“The fans choice”

[robin for life]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Absolutely fair you put this side of the debate across.  Do you know why people like me keep posting about “£39m”?  It’s because people like me saw the direction of travel.  Covid just brought the financial mess forward.  It’s not really about the £39m loss.

Fair poin

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Quite simply, Revenues starting to plateau at just over £30m…but costs continuing to escalate every year as we paid more and more in fees and wages.  You don’t need to be a financial wizard (or an owner who’s made his riches in that field) to see that eventually bites you on the arse!!  The weird but is our owner, a financial wizard, let it happen. No investor puts their eggs in one basket, yet SL did….he basically subscribed to a “Sustainability” model (sustainable my arse) that relied on transfer profit to offset huge costs, increasing year on year.  Those fees especially committed us to costs (amortisation) beyond LJ’s rein.  Someone is feeling the pinch because of that….Holden started to feel the pinch, but only in not being able to spend much, he still had the benefit of a big squad, numbers-wise.  But it’s Pearson who is taking the real brunt of that.

But is that LJ's fault? If the club wants you to operate that way and encourages you to buy expensive young talent with a view to selling on, is it the managers fault if the club runs out of money before certain fruits come to fruition?

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Johnson’s transfers and were crippling the club (sanctioned by SL / MA).  18th (part Cotts), 17th, 11th, 8th, 12th (last 5 Holden).  Had he stayed in situ how much would he have continued to spend to move us from 12th, upwards again.  Was 12th a blip, or the start of decline.  Because in 19/20 he spent £25m in fees (plus signing on fees, loan fees, agent fees, etc, increased the costs by £6.1m against levelling revenues (even if Covid hadn’t struck)…and we went backwards.

Were we actually going backwards? I thought pre covid we were solid top half team, pushing for playoffs. When covid hit we were in a good position still. When the league resumed, we were awful. Had Covid not come, I think we would have secured our best league finish that season. 

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Its fine to say we made good money on certain players.  But the costs incurred in doing so was storing up a load of problems.

The big question, that will get a subjective response, is how would LJ being doing with this squad, under these constraints.  None of us can answer that, but he was moaning back in July 2020, when he’d pretty much been given everything he ever wanted.

I personally think in time Johnson would have got us to the Premier League. He had the contacts to get quality loans in and I think, this past season when there was nothing to spend, he would have got 3/4 good loan players in to fill the gaps. He also drove interest up in certain players by praising them. Bobby Reid was never worth 10m, but when the manager praises them week in week out in the press and brings attention to them it drives the price up. LJ was very good for raising profiles of players. Big managers at Premier League Clubs knew that, which is why they trusted him with their talent. I doubt any top Prem clubs would happily loan a future England player to NP. Johnson would have also utilised Wells better and he would have got rid of bad apples like Palmer. He wouldn't have waited for an offer to come in, he would have got him gone by hook or by crook. He got rid of players at Sunderland who still had 2 years on deals left and there didn't seem much interest in them. Johnson Jnr like Snr is a proper wheeler dealer, buying and selling is their bread and butter. He would sell Ice to an Eskimo. If we hadn't sacked Johnson, I think we would have been top 10 this season. Then with 2/3 sold in the summer, he would have drafted in what he needed in the summer to make a push for promotion.

I personally would love a Warnock / Johnson combo here myself, an old head to manage the team and get the tactics right, and the bright youngster to work on the players development and tactics and training. Johnson is a very good coach. Reminds me of a younger version of Southgate, good solid player who was well respected in the game, but struggled with club management. In a set up where you can pick the best players and nurture the squad you get results. I would not be surprised to see LJ part of the England set up in the next few years, maybe U17 or U20 level, he fits that mould nicely.  He was a better coach than he got credit for, it was his man management that let him down. 

[johnheadbcfc]

Maybe time to give Johnson senior another go

Was my happiest time supporting city!!

[Davefevs]

52 minutes ago, robin for life said:

He had the contacts to get quality loans in and I think, this past season when there was nothing to spend, he would have got 3/4 good loan players in to fill the gaps.

Loans aren’t free!

52 minutes ago, robin for life said:

Were we actually going backwards? I thought pre covid we were solid top half team, pushing for playoffs. When covid hit we were in a good position still. When the league resumed, we were awful. Had Covid not come, I think we would have secured our best league finish that season. 

The point I’m making is that the way we operated was about to catch up with us.  The money was running out!  We were unable to sustain the levels of spending.  The talent available to sell was running out.  There wasn’t another Webster or Kelly to plug the £30m “gap” each season (between revenue and cost), which would’ve meant no investment in new players.

 

Thanks for your various replies though.  Differences of opinion are totally fine.

[Rich]

2 hours ago, Clutton Caveman said:

How can you rate Pearson when you see our total lack of organisation in general play and offensive and defensive set pieces. He keeps saying the players are not carrying out their assigned tasks. Why is that? man management and motivation are key modern manager skills. We may not have the best squad in the league but we don't have the worst but NP has shown a total lack of ability to get a team on the field playing with motivation and organisation.  His arrogance leads us to ignore the loan system when it is an essential factor in Championship life. Many people sang the "more time" song with LJ and Ashton. They got more time and look where it left us. If SL had a senior football man at his side, he would not have employed a coach who was drifting nicely into retirement and was totally out of touch with modern tactics. He certainly would not have retained him after he provided zero improvement after DH was sacked. I think our current CEO is a nice man but he is an administrator not a football man.

I rate him because others don't see the problems, just the results and performance. They don't see or take into account the problems he's had to deal with.

I'm sure he would have made some other decisions based on hindsight and, some decisions seem erratic but, sometimes you need to shake things up a bit and then take stock of the fall out.

His recruitment so far has been hampered by a severe lack of money and at the same time having to cut the wage bill. Numerous players are earning way over an acceptable level for our financial position and are proving difficult to move on, as a result.  He's actually brought in five players, I think and resigned Baker and Weimann. One has since left the club, another three are long term injured and one probably forced to retire. Three of the other remaining have also suffered long periods on the sideline, with only Weimann playing the majority of games. So one player from seven available for selection out of seven signings.

The remaining players are as expected, mostly young, inexperienced, or not up to the quality required at this moment in their careers, some won't ever be. That leaves us with a forward that is getting on and not as mobile as we'd like, a centre back who's evidently been overused and carrying injuries, two keepers that there are question marks about, a supposed top striker that our style of play doesn't suit and a couple more that appear to have not had the required attitude demanded by the manager.

So, in a nutshell, we've had inconsistent performances due to injuries, loss of form, young players inconsistency and the manager having to change formation and selection on a match to match basis due to a constant list of injured players. If you can't see those things, affect the team, it's performances and ultimately results, then you must be looking through a fog brought on by your dislike of Pearson. Don't confuse arrogance with having the confidence in your own ability, to be able to point out the things that are genuinely wrong.

[Spike]

11 hours ago, BCFC_Dan said:

I'm on the fence about Pearson overall. I'm not sure I would sack him right now, but I wouldn't have hired him in the first place.

I'm not going to argue that it's not a big job he's got, but it seems to me that players who were previously quite adequate (including ones he chose to sign) are suddenly nowhere near good enough in the eyes of some, because the alternative would be admitting that Pearson simply isn't doing a very good job. Nothing is going to turn the current squad into one that any manager could get into the top six, but I think there are managers who could achieve rather more with them than Pearson is. That said, I accept that he may be trading success now for development of players for the future, which is entirely right.

At the end of the day, it's a tough job, he's the man tasked with doing it and I wouldn't expect to see much success in the short term. However, I've also seen nothing that gives me any confidence that he will have success in the long term. All I see is a very abrasive man delivering mostly poor performances and blaming the players for everything that goes wrong.

The board at City are always castigated for choosing the "cheap option". I'm more than a little concerned that all they've done this time is pay a lot more money* for their cheap option.

* No, I don't know what he's paid. I'm prepared to be surprised but I bet it's more than Dean Holden was getting.

No arguments, just discussion but I feel those players who aren't performing are suffering with weaknesses that cannot be fixed right now.
Playing as we are we have no-one that would fill anyone with confidence to play that right wing back role which means whoever plays there is under more pressure, this in turn makes the midfielders feel that they need to do more to help that "weakened side of the pitch"  which essentially means you already have 2-3 players trying to cover a single position through fear that the player playing there isn't able to cope on their own. This pulls the formation out of shape, makes players play with fear where they otherwise would be confident and this has an impact on the overall team performance.

When we play with no fear you see solid performances but when confidence is knocked I think a lot of players are double guessing themselves and/or trying to do two roles when they need to trust their teammates. 
 

Looking at our attacking play I think a large issue is that Martin is the key outlet as we struggle to play the ball through the middle, as much as Massengo is an exceptional talent I'm starting to think more and more he should be an attacking midfielder as his forward passes are great and his ability to attack the play is strong but with his back turned away from goal he's prone to losing focus of the threats and making silly passes. The issue that Pearson has is that he needs Weimann, Martin and Semenyo on the pitch meaning that Massengo is always going to play deeper. Semenyo is the player who can create and pressure defences, Martin is the outlet and Weimann is the unpredictable player who can get into dangerous positions and score so if we were to drop Martin we'd lose that outlet when we can't pass out, if we take off Semenyo we lose one of our best threats at attacking the defence and Weimann is just too valuable for his workrate and ability to be int he right place at the right time.

This squad simply isn't balanced and whilst I think Pearson has brought in players in attempt to add depth and create balance he's still missing key players and certainly a confident right sided player to relieve some of the pressure on the center backs and tracking midfielders.

I think if Pearson can't get that balances sorted in this coming pre-season then it may be time to move onto a new manager but I feel any manager coming in will struggle to find the quality with our current finances and I feel that Massengo may be the player we need to let go of unless Semenyo leaves. If Semenyo leaves then Weiman and Martin could play as the strikers and Massengo could be allowed to move into an attacking role. Whatever happens we need a right back and right sided midfielder who can both play that right wing back role if we want to have tactical options next season and Pearson needs to find that with no money. I don't see Pearson as the type of manager to want to bring in players to play those roles without being confident that they are worth bringing in.

All things considered I can understand why people are frustrated with Pearson, I feel he arrived far too late and had he been appointed a few years before he was with the squad LJ had the results would be night and day. I personally think the board got Pearson too late and were trying to pander to the fans knowing how much they'd dropped the ball knowing the financial situation that was coming.

[cidered abroad]

11 hours ago, Rich said:

I rate him because others don't see the problems, just the results and performance. They don't see or take into account the problems he's had to deal with.

I'm sure he would have made some other decisions based on hindsight and, some decisions seem erratic but, sometimes you need to shake things up a bit and then take stock of the fall out.

His recruitment so far has been hampered by a severe lack of money and at the same time having to cut the wage bill. Numerous players are earning way over an acceptable level for our financial position and are proving difficult to move on, as a result.  He's actually brought in five players, I think and resigned Baker and Weimann. One has since left the club, another three are long term injured and one probably forced to retire. Three of the other remaining have also suffered long periods on the sideline, with only Weimann playing the majority of games. So one player from seven available for selection out of seven signings.

The remaining players are as expected, mostly young, inexperienced, or not up to the quality required at this moment in their careers, some won't ever be. That leaves us with a forward that is getting on and not as mobile as we'd like, a centre back who's evidently been overused and carrying injuries, two keepers that there are question marks about, a supposed top striker that our style of play doesn't suit and a couple more that appear to have not had the required attitude demanded by the manager.

So, in a nutshell, we've had inconsistent performances due to injuries, loss of form, young players inconsistency and the manager having to change formation and selection on a match to match basis due to a constant list of injured players. If you can't see those things, affect the team, it's performances and ultimately results, then you must be looking through a fog brought on by your dislike of Pearson. Don't confuse arrogance with having the confidence in your own ability, to be able to point out the things that are genuinely wrong.

Well said @Rich. Apart from 1982 when TC took over a City in Division 4 and rescued us from near oblivion, I've not seen such a badly run City club. The days of LJ who spent more money than any other City manager in history, aided and abetted by a CEO who deliberately (?) mismanaged the finances, are the reasons for our current problems.

Pearson has achieved a minor miracle by keeping us out of a relegation scrap with some horribly overpaid non performers and a group of promising youngsters aided by a couple or three decent pros. We should be grateful that NP is prepared to give of his time and energy to try to save us from extinction.

Edited March 18, 2022 by cidered abroad