Harry Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 Not entirely sure where I'm gonna be going with this but I thought, as we're at the half-way point of the season after we play Ipswich tomorrow, I wanted to look at how our results this season compare with last season. Once we can see that comparison, we can get an idea of what we need for the second half of the year to survive. I have compared our results like for like so far this season, so for example, we have played Burnley at home and Lost 4-3, whereas last year the equivalent Home fixture v Burnley we won 3-1. So, last year we gained 3 points from this fixture, whereas this year we have 0 points. For the promoted and relegated teams, I have used the teams that have replaced them in order of their final positions, so for example, Charlton won League 1, so they rank as the 3rd from bottom team, Portsmouth. West Ham went up via play-offs, so they rank as the bottom team from the Prem, Wolves. So what do we get? After 22 games this season we have a record of Won 5, Drawn 3, Lost 14. Points 18. The same fixtures last season resulted in Won 6, Drawn 9, Lost 7. Points 27. So, at this point in time, we are 9 points worse off than we were last year. Not pretty reading. If we include our away defeat at Ipswich last year, we stay on 27 points at the half-way mark. So anything tomorrow will be a bonus!! Ok, so what do we have to look forward to in the second half of the season? From our remaining games, our results were Won 6, Drawn 4, Lost 13. Points 22. This would suggest that of the fixtures remaining, we didn't perform quite so well in last season when compared to those we've already played. Again, this does not make pretty reading, suggesting that we've had an easier schedule so far. However, it gives us an opportunity to see exactly what we'll need to stay up. Last year, 41 points was enough to stay up, and judging on the points gained so far this year, it won't be far off that mark this time around. If we match the results from last year in our remaining games, we will end up on 40 points. This may be enough? Just to be sure though, lets suggest that 45 points will keep us in this league. We need 27 more points. That's 9 wins. Or 6 wins and 9 draws! Or 7 wins and 6 draws! Or 8 wins and 3 draws. You get the point! Remaining home games : Watford, Peterborough, Leicester, Ipswich, Forest, Barnsley, Brighton, Middlesbrough, Sheffs Weds, Bolton, Birmingham, Huddersfield. Remaining away games : Millwall, Leeds, Blackburn, Cardiff, Palace, Blackpool, Wolves, Derby, Burnley, Hull, Charlton. I think we need to get wins at home v Peterborough, Ipswich, Barnsley, Sheff Weds & Huddersfield to even stand half a chance. The away games all look very tough and I can not envisage very many points. Perhaps a win at Charlton on the last day will be needed. That's 6 wins. Where do the remaining 9 points come from? Looks like we'll need to beat Watford, Bolton & Brum at home as the 3 'easier' games on paper? Anyway, I said at the start I wasn't sure where this was going, I just started rambling? But I think I've reached a conclusion. We've already played the 'easier' half of our fixtures, and somehow I can't see us escaping the drop this year. We've hovered around the bottom for a few seasons now, and I don't think our fingernails will hang onto the edge of that cliff any longer. It appears as though we'll need to pick up at least 7 or 8 home wins to stay up, and considering we've only won 36 home games in 4 and a half seasons (out of 103 games), it doesn't bode well. We've only won 35% of our homes games since our playoff season. That sort of ratio would suggest we will only win 4 more home games! Ultimately, we've been on the slide since the heady days of May 2008 and consecutive Managers have not been able to halt this slide. I guess what I'm saying here is that I also don't blame McInnes if we get relegated. Over the last 5 years we've spent on average £2.5m per season on new players. This is about the same as Del has spent this season. It's not enough to stay in this league I'm afraid. Relegation has been sneaking up on us and is finally gonna snare us this season - and in my opinion this would have happened no matter who was in charge of the team. It's part of our history. We get promoted. We stay in this league for anything between 1 and 7 seasons and we get relegated again. We then stay in the third tier for between 2 and 10 seasons and get promoted again. Apart from a spell in the early 1900's and 76-83 this has always been the way. It's now our time again to go back down, suffer in League 1 for a while and have another promotion in a few years. Look forward to it!!! Anyway, sorry for the ramblings, and Up The City (in 3 or 4 years!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REBS14 Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 Good post Harry, i watched a view of the same fixtures video footage on player last night and the one thing that struck me was, well two things 1/ what on earth has happened to Marv this season, his performances last season seemed to have more energy and he was having a go.this season 2/ we looked a better team last year, better orgainsed and creating chances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sportingmad0209 Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 After 22 games this season we have a record of Won 5, Drawn 3, Lost 14. Points 18. The same fixtures last season resulted in Won 6, Drawn 9, Lost 7. Points 27. This is the first time I have realised this (thanks). This do not make good reading. I for one have been 100% behind Del, but as much as I like the current management team, this cannot go on. I hope the club supports our CURRENT manager in the January transfer window, and he can sign us some value for money good Championship players. The players he have paid for have been good signings, the free ones... Not so much! Del was always going to be work in progress in the Championship, but I am sure he is learning all the time. The club will be in a much stronger position next year, but let's hope it is in the second tier of the football league! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Posted December 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I hope the club supports our CURRENT manager in the January transfer window, and he can sign us some value for money good Championship players. The players he have paid for have been good signings, the free ones... Not so much! I think this is the crucial part. I know we are massively overspending already, but January needs a SIGNIFICANT transfer fund to get us out of this. I mentioned in my opening post that over the last 5 years we have spent, on average, £2.5m per year on transfers. This money has basically been just about enough to keep us in this league. If you go back and look at the 11 seasons prior to that (when we got promoted, went back down again, and finally got promoted again and reached the Championship playoffs), we spent on average £1.3m on transfers each year. So, we've gone from spending £1.3m per year to £2.5m per year over a 16 year period!! Considering the amount of money ploughed into the game and the increased prices, this is not really a significant increase in annual investment in quality players. I know it's easy to say, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we can continue to compete at this level with this kind of transfer outlay. I don't think it would matter who was in charge of this team right now, we are due to go down, it's our time, and we haven't invested enough in the squad over the years to compete. We need BIG money, QUALITY signings if we wanna stay in this league. And that ain't gonna happen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nogbad the Bad Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 36 wins out of the last 103 home games says it all. Doesn't matter which league you're in, if that's your home form attendances will drop, and sooner or later so must the team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve39 Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 this time last season after 22 games we had 21 points won 5 drawn 6 lost 11? still doesn't make good reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night84 Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Always having more points than games played is a good rule of thumb. That will put you in a good position at the end of the season as the drop is usually around the mid 40s in terms of points. We don't want to let that slip away from us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Good post harry. You are dead right regarding the clubs yo yo history which would indicate its our time to go back down. I havent calculated it recently but our total seasons spent in tier 2 and 3 were pretty much identical last time I did. Tier 2 maybe winning at the mo? Still dont think DM is the man though and we could stay up with a change of manager and decent transfer activity in jan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chappers Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Disagree on one thing, it's not the amount of money you spend that counts, it's the way that you spend it. So much of our spending has been poor, and by buying 'established' players (Journeymen?), we are not making money by developing talent to fund future purchases. We are running at one hell of a loss, so we have to be a lot smarter, use the Academy, scout lower and non-Leagues, and stop pretending that chucking money around is the solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CIDER NOT CIDRE Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Going through the last 3 seasons the amount of points that would get us survival has been 2009/2010-48 2010/2011-43 2011/2012-41 So basically let's just hope it's less this season! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mendip City Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Disagree on one thing, it's not the amount of money you spend that counts, it's the way that you spend it. So much of our spending has been poor, and by buying 'established' players (Journeymen?), we are not making money by developing talent to fund future purchases. We are running at one hell of a loss, so we have to be a lot smarter, use the Academy, scout lower and non-Leagues, and stop pretending that chucking money around is the solution. +1 and sad to say, I wouldn't trust Del with another penny of the club's money after his shocking or weird (non-playing million pound strikers included) signings to date. There was mention above to "value for money". Did any of these truly meet that criteria? M Wilson, D Wilson, Bates, McManus, Foster, Anderson, Morris, Baldock, Briggs??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sniper Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 If you look at the amount of money as a whole figure that's been spent on players over the years you'd have thought we'd be challenging at the top of the table. Unfortunetly most of it has been wasted. If you go in the pound shop and buy 35 badges you end up with a lot of badges but none of them are very good. You could say the same about City in the transfer market. £500,000 here, £600,000 there and so on. Clarkson, Sproule, Pitman etc spring to mind without even thinking about it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The reason we are where we are is the lack of quality in the squad. Instead of paying say £750,000 each on 2 players and paying them 5 grand a week we should of bought 1 player for 1.5 Million and paid them 10 grand a week - Same outlay! If we'd have repeated this a few more times over the years with young hungry quality players we'd have a smaller squad with quality players that might actually get on the pitch, instead on sitting on the bench, or not even making the squad. Cunningham, Davis and Baldock thankfully have been good buys, but we need to finish the job and get in a few more decent players to compliment them and get in some creativity to get Davis and Baldock scoring for fun, and some help for Cunningham to stop us leaking so many goals! I know FFP has to be taken in to consideration, but If we don't we have a one way ticket to L1 I'm afraid! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mendip City Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Really agree with the point about too many £500k players at the expense of 1 or 2 true quality signings. Many of the players we have signed have been rejected or sold to us by clubs at our level. If you weren't good enough for a Forest, Derby or Ipswich etc why should you be good enough here? Our early adherence to FFP will see us in League One.... With, you guessed it, too big a budget. Finally, on Baldock - he's a shocking signing, a waste of money. Nothing to do with his ability but if I'd asked any City fans what our main, stand out, summer signing should have been they would have either said: a decent midfielder or a dirty great solid 6'4" centre half. NOT a 5'7" striker to spend most weeks sitting on the bench. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Albert Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Really agree with the point about too many £500k players at the expense of 1 or 2 true quality signings. Many of the players we have signed have been rejected or sold to us by clubs at our level. If you weren't good enough for a Forest, Derby or Ipswich etc why should you be good enough here? Our early adherence to FFP will see us in League One.... With, you guessed it, too big a budget. Finally, on Baldock - he's a shocking signing, a waste of money. Nothing to do with his ability but if I'd asked any City fans what our main, stand out, summer signing should have been they would have either said: a decent midfielder or a dirty great solid 6'4" centre half. NOT a 5'7" striker to spend most weeks sitting on the bench. Regarding Baldock, I could not disagree more. As I've said time and time again on here, hindsight is a beautiful thing. I bet the majority (and it can be proved, just by looking at summer transfer threads) were raving about the fact we signed Baldock and how we needed him so much when we first signed him. Who knew Stephen Davies would turn out to be such a gem and Taylor would have "such an influence". There's no denying that we needed a cm and cb, we all knew that, but we all knew we needed a cf too! And, ultimately, were all chuffed when we did sign one (two)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chappers Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Undecided on Baldock, not good value if City looking to play one up front, wrong type of player for that. M Wilson, why sign him and loan out Joe Edwards? J Wilson, Carey, Nyatanga, Fonts, Bates, McManus, D Wilson.... How many centre backs do we need? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCAGFC Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Very good analysis H, we have had our what could be considered 'easy' games and it will cost us, reading that away fixture list is frightening. BCAGFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 36 wins out of the last 103 home games says it all. Doesn't matter which league you're in, if that's your home form attendances will drop, and sooner or later so must the team. Is it that many?! Doesn't feel like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bard Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 About buying players. We should only buy players who fit into one of 3 categories - Promising, progressive and proven. Looking at our signings I would put Danns in the proven category. Cunningham, Davies and Baldock in the progressive category. The others don't fit this so are, by default poor signings. Bolasie, Adomah and Taylor were promising players when they signed for us. I think all have been good signings. Where I think Del has got things wrong is in concentrating solely on Championship and Scottish players. He did well in Scotland resurrecting a few careers, but that isn't going to work in the Championship. I'd like to see us sign a 24 year old CB and 24 year old CM from League 1 sides who are established and looking to progress. There must be plenty of them and if they help us stay up they were good signings. If we go down, we have a couple of players who know what they're doing at league 1 level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo88 Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 About buying players. We should only buy players who fit into one of 3 categories - Promising, progressive and proven. Looking at our signings I would put Danns in the proven category. Cunningham, Davies and Baldock in the progressive category. The others don't fit this so are, by default poor signings. Bolasie, Adomah and Taylor were promising players when they signed for us. I think all have been good signings. Where I think Del has got things wrong is in concentrating solely on Championship and Scottish players. He did well in Scotland resurrecting a few careers, but that isn't going to work in the Championship. I'd like to see us sign a 24 year old CB and 24 year old CM from League 1 sides who are established and looking to progress. There must be plenty of them and if they help us stay up they were good signings. If we go down, we have a couple of players who know what they're doing at league 1 level. Completely agree. Unfortunately City don’t seem to have a good scouting system to identify these sort of players. Keith Millen employed Gary Owers to act as a scout in the lower leagues. He was sacked by McInnnes as part of his clear out but no one seems to have been put in place as a direct replacement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redcherryberry Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Disagree on one thing, it's not the amount of money you spend that counts, it's the way that you spend it. So much of our spending has been poor, and by buying 'established' players (Journeymen?), we are not making money by developing talent to fund future purchases. We are running at one hell of a loss, so we have to be a lot smarter, use the Academy, scout lower and non-Leagues, and stop pretending that chucking money around is the solution. 100% spot on with all that. Mcinnes could have 10 million in the Jan window but i wouldnt trust him one bit given his previous to spend it wisely. Admire the board for actually making yet more funds avaliable for him. After all it's his summer transfer dealings that's got us in this position in the first place. Long term the way forward for me is young hungry cheap talented lower league players. Get more scouts in covering the West Country and beyhond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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