Our transfer policy is FAILING us

[Harry]

On 11/03/2018 at 08:44, italian dave said:

So, two questions.

1. Have you forgotten Kodjia?

2. If promotion to the prem was guaranteed by simply going out and spending £30m, on that squad, all of whom were available and at that price, how come no other club has done that? 

1) I’ll answer Kodjia below. 

2) All depends on your scouting system and your willingness to believe in it. All were known to City, scouted and recommended at good value. None were taken up. 

On 11/03/2018 at 21:45, windmillhillred said:

Kodjia, Diedhiou, O'Dowda, Brownhill, Steele all successes. 

Pisano, Wright, Djuric, Magnússon all qualified successes.

By ‘success’ I’m talking about delivering performance for this club for a sustained period or simply being head and shoulders above in terms of quality. Kodjia is probably the most successful of those you list, but in reality he had approximately 15 good games for us. Likewise Brownhill. The rest you mention have no sustained or consistent body of evidence to yet call them a success. Not to say they won’t be, but not at present. 

11 hours ago, RedorDead BCFC said:

And everyone of those players you’ve named were a gamble, by their respective first clubs. I bet in five years time anyone could name another 23 gambles that have paid off. 

I bet if LJ said I’m going to sign a Britt Assombalonga from Braintree as out main striker this forum would be in meltdown. Peterborough are probably glad they did, but they was taking a gamble. 

We’ve taken gambles so maybe in the next five years we might be saying glad we did. 

The one that I think won’t pay off is Diony. I hope he proves me wrong but at this moment in time I can’t see it. 

Yep, all gambles at the time, but very clearly gambles with a high chance of paying off. As per my earlier comment, these were all known, scouted, recommended and readily available if the seniority at the club at the time had the cajuna’s to make it work. Sadly, our transfer policy for far too long has not thought along the right lines to be a success. 

[italian dave]

10 minutes ago, Harry said:

1) I’ll answer Kodjia below. 

2) All depends on your scouting system and your willingness to believe in it. All were known to City, scouted and recommended at good value. None were taken up. 

By ‘success’ I’m talking about delivering performers for this club for a sustained period or simply bring head and shoulders above in terms of quality. Kodjia is probably the most successful of those you list, but in reality he had approximately 15 good games for us. Likewise Brownhill. The rest you mention have no sustained or consistent body of evidence to yet call them a success. Not to say they won’t be, but not at present. 

Yep, all gambles at the time, but very clearly gambles with a high chance of paying off. As per my earlier comment, these were all known, scouted, recommended and readily available if the seniority at the club at the time had the cajuna’s to make it work. Sadly, our transfer policy for far too long has not thought along the right lines to be a success. 

Harry, if you think that the Kodjia signing was anything but a huge success then you're judging it by an entirely different set of objectives to the club. It's quite clear our policy is about acquiring promising players for relatively little outlay and, if the opportunity presents, selling on at a big profit. Someone signed for £2-3m and sold a year later for £11-15m, after scoring 19 goals in a season, is by City's measure a huge success. You can debate whether we invested that £11m wisely, but probably less than half that went on Tammy's wages and Diedhiou. You might have a view that our transfer policy should be different but if you do then its never going to be successful in City's terms.

And I think you miss the point about those 23 players: I wasn't asking why City hadn't signed them. What I'm asking is why, if promotion is a nailed on cert if you went out and bought all those players, and they have all been available and at a reasonable price, then why hasn't someone else done it? All I'm suggesting is that no transfer policy comes with any guarantees - and signing is a risk - whether players will fit in, stay fit, get on and so on. To suggest that we could have picked a differnet 23 players to sign, and thus made promotion a certainty, isn't realistic.

[Harry]

5 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Harry, if you think that the Kodjia signing was anything but a huge success then you're judging it by an entirely different set of objectives to the club. It's quite clear our policy is about acquiring promising players for relatively little outlay and, if the opportunity presents, selling on at a big profit. Someone signed for £2-3m and sold a year later for £11-15m, after scoring 19 goals in a season, is by City's measure a huge success. You can debate whether we invested that £11m wisely, but probably less than half that went on Tammy's wages and Diedhiou. You might have a view that our transfer policy should be different but if you do then its never going to be successful in City's terms.

And I think you miss the point about those 23 players: I wasn't asking why City hadn't signed them. What I'm asking is why, if promotion is a nailed on cert if you went out and bought all those players, and they have all been available and at a reasonable price, then why hasn't someone else done it? All I'm suggesting is that no transfer policy comes with any guarantees - and signing is a risk - whether players will fit in, stay fit, get on and so on. To suggest that we could have picked a differnet 23 players to sign, and thus made promotion a certainty, isn't realistic.

Someone else didn’t do it because they wouldn’t have had the knowledge, money or inclination to do so. I’m saying that we had the knowledge, the money but lacked the inclination. 

I’ll give you Kodjia though - fair points. 

[BS4 on Tour...]

10 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

 

Here's some facts and stats for you:

2012/13 - RELEGATED

2013/14 - League One 12th

2014/15 - League One 1st

2015/16 - Championship 18th

2016/17 - Championship 17th

2017/18 - Championship 7th (plus League Cup semi final).

Which part of that doesn't sound like progression to you?  Which part demands "blind faith" to believe that this is a club on an upward curve?

Yep, that looks like progression, the sort of slow, plodding progression that would appeal to a laid back Bristolian fan base...Nigel Adkins took Southampton from league one to the premier league in two seasons...that is serious progression...Nigel Pearson won the league one title with Leicester and then a few years later he won the championship and took them up as champions into the Promised Land and he laid the foundations for their Premier League Champions triumph...

And Southampton and Leicester are two clubs that are regularly held up on here as clubs that we should emulate...but we aren’t doing that...we were 2nd in the championship in December, now we won’t make the play offs, that isn’t progression...we are too easily pleased...we even talk about protests and boycotts on social media, we spout off about unrealistic season ticket increases, etc...but what actually happens? Nothing.....at least fan bases like those of Newcastle, West Ham and Arsenal actually do something when they are unhappy, something more concrete than spouting off on the internet....pass me the Merlot...

[Davefevs]

....and Leicester were paying Schlupp £80k a week in the season they won it.  They went for it big-time, maybe not expecting to win it, but to push themselves firmly into the top 7/8, and not be worrying about relegations battles, e.g. build from a position of strength, didn’t quite work, but they are back on track.

[Mr Popodopolous]

On 10/03/2018 at 23:53, Harry said:

I would argue that our transfer policy has failed for a long time.  There have been so many players who we could have signed who would have been perfectly available and affordable at the time, but this club never had the foresight to take some gambles and go for it.
We are now seeing us begin to take gambles, but they are speculative gambles (i.e. Engvall, Magnus, Moore etc), rather than more educated ones.

Here is a rundown of our successes over the last 5 years :
Baker, Flint, Smith, Pack, Fielding.

These are the only players who we have signed in the last 5 years who have proven to be a relative success.
In those 5 years, we have spent nearly £30 million on players.

The following is a list of players currently playing with good capability in either Premier or Championship, all of whom would have been perfectly available to City in the last 5 years.  Sadly, the club didn't want to take the chance on these - all were playing at a level at the time where they would have been feasible, affordable and realistic targets, but we showed no interest (for various reasons depending on when it was) :

GK - Daniel Bentley, Christian Walton
DF - Connor Goldson, James Tarkowski, Alfie Mawson, Jack O'Connell, Enda Stevens, John Egan, Tendayi Darikwa
MF - Mark Pugh, Matt Ritchie, Conor Hourihane, Lee Evans, Jed Wallace, Ryan Woods, Eunan O'Kane, James Maddison, Josh Scowen, Jarrod Bowen
ST - Andre Gray, Scott Hogan, Ollie Watkins, Britt Assombalonga

There's a 23-man squad for you, which could have been assembled over the last 5 years at nowhere near the £30m we've spent in that time.  In fact, you're probably talking £10m outlay in total if these were timed right.  This squad would easily reach the Prem.

I'm afraid to say that over a number of years we have been too risk averse or too slow to react, even ponderous at times, and we've missed out on a lot of good players at what would have been very good value at the time.  It might sound far-fetched looking some of those players now, but believe me, before their moves to the current or one-but last clubs over the last 5 years, these were all perfectly realistic and affordable signings.  We are now taking speculative punts, and more expensive ones at that.

I don't know how many of those would truly have been attainable at the times they were.

Take Andre Gray...he went to Burnley, a side freshly down from PL. Wages, prospects and us just newly promoted.

Matt Ritchie... Us or Newcastle? 2016..their budget, parachute payments etc. Us having finished lower midtable. Benitez or LJ?

That is 2 examples.

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I don't know how many of those would truly have been attainable at the times they were.

Take Andre Gray...he went to Burnley, a side freshly down from PL. Wages, prospects and us just newly promoted.

Matt Ritchie... Us or Newcastle? 2016..their budget, parachute payments etc. Us having finished lower midtable. Benitez or LJ?

That is 2 examples.

I think the 2 examples you give, we’re scouted heavily well before 15/16 (Gray) or 16/17 (Ritchie) season’s .  Harry is referring to players scouted probably back in the SOD days.  Gray was seriously on our radar from his Luton day’s at approx £1m, which we thought was too much.  Not sure about Ritchie.  Someone will correct me about Gray.

[Mr Popodopolous]

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think the 2 examples you give, we’re scouted heavily well before 15/16 (Gray) or 16/17 (Ritchie) season’s .  Harry is referring to players scouted probably back in the SOD days.  Gray was seriously on our radar from his Luton day’s at approx £1m, which we thought was too much.  Not sure about Ritchie.  Someone will correct me about Gray.

Thanks, that makes more sense. 

I think our policy has been not too bad all in all, but definitely some mistakes made.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I think our policy has been not too bad all in all, but definitely some mistakes made.

I tend to agree, but if I was being very cynical I might suggest that it feels like a numbers games....if we bring in enough, a reasonable amount will come off.

A potential issue is LJ himself.  He really "bigs up" any new player that comes in.  Probably rightly so, but he then makes a rod for his own back when he doesn’t select them.  I’d rather he was a little less gushing about our players.  Let them bed in.  Lower fans expectations a bit.

[Mr Popodopolous]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I tend to agree, but if I was being very cynical I might suggest that it feels like a numbers games....if we bring in enough, a reasonable amount will come off.

A potential issue is LJ himself.  He really "bigs up" any new player that comes in.  Probably rightly so, but he then makes a rod for his own back when he doesn’t select them.  I’d rather he was a little less gushing about our players.  Let them bed in.  Lower fans expectations a bit.

Agreed with all of that. Out of likes, but buying in bulk, and his hyping...definitely elements of this.

[Harry]

34 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I don't know how many of those would truly have been attainable at the times they were.

Take Andre Gray...he went to Burnley, a side freshly down from PL. Wages, prospects and us just newly promoted.

Matt Ritchie... Us or Newcastle? 2016..their budget, parachute payments etc. Us having finished lower midtable. Benitez or LJ?

That is 2 examples.

Yes, as Davefevs said, I’m talking earlier. Gray was well scouted when at Luton and highly recommended. 2012 he’d have been under £500k before his eventual move to Brentford for around £550k. 

Ritchie went to Bournemouth in 2012 for around £400k, would have been cheaper again if we reacted when he was highly recommended prior to that. 

[Beni71]

On 11/03/2018 at 21:44, BS4 on Tour... said:

Why not? Our owner’s net worth is over £600 million more than Villa’s owner, it’s over £1.4 Billion more than ‘Boro’s owner....

Obviously Steve Lansdown can spend his money how he pleases....but to say we ‘don’t have the millions’ is clearly incorrect....

We as in Bristol City don’t have the money, Steve Lansdown does. I would envisage steve L and Bristol city are separate legal entities, so factually correct. 

We need a sustainable business model not like the bang and nearly bust model of 1980 or the gambling on signings under GJ which took us 8 years and a fair few managers to recover from.

Money does not guarantee you anything in football. Just look at Hull, Weds, Villa, Derby, Forest , Sunderland, Birmingham.

Grabban may have made the difference (in my view not) but Wednesday fans thought the same of Jordan Rhodes and 12 months on a £10m player is on the bench and hardly banging them in!

 

 

[ashton_fan]

Steve L's an OAP like me now and the club can't rely on handouts from him in the future so it's very short-sighted to have a transfer policy based on his wealth (he's said the same himself). We have to make money on transfers to supplement our other income which isn't sufficient to even pay the wage bill and the only way to achieve that is to buy young players relatively cheap, add value and sell them on. I'd say it's working so far so no need to change anything (I reckon JB will go for £10m in the summer with Kelly looking so promising).

[Mr Popodopolous]

Oh dear, the wealthy owner thing is a bit of a red herring.

FFP...prevents that sort of thing. Expenditure on youth, expenditure on infrastrcture are just 2 examples where owners are allowed to spend their cash.

Big fees and wages...not so much. A £13m loss in one year or a £39m over 3 years is permitted if the owner covers the losses. If not, it's £5m in one year (presumably a net  total of £15m over a 3 year period).

Mind you, Brighton- a club, a model on here people seem to aspire to- exceeded the limit by a LOT! £39.8m last season alone??

Their 3 year period losses came to £76.04m- or nearly double the allowable limit over the 3, a huge fine should be incoming for them!

I have a few ideas on how to incentivise FFP and responsible financial stewardship too, but that's not for this thread.

[BS4 on Tour...]

22 hours ago, Davefevs said:

....and Leicester were paying Schlupp £80k a week in the season they won it.  They went for it big-time, maybe not expecting to win it, but to push themselves firmly into the top 7/8, and not be worrying about relegations battles, e.g. build from a position of strength, didn’t quite work, but they are back on track.

They are 8th ..... certainly back on track.... why is one salary for one player relevant here? They won the premier league, the prize money and add ons make that £80k a week seem minuscule and worth it....your beloved Liverpool pay lots of players much more than that and they’ve never won the premier league...

[Gert Mare]

On 12/03/2018 at 11:59, ChippenhamRed said:

 

Here's some facts and stats for you:

2012/13 - RELEGATED

2013/14 - League One 12th

2014/15 - League One 1st

2015/16 - Championship 18th

2016/17 - Championship 17th

2017/18 - Championship 7th (plus League Cup semi final).

Which part of that doesn't sound like progression to you?  Which part demands "blind faith" to believe that this is a club on an upward curve?

Can we review this at the end of next season? If we have progressed even further then I will hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong to doubt the plan. Can't say fairer than that can we?

[Phileas Fogg]

3 hours ago, Cheesleysmate said:

Can we review this at the end of next season? If we have progressed even further then I will hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong to doubt the plan. Can't say fairer than that can we?

What, so you think there’s actually a chance we could finish 17th or below?

Using the given metric, that’s the only way you can say we haven’t progressed and that’s without factoring in the league cup.

[ChippenhamRed]

7 hours ago, Cheesleysmate said:

Can we review this at the end of next season? If we have progressed even further then I will hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong to doubt the plan. Can't say fairer than that can we?

“Doubting the plan” is a different statement.

You compared “those who look at the facts and stats and those that have blind faith”. I still want to know which facts and stats you were referring to that suggest we aren’t progressing.

[Gert Mare]

5 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

What, so you think there’s actually a chance we could finish 17th or below?

Using the given metric, that’s the only way you can say we haven’t progressed and that’s without factoring in the league cup.

I think we will finish below where we finish this season and we will lose our better players during the summer as they were put in the shop window due in part to our excellent cup run.

36 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

“Doubting the plan” is a different statement.

You compared “those who look at the facts and stats and those that have blind faith”. I still want to know which facts and stats you were referring to that suggest we aren’t progressing.

Looking at the table in December when we were 9 points clear of 7th and 2nd in the league and looking where we are today in 8th. That's the stats that I am referring to.

[ChippenhamRed]

7 minutes ago, Cheesleysmate said:

I think we will finish below where we finish this season and we will lose our better players during the summer as they were put in the shop window due in part to our excellent cup run.

Looking at the table in December when we were 9 points clear of 7th and 2nd in the league and looking where we are today in 8th. That's the stats that I am referring to.

You’re judging our progress over 3 months. I’m judging it over 5 years.

[Gert Mare]

14 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

You’re judging our progress over 3 months. I’m judging it over 5 years.

5 years is too long in today's football. Crystal Palace couldn't even look beyond 4 games!

[Phileas Fogg]

1 hour ago, Cheesleysmate said:

I think we will finish below where we finish this season and we will lose our better players during the summer as they were put in the shop window due in part to our excellent cup run.

Depends on how you quantify it - if we finish anywhere above 17th then we’ve made progress this season.

Personally though I’d be very disappointed if we didn’t make the playoffs given how long we spent in the top 6. Bigger picture would be progress overall though.

 

[Davefevs]

16 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

They are 8th ..... certainly back on track.... why is one salary for one player relevant here? They won the premier league, the prize money and add ons make that £80k a week seem minuscule and worth it....your beloved Liverpool pay lots of players much more than that and they’ve never won the premier league...

The point is one player, not even a regular is costing £4m pa, what are several of the others costing, either then or when renegotiating contracts. You don’t do this with self sustaining policy....or if you do you’re using the rules cleverly, like Stadium sponsorship. 

Whats this got to with Liverpool?

[BS4 on Tour...]

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

The point is one player, not even a regular is costing £4m pa, what are several of the others costing, either then or when renegotiating contracts. You don’t do this with self sustaining policy....

Schlupp was a regular for Leicester - he made 35 appearances in the season before they won the premier league and 26 appearances in the season they won it...and that was only because he was out injured for six weeks during that season...

And if you win the premier league you can easily afford £4m salaries, especially for a first team regular like Schlupp, the prize money etc dwarfs all that....

[Davefevs]

29 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Schlupp was a regular for Leicester - he made 35 appearances in the season before they won the premier league and 26 appearances in the season they won it...and that was only because he was out injured for six weeks during that season...

And if you win the premier league you can easily afford £4m salaries, especially for a first team regular like Schlupp, the prize money etc dwarfs all that....

Yeah, played a bit more than I recalled.

[redsquirrel]

spare a thought for swindons transfer policy, they signed ryan mcgivern today