Breaking Up the Cliques?

[Mr Popodopolous]

43 minutes ago, BRISTOL86 said:

What if it’s actually true though?

Not saying it is, but the default position almost always seems to be ‘excuse’ - most of the players concerned were Cotterill players who had known nothing but success at a lower level. 

It’s probably fair to conclude they didn’t like the decision to change manager and there could well have been an element of resentment towards LJ and those he brought in.  

You say half assed signings, yet Kent was highly courted by bigger clubs than us and well regarded at Liverpool. French journalists said Diony was better than Diedhiou and Kodjia.

Time will tell whether this summer is good or bad in the overall scheme of things. But the reality is for two and a half seasons, we’ve been shit. So I’m not losing any sleep about turnover of the squad. 

Diony and Kent are interesting.

Don't know about a clique but style of play maybe as well as in Diony's case at Dijon him being the star, team geared towards him may have been a factor too- he hardly set the world on fire at St Etienne.

Had he done okay there, he probably wouldn't have been available.

As his 16/17 Ligue 1 output at a struggling side was good. Big fish, small pond, the star for them... Other environments, not too good.

[Davefevs]

Cliques / Groups - they’re gonna happen.  The players are at different stages of their lives, some with young families, they’re gonna mingle differently.  They don’t have to be a bad thing either.

Do you all socialise with all of your work mates, even in the place of work (lunch, coffee breaks etc)?  No, you gravitate to people you get on with or have something in common with.  You are even more choosy outside it work.

Footballers are no different. Pro or amateur.  Makes no difference.

What does need to be done is that in the working environment, training, tactical sessions, etc that they are “one”.

It appears that Wilbs did a good job at doing that on and off the pitch / training ground and Costa (!!).  That may’ve slipped on his departure.

The new player integration is an issue, but part of that is because with a few exceptions, the players brought in haven’t been better that the current incumbents and perhaps it’s been a bit easy to be guaranteed a starting slot.

Maybe it does need a bit of a clear out.

Who’s to say that a squad of slightly less talented players, all pushing each other into giving that extra 5% isn’t better than having a squad with better quality but resting on their laurels a bit.

Dont get me wrong, it’s tough seeing players of the quality of Reid and Flint leaving but I’m excited by Webster (at half Flint’s £7m fee), and I doubt with Watkins (who’s growing on me as a signing) he’ll be the only inbound.

I also think LJ is getting “his” players in....and it’s now “no excuses”.  That might help.  Every cloud and all that.

 

[Olé]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I also think LJ is getting “his” players in....and it’s now “no excuses”

Agree with everything you said Dave, and then you posted that last line. 

I think you can guess what most peoples response to this would be. 

[Always Believesham]

1 hour ago, cidered abroad said:

But unless one of the leavers says anything after they gave gone, we'll never know. 

In my opinion, there are only two reasons for the two dreadful spells we've had in the last two seasons. Either we had a clique that wouldn't allow newcomers to blend in and thus we did not have a "together team". Or the Head Coach is even worse than I ever considered it to be. 

Maybe soon, we will find out the answer. 

I’d be interested to find out how you thought the good spells came about?

 

I agree with a few posters in this thread that cliques may have been a contributing factor to the dip in form as it was difficult to integrate new players, but it wasn’t defining by any means.

Everybody talks about ‘changing your style’ halfway through a good season; Michael McIndoe put our failure to achieve promotion down to it. I think change in style is required, once again the squad wasn’t flexible enough to adopt a new style successfully. After 23 games, every scout in the country has seen you play and could pick out how to combat your strengths and attack your weaknesses.

We are only going to succeed when we take players from a certain level and get them to play above themselves - if they’re in the clique, they’ll be happy, comfortable and more likely to perform.

 

[Redland]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Cliques / Groups - they’re gonna happen.  The players are at different stages of their lives, some with young families, they’re gonna mingle differently.  They don’t have to be a bad thing either.

Do you all socialise with all of your work mates, even in the place of work (lunch, coffee breaks etc)?  No, you gravitate to people you get on with or have something in common with.  You are even more choosy outside it work.

Footballers are no different. Pro or amateur.  Makes no difference.

What does need to be done is that in the working environment, training, tactical sessions, etc that they are “one”.

It appears that Wilbs did a good job at doing that on and off the pitch / training ground and Costa (!!).  That may’ve slipped on his departure.

The new player integration is an issue, but part of that is because with a few exceptions, the players brought in haven’t been better that the current incumbents and perhaps it’s been a bit easy to be guaranteed a starting slot.

Maybe it does need a bit of a clear out.

Who’s to say that a squad of slightly less talented players, all pushing each other into giving that extra 5% isn’t better than having a squad with better quality but resting on their laurels a bit.

Dont get me wrong, it’s tough seeing players of the quality of Reid and Flint leaving but I’m excited by Webster (at half Flint’s £7m fee), and I doubt with Watkins (who’s growing on me as a signing) he’ll be the only inbound.

I also think LJ is getting “his” players in....and it’s now “no excuses”.  That might help.  Every cloud and all that.

 

Lee has been getting "his" players in for years. We've had 35 of them.

His three transfer windows requirement is now but a distant memory.

[Phileas Fogg]

2 minutes ago, Redland said:

Lee has been getting "his" players in for years. We've had 35 of them.

His three transfer windows requirement is now but a distant memory.

Wasn’t it ‘3 transfer windows to get his team how he wants it’ or something like that - technically it was the 4th window where it all went wrong! We were 2nd before then!

I can see what he was saying - for the first half of last season we saw a team with an identity that was exciting to watch and effective. 

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, Olé said:

Agree with everything you said Dave, and then you posted that last line. 

I think you can guess what most peoples response to this would be. 

 

6 minutes ago, Redland said:

Lee has been getting "his" players in for years. We've had 35 of them.

His three transfer windows requirement is now but a distant memory.

Yeah - fair comment.  I do think that perhaps (hope) he’s learning what types of players to recruit, and also to not be swayed by MA.

In fairness to the 3TW comment, it was a decent shout, it was the 4th that we’re the problem  

[Redland]

4 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Wasn’t it ‘3 transfer windows to get his team how he wants it’ or something like that - technically it was the 4th window where it all went wrong! We were 2nd before then!

I can see what he was saying - for the first half of last season we saw a team with an identity that was exciting to watch and effective. 

Yes it was that it would take him three transfer windows to get the team as he wanted it. The trouble with making statements like that is that they can come comeback to haunt you. Bit like the reference to European football at AG within five years  People swallow this nonsense because they want to believe but us older supporters have heard it all before!

 

[Phileas Fogg]

1 minute ago, Redland said:

Yes it was that it would take him three transfer windows to get the team as he wanted it. The trouble with making statements like that is that they can come comeback to haunt you. Bit like the reference to European football at AG within five years  People swallow this nonsense because they want to believe but us older supporters have heard it all before!

 

I knew you’d reference that. I’m always surprised with how often people mention this without any nod to the context. I won’t bother explaining the context again, but I’ll leave you with this. 

 

[Redland]

6 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I knew you’d reference that. I’m always surprised with how often people mention this without any nod to the context. I won’t bother explaining the context again, but I’ll leave you with this. 

 

Appreciate the context is important which is why I stated "reference". Nevertheless it was put out there.

[Bar BS3]

2 hours ago, EmersonsKev said:

This wouldn't surprise me in the least.

 

Again looking at social media and a few of the bctv features on team mates etc shows some "banter" that is borderline bullying.  If this goes on in the public domain.  then you have to think what kind of banter goes on behind closed doors.

 

I'd also heard the usual pub rumour(which i usually take with a pinch of salt)that Engval wasn't getting game time or a chance due to a number of players saying he wasn't good enough.

 

The proof will be in the pudding as they say.  Bring on next season!

If the players didn’t think that Engval was good enough, then I’m pretty sure the management team would have drawn the same conclusion, and THAT is why he didn’t get much first team football here. Because he wasn’t good enough, not because some of the players didn’t think he was good enough. 

[Phileas Fogg]

48 minutes ago, Redland said:

Appreciate the context is important which is why I stated "reference". Nevertheless it was put out there.

I agree that LJ has said things which have come back to haunt him.. including that because people choose to forget the context.

I think he’s learned from this. I mainly put it down to enthusiasm and a bit of naivety on his part. Seemed to be less of it last season.

[Up The City!]

I’m pleased we’re having a clear out tbh.

[A Horse With No Name]

2 hours ago, RedM said:

Funnily enough Pato has intergrated really well, he was just about the only ‘newbie’ to be included in the traditional Vegas holiday with all the established players, some of which he hadn’t played with. 

Ah yes. The Vegas holiday which was booked months in advance and began a couple of days after the regular season finished. Play offs would have a mighty inconvenience. 

[Davefevs]

Just now, The Horse With No Name said:

Ah yes. The Vegas holiday which was booked months in advance and began a couple of days after the regular season finished. Play offs would have a mighty inconvenience. 

I know one player who hadn’t booked a flight because of the Play-Off date clash, and was trying to get a late (ish) flight ticket.  So I don’t believe players downed tools just to go on Litts stag weekend.

[BobBobSuperBob]

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I know one player who hadn’t booked a flight because of the Play-Off date clash, and was trying to get a late (ish) flight ticket.  So I don’t believe players downed tools just to go on Litts stag weekend.

JB ?

Think it was (hope it was) a tongue in cheek comment Dave !

28 minutes ago, Up The City! said:

I’m pleased we’re having a clear out tbh.

But are you pleased with who UTC ?

[alexukhc]

I was shunted out my last jobs due to not fitting in with the click, broke me in two, I saw it as a great place to work, wanted to work hard but cuz I wasn’t in, didn’t wanna mess about I never had a chance.. even as adults it happens, you’d expect it of people of a school age but not grown adults, is embarrassing 

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, alexukhc said:

I was shunted out my last jobs due to not fitting in with the click, broke me in two, I saw it as a great place to work, wanted to work hard but cuz I wasn’t in, didn’t wanna mess about I never had a chance.. even as adults it happens, you’d expect it of people of a school age but not grown adults, is embarrassing 

Happens everywhere.  Crap ain’t it.

[Spike]

2 hours ago, Olé said:

Funnily enough that's EXACTLY the reason I've heard from the ITKers (there are others on OTIB who can elaborate on the story) but I understood in the end of season appraisal LJ was blaming our form on an inability to integrate new players like Kent and Diony due to a certain first team clique.

The thing is with Kent and Diony is that Kent is rumoured to have a bad attitude and Diony made a big money move and got shipped out less than 6 months later on loan. If anything speaks volumes to me it's these two, if Kents attitude was as bad as its been rumoured then why would the guys integrate him, bad attitude and unlikely to be at the club come the summer.

With Diony it never sat well with me that a club that spent so much on him would just straight up loan him out 6 months later, there must be an issue for that to happen. 

All the talk of cliques also bothers me alot, surely you want your players to get along, almost any team that is successful has that dynamic in some form. Pressing the "reset button" doesn't guarantee the players will gel any better this time around and I'd rather have a core squad who stick together than a full squad who all couldn't care either way. 

At the moment my main concern is when you lose key players you can have a good recruitment drive and potentially replace them but the more you ship out, the harder it becomes to replace them all. I'm genuinely concerned if we're about to sell Pack and Bryan Street already allowing Bobby and Flint to leave, for me that's too much quality going out, even the best recruiter would struggle to replace them, even if they got to sign eight players.

[alexukhc]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Happens everywhere.  Crap ain’t it.

Sadly yep

[Olé]

Interesting OTIB tribes observation.

A month ago posters on here were split between those who felt on balance 10th was a really good season (glass half full) and those who felt we'd totally thrown the season away (glass half empty).

It feels to me now like if you were glass half full you'll be saying these transfers are good news as we need to change things up, and if you were glass half empty you'd be very worried about all these departures.

But then in both cases wouldn't you actually be contracting your view of the prior season? 

Is anyone here positive about last season and negative about these transfers, or vice versa? I guess that would make more sense but off the top of my head I can't think of anyone I've noticed obviously holding that view and I'd certainly exclude myself.

[Spike]

2 minutes ago, Olé said:

Interesting OTIB tribes observation.

A month ago posters on here were split between those who felt on balance 10th was a really good season (glass half full) and those who felt we'd totally thrown the season away (glass half empty).

It feels to me now like if you were glass half full you'll be saying these transfers are good news as we need to change things up, and if you were glass half empty you'd be very worried about all these departures.

But then in both cases wouldn't you actually be contracting your view of the prior season? 

Is anyone here positive about last season and negative about these transfers, or vice versa? I guess that would make more sense but off the top of my head I can't think of anyone I've noticed obviously holding that view and I'd certainly exclude myself.

Well there was a lot of talk about "progression" last season and for finishing higher than last year shows progression. It'll be interesting to see if those same fans think the same after we sell the core of our team and finish before 10th.

[BobBobSuperBob]

3 minutes ago, Olé said:

Interesting OTIB tribes observation.

A month ago posters on here were split between those who felt on balance 10th was a really good season (glass half full) and those who felt we'd totally thrown the season away (glass half empty).

It feels to me now like if you were glass half full you'll be saying these transfers are good news as we need to change things up, and if you were glass half empty you'd be very worried about all these departures.

But then in both cases wouldn't you actually be contracting your view of the prior season? 

Is anyone here positive about last season and negative about these transfers, or vice versa? I guess that would make more sense but off the top of my head I can't think of anyone I've noticed obviously holding that view and I'd certainly exclude myself.

If the glass is %50 full , or empty , dependent on ones view Rob 

Its more about where you saw the departing players

Were the6 part of the full bit or the empty bit ?

Isnt it ?

 

(If you can understand what I mean )

[bristolcitysweden]

Even for a foreigner that speak decent English it's very hard to cope with the British accent. Frankly we don't understand what you say. We are used to "clear" pronouncing/schoolbook English and often find it easier to talk to a fellow foreigner.    

I can imagine the British players in good faith talk like always and the foreigners don't understand very much. 

[BRISTOL86]

32 minutes ago, Olé said:

Interesting OTIB tribes observation.

A month ago posters on here were split between those who felt on balance 10th was a really good season (glass half full) and those who felt we'd totally thrown the season away (glass half empty).

It feels to me now like if you were glass half full you'll be saying these transfers are good news as we need to change things up, and if you were glass half empty you'd be very worried about all these departures.

But then in both cases wouldn't you actually be contracting your view of the prior season? 

Is anyone here positive about last season and negative about these transfers, or vice versa? I guess that would make more sense but off the top of my head I can't think of anyone I've noticed obviously holding that view and I'd certainly exclude myself.

I think you can be somewhere in the middle on both issues. 

For example, I was very disappointed and angry at the way our season panned out, and the way we approached the January window (in hindsight). 

Yet I also feel that on the whole, we moved forwards as a club, enhancing our reputation at this level, resulting in making ourselves a considerably more attractive proposition now than last summer. Last season put us in people’s thoughts for the first time in ten years, in spite of the final placing.

Likewise I’m both sad to see players who have been here a long time, such as Flint and Reid, move on to bigger things, yet I also feel that the squad is somewhat stagnant and that several are in a bit of a comfort zone here and that it could well end up being in both the club and players interests rather than just the players. 

I also feel it a sign of progress that we are developing players to such a level that they are attracting such interest. If Joe goes, as we all expect, then that would put us at about £25 million for 3 players who cost us a total of £300k in fees. 

Bristol City - twenty five million pounds of player sales in one transfer window. Unchartered territory to say the least.

As much as I like each of the ‘key players’ we’ve sold, the fact can’t be escaped that we’ve had half a good season in 3 years. On the face of it, it’s incredible that this results in £25m of player sales  

Naturally we want to keep our best players but also, you have to accept that it’s the ‘circle of life’ etc as far as footballers go. When a player exceeds expectations, bigger clubs look to bring them. We are improving as a club but we cannot and will not be able to compete with premier league or recently relegated premier league clubs, financially. 

It’s too soon to say whether this summer’s business will ultimately be good or bad, especially as the incomings are at best speculative right now, but I think however it turns out, it’s necessary. 

[The Fat Controller]

23 minutes ago, Olé said:

Interesting OTIB tribes observation.

A month ago posters on here were split between those who felt on balance 10th was a really good season (glass half full) and those who felt we'd totally thrown the season away (glass half empty).

It feels to me now like if you were glass half full you'll be saying these transfers are good news as we need to change things up, and if you were glass half empty you'd be very worried about all these departures.

But then in both cases wouldn't you actually be contracting your view of the prior season? 

Is anyone here positive about last season and negative about these transfers, or vice versa? I guess that would make more sense but off the top of my head I can't think of anyone I've noticed obviously holding that view and I'd certainly exclude myself.

I don't think it is anywhere near that black and white. Most people hold much more complex views than that. 

Personally I am on the fence. I think there were good and bad points (obviously) to the season but generally taking it overall I would say "satisfactory". Like most I was delighted with the first half and dismayed by the second. I think there were promising parts to our play and style of football but we seem to have a bit of a crisis from a mental standpoint. I think there is a mental weakness in the squad that needs to be addressed to stop us capitulating, but I do not know enough about the workings of the squad to point out where that problem lies, except to say that I think we need a proper old fashioned leader.

Transfer wise, I can see both sides of the argument. I think the Reid deal particularly was a good bit of business, but that is primarily because I am a risk averse person and would not be prepared to stake £10m that he would have another storming season and help us to promotion, or indeed sign another contract. I think in the context of deals for other championship centre backs we have good money for Flint but I recognise that he has inherent value to us over and above the financial. 

Probably where I differ from most is the assessment of the transfer dealings of LJ/MA. Lots of the transfers have widely been derided as failures (and I accept some of them are; Diony, Kent, Engvall, Woodrow) but I am not ITK, so cannot make an assessment on who is to blame. I think many have been too hasty in their judgement of other signings (Moore, Eliasson, Djuric, Taylor and indeed Magnússon) any of those that remain could go on to have an impact here and perhaps we should look more to the example of Reid, who if we are completely honest very very few of us would have predicted his eventual success after several seasons of showing promise but not delivering (myself included). 

I appreciate this probably comes across a bit of a muddled viewpoint but I think that is because it is such a complicated situation and therefore assessing the season/transfers as simply "good" or "bad" is just too simplistic.

[bristolcitysweden]

I have been to meetings with people from Japan who speak great English but the the pronouncing.. It was a common problem so they paid for a translator, a Japanese women living in London, who could translate from Japanese English to English  

[bristolcitysweden]

If you lot could learn to speak English life would be far easier for us foreigners

[RT's Vaseline Tub]

3 hours ago, swanker said:

Fielding is on his way, another one in a clique?

Yes he is & possibly yes as off to Blackburn imminently although wages a stumbling block.

[chinapig]

8 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

When you have someone like LJ who has zero ability to manage anyone with a name, personality or character, this is the latest in the long line of his failure excuses. Words fail me to how pathetic it is that you confuse team spirit with a clique. Yes LJ you did bring in an unfit Kent, everyone knowing there was a pressure to play him, without understanding where he was going to fit it, how we were going to play, and forgetting to tell him to pass the ball. The others did wonder what the hell you were doing. He was a cock, and the players knew it. 

I know others do not agree, but as long as we have a clearly incompetent coach in LJ at the helm, we are never going to produce a promotion side. He is a coach, he is a lifetime away from being a manger. 

Yes, he is a coach, his job title is Head Coach, meaning he does not have the control a traditional manager would have. Mark Ashton is his immediate boss. That is a deliberate club policy regardless of who is in the job.

Personally I think the coach should report to an experienced football man rather than a CEO, but Ashton seems to have cornered the market for himself.

I wonder if you may in fact be confusing team spirit with clique. A clique is a small group that excludes outsiders, not a healthy thing in any workplace. Team spirit by definition includes everybody in the team.

Of course we don't know for a fact if there is any clique so it may be academic anyway.