Kodjia - another Maynard?

[hantsred]

After seeing SL confirm that Kodjia wanting away was the driving force in his late departure, it will be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether he ultimately becomes the Premier League striker in demand or will disappear into the nether like so many others.

It is not entirely unreasonable to think we could be in the top league before him which would be almost as funny as the fee we managed to land for him.

Which brings me on to Maynard (yes, sorry to bring his name up again) as the last want away big time striker in a City shirt - never realised he went on to score only 17 more first team goals over 4 years!! That's less than he scored in the 09-10 season for us.  And only 8 Premier League appearances after all that fuss about wanting to play there. Ok suffered from injuries and the like but that is pretty poor and he now finds himself in a lower division than City at the tender age of 28.

It would be rude not to gloat if Kodjia goes the same way

 

[Murraysrightplum]

Hope he does well. If the club has a reputation for finding and developing premier league standard players surely that's a good thing??

plus we get more money if he/villa do well and probably a sell on clause as well...

[Robbored]

Once a player leaves City I pay very little attention to how they're doing elsewhere. I'm not interested and if Kodjia ever plays at AG again then so what? 

He did well for us and earned the club a cool £12m profit. What's not to like?

[Nibor]

21 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Once a player leaves City I pay very little attention to how they're doing elsewhere. I'm not interested and if Kodjia ever plays at AG again then so what? 

He did well for us and earned the club a cool £12m profit. What's not to like?

Indeed.  People get very worked up about silly notions like loyalty.  He's a professional not a fan, he'll do whatever is best for his career just like most of us would.

We did extremely well out of Kodjia and he did extremely well out of us.  He didn't make any disparaging comments or disrupt the club, he just quite fancied about four times as much wages.

I'd love to hear from the person who wouldn't switch employers under those circumstances.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, hantsred said:

After seeing SL confirm that Kodjia wanting away was the driving force in his late departure, it will be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether he ultimately becomes the Premier League striker in demand or will disappear into the nether like so many others.

It is not entirely unreasonable to think we could be in the top league before him which would be almost as funny as the fee we managed to land for him.

Which brings me on to Maynard (yes, sorry to bring his name up again) as the last want away big time striker in a City shirt - never realised he went on to score only 17 more first team goals over 4 years!! That's less than he scored in the 09-10 season for us.  And only 8 Premier League appearances after all that fuss about wanting to play there. Ok suffered from injuries and the like but that is pretty poor and he now finds himself in a lower division than City at the tender age of 28.

It would be rude not to gloat if Kodjia goes the same way

 

SL, MA, LJ and all else at BCFC might think otherwise, else why accept £4m in add ons and slap on a sell on clause? Obviously if we get promoted then that's small fry, but nonetheless us Bristol City fans arguably should be hoping we finish first, Villa second and - if not Gustav - Kodjia gets top goalscorer. 

[RumRed]

15 minutes ago, Nibor said:

Indeed.  People get very worked up about silly notions like loyalty.  He's a professional not a fan, he'll do whatever is best for his career just like most of us would.

We did extremely well out of Kodjia and he did extremely well out of us.  He didn't make any disparaging comments or disrupt the club, he just quite fancied about four times as much wages.

I'd love to hear from the person who wouldn't switch employers under those circumstances.

Football is odd with the way contracts work.  You're guaranteed the cash.  In most lines of work where the new boss offers you a ton but then he gets sacked you're usually gone with one months pay if they don't like the look of you.

I get the cash/no loyalty thing, I just wish we could get players that have a connection to City.   

Glad he went as he obviously wanted to but I'd much rather be an L1 team with a bunch of guys who wanted to play for us.

[hantsred]

You can call it loyalty, but I would call it matching ambition and at the moment the club from top to bottom is demonstrating great ambition. The fact that this was still not good enough for a player who has only been in the English league for a year and who would appear to have flaws that could have been developed hear as anywhere leads me to compare him to others who have wanted away to fast track their career.

He has indeed contributed both to our league status and balance sheet in healthy ways but only time will tell whether he has jumped the gun due to bright lights and bulging envelopes.

[milo1111]

Lets get andre bikey back to stamp on his chest next time we play villa just like he did to maynard when he came back with west ham.

The hostility that maynard got that night was something i dont think i ever seen at the gate for any single non-gas player in years.

[Nibor]

1 hour ago, hantsred said:

You can call it loyalty, but I would call it matching ambition and at the moment the club from top to bottom is demonstrating great ambition. The fact that this was still not good enough for a player who has only been in the English league for a year and who would appear to have flaws that could have been developed hear as anywhere leads me to compare him to others who have wanted away to fast track their career.

He has indeed contributed both to our league status and balance sheet in healthy ways but only time will tell whether he has jumped the gun due to bright lights and bulging envelopes.

He's 27 mind - there's every reason to believe this is the last chance he'll get for a whopping great contract.  If he'd stayed and only scored 10 this season he'd have missed that opportunity and so would we.  In the end the outcome works for everyone except possibly Villa and that's fine with me.

 

[Garland-sweden]

Very good buisness. No garanti that he will succed in Villa. Kodjia a very good player, he made 20 for us first season. Without English and Another football than in France. Thats more than well done. Now his gone, but we will do fine. Always Believe, COYR!!!

[CyderInACan]

7 hours ago, Nibor said:

 He didn't make any disparaging comments 

Not in English, anyway! But I'd say refusing to play coupled with his social media activity showed an unfortunate lack of respect come the end of his short time with us. But as I think we're all pretty much agreed on (unusually for OTIB) we got a great deal, it was the right time for him to go and we move on (with a huge wad of cash in our back pocket) 

[Pezo]

There is no guarantee that he would have scored the same amount this season.

Arguably we should have sold Elliott after his first season and used that money to reinvest but that time we chose not to, it will be interesting to see how the club use the money for the long term benefit of the club (although SL did say we haven't made a profit from this transfer window - which sounds barmy to me).

[Bassagogo]

Players come and players go, it's the evolution of the team for the greater good.  If the deal is right for the club then I would expect the club to look at it whether that's for a top scoring forward of a star defender much loved by the fans, if the deal is good then goodbye and good luck and we move on to the next star striker or much-loved defender.

[cidered abroad]

26 minutes ago, Pezo said:

There is no guarantee that he would have scored the same amount this season.

Arguably we should have sold Elliott after his first season and used that money to reinvest but that time we chose not to, it will be interesting to see how the club use the money for the long term benefit of the club (although SL did say we haven't made a profit from this transfer window - which sounds barmy to me).

If we haven't made a profit from this transfer window, it must be a close thing. But the really significant thing about City now is that we appear to have joined the "Selling Clubs" instead of being a "Buy them expensive and then get sod all for them when they leave, Club".

This, new to us, philosophy of buying / developing younger players with potential will benefit us either by making a decent profit or building a younger, hungrier squad than we've ever had with perhaps only the exception of the AD boys in the early 1970's.

[Fordy62]

As far as I recall (& I stand to be corrected, Maynard didn't do a great deal wrong - accent comments aside. 

Kodjia refused to play. However talented a  player he might be, that still makes him a mercenary****. 

Maynard had the right to run his contract down and did so. Fair enough. That's by the rules. 

The sooner a player gets sued for Kodjia/Forestieri like refusal to play the better for me. 

Add ons aside, I wouldn't be unhappy to see Kodjia never play for Villa. 

[Xiled]

The fact that I haven't read one person say we got too little for Kodjia proves that Villa paid too much.

Let's not get wrapped up in retrospective anger and bitterness. If I was 27, playing for City, and Villa came calling with bundles of cash, I would be on my way.

The only losers here are Aston Villa Football Club and their crazy owner.

We need the dignity to move on and support the players still with us.

[Pezo]

25 minutes ago, Xiled said:

The fact that I haven't read one person say we got too little for Kodjia proves that Villa paid too much.

Let's not get wrapped up in retrospective anger and bitterness. If I was 27, playing for City, and Villa came calling with bundles of cash, I would be on my way.

The only losers here are Aston Villa Football Club and their crazy owner.

We need the dignity to move on and support the players still with us.

The amount they paid is crazy to us but for them it's a small % of the money they get as part of the trampoline payment. I don't think anyone was a loser in this scenario.

[chinapig]

11 hours ago, Nibor said:

Indeed.  People get very worked up about silly notions like loyalty.  He's a professional not a fan, he'll do whatever is best for his career just like most of us would.

We did extremely well out of Kodjia and he did extremely well out of us.  He didn't make any disparaging comments or disrupt the club, he just quite fancied about four times as much wages.

I'd love to hear from the person who wouldn't switch employers under those circumstances.

Steve was also at pains to say there are no bad feelings towards him and that he  understood the pressures he was under. The correct response I think and a dignified one.

For me the Maynard fiasco was more to do with Millen and Sextone grovelling to him and allowing themselves to be strung along. Seems we have learned from that.

[shamussy]

He was something of a cult hero for us. In my opinion he was a good striker. Just a bit rough round the edges. I'd like to see him do well but if he doesn't I won't be bothered in the slightest. 

He's made us money and the club have secured a good deal. The players here now will get my full support. I'm well pleased with everything at the club. It's an exciting time. I think we'd be wrong though to pretend our squad is stronger without him in it.

[Lanterne Rouge]

34 minutes ago, Pezo said:

The amount they paid is crazy to us but for them it's a small % of the money they get as part of the trampoline payment. I don't think anyone was a loser in this scenario.

I love it. A far more appropriate term than parachute payments!

Respect sir!

[TRL]

i hope he becomes a star, and is sold for 40 or 50 million personally

[Mad Cyril]

There is nothing more annoying than players who leave and rub our noses in it by raising a wedge of cash for the club. Scum.

Much prefer the likes of JET and Waggy who have the decency to see out their contract in full and leave on a free....

[Pickle Rick]

I'm sure that whether he becomes a Premier Peague player or not, he has pretty much set himself up for life with his contract, loyalty bonus and signing on fee.

Fair play to the guy and I wish him well.

Hope he keeps himself grounded and makes the most of his career earnings.

[Malago]

It will be interesting to see how his confidence holds up when he misses a few easy chances (which he will) and the Holte End start to turn on him.  He will find the Villa fans a lot less forgiving then we were.

[Son of Fred]

13 hours ago, hantsred said:

After seeing SL confirm that Kodjia wanting away was the driving force in his late departure, it will be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether he ultimately becomes the Premier League striker in demand or will disappear into the nether like so many others.

It is not entirely unreasonable to think we could be in the top league before him which would be almost as funny as the fee we managed to land for him.

Which brings me on to Maynard (yes, sorry to bring his name up again) as the last want away big time striker in a City shirt - never realised he went on to score only 17 more first team goals over 4 years!! That's less than he scored in the 09-10 season for us.  And only 8 Premier League appearances after all that fuss about wanting to play there. Ok suffered from injuries and the like but that is pretty poor and he now finds himself in a lower division than City at the tender age of 28.

It would be rude not to gloat if Kodjia goes the same way

 

Good luck to JK.....a great season,some great memories for us and I'm sure him-plus a very healthy profit indeed.I would say part of his thinking is that his personal clock as regards his football career is ticking,he's no youngster,and views going to Villa with their set up/parachute cash as being a more likely chance of him realising playing PL football than staying here....he's probably right..

[Son of Fred]

4 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

As far as I recall (& I stand to be corrected, Maynard didn't do a great deal wrong - accent comments aside. 

Kodjia refused to play. However talented a  player he might be, that still makes him a mercenary****. 

Maynard had the right to run his contract down and did so. Fair enough. That's by the rules. 

The sooner a player gets sued for Kodjia/Forestieri like refusal to play the better for me. 

Add ons aside, I wouldn't be unhappy to see Kodjia never play for Villa. 

Didn't hear about a refusal to play,Fordy??....am shocked if so-what went on there??

[Fordy62]

1 minute ago, Robert the bruce said:

Didn't hear about a refusal to play,Fordy??....am shocked if so-what went on there??

Have you not listened to Lansdown's latest interview? Pretty sad really. 

[WhistleHappy]

6 hours ago, Garland-sweden said:

Very good buisness. No garanti that he will succed in Villa. Kodjia a very good player, he made 20 for us first season. Without English and Another football than in France. Thats more than well done. Now his gone, but we will do fine. Always Believe, COYR!!!

.. we should've made a cheeky bid for  Garanti, he sounds ok, where's he from btw? could've been a player/cash deal alongside the Kodjia to Villa transfer.

 

[Lanterne Rouge]

36 minutes ago, cynic said:

I think SL was maybe talking about overall club profit as he went on to discuss attendances meaning more money etc.

We've pulled in around 18m in transfers out/sell ons and spent around 10m (?) so in terms of transfers we must be well up in this window.

As for Kodjia, best of luck to him - he gave us 20 goals and contributed to us staying up, and got us a hefty amount of money which will enable more investment.  He obviously didn't want to play at Scunny or against Villa as an injury could have changed his life, which is fair enough. I hope he does well and goes on to have a great career. 

 

It also depends if he was including things like signing on fees and such - I expect GON and LT in particular got pretty hefty ones.

[CliftonCliff]

10 hours ago, Nibor said:

He's 27 mind - there's every reason to believe this is the last chance he'll get for a whopping great contract.  If he'd stayed and only scored 10 this season he'd have missed that opportunity and so would we.  In the end the outcome works for everyone except possibly Villa and that's fine with me.

 

That pretty much sums it up for me too and I'm in total agreement with all that's been said in Kodjia's defence, with the one important qualification regarding his attitude once it became clear there was an attractive offer on the table and he wanted away.

SL said, if I remember rightly, that he (Kodjia) didn't want to play, which is somewhat different from refusing to play, and as Chinapig pointed out Steve did go on to make some carefully worded comments that were very sympathetic to Kodjia's position. SL does indeed deserve credit for that piece of diplomacy and the generous spirit in which it was offered (even if the cynic in me is whispering in my ear as I type that you can afford to be generous when you've just trousered £11M of somebody else's cash).

However, if it's true, I have to say I am not impressed with the behaviour of a player who was - allegedly - at the very least reluctant to do his job for the team whilst still under contract to his then employer. The club has clearIy made the right decision and I don't need any further convincing of the justification for selling the player, but if I did, that would swing it for me. It puts his professionalism in doubt and I think this is something you can do without if you're trying to build a squad with a strong team ethic. Right move for all concerned and I hope he succeeds, but chiefly because it will be to City's advantage financially if he does, rather than because of any particular good will towards Kodjia himself.