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Sunday Independent Steve Lansdown Interview...grounds For Optimism?

maxjak

By maxjak
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maxjak

maxjak

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Having just read through the "Exclusive" Interview with Steve Lansdown in todays Sunday Independent...........I would advise supporters to take some time to take a look, as it seems to clarify a number issues that are constantly debated on this forum. For me it spotlights just how important this man is to Bristol City, in fact without him we would be in dire trouble. Who else would give the club £50 Mill, which is basically a gift, and which he knows he will never get back. Here is a guy who is a fan of Bristol City just like you or me.....but who is in the fortunate position of being able to indulge his hobby by financing his dream. He obviously knows that he has been given bad advice by a number people, and realises he has made some poor choices, but it is no more than most layman would make when they are dependent upon employees, who should know better, providing him with extremely bad counsel. It seems he has now woken up to smell the coffee, but instead of deserting us, he intends to stick around and put our club back in the higher level of football where we belong. Although there are obviously a number candidates for the villain of the piece, to me McInnes is the main culprit, having had a full close season to organise the playing staff, and being given financial backing by SL to do so, he totally squandered the opportunity and ultimately was responsible for our relegation. We never replaced Steve Caulker, and our shambles of a defence was down to one mans lack of foresight. & organisation..... that man has now gone back to Scotland where he belongs, and with a CV with a massive black mark on it. However, having read todays interview with SL I am feeling lot more optimistic about the future of our club, Take a read, and see what you think?

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garlicbread

garlicbread

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Having just read through the "Exclusive" Interview with Steve Lansdown in todays Sunday Independent...........I would advise supporters to take some time to take a look, as it seems to clarify a number issues that are constantly debated on this forum. For me it spotlights just how important this man is to Bristol City, in fact without him we would be in dire trouble. Who else would give the club £50 Mill, which is basically a gift, and which he knows he will never get back. Here is a guy who is a fan of Bristol City just like you or me.....but who is in the fortunate position of being able to indulge his hobby by financing his dream. He obviously knows that he has been given bad advice by a number people, and realises he has made some poor choices, but it is no more than most layman would make when they are dependent upon employees, who should know better, providing him with extremely bad counsel. It seems he has now woken up to smell the coffee, but instead of deserting us, he intends to stick around and put our club back in the higher level of football where we belong. Although there are obviously a number candidates for the villain of the piece, to me McInnes is the main culprit, having had a full close season to organise the playing staff, and being given financial backing by SL to do so, he totally squandered the opportunity and ultimately was responsible for our relegation. We never replaced Steve Caulker, and our shambles of a defence was down to one mans lack of foresight. & organisation..... that man has now gone back to Scotland where he belongs, and with a CV with a massive black mark on it. However, having read todays interview with SL I am feeling lot more optimistic about the future of our club, Take a read, and see what you think?

It was millen that didnt replace Caulker

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Chappers

Chappers

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Rot started under Johnson. We neglected player development and kept bringing in 'experienced' players, most of whom offered modest value for money and had little re-sale value. As a smaller Championship Club, the resultant huge losses were unsustainable, and it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with us.

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maxjak

maxjak

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Rot started under Johnson. We neglected player development and kept bringing in 'experienced' players, most of whom offered modest value for money and had little re-sale value. As a smaller Championship Club, the resultant huge losses were unsustainable, and it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with us.

I'm just reiterating what SL says...have a read......it's the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT published in Plymouth........always has a middle section on all the West Country sides..and is in all the Newsagents and Supermarkets on a Sunday. Sorry bout the lack of paragraphs....it's the first time I have started a New Subject..I will know better in future.

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maxjak

maxjak

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I dont get how McInnes is the main villain of the piece? He had central defender targets but we couldnt match what players like Bikey etc wanted so had to do with makeshift loans etc or so what was said.. more of a culmination of everything that has contributed towards our predcament now.

He knew the defence needed organising with a ball winning centre half, and desperately needed bolstering.........but instead a lot of money was spent on Davies.&.Baldock & Cunningham ..he had finance in place, and managed to put all his eggs in one basket. In my opinion that is a lack of foresight and priorities, and BAD management....Yet despite that..as SL states in his interview "With the players we had assembled, Bristol City should NOT have gone down" With me, the bottom line is, McInnes was a poor manager who should not have been appointed........but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I myself thought it was a good idea at the time

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GodEmperor Palpatine

GodEmperor Palpatine

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He knew the defence needed organising with a ball winning centre half, and desperately needed bolstering.........but instead a lot of money was spent on Davies.&.Baldock & Cunningham ..he had finance in place, and managed to put all his eggs in one basket. In my opinion that is a lack of foresight and priorities, and BAD management....Yet despite that..as SL states in his interview "With the players we had assembled, Bristol City should NOT have gone down" With me, the bottom line is, McInnes was a poor manager who should not have been appointed........but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I myself thought it was a good idea at the time

Didnt start of badly this season mind, whatever happened after the Blackburn home game will remain a mystery.. Players had all the fight, passion and ability to win games or at least give it a real go, after that it just ceased to exist and they looked a shadow of a team.

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BS15_RED

BS15_RED

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Didnt start of badly this season mind, whatever happened after the Blackburn home game will remain a mystery.. Players had all the fight, passion and ability to win games or at least give it a real go, after that it just ceased to exist and they looked a shadow of a team.

I think the rot started with Skuse and Cunningham getting injured at Peterborough, after that game we were dogshit.
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maxjak

maxjak

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Didnt start of badly this season mind, whatever happened after the Blackburn home game will remain a mystery.. Players had all the fight, passion and ability to win games or at least give it a real go, after that it just ceased to exist and they looked a shadow of a team.

SL refers to a lack of confidence beginning to affect the team........Confidence is everything in football, and once players become inhibited, and cease to try things due to fear of failure.........the rot sets in. Thats why good managers are excellent psychologists......like Mourhino and Cloughie

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CodeRed

CodeRed

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It's too simplistic and easy to blame McInnes

Gary Johnson spent heavily & so did Coppell - this created the situation where losses increased to the point that

there was no money left for McInnes to get the CH's he needed.

Results were poor under GJ during his last season, results were poor under Millen and McInnes and SOD.

The club has spent heavily on transfer fees, wages, paying off expensive rubbish signings, & paying off managers. Without success. Various managers have recommended these players, board members have signed off on these contracts.

It's a collective responsibility - Board/Managers/Coaches/Players/Scouts.

The only people who arn't to blame are the fans - We've bought our S/T's, that's all we can do.

For what it's worth we got a bit carried away when appointing McInnes . Sexstone was assuring us he would be the next big thing - when his actual experience as a manager was untested in adversity, by that I mean Owen Coyle started the transformation of St.Johnstone which got him noticed & his move to England, McInnes took over a ship on a steady course & carried on the good work with a team that was already doing well. A lot different to coming in to a side in trouble in an unfamiliar league and having to undertake a rebuilding job whilst cutting costs at the same time.

That task needed an experienced manager with prior experience in the Championship & the board were naive not to recognise this.

Hopefully SOD will be that man - but he'll have to get results whilst rebuilding, or the whole process will start again.

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East End Old Boy

East End Old Boy

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Perhaps if macclueless hadn't let pittman go for peanuts and then spent a fortune on two strikers. One of who was pittmans doppleganger he'd have had some money left for a central defender. Just saying.

I doubt it was just the decision of the then manager, the board would have been instrumental in agreeing the sale.

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Eco

Eco

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Many on here can beat that, but don't have the cash/rich Daddy..... we are all in for the long haul....... understand that.

Of course I understand, just saying it looks like we'll be the beneficiaries of the cash for quite a while yet, which can't be a bad thing, can it ?!

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eric04

eric04

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He knew the defence needed organising with a ball winning centre half, and desperately needed bolstering.........but instead a lot of money was spent on Davies.&.Baldock & Cunningham ..he had finance in place, and managed to put all his eggs in one basket. In my opinion that is a lack of foresight and priorities, and BAD management....Yet despite that..as SL states in his interview "With the players we had assembled, Bristol City should NOT have gone down" With me, the bottom line is, McInnes was a poor manager who should not have been appointed........but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I myself thought it was a good idea at the time

He did try and sign Keogh, Ward, Monk, Gerard amongst others. They all turned us down because we cut our wage bill and couldn't afford their terms. Del was reaping what others sowed sadly. That said I'm sure there was value somewhere and spending on two strikers seemed excessive.

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One BCFC

One BCFC

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It isn't just McInnes' fault, he was the final piece of jigsaw that sent us down.

It all started when Lansdown put his faith in GJ to go out and spend money on players the season we won promotion. Johnson bought in loads of average players on long contracts, in which no sides wanted to sign these players so in the end we were stuck to average crap, by the end GJ fell out with the real proper football players in our team like David Noble, Michael McIndoe, Lee Trundle and finally Ivan Sproule. In the end he was inevitably sacked, after leaving us in 18th place I believe at the time of his departure (Do not credit him for 2 10th place finishes) we were on a downward spiral and could have gone down at the end of 09/10 season if he had remained.
Then we had the Coppell enigma which really messed us up, signed Adomah who has been a revelation at City whilst in the mean time forked out loads of the wages on added poor signings, this being David James, Nicky Hunt and Damion Stewart, then with 2 games in charge Coppell left, the board panicked and bought in quickfire replacement, Keith Millen.
Thought Millen did a very good job in keeping us up in that season after an horrific start and bought in Brett Pitman, Jon Stead, Steve Caulker and Danny Rose, though he also bought in Ryan Taylor, Neil Kilkenny, Yannick Bolasie and Martyn Woolford. Thought 3 of them were very good signings in helping us stay up and were great for long term success. Unfortunately though Millen was inexperienced as a first team manager and couldn't sell players who were in contract and refused to sell Maynard to Leicester for 6 million. He was inevitably sacked after an equally bad start from the season before.
McInnes came in, also did well to keep us up and had a mixed bag of signings which included Foster, Baldock, Davies, Cunningham, Morris.
What went wrong? Failure to sign at least 1 central defender for the beginning of the season, failed to see the talents of Bolasie and Wood,he then signed 2 strikers and then said we couldn't afford Amougou's wages, which is ridiculous as he signed 2 strikers! Though I do believe he got rid of a load last summer. McInnes was also inexperienced in English football and left us with a mountain to climb and we are now relegated.

It has been coming for years this relegation and we have no one else to blame other than ourselves for signing average players on silly contracts at the beginning and not being able to get rid of them.
SOD has a busy summer ahead of him and I can see the following...

Adomah to be bought
Cunningham to be bought
Davies to be bought
Baldock to be bought
Elliott to be bought
Skuse to be bought
Heaton will leave
Stead will leave
Fontaine will leave
Nyatanga will leave
Foster will leave

Howard will leave
Gerken will leave

This will help lower the wage bill quite a lot and should get some extra cash through signings. I do believe next season may be tough, but will be a road to recovery under SOD.

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GodEmperor Palpatine

GodEmperor Palpatine

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It isn't just McInnes' fault, he was the final piece of jigsaw that sent us down.

It all started when Lansdown put his faith in GJ to go out and spend money on players the season we won promotion. Johnson bought in loads of average players on long contracts, in which no sides wanted to sign these players so in the end we were stuck to average crap, by the end GJ fell out with the real proper football players in our team like David Noble, Michael McIndoe, Lee Trundle and finally Ivan Sproule. In the end he was inevitably sacked, after leaving us in 18th place I believe at the time of his departure (Do not credit him for 2 10th place finishes) we were on a downward spiral and could have gone down at the end of 09/10 season if he had remained.

Then we had the Coppell enigma which really messed us up, signed Adomah who has been a revelation at City whilst in the mean time forked out loads of the wages on added poor signings, this being David James, Nicky Hunt and Damion Stewart, then with 2 games in charge Coppell left, the board panicked and bought in quickfire replacement, Keith Millen.

Thought Millen did a very good job in keeping us up in that season after an horrific start and bought in Brett Pitman, Jon Stead, Steve Caulker and Danny Rose, though he also bought in Ryan Taylor, Neil Kilkenny, Yannick Bolasie and Martyn Woolford. Thought 3 of them were very good signings in helping us stay up and were great for long term success. Unfortunately though Millen was inexperienced as a first team manager and couldn't sell players who were in contract and refused to sell Maynard to Leicester for 6 million. He was inevitably sacked after an equally bad start from the season before.

McInnes came in, also did well to keep us up and had a mixed bag of signings which included Foster, Baldock, Davies, Cunningham, Morris.

What went wrong? Failure to sign at least 1 central defender for the beginning of the season, failed to see the talents of Bolasie and Wood,he then signed 2 strikers and then said we couldn't afford Amougou's wages, which is ridiculous as he signed 2 strikers! Though I do believe he got rid of a load last summer. McInnes was also inexperienced in English football and left us with a mountain to climb and we are now relegated.

It has been coming for years this relegation and we have no one else to blame other than ourselves for signing average players on silly contracts at the beginning and not being able to get rid of them.

SOD has a busy summer ahead of him and I can see the following...

Adomah to be bought

Cunningham to be bought

Davies to be bought

Baldock to be bought

Elliott to be bought

Skuse to be bought

Heaton will leave

Stead will leave

Fontaine will leave

Nyatanga will leave

Foster will leave

Howard will leave

Gerken will leave

This will help lower the wage bill quite a lot and should get some extra cash through signings. I do believe next season may be tough, but will be a road to recovery under SOD.

Good post although one thing was that Amougou wanted what he was on at Burnley which was said.. apparently that was 30k which is understandable as they were PL when he played for them. He wouldve never signed permanently for us although it would be interesting to know what he his commanding at Boro. Also failure to replace first Hartley then Cisse has been a major downfall through the years, 2 quality players.

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RedRock

RedRock

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Well, I've faith in the Lansown's to sort it out. I don't think they'll walk away and leave us in the mire either unless the fans turn. Think both are genuine supporters. A combination of bad decision making throughout the Club and crap players have got us where we are.

I think we all knew the foundations of our initial success in getting to the play-off final were laid on sand. Finally and belatedly some of the deep set issues within the Club are being addressed. Some of SoDs decisions have been a little bizarre but I think he's the man to address the fundamentals.

It may take a season, maybe two, but we will return stronger and in far better shape to mount a long term challenge at the top end of the Championship.

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timothy bird

timothy bird

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I'm not saying it was all mcinnes.es fault. That is far to simplistic. What I will say is that he proved to be a awful manager. + yes I blame the board for appointing him just as they are responsible for other bad managerial appointments. But the fact remains that despite svr finding excuses for everything (as he did under his previous name beyond the red sea) mcginnes was awful and totally out of his depth and the worst manager I have seen in my time supporting city.

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