How “safe” are we

[And Its Smith]

15 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, it’s been v.poor Dave.  I was horrified by our opening 15 minutes defensive structure (not just defenders) yesterday.

He doesn’t get a free ride from me, but I recognise the constraints he’s under.

What I don’t “buy” is changing the manager changes all of that, like some do.  We are in a very delicate situation, trying to reset AND stay in this division.  Typically, Bristol City need a relegation to reset, and we go through the sane cycle.

We might just need Pearson to guide us through this rocky period for someone else to take advantage of the foundations.  Now is not the time for that “someone else”.  To some extent Cotterill and then Johnson benefitted from O’Driscoll’s foundations.

I really don’t want this season to end in a whimper, but it might do.  Glimmers of hope that Williams now back and James and Atkinson too, and over a couple of games they get up to speed and give us a bit more “strength”….Tanner too.  It’s not much to hold on to, but it’s something.  It then becomes all about the summer window…and who knows how that will pan out.

If he can’t stop a team from conceding an incredible amount of goals then I’m not sure how he guides us through. There is a bad defence and then there is what he is overseeing right now 

[Davefevs]

11 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

If he can’t stop a team from conceding an incredible amount of goals then I’m not sure how he guides us through. There is a bad defence and then there is what he is overseeing right now 

It’s a difficult one.

Personally I’d rather we went back to the start of the season when we were harder to break down…but most fans said we were boring.

Bentley referred to it in the week, that early season they’d gone more direct as part of the plan.  Pretty much 442 (or variant)…but for the average fan it was dull.  But we were able to get into a shape and stay in a shape.

In the main we’ve been better offensively, but it’s come at a cost.  Playing the way we do, we are at our strongest when counter attacking (in transition), but you are at your weakest when your transition breaks down and your opponent transitions against you.

Two main things stood out for me yesterday.  They summed us up imho.

Goal #1.  Bell goes haring off down the right whilst we have no control of possession…and the ball gets cleared into the space he’s vacated.  I actually do lay some of the blame at him for this.  In general play he was poorly protected though.

Second half.  Martin breaks into their half.  Might’ve been Wells (or Weimann) on his outside, nice simple pass on. Others busting a bit to get forward.  Martin goes inside on his own, left foot shot blocked, we then get countered on with players out of position.

[Red-Robbo]

1 hour ago, And Its Smith said:

Irrespective of everything here, Pearson has overseen an embarrassing defence that is not improving.  Let’s not ignore that as well.  He shouldn’t get a free ride because of the financials  

 

I find it harder to take as Pearson was a top-flight defender and we know Kalas can be better than he's shown recently, Bentley can be better than he showed yesterday, James can be better. The less said about the Bell experiment the better. It reminded me of  the "Richard Foster is a midfielder now" game under McInnes.

I just wonder if Fleming isn't enough coaching help for Nige, and we need to recruit another highly able coach to help out with the First Team. 

Not sure if that would be fiscally achievable though. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Said it elsewhere, think we'll be okay this year- may even have enough points already but a win v Peterborough would surely seal it. Hull at home also looks winnable, and there are away games that don't look insurmountable in terms of a draw eg.

Next year a problem arises. I don't see us kicking on, unfortunately I see another, perhaps more challenging season ahead- proper breathing space might arise in 2023/24. Still there are variables and the die is not yet cast.

1) Can we sort out the FFP? The period to 2022/23 looks, feels the most challenging.

2) The young players. Where you have good young players gaining experience there is hope. When they do so under challenging circumstances, that can add to it?

Additionally a return to favour of DaSilva is welcome, he's a good player. Only 23 and should be cut a bit of slack owing to being out for half a season injured in 2019/20 and I think he had a lengthy spell last season- one let alone two medium-long term injuries can't just be shrugged off. 

3) Williams. Despite some of the criticism yesterday, a fit and firing Williams and same should go for James should prove an asset? I don't know if either are fully fit, both have had undoubted injury issues this year and in the case of Williams, last season too- we can only hope for better next season. 

4) Those young players and FFP. It's plausible we need to sell one but only one this summer, and hey maybe they'd loan back in order to further their development in an environment the player knows and is comfortable in? Year or 2?

5) The injuries in general. Touched on it with James and Williams but Tanner, Baker (if he can play again), Atkinson all have attributes and tbh a thin squad such as ours can ill-afford to miss players like that for prolonged periods. King too, he had his uses but has been missing for a while now. That said the injury situation has been better for sure than last year, a further improvement would be welcome.

6) A bit of luck. Often an ingredient we lack but maybe some of the penalty calls- 1 in the League from 1st November 2020 to the present will be compensated in a way through 2 or 3 big moves- Webster, Kelly and Brownhill all in summer 2022- 20% sell on clauses for each but even just the first 2 would resolve the finances and give us room to renegotiate, reset with Kalas, Massengo, perhaps Bentley and DaSilva- so many out of contract in 2023!

Edited March 6, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Davefevs]

13 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Webster, Kelly and Brownhill all in summer 2022- 20% sell on clauses for each but even just the first 2 would resolve the finances and give us room to renegotiate, reset with Kalas, Massengo, perhaps Bentley and DaSilva- so many out of contract in 2023!

Praying!

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Praying!

It's an optimistic take, perhaps an optimism bias I'll concede...

[fgrsimon]

7 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Would you like to make a bet that Barnsley will catch us?

That a club with 5 wins in 34 games makes up a 17 point deficit over 12 games & who has a worse goal difference than us by a margin of 7?

City are 100/1 for relegation with a couple of bookies, it was 120/1 before yesterday's result.

£50 bet gives you £5000 back, I suspect you're not offering to match those odds....

[winsaw]

We have been lucky this year it's a strange league due to the points deducted , we are pretty much safe now but unless something changes next season not sure we will find 3 clubs worse than us, big job this summer

[Bristol Oil Services]

8 hours ago, JonDolman said:

 

Look at Huddersfield, Luton, Millwall, Preston, Coventry, Blackpool.

All doing better than expected on limited budgets. Preston certainly are now since Lowe joined them.

 

Had a look at us compared to Preston. 

Preston are, I think, a very good barometer by which to assess how we have done back in the Championship, both of us being promoted together in 2015. They, like us, never having been in the PL and not enjoying the advantage of Parachute payments. 

In the six seasons back in this division we have finished higher than Preston once, in 2018/19. That was our best effort, finishing 8th with 70 points; Preston's best finish is 7th in 17/18 with 73 points. 

Preston's lowest finish is 14th, our's 19th. Preston have finished top half in four of these six Championship seasons. We have managed this 3 times. They have been consistent, we have been a bit all-over-the-shop: from struggling to thrilling to declining and now struggling again and stagnating.

Preston's attendances have ranged between 12,600 and 14,100 with an average over the five seasons of crowds in the ground being about 13,300. Our's ranging from 15,200 to 21,800, averaging about 19600 over the five seasons.

We have been much better supported and minted. We have (I think) paid out more in wages than them while performing worse than them. Five times out of six (soon to be six out of seven).

We are trailing them yet again.

I believe Preston are a fair comparison unlike say Luton or Coventry or Blackpool who are doing better than us this season but might be in a temporary "hot streak" of form before returning to something more realistic for them. Huddersfield might make a useful comparison, too, but I think Preston is the best one. We won’t mention Brentford. 

If we drop out of this division before Preston SL shold admit defeat and fall on h in my estimation. Not acceptable. Our inability to even match Preston in this division over six seasons lays the fault at one man and that isn't here-today-gone-tomorrow sorts like LJ, Ashton, Deano, Nige.

Steve is the one constant throughout this period of under-performance, disappointment and stagnation. We look to Steve to steer us in to the play-offs but he can't even compete with ****ing Preston!

 

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, JonDolman said:

 

I was not expecting much of a budget last summer, and I don't expect much of one this summer. So that's all I need to know as no one knows what exactly the budgets will be anyway.

My point on the other clubs is that they are examples of what can be done without spending big money. I think it's more the coaching and tactics than it is quality of players is what I am saying.

Pearson was able to get rid of 13 players he did not want. And keeping or re-signing 3 in Simpson, Baker and Weimann.

Signing Atkinson apparently for 1.4 million, Tanner for a few hundred grand I think I read somewhere. 

James and King on frees, and then Klose in January on a free.

Going on that it seems he had enough of a budget to make the changes needed. But he got 3 of them badly wrong. And who knows where else that money could have gone.

Players returning to fitness this season that were not available last season and Pring and Scott looking Championship ready going into this season, and young players a year older and improving. It has also been strengthened with the signings that Pearson got right.

It wasnt a squad that needed loads brought in imo. I thought the same in the summer.

The 3 bad signings have made it harder for Pearson, but he has to be able to adapt.

The summer is all very hard to predict.

Interesting that you are now saying Simpson was a “bad signing”, when you said he was a “good” one at the time when we did so…

Not sure too many could have predicted Baker, who was actually one of our best performers this season, would sustain concussion that then has caused him to miss the entire second half of the season.

[richyy66]

11 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Interesting that you are now saying Simpson was a “bad signing”, when you said he was a “good” one at the time when we did so…

Not sure too many could have predicted Baker, who was actually one of our best performers this season, would sustain concussion that then has caused him to miss the entire second half of the season.

Missing Baker for most of the season has had a massive impact on our defence.

[GrahamC]

1 minute ago, richyy66 said:

Missing Baker for most of the season has had a massive impact on our defence.

It certainly has & I definitely accept the argument that his very poor availability record last season made signing him again a bit of a gamble, though that also explains why he signed on with a rumoured pay cut of circa 50%.

If he’d had numerous ankle, knee, groin type injuries I’d be looking at Dave Rennie to blame but I can’t see what could have possibly been done to prevent concussion, he’s a physical defender who attacks the ball, possibly too bravely on occasions but he is never going to play any differently.
 

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, JonDolman said:

 

I was not expecting much of a budget last summer, and I don't expect much of one this summer. So that's all I need to know as no one knows what exactly the budgets will be anyway.

My point on the other clubs is that they are examples of what can be done without spending big money.

that’s the issue, you’re looking at it from a point of view of budget.  As we sit here today, the budget is negative…we need to cut costs…or alternatively generate money (that van be done in different ways).  Just because teams do not appear to have spent “much” does not mean they are comparable to City.

I think it's more the coaching and tactics than it is quality of players is what I am saying.

Pearson was able to get rid of 13 players he did not want.

And keeping or re-signing 3 in Simpson, Baker and Weimann.

because they took big pay cuts…certainly Baker and Weimann (from Pearson’s mouth, not speculation).

Signing Atkinson apparently for 1.4 million, Tanner for a few hundred grand I think I read somewhere. 

James and King on frees, and then Klose in January on a free.

Going on that it seems he had enough of a budget to make the changes needed. But he got 3 of them badly wrong. And who knows where else that money could have gone.

net “budget” of circa £12m…e.g. his squad this season is being run on £12m less than last season’s squad.  Likelihood is that without selling a Semenyo-type, next year’s budget will be less than this year’s i.e. Pearson will cut costs further this summer.

Players returning to fitness this season that were not available last season and Pring and Scott looking Championship ready going into this season, and young players a year older and improving. It has also been strengthened with the signings that Pearson got right.

It wasnt a squad that needed loads brought in imo. I thought the same in the summer.

The 3 bad signings have made it harder for Pearson, but he has to be able to adapt.

The summer is all very hard to predict.

1 hour ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

Had a look at us compared to Preston. 

Preston are, I think, a very good barometer by which to assess how we have done back in the Championship, both of us being promoted together in 2015. They, like us, never having been in the PL and not enjoying the advantage of Parachute payments. 

In the six seasons back in this division we have finished higher than Preston once, in 2018/19. That was our best effort, finishing 8th with 70 points; Preston's best finish is 7th in 17/18 with 73 points. 

Preston's lowest finish is 14th, our's 19th. Preston have finished top half in four of these six Championship seasons. We have managed this 3 times. They have been consistent, we have been a bit all-over-the-shop: from struggling to thrilling to declining and now struggling again and stagnating.

Preston's attendances have ranged between 12,600 and 14,100 with an average over the five seasons of crowds in the ground being about 13,300. Our's ranging from 15,200 to 21,800, averaging about 19600 over the five seasons.

We have been much better supported and minted. We have (I think) paid out more in wages than them while performing worse than them. Five times out of six (soon to be six out of seven).

We are trailing them yet again.

I believe Preston are a fair comparison unlike say Luton or Coventry or Blackpool who are doing better than us this season but might be in a temporary "hot streak" of form before returning to something more realistic for them. Huddersfield might make a useful comparison, too, but I think Preston is the best one. We won’t mention Brentford. 

If we drop out of this division before Preston SL shold admit defeat and fall on h in my estimation. Not acceptable. Our inability to even match Preston in this division over six seasons lays the fault at one man and that isn't here-today-gone-tomorrow sorts like LJ, Ashton, Deano, Nige.

Steve is the one constant throughout this period of under-performance, disappointment and stagnation. We look to Steve to steer us in to the play-offs but he can't even compete with ****ing Preston!

 

Good post….the other key bit about Preston is that all the way through our time together in the Championship is that they’ve done it on a fraction of the cost / budget we have.

They’ve run their club at around 50% the cost of City, 60% one season.

it kills me how badly we’ve done in comparison to them.  Now we are saddled with costs making it harder still.

I just hope Pearson and Gould can eventually build something good with a cost base like that.

[Bristol Oil Services]

34 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Good post….the other key bit about Preston is that all the way through our time together in the Championship is that they’ve done it on a fraction of the cost / budget we have.

They’ve run their club at around 50% the cost of City, 60% one season.

it kills me how badly we’ve done in comparison to them.  Now we are saddled with costs making it harder still.

I just hope Pearson and Gould can eventually build something good with a cost base like that.

That was my point, we've spent considerably more than Preston to do considerably worse. Six seasons in seven.

Fair play to Lee, he got us to finish above them the once but even under him we were very wasteful, and under-performed. 

[Son of Fred]

15 hours ago, Davefevs said:

It’s a difficult one.

Personally I’d rather we went back to the start of the season when we were harder to break down…but most fans said we were boring.

Bentley referred to it in the week, that early season they’d gone more direct as part of the plan.  Pretty much 442 (or variant)…but for the average fan it was dull.  But we were able to get into a shape and stay in a shape.

If being dull is the price to pay for getting 'over the line' then I feel that's good value - horses for courses.

What we've witnessed of late is pretty drab anyway!

[Guest]

We will see how we go in the summer window and how summer changes "bed in" by xmas seem to be a recurring theme with fans.

That added to selling off our best assets and off loading anyone that we can save money on, of course. Not the greatest plan when we are supposed to be building a promo chasing squad.

We are very poor all over the pitch and points deductions for other clubs will probably save us this time not our own "greatness".... next season could well be different with a real battle on our hands to stay up.

[Jacki]

On 05/03/2022 at 21:33, City oz said:

9th or 10th for me

This really surprises me and would definitely have been at the higher end of what any of our fans would have expected.

For me, considering the way we finished last season, I was expecting somewhere around 16th-20th with the hope that we would escape a relegation battle and that we would play some decent football along the way. We’re just about on course to achieve that. We still need another 4 points to guarantee safety though, and the way we’ve played in the last 2 games I’m becoming really concerned that it might be another end to the season like the last one. 

[Major Isewater]

1 hour ago, Son of Fred said:

If being dull is the price to pay for getting 'over the line' then I feel that's good value - horses for courses.

What we've witnessed of late is pretty drab anyway!

I am with you. Once again Bristol City mistake themselves for Brazil whilst actually playing like Peterborough. 
Yes we all love open attacking football but we also like accumulating points and winning matches.

Throughout all my time following football all successful teams have been  founded on a sound defensive basis.

 I confess to being very disappointed that Largish Nige hasn’t got us ‘ hard to beat ‘ at the very least. Teams don’t have to make much effort to beat us as they swan through our defence to seemingly score at will. 
Get the defence right then address the creativity. 
 

[Son of Fred]

1 hour ago, JonDolman said:

But surely the signings we made and re-signings show that there was a bit of a budget there to work with and with the transfer fees paid as well. And that's to build on a better squad of players than a team like Blackpool who are doing better than us.

The likes of Pring and Scott coming through also saves us 2 signings.

It's not easy but nor is being manager of other clubs with not much quality and not lots of money to spend. And teams losing players they did not want to lose like Luton and Blackpool for example. I don't think we lost anyone Pearson didn't want to lose.

Ok,,let's cut to the chase..

Your patience is clearly running very thin with Nigel - remember no manager gets every signing right.

Would you want him fired at the end of the season??(that's gona be expensive)

Remember also,,Nigel is attempting to pull us out of a hole - a hole others he has to currently work under dug for us.

If so whom would you view(of those available)to be capable of continuing the considerable job of restructuring & moving us in the right direction?

Edited March 7, 2022 by Son of Fred

[Numero Uno]

The truth is that £ for £ we’ve lagged massively behind the likes of Preston and Millwall for donkeys years and the blame for that lies with the bloke that some say we are lucky to have. Right intentions, duff decision making. Remember that the bloke we are lucky to have told us we we were also lucky to have Swiss Toni and that the fans knew **** all in effect. Tells me everything I need to know about the bloke.

[GrahamC]

22 minutes ago, Son of Fred said:

Ok,,let's cut to the chase..

Your patience is clearly running very thin with Nigel - remember no manager gets every signing right.

Would you want him fired at the end of the season??(that's gona be expensive)

Remember also,,Nigel is attempting to pull us out of a hole - a hole others he has to currently work under dug for us.

If so whom would you view(of those available)to be capable of continuing the considerable job of restructuring & moving us in the right direction?

This, every day of the week.

This simplistic “I’m sure there were better players out there at the time & if I knew of them, I’d have said to sign them instead” stuff is just ridiculous.

It is going to be a tough, long haul, & seriously comparing our situation to Huddersfield, who still have parachute payments FFS, is futile.

As you rightly say, no manager gets every signing right & this pile on re Simpson, a one year, low cost signing is a nonsense.

We could spend a week detailing the Engvall, Watkins, Adelakun, Walsh, Palmer deals of the past, all far, far more expensive & who have impeded our progress far more.

Pearson might well not be the one to take us as far forward as we would like, but as others have said, we normally do this sort of restructuring in the relative ease of L1, but hopefully not this time.

I also sense a lot of “he’s got to get it right this summer” but the reality is we are massively hamstrung without sales, arguably even then we are without shifting dead wood like Palmer & have a recruitment set up that fills me with no confidence at all.

Yes, but Chris Wilder & Steve Cooper

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, JonDolman said:

But surely the signings we made and re-signings show that there was a bit of a budget there to work with and with the transfer fees paid as well. And that's to build on a better squad of players than a team like Blackpool who are doing better than us.

The likes of Pring and Scott coming through also saves us 2 signings.

It's not easy but nor is being manager of other clubs with not much quality and not lots of money to spend. And teams losing players they did not want to lose like Luton and Blackpool for example. I don't think we lost anyone Pearson didn't want to lose.

Yep a bit of budget, used on the foundations for the future in terms of fees (Tanner and Atkinson). We could’ve bought different players with no longevity. We did that with free transfers. Some haven’t really worked (Simpson and King) but they were 1 year deals hoping to buy us a year.  They haven’t burdened us.

We get to continue the rebuild this summer. Don’t expect miracles.

Sacking Pearson won’t help. It will cost us. We need to hold tight, show patience. Even if it doesn’t look great.

But too many fans don’t have patience. 

19 minutes ago, Son of Fred said:

Ok,,let's cut to the chase..

Your patience is clearly running very thin with Nigel - remember no manager gets every signing right.

Would you want him fired at the end of the season??(that's gona be expensive)

Remember also,,Nigel is attempting to pull us out of a hole - a hole others he has to currently work under dug for us.

If so whom would you view(of those available)to be capable of continuing the considerable job of restructuring & moving us in the right direction?

I think we are seeing some posters true feelings about Pearson coming out after a few losses. They’ve been biting their tongue for a while. 

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

We could spend a week detailing the Engvall, Watkins, Adelakun, Walsh, Palmer deals of the past, all far, far more expensive & who have impeded our progress far more.

And Palmer is still hamstringing us to the tune of circa £2M p.a. 

[1960maaan]

43 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

And Palmer is still hamstringing us to the tune of circa £2M p.a. 

Until June ?

 

47 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think we are seeing some posters true feelings about Pearson coming out after a few losses. They’ve been biting their tongue for a while.

Not just losing, there do seem to be some odd decisions made.
I have to keep reminding myself what state we were (are) in. 

 

53 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Pearson might well not be the one to take us as far forward as we would like,

I think we needed a Pearson type to come in and start to restructure things, not just on field. We have to give him time to organise things and get us going in the right direction. 

As with all these things it's not straight forward. We have a great bunch of young players that we may not be able to keep hold of long term. Also we don't have the ability to buy half a team. This summer will be interesting for sure, recruitment is key as it always is. We can't afford to be as slapdash as we've been for the past 5/6 years.

[Waconda]

20 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, it’s been v.poor Dave.  I was horrified by our opening 15 minutes defensive structure (not just defenders) yesterday.

He doesn’t get a free ride from me, but I recognise the constraints he’s under.

What I don’t “buy” is changing the manager changes all of that, like some do.  We are in a very delicate situation, trying to reset AND stay in this division.  Typically, Bristol City need a relegation to reset, and we go through the sane cycle.

We might just need Pearson to guide us through this rocky period for someone else to take advantage of the foundations.  Now is not the time for that “someone else”.  To some extent Cotterill and then Johnson benefitted from O’Driscoll’s foundations.

I really don’t want this season to end in a whimper, but it might do.  Glimmers of hope that Williams now back and James and Atkinson too, and over a couple of games they get up to speed and give us a bit more “strength”….Tanner too.  It’s not much to hold on to, but it’s something.  It then becomes all about the summer window…and who knows how that will pan out.

DETAILS

[cidered abroad]

Thread title "How safe are we?"

One of the three bottom teams need to win :

Derby 6 from 10

Barnsley 6 from 12

Peterborough 7 from 12.

That assumes we lose all of our remaining 10 games.

Mathematically possible but even for a pessimist like me, extremely unlikely.

[RUSSEL85]

26 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

Thread title "How safe are we?"

One of the three bottom teams need to win :

Derby 6 from 10

Barnsley 6 from 12

Peterborough 7 from 12.

That assumes we lose all of our remaining 10 games.

Mathematically possible but even for a pessimist like me, extremely unlikely.

Yep, that's how I see it. Bottom 3 need play off form at a minimum and we need capitulation of magnanimous proportions.

[O'Garlandinho]

We are safe

[Rich]

A bit pessimistic perhaps but, I can see us winning only one of our remaining fixtures, especially how we've been capitulating lately. That fixture is against Peterborough and, I wouldn't feel too confident about beating them either, especially after another four virtually guaranteed defeats, based on our current form.

Hoping to scab another win from somewhere, just don't see where from.

[weepywall]

58 minutes ago, RUSSEL85 said:

Yep, that's how I see it. Bottom 3 need play off form at a minimum and we need capitulation of magnanimous proportions.

We will probably keep our side of the bargain !!!