Pearson comments- might be a quiet summer

[GrahamC]

58 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

I've mentioned this previously on the transfer forum, it is possible for us to have a successful transfer window this summer due to the sheer volume of free agents available. 

Right Back - Kane Wilson (Forest Green)

Centre Back - Elliott Moore (Oxford)

Centre Back 2 - Michael Ihiekwe (Rotherham)

Defensive midfielder - Rinomhota (Reading) or Will Vaulks (Cardiff)

Midfield cover - Marlon Pack (Cardiff) possible Andy King replacement. 

 

All are available as free agents in the summer. Kane Wilson would require compensation due to his age, however this would be a fairly low fee. 

 

 

 

Oxford have a year’s option they can take up on Moore.

Really like Ihiekwe (gritty defender) & Sean Raggett at Pompey is also OoC, too.

Think all of these are very sensible suggestions, though expect Vaulks to get another deal over the bridge & re Wilson I do wonder if we would want a more experienced RB alternative than him to Tanner, but at least these aren’t the Tom Lawrence/John Swift type of “suggestions”…

Edited April 7, 2022 by GrahamC

[daored]

2 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

For sure- if we sell one of them and maybe loan out with a bit of cushion one or two fringe players and make wage savings there, then there will be a bit of room.

Perhaps even for small fees- but I think we will need to gain some fresh income or transfer income in order to add anyone new. That is a potential starting point.

As in make good the Projected deficit via profit on fees, wage savings and amortisation savings then go from there.

For me this is the point when our recruitment is questioned last summer, think it’s likely as a club we were looking to reduce our expenditure purely by the number of OOC players  we signed and allowed us to push the boat out slightly to get Atkinson. Think there’s still a number of fans who simply don’t get how dire our financial position is and will be expecting us to spend money despite Pearson’s comments 

[Supersonic Robin]

2 hours ago, Robbored said:

Sell to buy. Nige has four youngsters coveted by bigger clubs. HNM, Semenyo, Scott and Pring. Should a decent offer come in for one or even two of them he’ll have some wriggle room at least.

 

2 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

Who covets Pring out of interest ? 
I’ve not seen anything on him. 

2 hours ago, The Horse With No Name said:

Plus, he cant be considered a youngster surely?

 

Yepp, Pring has made good progress this season, but I think he sometimes gets swept up in the Scott/Semenyo/Massengo hype inaccurately.

He's not really on the same level as the other 3, and is a fair bit older too. I don't think he will attract anywhere near the same interest or the same fee in summer. 

 

[AshtonRobin21]

10 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Oxford have a year’s option they can take up on Moore.

Really like Ihiekwe (gritty defender) & Sean Raggett at Pompey is also OoC, too.

Think all of these are very sensible suggestions, though expect Vaulks to get another deal over the bridge & re Wilson I do wonder if we would want a more experienced RB alternative than him to Tanner, but at least these aren’t the Tom Lawrence/John Swift type of “suggestions”…

The Ihiekwe, Raggett, Moore type of defender is a must in my opinion this summer. We need warriors at the back, but who also have leadership qualities. My preference would be that our captain is an outfield player (not suggesting Bentley has done anything wrong). I would expect 2 free agent centre back's to arrive. 

I think it would be easy for people to see the negatives from Nige's comments, however sensible business is certainly possible to achieve this summer. 

I think Michael Smith could also arrive as an additional attacking option. Martin has been driven into the ground this season with the amount of minutes he has played. We simply don't have an alternative currently, whereas Smith would provide that competition. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

40 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

Yet so many idiots do not understand what a £38 M loss really means . Too many used to signing  many players with fees . Love or hate Nige , he is dealing with an awful situation but is getting in with it . No complaints just strong pragmatism. At least we have a fighter with us . It just amplifies how disastrous the previous regime were . But we will come out fighting . This recovery is going to take time , the priority is not being relegated , then we can breathe and build . Build with inventive and hungry players . That will take us far  . We lost our way .

support needed . But when you see players fighting , as fans you get behind it . You cannot underestimate the mess we are sorting 

Spot on.

This is a big task, a wide ship to turn around.

Priorities have to be survival or lower midtable, as positive football as the circs allow, retention of as many key players as the circs allow and if we can continue to develop players all good and not breaching FFP.

As you say, come through it and summer 2023 still a Championship club then better days should be ahead.

The more players who have run their course we can clear too, the better.

A Cup run or two absolutely would help as well, big Cup tie or two yes please.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I really don’t think we will be under a strict business plan, more likely a bit of regular monitoring so that our projections are being maintained.

Do hope so, I'm a bit on the 'bearish' (in marker terms) side in my forecasts tbh.

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Do hope so, I'm a bit on the 'bearish' (in marker terms) side in my forecasts tbh.

I’ve noticed

I’m fairly chilled about it…because we have several different options to resolve the estimated deficit.  In some ways, average crowds of 20k is better than expected (yeah, yeah, we all know that’s not bums on seats!), so revenue for 21/22 might be better than I guessed.

As you’ll know from my projections, amortisation has dropped significantly this year and next, and is tiny the year after.  Need to keep chipping away at the wage bill in the same way.

[GrahamC]

34 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

The Ihiekwe, Raggett, Moore type of defender is a must in my opinion this summer. We need warriors at the back, but who also have leadership qualities. My preference would be that our captain is an outfield player (not suggesting Bentley has done anything wrong). I would expect 2 free agent centre back's to arrive. 

I think it would be easy for people to see the negatives from Nige's comments, however sensible business is certainly possible to achieve this summer. 

I think Michael Smith could also arrive as an additional attacking option. Martin has been driven into the ground this season with the amount of minutes he has played. We simply don't have an alternative currently, whereas Smith would provide that competition. 

Was with you until the Michael Smith bit…

Think if Semenyo stays we will ask more of him next season (only 19 starts so far this) & he will be asked to play more of a CF role in order to give Martin a break.

This all depends on Wells’ future of course who is clearly one on the list of players we would prefer to move on.

If Kalas goes & Baker retires then a Raggett type plus Klose, Atkinson & Cundy is what we are probably looking at, a new RB is absolutely essential, too.

[BLRed]

In light of Man City owners self sponsoring the club under different company names, I’m wondering why Lansdown hasnt used Harvreaves Lansdown as a sponsor of the club as a way of pumping significant money towards our coffers to stave off ffp and provide competitive transfer income? 

[Curr Avon]

3 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

Nobody knows what the summer transfer market is going to pan out like. 
Many quality players are going to be out of contract and forced to accept more reasonable terms as clubs struggle to get their post COVID acts together. 
I am sure that we can do some business without spending the eye watering sums that we have in the past. 
Largish Nige is trying to play down expectations I expect. 

It'll be, "please Sir, can I have some more?" Like the musical, 'Oliver', with a great twist at the end.

[GreedyHarry]

4 hours ago, Robbored said:

Sell to buy. Nige has four youngsters coveted by bigger clubs. HNM, Semenyo, Scott and Pring. Should a decent offer come in for one or even two of them he’ll have some wriggle room at least.

How does selling our best players give us wriggle room? I would assume that to replace them with equivalents would cost the same. Happy to be proved wrong though.

[eardun]

1 hour ago, billywedlock said:

Yet so many idiots do not understand what a £38 M loss really means . Too many used to signing  many players with fees . Love or hate Nige , he is dealing with an awful situation but is getting in with it . No complaints just strong pragmatism. At least we have a fighter with us . It just amplifies how disastrous the previous regime were . But we will come out fighting . This recovery is going to take time , the priority is not being relegated , then we can breathe and build . Build with inventive and hungry players . That will take us far  . We lost our way .

support needed . But when you see players fighting , as fans you get behind it . You cannot underestimate the mess we are sorting 

I agree. No moaning about the situation from Pearson - he’ll just deal with it and, as he says in this interview, look out for the best interests of the football club - and to be honest I find that refreshing.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, BLRed said:

In light of Man City owners self sponsoring the club under different company names, I’m wondering why Lansdown hasnt used Harvreaves Lansdown as a sponsor of the club as a way of pumping significant money towards our coffers to stave off ffp and provide competitive transfer income? 

Related Party Transactions, Fair Value etc.

Obviously Hargreaves Lansdown- and indeed SL's other companies or those he has an interest in, they can sponsor us but it must reflect this.

Birmingham in 2018 when they were over limits or set to fail put in for a large sponsorship- think Trillion Trophy are related to Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited and it was to sponsor the stadium and training ground. Yes the sponsorship could go ahead, but at the price they were proposing? Not for FFP certainly- SWFC are sponsored by a raft of Chansiri's companies but this stacks up to only £1-2m, think maybe £1.5m in total?

Ah yes you mentioned Man City. PL had no particular rules on it then and probably harder to prove it with Middle Eastern economies- related or no? That said UEFA have said they will pay much more attention to Fair Value rules now, think there are still intermittent investigations into Man City and PSG- but the problem was they made it up to where they are, a lot more 'legit' in the time these were in-play. Now even with adjustments to RPTs the chances are they would have a raft of legitimate sponsorships off the back of their success, but when the process was built with a lot more RPTs at potentially inflated prices.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[DaveF]

5 hours ago, maxjak said:

That'll get them Queuing round the block for Season tickets.......Great PR  from "Chuckle  Brother " Pearson? ..... That's a coincidence, because I   won't be spending any money either.

Better he lies and says we're going to spend millions and challenge for the title... Moron.

[Pezo]

4 hours ago, BLRed said:

In light of Man City owners self sponsoring the club under different company names, I’m wondering why Lansdown hasnt used Harvreaves Lansdown as a sponsor of the club as a way of pumping significant money towards our coffers to stave off ffp and provide competitive transfer income? 

Because SL doesn't own HL, he owns about a 5% share now and is constantly selling to diversify. He also doesn't work there so basically has no control over decisions.

How would the directors of HL justify that to HL shareholders, "sorry you can't have a dividend this year we've decided to sponsor Bristol City" the share price would crash instantly and they would all be sacked.

[Pezo]

7 hours ago, Ska Junkie said:

Excuse my stupidity but how could we, the football club, even consider selling the stadium when we don't own it? Cracking job if we can sell something owned by someone else mind!!

That all depends on your perspective on who the football club is, if you think Bristol city holdings is the football club then we own the football club. That is also how it works for financial reporting purposes.

Who do you think owns the stadium if it isn't us? It's not the bears, it's not Bristol sport, it's not any other sport team that SL owns.

[One Team]

8 hours ago, billywedlock said:

Yet so many idiots do not understand what a £38 M loss really means . Too many used to signing  many players with fees . Love or hate Nige , he is dealing with an awful situation but is getting in with it . No complaints just strong pragmatism. At least we have a fighter with us . It just amplifies how disastrous the previous regime were . But we will come out fighting . This recovery is going to take time , the priority is not being relegated , then we can breathe and build . Build with inventive and hungry players . That will take us far  . We lost our way .

support needed . But when you see players fighting , as fans you get behind it . You cannot underestimate the mess we are sorting 

Spot on.

Surely no one is surprised by this? We will be doing very well next season if we are mid table through most of it. Any thought of play offs or better with our constraints is just deluded. 

[Tinmans Love Child]

11 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Not watched his pre match comments yet- perhaps tomorrow I will, but this is news I feared and I expect a fair few did. Still plenty of time for it to change of course...

Apologies if already covered- feel free to merge if it is  etc.

I think this is good news in a way, at least we are not going to make the situation worse by paying out for more players, and just because we will be dealing in the free agents market doesn’t mean that the signings won’t improve us, there are many reasons why players run down contracts, as with any signings for big or small money, it’s never a given they will be successful

[Robbored]

6 hours ago, GreedyHarry said:

How does selling our best players give us wriggle room? I would assume that to replace them with equivalents would cost the same. Happy to be proved wrong though.

Selling players raises revenue and that would enable Nige to recruit new players.. It’s a method that Brentford have adopted for a number of seasons.by signing like for like or improving on what they’ve sold.

It reflects not only how effective their recruitment set up is but also how skilled their manager is at signing the right players.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Selling players raises revenue and that would enable Nige to recruit new players.. It’s a method that Brentford have adopted for a number of seasons.by signing like for like or improving on what they’ve sold.

It reflects not only how effective their recruitment set up is but also how skilled their manager is at signing the right players.

"Nige"s recruitments to date have so far made the areas hes recruited in worse rather than better....imo. With a non existent midfield and a totally confused defence, so no signs of being too skillful just yet.

This selling of assets seems to be a never ending roundabout to me, round and round we go stumbling from one rebuild to the next.

2014/15 gave our 1st league title since 1955 and our highest points total of 99pts and from a sacked manager deemed not good enough after only a further 1/2 season.

Been on the rebuild plan since and dont seem to be building too much, good luck NP you are going to need it..

 

[JoeAman08]

The problem with frees is everyone wants them. Since I have been following city, we don’t seem to get(target?) top tier frees. I can’t see us being able to recruit well enough in that market to get better.
 

Wilson for example will probably have 8-10 championship clubs vying for his signature. I don’t think we’d be in the top half of choices. 

Just watch us play football. It is uninspiring dull football. There is no plan. Good players and agents do their due diligence. I think we are probably one of the worst clubs in the championship in terms of attractiveness for prospective players. 

I’d rather sell all 3 of Scott, Massengo and Semenyo to properly start this rebuild this summer. The money situation isn’t the fault of NP but it gives him an out. I don’t think he is a good manager anymore but we can’t give him a proper valuation until he can actually have something to work with. His comments were to keep people on his side. Basically saying, it’ll be another grind next season where staying up is the goal. There won’t be much improvement so don’t take it out on me. Probably fair to some degree but the excuse is masking his deficiencies imo. 

[Redrascal2]

11 hours ago, swanker said:

If we’re not spending then I don’t expect many other clubs will be either. 

How many other clubs are in such a shite state as us. Many have not mismanaged as poorly as us for such a long period and will surely be able to spend something.

[Phileas Fogg]

10 hours ago, billywedlock said:

Yet so many idiots do not understand what a £38 M loss really means . Too many used to signing  many players with fees . Love or hate Nige , he is dealing with an awful situation but is getting in with it . No complaints just strong pragmatism. At least we have a fighter with us . It just amplifies how disastrous the previous regime were . But we will come out fighting . This recovery is going to take time , the priority is not being relegated , then we can breathe and build . Build with inventive and hungry players . That will take us far  . We lost our way .

support needed . But when you see players fighting , as fans you get behind it . You cannot underestimate the mess we are sorting 

I agree with the sentiment, but people not understanding the detail of FFP and the knock on effect in the transfer market doesn't make them "idiots". 

[Rocky]

Our targets are all freebies.  As I am sure most clubs will be in the market for.

I hear a certain Millwall player is top of our shopping list, maybe it's been mentioned already.

[BCFCGav]

Does anyone know if sales this summer will quash our FFP problems? Or have we already 'failed' a 3 year cycle and therefore can expect a points deduction/fine? As I understand it, we've time to rectify the issue but my knowledge of the intricacies of FFP pail in comparison to some of the posters on here. 

[robin for life]

I think we'll see Joe Bryan and Marlon Pack return this summer and I think Semenyo, and Massengo will leave.

I think Wells will get his chance with Semenyo gone and Pack is a direct replacement for Massengo

Joe Bryan adds defence and midfield abilities and will allow Wiemann to play a more central role.

[The Bard]

'Did he not say 'At the moment '?

That means he doesn't have a transfer pot now. Just means we need to sell to buy. 

[The Bard]

14 minutes ago, robin for life said:

I think we'll see Joe Bryan and Marlon Pack return this summer and I think Semenyo, and Massengo will leave.

I think Wells will get his chance with Semenyo gone and Pack is a direct replacement for Massengo

Joe Bryan adds defence and midfield abilities and will allow Wiemann to play a more central role.

Joe Bryan is under contract to 2023 with a 1 year option. 

Pack definite possibility. Especially if Massengo, Bakinson and King all leave.  

 

[The Bard]

13 hours ago, maxjak said:

That'll get them Queuing round the block for Season tickets.......Great PR  from "Chuckle  Brother " Pearson? ..... That's a coincidence, because I   won't be spending any money either.

Yep. Bring back LJ & Ashton. I much prefer being lied to by charlatans. 

[Sturny]

2 hours ago, Robbored said:

Selling players raises revenue and that would enable Nige to recruit new players.. It’s a method that Brentford have adopted for a number of seasons.by signing like for like or improving on what they’ve sold.

It reflects not only how effective their recruitment set up is but also how skilled their manager is at signing the right players.

Something we're completely and utterly useless at most of the time. Transfer policy was one step forward two steps back for a long while.