McInnes on City - uncomfortable reading...

[Jack Dawe]

You could forgive SL last time (2008-13) for being in unchartered waters (for him) and out of his depth. He didn't know what he was doing. He and his board were hardly the first board of directors here to struggle at this level.

What is less forgivable is coming back up and struggling again so soon. We can only hope that this is mostly down to Cotterill and that with that now changed, things will settle and improve. Time will tell.

When DMC was here, the board were not fit for purpose, nor was the manager.

[Major Isewater]

A top manager manages whatever situation and still comes out a winner .

Crap signings , tinkering with the team and formation all the time was , of course , the directors fault .

Well done for being a big hit in a one horse league  but you were obviously way out of your depth here whatever .

Shame for all concerned but we've moved on.

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

Surely all that McInnes says is pretty well documented?  We know that the wheels came off after the play-off defeat and that the strategy for the next year, including the signings of expensive imports like Sno and Saborio, was completely flawed.  The appointment of Coppell was equally inept, in that the selection process failed to discover that he had no appetite for a challenge, but the appointment of Millen was, I've always felt, the only option given the need to quickly establish some stability.  I suspect McInnes found himself in a similar position to Pulis in 1999: you'll remember that Pulis felt it would take three season to turn the club around, and I think that was a reasonable assessment.  McInnes inherited a tough job, and clearly wasn't up to it a the time.  He's moved to an easier job and is doing better at it.  No surprise there then.

 

[Marina's Rolls Royce]

6 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

Don't ever make me look this stupid again. Or we'll have to meet somewhere. 

Yeh but bet you'd turn up to the wrong venue - 3 hrs late.

[EstoniaTallinnRed]

10 hours ago, Fiale said:

 

 

I think the club is now in the right place, it started under McInnes and carried through with SoD - the club tore up their ideas when they appointed SC but they seem to have realised it was a mistake and have reverted back to the plan appointing Ashton and a HeadCoach.

 

McInnes and Sod had to cut the playing staff, wages, had to shift players to free up wages for any new signings and wages as well as adapt to the new club "5 Pillars" get the Youth Academy set up, they were just swamped with a workload that was unreasonable when they should have just be coaching the first team - they are not business/finance men and should never have been in that position. Thankfully we now seem to have the pieces in place, when/If Lee moves on I suspect Pemberton will become our next first team Headcoach, and Wade will move up to be his number 2, when Pemberton moves on the Wade will take over. If we can get that sort of continuity at the club, we just might stand a chance.

This never happens though, does it?   I have said in other threads that Pembo and Elliot should have been given the chance to continue until the end of the season and been shot down in flames on this Forum. I am not convinced that LJ has the experience in this league to keep us up and only hope that he will take the advice of the more experienced Coach under him.  If he doesn't,  then I can only see us being relegated and  SL perhaps will realise that he should have stuck with what he had in place.

[Jack Dawe]

8 hours ago, spudski said:

I read a quote from Alex Ferguson, who said words along the lines of... 'The position and results of a team, over a few years, often reflect what is going on behind the scenes...it shows the 'health' of a club to the core'.

Whilst that cannot be the case 100%, I agree with the sentiment.

 

That's a great quote, spud (because it supports my long and firmly held belief on all this ) and who can argue with Sir Alex?

Cup runs rely on large doses of good fortune, individual games swing on ref decisions and "fine margins" often, even the odd relegation can be "unlucky" (think of Posh relegated by a late goal on the last game with 54 points a few years ago) but a club's record in the league, over five, ten, fifteen years, is a reflection of the way the club is run behind the scenes. In my simple and humble opinion (for what it's worth).

I just hope that Cotts was the problem this season and that we're going to make strides now

[Cider red]

2 minutes ago, EstoniaTallinnRed said:

This never happens though, does it?   I have said in other threads that Pembo and Elliot should have been given the chance to continue until the end of the season and been shot down in flames on this Forum. I am not convinced that LJ has the experience in this league to keep us up and only hope that he will take the advice of the more experienced Coach under him.  If he doesn't,  then I can only see us being relegated and  SL perhaps will realise that he should have stuck with what he had in place.

In LJs latest interview he talked about leaning on pembo and his experience, I think he's very much aware of this.

[Jack Dawe]

13 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

A top manager manages whatever situation and still comes out a winner .

Crap signings , tinkering with the team and formation all the time was , of course , the directors fault .

Well done for being a big hit in a one horse league  but you were obviously way out of your depth here whatever .

Shame for all concerned but we've moved on.

This is no place for quips, innuendo and your quick wit, Major. This is serious stuff, sir

[Fiale]

23 minutes ago, EstoniaTallinnRed said:

This never happens though, does it?   I have said in other threads that Pembo and Elliot should have been given the chance to continue until the end of the season and been shot down in flames on this Forum. I am not convinced that LJ has the experience in this league to keep us up and only hope that he will take the advice of the more experienced Coach under him.  If he doesn't,  then I can only see us being relegated and  SL perhaps will realise that he should have stuck with what he had in place.

Your right that it has not in the past, but this is what the club and SoD were talking about putting in place. A good Headcoach with a decent No 2 and a young talented U21 / U18 youth team coaches. A Bristol City style of football played and coached from the top down. When the Headcoach leaves/quits then everyone kind of shuffles up so we have young talented coaches, becoming mature seasoned coaches before taking over the reigns at some point. Will it happen ? I have no idea, but it is certainly the best way to move forward.

[Kid in the Riot]

It's no surprise that McInnes' signings were crap.

He had about 2 P/T scouts working for him.

I would divulge further details of the scouting 'system' that was in place whilst he was at the club but quite frankly it's just ****ing embarrassing for all concerned.

That's why he had to rely on his contacts up in Scotland - Morris, Foster etc

[Roadrunner]

7 hours ago, Cunnyfunt said:

As well as Chris Wood. 

I was at a game v Portsmouth one Tuesday evening. When Pitman scored and  Keith Millen, sent him straight away back to play as a wing back. So Del was not the only one.

7 hours ago, jambodinho said:

I've always felt a bit sorry for McInnes and it's always annoyed me when people refer to him as McClueless. His statement confirms what I've said all along. He had a massive job here and not enough time to do it. A bloated squad of overpaid deadwood that we couldn't give away. He is arguably the best manager we've had here in a tactical sense for a long time. Think back to the rearranged Watford game that was cancelled on boxing day. That season they were walking the division under Zola, tearing teams apart with their slick passing game. They came to the gate and del had obviously done his homework. We sat so deep including the strikers and let their centre halves have the ball. Our fans were going mental. "Get into them" and "close them down" and all sorts of insults coming from the crowd. But what we were doing was stopping Watford from tearing us a new one. Their centre halves had no forward passes on. They couldnt play their little passing triangles around our team. They resorted to hoofball and we ended up beating them with our team of overpaid useless players. It was ugly but when you are near the bottom you have to resort to concentrating on stopping your opponents from doing what they want to do instead of going out and playing your own way (something cotterill didnt know how to do) Another comment that makes me laugh is the one about Scottish football  being like watching pub teams play. True, it's a poor standard but he's still had to make his crap team better than the other crap teams in that league and he's led both St johnstone's and Aberdeen to impressive league positions. I'm sure he'll succeed in England at some point in his career and we will just be a small blot on his C.V.

And don't forget Southampton who were flying at the top of the league. We beat them at home, and went to Southampton a couple of days before the new year. That night if Southampton if they beat us it would have been a club record of undefeated home games.They  were near the top, we were near the bottom, and yes we won. So Del did have his good days. Yes some of his signings were poor. It is no surprise that we find out the club was being mismanaged at the top. Paying very high wages for the league we were in at the time.Steve Coppel with the David James situation felt he could not work with the broad  and left. We have just been told that LJ was the outstanding candidate as manager. There for I guess Moyes, Pearson, Warnock, and the others did not apply. Time will tell, I only hope by the end of the season I feel more positive about things at the Gate, and no a  new stadium does not do it for me. Its continued improvement I am looking for.

[Scrumpty]

"looking back now, that was when I was in my strongest position there. At the end of that season I should have been kicking and screaming to finally get things done properly at that club."

perhaps I could rephrase this for Derek...

"As the manager, it was my job to sort out the playing side of things. It wasn't easy as I inherited other people's players, but then that's the same for most managers taking over a team. I knew what had to be done, but lacked the experience or influence to make the necessary changes, so instead of solving the problem, I added to it. 

I blamed everyone around me but, upon reflection, I should have done more to sort things out."

The best managers (in football or elsewhere) identify where change is required, then work tirelessly to make it happen. Sounds like Derek identified the issues (retrospectively perhaps), but didn't influence change, resulting in our inevitable demise.

[cidered abroad]

40 minutes ago, Fiale said:

In many respctsYour right that it has not in the past, but this is what the club and SoD were talking about putting in place. A good Headcoach with a decent No 2 and a young talented U21 / U18 youth team coaches. A Bristol City style of football played and coached from the top down. When the Headcoach leaves/quits then everyone kind of shuffles up so we have young talented coaches, becoming mature seasoned coaches before taking over the reigns at some point. Will it happen ? I have no idea, but it is certainly the best way to move forward.

That is what happened at Liverpool after Bill Shankly retired. And team personnel wise at City in the Alan Dicks days from 1974 to 1979. 

But it does cause a problem of staleness if the same unit stays together too long which can be just as destructive as continual changes in management / players. Thus it is wise to have some changes in personnel from outside every year but getting the numbers right and when is the million dollar question. 

[CliftonCliff]

1 hour ago, BCFC_Dan said:

3 of those were signed by Millen, not McInnes.

I agree with you, though. In summary the story reads: man takes on difficult job, fails, lists excuses.

Plenty of others need to take the blame but he still failed to do the job that needed doing.

I put this down to him, and SO'D being the right men at the wrong time. They'd have been fine choices in around 2009 and I'd say they'd be OK now too, but they are builders, not firefighters. It takes a manager like Gary Johnson or Steve Cotterill to turn a club around. Someone with methods that may be a little dated but who takes no nonsense, identifies the players with the right character and builds them up whilst booting the others out. When your house is on fire, you bring in a fireman to put the fire out, then a builder to rebuild it. We let a fireman (GJ) build a house, and put builders (DMc, SO'D) into burning buildings.

Spot on, Dan, as usual. Could not have summed it up better. Let's hope we've brought the builders in at the right moment this time - and that the board don't decide to give the job to somebody else half-way through because it's taking too long to do it the right way.

[Aizoon]

Is there any reason to suppose that the club is any better run now? It will be interesting when the full story of SC's sacking comes out...

['Orns]

1 hour ago, Fordy62 said:

Don't ever make me look this stupid again. Or we'll have to meet somewhere. 

Fordy, Dan is a Dursley boy too. We don't do that to our own!

 

1 hour ago, Fordy62 said:

Don't ever make me look this stupid again. Or we'll have to meet somewhere. 

 

[nathredwood]

13 hours ago, 'keepuplino' said:

I would say this year is as big a shambles as any we've had recently...

Nah that was worse.... Liam Fontaine worse....

[Tin Soldier]

Don't know why everyone is so surprised. This was common knowledge at the time. 

Only difference I suppose, is that Mcinnes is now prepared to speak out!

Bristol City has been a badly run football club for years - from Board down. That is what holds us back currently from signing quality managers and quality players.

Still love em though!!!

[GrahamC]

Interested to read about these "three or four" seasons that we'd apparently fought relegation:

In 2010/11 we stayed up by 18 points, the year before that we had finished tenth.

I don't doubt McInnes feels he was dealt a bad hand, my recollection is that he made a bad situation worse, after our surprising relegation escape when we won at Forest and then beat Coventry over Easter.

Everyone remembers the shite he added from Scotland (Foster, Morris, Wilson) but what about paying £750k for Steven Davies and then selling Brett Pitman for £60k?

Numerous managers these days inherit squads with 3 or more previous managers signings in them, but guess what? They get on with it.

Both GJ and Cotterill quickly weeded out what they didn't want and went on to be successful, this sounds to me a lot like Brendan Rodgers who is now telling everyone about the players he wanted to sign (who have been successes elsewhere) without mentioning his own dross.

By the way Aberdeen finishing second in a Rangers free SPL proves absolutely nothing about him.

[GrahamC]

13 hours ago, Olé said:

I've given it an hour or two and am quite surprised no one has objected to DMCs comment that we had players on 14-15k a week. I've not been ITK since the start of the century, but a lot of people have been on here regularly declaring that (David James aside) we just don't go over 10k. Wage structure etc. Who is right?

 

McInnes is right.

At the time I worked with a bloke whose lad was on a first year pro contract and who had a squad number.

He told me that Kalifa Cisse, a Coppell signing (you know the bloke who is regularly quoted on here as having left because he was unsupported and undermined) was on £14k a week when we signed him and when he reported back for training in his second season said he wasn't staying on unless his wages were increased.

Millen put him in the reserves and although he got put back into the side by McInnes after Millen was sacked.

[bearded_red]

I think everybody would agree that the job McInnes had to here was clearly very difficult, the set up was laughably amateurish and the amount of money we were paying to disinterested, poor journeyman players was shameful. We could all see for ourselves that numerous highly paid players were 'earning' their money sat in the Williams watching their game with a suit on. However, if I had done the shambolic job McInnes had done I would be shutting up and hoping people forgot rather than try and pass on the blame to everyone other than myself. 

Firstly, 'fought relegation for 3 or 4 seasons prior to me'. We had finished 15th, 10th, 10th and 4th in the four seasons before.

'We managed to keep the club up in 2012, having been way adrift when I arrived there'. Technically true of course and no doubt he deserves credit for managing to keep us up that year. I think I may have a slight issue with him claiming we were 'way adrift' though. He took over in October with us 4 points from safety. I'm not taking anything away from the fact he ultimately kept us up, but let's not pretend he is some sort of miracle rescuing us from being dead and buried. We were 4 points from safety in October. The performances from his team were a large reason we went into April still in trouble, that blame cannot be placed on any manager previous.

In his first season he was in charge for 35 games. Won 11, Drew 10, Lost 14. With the lack of quality in our squad and the fact that the ultimate goal of staying up was achieved that's fine. I wouldn't say that quite qualifies him as being the 'king' though. Fair play to him though he's spot on that later on he was a clown. You won't find me disputing that.

Now these players he brought in that improved the quality without having any effect on the massive wage bill. His signings, both permanent and loans were as follows-

Pearson, Foster, Wood, McManus (twice!), Davis, Ephraim, Bikey, Kienan, Morris, Cunningham, Anderson, Heaton, Marc Wilson, Davies, Baldock, Bates, Kelly, Elokobi, Briggs, Danny Wilson. No doubt a couple of good ones, some that will be argued about and then a whole load of dross.

21 signings in just over a year. I remember him making some bald claims about how much he reduced that wage bill, unfortunately they turned out to be rubbish. Not overly surprising when we were spending real life money on some of those.

I remember him explaining to everyone that he couldn't play Baldock and Davies, because he wasn't sure we could play 442, those players couldn't play together and neither could play on their own up front. But you signed them Derek! You signed them when the need for players in other areas of the pitch were much greater, remember we started that season with Pitman as our fifth choice forward whilst being laughably exposed further back in the team. Bringing up how you were hampered by a massive wage bill after you have signed two big money forwards and therefore completely ostracizing Pitman is a bald claim.

He signed Paul Anderson in the summer of 2012. After that we unexpectedly sold Bolasie, a player in Anderson's position, to Palace. Anderson made his first start for us on the 22nd of December. What an inspired signing that is. If Bolasie hadn't left we'd still be waiting for Anderson's debut now I think.

His management of Fontaine was an absolute disgrace, just repeatedly exposing him while he made more and more mistakes and took more and more criticism. I couldn't believe it when he rushed him back from injury and then proceeded to again pick him week in week out and his confidence hit new lows. I remember him finally dropping him at home to Peterborough, us winning the game and yet a couple of days later at Millwall, there he was back in the team. Which was a shame for Fontaine himself as he became the third member of the 'Derek McInnes 44th minute sub club'. If anybody can give me an explanation for those subs other than humiliating the player I would be interested.

This is guy that picked Ricky Foster in centre midfield.

This is a guy that picked Marc Wilson, a guy that quite literally couldn't run, at wing-back.

This is a guy that ignored Joe Bryan's impressive first few games and brought in Matthew Briggs to play instead of him. Good thinking that, lets plays somebody else's poor young player instead of our own promising one.

This is a guy that described us as being 'too pedantic in possession'. What does that mean?

Remember him confidently telling everyone how he 'would never play Pitman on the left wing', yeah that didn't last.

This was an actual team he picked while he was here- Heaton, Wilson, McManus, Nyatanga, Briggs, Foster, Skuse, Pearson, Stead, Taylor, Davies. (Adomah, Baldock and Marv were amongst the substitutes).

Whether his grievances are fair or not, no doubt some of them are, I can't help but think he'd be better served not bringing up is time here and concentrating on winning games in that pub league and making the most of a non-existent Rangers and the worst Celtic team in years and years. To be fair he seems to be doing rather good job at that.

 

 

 

.

[Padlad]

I Remember going to a 2-0 away to defeat to Brighton under McInnnes and thinking it was the worst city side I've seen (that was before SOD home defeat to Sheff united though), I definitely we have a better side this season both with and without Cotts and im not really sure the relevance of him coming out now and saying this other than to try to excuse his one managerial blip in his career. Funny how with time people remember what they want to. 

[Jack Dawe]

He liked the Stone Roses, though. I'll give him that. What does Little Lee listen to?

[Robin1988]

This thread summed up in one picture...

McInnes did make some dross signings and go through a horrific run, pretty sure we covered that in depth at the time. But instead of giving some credence to what he and other managers/players have said both on and off record, we're just focused on his win record.

Get your ******* head out of the sand some of you. Do you still think the only players we tried to sign in the summer were Gray and Gayle?

[Portland Bill]

4 hours ago, Cunnyfunt said:

Sam Vokes was one of them? Who was the other? Andy Keogh? 

No, it was the one with a neck like a giraffe! Starts with M and had to go in goal once when our keeper got injured!

[Big C]

To be honest not sure what Del Boy is on with these excuses when everyone knows it was Lee Johnson's fault. He was so bad he even failed to notice that!

[Esmond Million's Bung]

2 hours ago, Jack Dawe said:

You could forgive SL last time (2008-13) for being in unchartered waters (for him) and out of his depth. He didn't know what he was doing. He and his board were hardly the first board of directors here to struggle at this level.

What is less forgivable is coming back up and struggling again so soon. We can only hope that this is mostly down to Cotterill and that with that now changed, things will settle and improve. Time will tell.

When DMC was here, the board were not fit for purpose, nor was the manager.

Agree with this SC might be responsible for the playing side, but everybody from SL, KB, Pelling and SC are to blame for the transfer fiasco and that is why we are where are.

 

[Londoner]

Millen played turgid football that was far too predictable and one dimensional.

Mcinness made a huge mess of a half decent playing squad, completely lost the players and tactically inept.

[The Bard]

14 hours ago, Olé said:

Didn't see this posted anywhere - interesting reading - from The Times:

“I needed simplicity after Bristol City, which was an absolute ... I can’t say it,” he says. “After Bristol I just needed to strip everything right back, and do the job the way any football manager is supposed to do his job.
“Bristol City had fought relegation for three or four seasons prior to me. I kept the club up in 2012 and, looking back now, that was when I was in my strongest position there. At the end of that season I should have been kicking and screaming to finally get things done properly at that club.
“We had players haemorrhaging money at Ashton Gate, earning 14k or 15k a week which the club couldn’t afford. But I wasn’t convinced the club wanted to deal with the situation. I had four different managers’ signings in the dressing room. It was incredible.
“I remember one of my first days at training; all these players parked their cars and came over the hill towards me in their red training gear. There was maybe 40 or 50 of them — it was like watching Zulus coming towards me. I had to try to ship loads of them out on loan and get the squad down to an acceptable level.
“We managed to keep the club up in 2012, having been way adrift when I arrived there. The board had said, ‘if we go down with Derek McInnes, we’ll come back with Derek McInnes’. I had regiments of players I had to move on, but these guys had nowhere to go. Bristol City was Utopia to them — they were on great money. The club was vastly over-paying its players by thousands of pounds per week.
“Everything at Bristol was a mess, including some of the posturing for power in the boardroom. That’s why I said, at Aberdeen, I just needed simplicity. I needed to get back to doing what a football manager does.
“Bristol City taught me one key lesson — when things are going your way, and you are hot, then insist there and then on getting things done. Because it can all change so quickly. You go from a king to a clown.”

 

I remember going to a Q & A with Del Boy who was sat in between Keith Dawe and Rodney Trotter, sorry Jon Lansdown.  Any reader of body language could tell that Del Boy had zero respect for JL.  Think he might be referring to him there..

[Drew Peacock]

14 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

So if McInnes came in to a club in total disarray, when did the rot start or had it always been like that?

Gary Johnson? Danny Wilson? John Ward? Joe Jordan second time? Osman? Pulis ? Denis Smith? Lumsden? Joe Jordan first time?

I cannot believe that it was Terry Cooper or Jordan who started the downhill slide. But by the time Danny Wilson arrived it was surely well entrenched with his Galacticos?

I am sure I remember SL saying that when GJ was appointed, something along the lines of needing a new broom and rebuilding the club from top to bottom and doing things differently.  Not sure appointing PJ as head of recruitment fitted that ideal.........................