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After Cotterill, Who Was The Last Player We Sold On At A Profit?

Mad Cyril

By Mad Cyril
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Mad Cyril

Mad Cyril

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Among all the concerns aired on this forum over the last few months, there has been an interesting swing in opinions on the issue of the number of players out of contract at the end of this season. That swing has moved from a theme of 'worrying loss of talent for no return' to 'good news we can get some new blood in, start the rebuilding process etc'.

I still find it frustrating that as a club well publicised as running at a loss season after season, that we cant seem to make money from selling assets - players. It was a relief to get some cash back in for NM (lets not take the debate down that road please), but come June, any number of players will be departing Ashton Gate for free, players who cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring in.

This raises a wider thought though - we dont really want to become a selling club (and I always admire the patience of fans of clubs such as Crewe), but surely from time to time we should be able to turn a profit on the odd player to finance a bigger signing. Fact is (as best as I an recall) we dont, and have not done so for a very long time.

We are very lucky to have a chairman/board who supports each of our managers with new signings and loanees seemingly time and time again. But unless we can start to get some of this outlay back, let alone make more money than we paid for key individuals, things will go pop eventually.

Now I know we have bought a number of raw young players over the years,and not all will make it as the next star, but fact is very few of them have made it. For every Albert who does establish themselves as a first team regular, and who may make us money one day if we sell prior to the contract running out, there will be ten Akinde's who leave for nothing or next to nothing.

We have also bought any number of established pros, often for not inconsiderable amounts of money. Again, I would expect some of these to shine sufficiently to move onto to bigger and better things. Problem is they are not. And so out the door they go, either for free, or for a token of what we paid for them. With the exception of our current goal keeper, there are not many players we have bought in their mid 30s where we know this is their last club, so by the law of averages, we should expect to generate some significant positive transfer funds through player turnover.

So is Bristol City incompetent at coaching, training and developing players, incompetent at buying talent which can be improved, incompetent at selling on the transfer market at the right time, or any combination of the above?

If you have the memory or internet skills to name some players we have sold on for more than we paid for them, fair play. But surely the message here still stands - we are simply throwing money away when it comes to transfer market activity....... Not a great thought as we go into the summer rebuild process.

Your thoughts?

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TRL

TRL

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Cotterill, Brennan hill goater, did we get money for coles?

Now I am starting to struggle. Doesn't make good reading.

The only decent profits were akinbyi, Brennan, cotterill, Carle, lita and Brennan

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Sleepy1968

Sleepy1968

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Sadly we tend to panic buy deadwood that no-one has much use for. And when we do stumble on a half decent player we overpay.

Furthermore, since the transfer market isn't what it was, and we bring **** all youth through the ranks, don't expect to make any money on transfers.

The way forward is a quality youth system - we need to generate decent players for our club to profit on the field.

In fact I'd rather see a decent city team at league one level with 6-7 west country lads in it than a side struggling in the championship full of nomadic players, most of whom aren't up to snuff anyway. (But I don't want us relegated!).

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beaverface

beaverface

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Sadly we tend to panic buy deadwood that no-one has much use for. And when we do stumble on a half decent player we overpay.

Furthermore, since the transfer market isn't what it was, and we bring **** all youth through the ranks, don't expect to make any money on transfers.

The way forward is a quality youth system - we need to generate decent players for our club to profit on the field.

In fact I'd rather see a decent city team at league one level with 6-7 west country lads in it than a side struggling in the championship full of nomadic players, most of whom aren't up to snuff anyway. (But I don't want us relegated!).

In the recent Watford programme there was a statement that one of their players is the 50th player to make his debut from their Academy since it was set up in 1998 !!

That's a pretty impressive statistic compared to our Academy.

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Lew-T

Lew-T

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In the recent Watford programme there was a statement that one of their players is the 50th player to make his debut from their Academy since it was set up in 1998 !!

That's a pretty impressive statistic compared to our Academy.

Watford have always had a decent academy. The likes of Ashley Young, Marvin Sordell, Chris Eagles and Theo Robinson started their careers at Watford. Even the great Steve Brooker did!

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beaverface

beaverface

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Watford have always had a decent academy. The likes of Ashley Young, Marvin Sordell, Chris Eagles and Theo Robinson started their careers at Watford. Even the great Steve Brooker did!

Quite right, and it's about time we tapped into and made more of our academy.

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eskay

eskay

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Quite right, and it's about time we tapped into and made more of our academy.

Having had first hand experience of our academy versus Southampton I would say that we are just playing at it and there are too many there just picking up a pay cheque. Southampton is a professional set-up whereas we are poor amateurs.

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Mad Cyril

Mad Cyril

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So since 2005, the players we think have been sold at any kind of positive return amount to Lita, Cotterill, McCoombe, Carle, Orr, Henderson....

In that same period I calculate we have released or sold in excess of 70 players (probably half of which were strikers!). In other words 9 in every 10 players on our books leave for nothing, or less than what we paid for them. Not a great indictment of our coaching and development programme.

Some business model that. I'm out.

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The Jock

The Jock

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says alot, the club wonders why they are losing money when they pay most guys between £5-£10k at least and then sell them on for nothing and often spend £250k on players

Talking about quality youth players.With a chance off selling on at a later date.Ayr United have a kid called Mark Shanklund.He is 16 and had a trial at Liverpool.Rangers and Celtic are watching him to.And Burnley are trying to buy him to.He is gonna be a star,just like the lad Craig Sibbald at Falkirk.Who is also 17 and plays for Falkirk.And has a host off EPL championship and league one clubs after him.Good young players are in the first division youth systems.

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Mendip City

Mendip City

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Surely it's time to bin the academy and employ 3-4 scouts full time looking at prem academy/ reserve players so that we're ready to pounce on anyone released and also know who is likely to be a useful loan signing.

Once again we will have used more players from other team's academies than our own!

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Joshyshaw

Joshyshaw

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I wouldnt get too worried about this aspect of our club, when we do find a gem of a player we do whatever we can to hold onto them. Not many clubs buy players and then sell them on for a profit because when you buy an established player you want their best years to be with you.

As for youth prospects that is a different matter, I don't know what happened to our youth academy and bringing payers through but we just don't seem to do it much anymore. Players like Bolasie or Ryan Taylor are one thing, take a punt on them and the fact they are with a championship club will probably be enough to turn a profit on them (in terms of initial fee payed for them), but the fact that we don't seem to generate any youth players a extremely worrying.

I, for one, would rather see a lads like joe edwards, bobby reid and the like given more playing time. Show them a glimpse of what they are aiming for and see if they have the hunger to step their game up. This post and the questions around it are really more concerns for pre-mid season though, at the moment we can't really try and increase the quality and value of our young players as we are in a relegation battle. We just have to hope Del boy has taken these kind of considerations when he starts building next year, whether we are in the championship or league 1

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CotswoldRed

CotswoldRed

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Surely it's time to bin the academy and employ 3-4 scouts full time looking at prem academy/ reserve players so that we're ready to pounce on anyone released and also know who is likely to be a useful loan signing.

Once again we will have used more players from other team's academies than our own!

That seems like a reasonable argument for having no academy at all.

Everyone thinks a clubs needs one, but its done us more harm than good I suppose.

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beaverface

beaverface

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Having had first hand experience of our academy versus Southampton I would say that we are just playing at it and there are too many there just picking up a pay cheque. Southampton is a professional set-up whereas we are poor amateurs.

I think I read the other day that City are trying to upgrade their Academy to be something like level b, whereas I also read that Reading are looking to upgrade there's to level a. In my eyes, if you're going to have an academy do it right.

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citylad05

citylad05

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A player that i thought could or should have been a better player for us had he'd been given the chance is Steven Gillespie but because we had Marcus Stewart, Jevons and Brooker around at the time he never got a look in and same with Micheal Bridges every time he had the chance he looked quality. Defender Dave Partridge was a player i thought shouldve been better for us also;

good loanee players i remember maybe we should have pursued in buying Craig Ireland he was a defender what were sort of looking for now! UP THE CITY

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