Lee determined to make supporters proud

[Strawberry2157.]

4 minutes ago, BCFC_Mike said:

I know I wouldn't want to work for someone who I have no confidence in and are straight up clueless on how to manage a team... I'm sort of in that position now, and it makes me ******* miserable. Not that I can relate it to football, but a job is a job. 

Exactly... I have no faith in my manager, not prepared to got that extra mile for them and doing a job i'm not skilled in, so made the decision to resign, I was lucky and found a new job in 8 days... last day Monday... same as Johnson I hope.

[Gert Mare]

[Robin in Qatar]

52 minutes ago, Fiale said:

I'm amazed he's travelled with the team - cannot see him being sacked guys.

He'll still be there end of the season

[B block]

4 minutes ago, Cheesleysmate said:

 

4 minutes ago, Cheesleysmate said:

I See no tanks 

[Slippin cider]

59 minutes ago, Fiale said:

Head coach determined to make travelling supporters proud.

Johnson vows to select energetic line-up against league leaders

Head coach said City lacked "bite" in defeat to Fulham

Former midfielder played in goalless draw at Newcastle in 2009 

Lee Johnson has vowed to pick a team with bundles of energy as City prepare to embark on their longest trip of the season to Newcastle United this weekend.

 

Speaking after the midweek home defeat to Fulham, the head coach said his team lacked “bite” – something he doesn’t want to see a repeat of at St James’ Park tomorrow (3pm).

 

The Sky Bet Championship title favourites reclaimed top spot after a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa on Monday.

 

“We go there as the underdog,” Johnson told Bristol City Player HD. “Obviously it’s going to be a tough game but we have to get some spirit back – find that aggression and passion in our play to go and make things happen.

 

“If you’re low on confidence, what comes next is you run about and put your foot in. You do everything you can to make something happen in a physical sense.

 

“I’m certainly going to pick a team that’s going to run about, get tight to people and give Bristol City fans pride in the shirt.

 

“I haven’t lost the belief and I’m not going to lose it, because belief is such a big part of it.

 

“I’m up for the fight and I have to make sure everyone else is.”

 

Johnson was part of the City team who battled to a goalless draw on Tyneside against the eventual title winners back in 2009/10.

 

He added: “It’s a fantastic place to play and the players have to go there and enjoy it, having come off the field victorious knowing they’ve given everything they’ve got.

 

“We will feel like we’ve got a point to prove and we’ve got to go there and put in a good performance that people can be proud of.”

[Olé]

Pick a team I can trust.

How many more times does he have to throw out these subtle little decoy flares to imply - with no little innuendo - it's never really his fault.

Take some responsibility man. Apart from Flint and Bryan (and Reid from bench) every single one of the players on Wednesday were yours.

With the amount of bloody times you have changed the team line up, I would bloody well hope you should know who you can trust by now.

With the amount of money you spent, I would bloody well hope you have enough players you can trust. YOU selected Matthews over Vyner.

If you are still searching for a team you can trust then perhaps it's a clue that no one trusts you, or rather no one trusts in your instructions?

 

In the meantime, I buy this theory he is being given Newcastle and may be resigned to leaving after the game. Too late now for anything else.

It would be typical of SL's achilles hell: sentimentality, make it a nice for LJ, give him his day in the big stadium, chance of minor redemption. 

Don't forget, SL is probably the only chairman to ever hold a joint press conference with someone that he was sacking. This is what he does.

What makes me livid is as nice as it makes SL, this soft-underbelly is putting his friendships over the £100's that we all spend to go up there.

Saturday is another bloody expensive trek, for a team than needs any kind of bounce. It's not an "awww just one more go" indulgence for LJ. 

God forbid that the season comes down to fine margins and we are wasting yet another game, however tough, simply to sugar coat LJ's exit.

[Major Isewater]

38 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

We could do with getting smashed really. It's getting beyond a joke. 

And before anyone accuses me of wanting to lose, I really don't. I can just see the greater good for the long term. I want to see is stay in this division. And if that means seeing us get smashed 5-0 by Newcastle, then so be it. 

I think most of us are getting smashed on matchdays, the pain still seeps in .

[samo II]

Agree fully @Olé.

The nonesense relating to "I need three windows" and constant 'negging' of the team is meant to indicate this is not 'his' team, but stands in stark contrast to him saying stuff like the following after Derby; 

"We are very, very close to being a decent side but we've got to learn and grow together."

So... after that game we were nearly there, but less than a month later he can't "trust" the players, and is making out like he's not responsible for the team?  

Happy to take praise when it is offered; less keen to accept responsibility when faced with critique - not a good 'look' for a leader, in any walk of life.

I think he's just running out of places to hide now; it is his team by and large, regardless of how many windows he's had.

Plenty of other managers with less backing have done far better with the inherited resources they've had to work with; LJ cannot disguise our failings by passing it off on personnel.

[Mr Popodopolous]

3-0 or 4-0 to Newcastle I predict.

Then he will go- he will have to.

[Red Cloud]

45 minutes ago, MarkRed! said:

LJ today says "he will pick players he can trust".......

 

he's need players to trust him first and foremost, can't think of one?

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

51 minutes ago, cityloyal473 said:

Someone's had the bumper edition of football cliches book as a recent present. 

My kids could come out with more inspiring, imaginative stuff than this. 

It's like the vacuous, meaningless corporate waffle we get on our company intranet.

[Kachina II]

If he wanted to make us proud, he should have resigned straight after the game, and gave a leaving press conference, thanking for the opportunity, gutted its not worked out, hoped he could be the one to take us up, but the job is beyond him and the role needs someone with experience and wished us all the best.

That would have at least earned him the fans respect and no one would hold it against him. 

[Sweeneys Penalties]

I can't believe this. City didn't have a game at the weekend and Fulham had Premier League opposition on Sunday and were very definitely the second best team on the park. How on earth did we show less energy than them on the Wednesday night? It must be a mental strength and inspiration issue...and if it is, God help us at Newcastle. 

[Fiale]

Evening Post

 

Lee Johnson believes fervently that he still has the backing of Bristol City owner Steve Lansdown and the Championship club's board of directors.

Support for City's 35-year-old head coach visibly waned during and after last night's depressing 2-0 defeat to Championship play-off hopefuls Fulham and a majority of those inside Ashton Gate directed their anger at Johnson as the mood turned ugly.

As fans called for his head, Johnson remained closeted inside the home dressing room along with his players for 45 minutes before emerging to face the media.

Asked if he was convinced he still has the backing of majority shareholder Lansdown and the board, he replied: "As we speak now, I am."

Read more: 'Bristol City deserve better' - fans' favourite Adriano Basso takes to social media amid Johnson pressure

He added: "This is a good project and certainly one that I am going to be involved in and want to be involved in. Everybody matters, the supporters matter and the board matters, because we have to be in it together.

"We've had every meeting there is to be had. As we speak, everybody is disappointed and I understand where the fans are coming from. But we are not in the relegation zone or bottom of the league.

"We are four places off the bottom, we have a game in hand and we are only three points behind the next team above us in the table. This is a bad day for us, but it is not a disaster. We still have lots to fight for moving forward."

Read more: Bristol City 0 Fulham 2: Five things we learnt from Ashton Gate defeat

Johnson was also quick to refute suggestions that he has lost the confidence of his players, an accusation that has been widely bandied about by fans in recent weeks.

Responding to journalists' questions, he sought to put the record straight, saying: "It is so easy for people to say these things and ask 'has he lost the dressing room?' My answer to that is 'no'. We are in this together and we all believe we can get out of it.

"I believe 100 per cent in myself and I will never shirk a battle. I need to dig deep and the players need to dig deep. I need to search my soul for the right team to go and pout in a performance that the club can be proud of. The players need to search their souls to find that extra one or two per cent that will make a difference.

"We have to find another six wins and we definitely have that in us. This football club has been in bad times before and come through them. I've been in some of those bad times myself and come through them.

Read more: How safe is Lee Johnson's position at Bristol City after Fulham defeat?

"We're at a low ebb and we've reached that point where we have to decide what we are going to do; are we going to crawl underneath a rock and hide away, or are we going to fight and come back again.

[cheshire_red]

His comments after the Fulham game provided the Club with all it needed to end the farce.

That it chose not to do so and thus the chance to get something from the Newcastle game is not only astonishing but a slap in the face for the supporters.

Professional Football Club, not in any sense of the phrase.

[Fordy62]

1 hour ago, cynic said:

Which will put us in the bottom three and destroy the advantage we have with our goal difference - effectively losing 4 points and making it even harder to get out of the shite.

I'd rather we won 5-0.

I disagree. If we were to win 5-0 as great as it'd be for today, it'd just be another false dawn just like the first half versus Derby and it'd probably earn LJ another 4-5 games to lose.

It cant go on. We should have sacked him in December. 

[Fordy62]

4 minutes ago, cynic said:

I can't agree that losing a game 0-5 is a good thing in any circumstance.

 

Each to their own I suppose and I admire your opinion, but I suppose my purely hypothetical point is that I'd rather lose 5-0 and have a much better chance of some wins for the remainder of the season rather than a win buying more time. 

LJ is like a dying dog that won't give in. He's just needs a last final dose of medicine to help him finally relax for good.  

[Mr Popodopolous]

We ****** it up at Derby well and truly.

Ironically a substitute he brought on v Fulham at 2 down would have been ideal for an hour in at Derby- 3-1. O'Neil I think would have helped steady the ship and win up there...but where was he? Not even in the 18. Poor selections, poor substitutions, tactics so so....seems to banish players and then bring them back at random. Something badly wrong at that club.

[Jack Dawe]

43 minutes ago, cynic said:

A lot of the players looked like gutless hiding gobshites rather than fed up.

I don't care how good or bad the manager is, putting in a performance like that is not professional.

That is exactly what you are looking for though, when you recruit a head coach for a football club: someone who can "manage" a group of young men in a highly precarious and competitive occupation, some or many of whom will, if you are not careful, become "gutless hiding gobshites."

The tendency for mutiny and the "downing of tools" or what we know as a manager "losing the dressing room" is not unheard of or something we couldn't have expected - Pro football is not a teddy bear's picnic - it is always there, always a possibility.

The head coach is charged with "managing" things so that just such a situation is avoided. The board of directors, or in this case the owner, is charged with appointing someone capable of "managing" this very difficult task.

Both have failed in their responsibilities here.

 

When we next happen to be looking for a head coach, we will do well to keep in mind that the successful candidate will be the sort of chap who can stand in front of a bunch of real or potential gutless hiding gobshites and command some sort of respect and authority by his record and presence alone. We must ask: what will our gutless hiding gobshites make of him? In a business of "show us yer medals" will they give him the time of day?

If he cannot do that, no tactics, no theory, no philosophy, no drones, no spiel, no nothing will work.

 

[bearded_red]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

 like Millen at Blackpool- Lee Johnson's last stand.

Yep, I thought the same yesterday.

Can see it being almost identical, go up there, take a hammering, Johnson gone on Monday. Quite why we have to wait for such a pasting I don't know, but there we go.

Perhaps we need Dean Gerken back, not a particularly great goalkeeper, but he seemed to always know when the right time came for the manager to be sacked and would selflessly lob a few goals in to make sure we lost in such a manner the manager would get the elbow.

[MarkRed!]

1 minute ago, Jack Dawe said:

That is exactly what you are looking for though, when you recruit a head coach for a football club: someone who can "manage" a group of young men in a highly precarious and competitive occupation, some or many of whom will, if you are not careful, become "gutless hiding gobshites."

The tendency for mutiny and the "downing of tools" or what we know as a manager "losing the dressing room" is not unheard of or something we couldn't have expected - Pro football is not a teddy bear's picnic - it is always there, always a possibility.

The head coach is charged with "managing" things so that just such a situation is avoided. The board of directors, or in this case the owner, is charged with appointing someone capable of "managing" this very difficult task.

Both have failed in their responsibilities here.

 

When we next happen to be looking for a head coach, we will do well to keep in mind that the successful candidate will be the sort of chap who can stand in front of a bunch of real or potential gutless hiding gobshites and command some sort of respect and authority by his record and presence alone. We must ask: what will our gutless hiding gobshites make of him? In a business of "show us yer medals" will they give him the time of day?

If he cannot do that, no tactics, no theory, no philosophy, no drones, no spiel, no nothing will work.

 

This is spot on... the fact is that in last few days LJ has basically said - "the camp is split", "players are not trying", "I dont trust certain players". These are hallmarks of a management team that has lost control and has lost the dressing room. None of the 11 who played on Wednesday can surely be trusted as they put in the most abject display I have ever seen. It was a "please sack our manager" performance in a game we needed to win. For a team fighting relegation to play with no fight or passion was a disgrace. Only Rotherham have lost more games than us. It is frankly shocking and on current form we deserve to go down. 

Lets face it, we have seen it all before. However, what makes this surprising is that LJ inherited a good dressing room built by Cotterill. It is interesting that most of those players are either gone or out of the team. Only Flint and Bryan have really survived.  He also has been given the most £ of any recent City manager. It has all be squandered. Cotterill was dispensed with ruthlessly but it is clear that all was no well in the Summer prior to his departure and this is the problem - there is something fundamentally rotten at our club and in the way it is being run.

It is clear that over time LJ has not been able to manage the players and this is reflected in his tactics and set up. Something seriously awry happened in November time when this poor run began and it has got steadily worse. Plainly those above LJ are equally culpable. They sit near me in the Lansdown Stand and watch the same gargage that I have been... there failure to act is baffling and I hope we are not sleepwalking our way to relegation....

[NOTBLUE]

To me it doesn't feel like LJ and BCFC,it feels more like Custer and the 7th cavalry.

[Redandy]

Johnson accept you are not capable to do the job and hand in your resignation. I would respect that.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Fordy62 said:

We could do with getting smashed really. It's getting beyond a joke. 

And before anyone accuses me of wanting to lose, I really don't. I can just see the greater good for the long term. I want to see is stay in this division. And if that means seeing us get smashed 5-0 by Newcastle, then so be it. 

We need a Tinnion/Swansea moment.

[Ska Junkie]

While none of us really ever want City to lose, the vast majority want Johnson gone to give us a chance of surviving. I can see both sides TBH. Unlikely as it is, a victory tomorrow could see LJ remain and that would probably mean we're going down. A defeat, no matter how gut wrenching, will surely see him gone.

I can't bring myself to admit I want us to lose (the likelihood is we will anyway) but I want him gone and if that's the price, so be it.

[Major Isewater]

52 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

Each to their own I suppose and I admire your opinion, but I suppose my purely hypothetical point is that I'd rather lose 5-0 and have a much better chance of some wins for the remainder of the season rather than a win buying more time. 

LJ is like a dying dog that won't give in. He's just needs a last final dose of medicine to help him finally relax for good.  

I don't want to lose 5-0 as it could just be our goal difference that keeps us up .

[Major Isewater]

30 minutes ago, NOTBLUE said:

To me it doesn't feel like LJ and BCFC,it feels more like Custer and the 7th cavalry.

Custer Creams .

( biscuit, nothing  pervy on my watch ) 

[NOTBLUE]

3 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Custer Creams .

( biscuit, nothing  pervy on my watch ) 

Oooh my favourite.

[Xiled]

It's unfortunate that we should have three tough games in 6 days.  We need that new manager bounce so the worst game to make a managerial change would be immediately before a trip to Newcastle.  The same applies at Villa although I'm certain the club have already acted.  I don't think Johnson will be at the Newcastle match.  Regardless of the result, I expect his departure will be announced after the Newcastle game and we will have a caretaker for Villa.

After that, all bets are off but I really don't want to see a relegation after these months of pain.

[BCFChris]

2 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

We could do with getting smashed really. It's getting beyond a joke. 

And before anyone accuses me of wanting to lose, I really don't. I can just see the greater good for the long term. I want to see is stay in this division. And if that means seeing us get smashed 5-0 by Newcastle, then so be it. 

Yarp