

- Abysmal home form

- Lack of replacement for Carle

- Lack of balance to the squad (no left side cover, striker heavy)

- Direct style of football less pleasing to the eye

- Waste of money on Styvar (looks terrible but was available for nowt this summer anyway)

- Bombing out of Noble and Trundle - two exciting flair players I enjoyed watching

- Expensive loan signing on John who contributed very little

- Injury to Ribeiro

- Occasional inexplicable selections or subs (par for the course).

I will be happy if we see some positive transfer activity this summer that addresses the weaknesses I feel were obvious in the squad last summer.

Next season again I don't expect a top 6 finish, but it would be nice if we had something to play for still on the final day.

[sunningdalered]

No - not really.

Positives - Finishing just above mid-table, proving that we are good enough to hold our own in the CCC, performances against Reading away and Wolves / Cardiff home (didnt see some of the other decent away performances eg Charlton).

Negatives (or rather disappointments) - in too many of our performances in the first half / latter stages of the season (eg Wolves and QPR away) we seemed to lack belief / confidence / guile / craft - we didnt sparkle much did we? - and often looked inept against quick-breaking, flowing opposition. Didn't come away from as many games as I would have liked thinking 'we played some great football today - regardless of the result'. Heard the same thing from GJ too many times - 'we'll get the lads working really hard all week' and 'some of the lads need to look at themselves' - without seeing any appreciable improvement the following Saturday.

Not complaining however (honestly) - the EE's been on form for most of the season, and we live to fight another season in probably the most entertaining league in English football - so hey ho!! U reds.

[lager loud]

Definitely Yes.

Like a few others I feel a bit deflated at the moment because our play-off challenge has dribbled away.

There hasn't been too much football to stir the blood. Charlton away was a good performance and Reading away was superb. Those games and one or two others showed how good we can be when we click, but we haven't clicked very often. My best memories of the season will be those away games (along with Watford and Norwich) which I guess is not surprising - there's always an extra kick about watching us win away. But there aren't so many home games that will stick in the memory - the comebacks against Plymouth and Wolves being among the highlights.

We haven't taken any teams apart at home, really, and have lost far too many points to late goals.

But for all the things we can point to that haven't gone as well as we'd like....we're almost certainly going to finish the season in the top half of the Championship, which is a fantastic place to be.

Well done to everyone at the Club who's got us here. Here's hoping we can kick on again in the next season or two.

[myol'man]

YES

Just a few individual mistakes (Bradders corner vs Preston, Basso's fumble vs Cardiff, missed pens etc.)

in home games have cost us enough points

(turn 5 of the home draws into wins) to have put us in the play-offs again.

Next season i'd like to see 2 or 3 quality additions to the squad,

some of our youngsters breaking through,

and a nice cup run

[barracuda red]

yes

a good season with a bad december . stronger squad .

basso

orr carey fontaine

skuse elliot

maynard

subs/squad

henderson

williams

johnson

macallister

styrar

mcindoe

mccombe

akinde

left back both wings and a forward(dele going i think) are needed to improve team. the difference between city and the top 3or 4 teams is that they have ex Premier League players .

[Robbored]

No.

Apart from one decent spell after xmas City failed to impress often enough. Poor form upto xmas and down to 18th place. More recently, one win in 11 games. Over the season 12 draws at AG - thats a massive 24 points dropped at home and thats not incuding the three home defeats. Simply not good enough.

The bottom line is that Johnson stuck with 'this bunch of lads' and they have not been good enough. You could say thats an error from Johnson but hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

[kevinmabbuttshair]

No.

Apart from one decent spell after xmas City failed to impress often enough. Poor form upto xmas and down to 18th place. More recently, one win in 11 games. Over the season 12 draws at AG - thats a massive 24 points dropped at home and thats not incuding the three home defeats. Simply not good enough.

The bottom line is that Johnson stuck with 'this bunch of lads' and they have not been good enough. You could say thats an error from Johnson but hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

No

See above. I don't personally agree with a lot of the stuff the Robbored says but that is spot on.

I would also add that for 2 Januarys running GJ has failed to add enough to the squad when most would argue that some thing extra as required to get us over the line

[trundleismyhero]

Yes still a very good season

To many home draws though

Another poor division. 12 home draws, a couple of those wins and we would have made the play offs

So still a good season, but with the Refs making the right decisions we would have made the play offs again (And I am a Ref, 29 years)

We had a season of injuries, this season. Last season we did not have any bad injuries to affect the squad, until the play off final.

Lets hope GJ makes some decent signings this time.

I think with Trundles wages, this will hold him back though (Trundle has another season with us, getting money for nothing)

Come on other teams PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get him from us!!!!!! IMO IMO!

we have had a good season! that i am sure everyone is aware of.

but to be honest i don't believe trundle should be sold! he has an amazing footballing talent, but Gj chooses not to use him.

maybe he should have experimented with different players?

[Guest]

No.

Apart from one decent spell after xmas City failed to impress often enough. Poor form upto xmas and down to 18th place. More recently, one win in 11 games. Over the season 12 draws at AG - thats a massive 24 points dropped at home and thats not incuding the three home defeats. Simply not good enough.

The bottom line is that Johnson stuck with 'this bunch of lads' and they have not been good enough. You could say thats an error from Johnson but hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

No;Those dropped home points would of seen us prommoted already; dissapointed with Styvar and John signings when playing the players we already have Trundle/Akinde could of well of done better;

Worried also the likes of Elliott/Adebola/Skuse/Basso could well be missing come the start next season and suitible replacements will be not be found.

Lost points at home have been blamed on individuals and refs; not tactical play or the missing killer instinct.

Fortress Ashton will have to return on the pitch next season as its going to be tougher than this one and we had better be ready or we will be in the dogfight for survival.

Just my opinion like.