Last 10 games

[Northern Red]

Matty James was 29 when we signed him. Hardly "last payday before retirement" material.

[Son of Fred]

4 hours ago, GrahamC said:

I also think the WC break will do us some good,

Absolutely -

It's very much come at the right time for us.

[WessexPest]

What depresses me is we are no further forward now than we were this time three years ago - arguably, we’ve gone backwards. Granted we’ve had to flog the family silver and there’s no cash to strengthen the squad, but how infuriating is it that the same old problems keep resurfacing no matter who is in the dugout - alternating undefeated and winless runs, inconsistency, schoolboy errors at the back, inability to capitalise on set pieces, abject displays punctuated by the odd decent showing that lull us into thinking we might have turned the corner.

I know a lot of people don’t give a gnat’s chuff about the EFL Cup but I for one will not be happy if we get dumped out by the team that fell to a sixth tier side in the FA Cup.

I’m not sure what I expected from NP’s tenure, but it certainly wasn’t to be sucked into the relegation mire.

I do hope the WC break galvanises us, but I had a similar hope when everything shut down for COVID and when football got going again we picked up almost exactly where we left off - and not in a good way.

Edited November 6, 2022 by WessexPest

[GrahamC]

17 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Matty James was 29 when we signed him. Hardly "last payday before retirement" material.

Absolutely ridiculous comment mate.

He’s a bloody good player who is unappreciated by a fair few.

I watched the highlights earlier, first two passages of play, excellent goalkeeping by Max but who then gets in a brilliant block on the edge of our box? James.

Next one, superb double save by Max then guess who is in position to cut out a pass that would have been an easy chance? James again.

He isn’t coasting to retirement, he puts it in game after game. Integral.

Edited November 6, 2022 by GrahamC

[aa_bcfc]

17 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Absolutely ridiculous comment mate.

He’s a bloody good player who is unappreciated by a fair few.

I watched the highlights earlier, first two passages of play, excellent goalkeeping by Max but who then gets in a brilliant block on the edge of our box? James.

Next one, superb double save by Max then guess who is in position to cut out a pass that would have been an easy chance? James again.

He isn’t coasting to retirement, he puts it in game after game. Integral.

There are many strands to being a decent midfielder. Goals and assists are two of them. Our midfield doesn’t do either. 

[Davefevs]

26 minutes ago, WessexPest said:

I know a lot of people don’t give a gnat’s chuff about the EFL Cup but I for one will not be happy if we get dumped out by the team that fell to a sixth tier side in the FA Cup.

I think there’s a lot to be said for a cup run, especially going into games thinking a win might get you a high profile club in the next round.  That’s motivation for the players, it also tells the manager about the character of his players too.  And there’s a few quid to be made.

I’m sure the 17/18 cup run had the players playing better because they didn’t want to be left out against Man Utd, then Man City.  Dumped out of the FAC in Rd3 meant no games to keep the fringe interested too.

So, I hope we go relatively strong on Tuesday, get through, and then hope we get a good draw for Rd4.

I’m off the opinion a crap draw away to Coventry in Rd1…but a professional performance, more minutes together for a new back three, a resounding win…was a big part of the run in the league that followed. 

[TheReds]

31 minutes ago, WessexPest said:

What depresses me is we are no further forward now than we were this time three years ago - arguably, we’ve gone backwards. Granted we’ve had to flog the family silver and there’s no cash to strengthen the squad, but how infuriating is it that the same old problems keep resurfacing no matter who is in the dugout - alternating undefeated and winless runs, inconsistency, schoolboy errors at the back, inability to capitalise on set pieces, abject displays punctuated by the odd decent showing that lull us into thinking we might have turned the corner.

I know a lot of people don’t give a gnat’s chuff about the EFL Cup but I for one will not be happy if we get dumped out by the team that fell to a sixth tier side in the FA Cup.

I’m not sure what I expected from NP’s tenure, but it certainly wasn’t to be sucked into the relegation mire.

I do hope the WC break galvanises us, but I had a similar hope when everything shut down for COVID and when football got going again we picked up almost exactly where we left off - and not in a good way.

So we've sold the family silver, and we got no cash to strengthen, yet you really expect it us to be in a more forward position than we were 3 years ago?

Why is that exactly? 

[WessexPest]

3 minutes ago, TheReds said:

So we've sold the family silver, and we got no cash to strengthen, yet you really expect it us to be in a more forward position than we were 3 years ago?

Why is that exactly? 

Because I thought we finally had an experienced head in the dugout who knew what he was doing, unlike his two predecessors.

[TheReds]

11 minutes ago, WessexPest said:

Because I thought we finally had an experienced head in the dugout who knew what he was doing, unlike his two predecessors.

We do have an experienced head in the dugout.

Why would you think we would or should be further forward than 3 years ago, when that same experienced head had to get rid of how many players exactly on ridiculous wages, cut the wage bill massively, and then try to bring in players on far inferior wages, who were mainly free transfers and lower leagues, or from our own academy? 

I just cannot understand why anyone would think we should be further in front than where we are at the moment, with the amount of shite Pearson has had to try and sort out throughout the whole club, adding in all the constraints he has had. 

I honestly think if any other managers would have came in when he did, the majority of them would have walked within the first 6 months as we were in such a state. Pearson is having to basically build something with hardly anything, and still try and compete in the Championship. We have seen glimpses of brilliant football and a fair few horror shows, probably what should be expected with what we have imo.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, TheReds said:

We do have an experienced head in the dugout.

Why would you think we would or should be further forward than 3 years ago, when that same experienced head had to get rid of how many players exactly on ridiculous wages, cut the wage bill massively, and then try to bring in players on far inferior wages, who were mainly free transfers and lower leagues, or from our own academy? 

I just cannot understand why anyone would think we should be further in front than where we are at the moment, with the amount of shite Pearson has had to try and sort out throughout the whole club, adding in all the constraints he has had. 

I honestly think if any other managers would have came in when he did, the majority of them would have walked within the first 6 months as we were in such a state. Pearson is having to basically build something with hardly anything, and still try and compete in the Championship. We have seen glimpses of brilliant football and a fair few horror shows, probably what should be expected with what we have imo.

We all know why and who got us to this stage that we are at, The Boss has got us here, all his choices/decisions, the managers/players didnt bring themselves here.

[Mr Popodopolous]

The bit of the circle that I struggle to square and I fully appreciate the work NP and Gould have done this area.

£28m in losses is several million higher than my best estimates. Accelerated costs (Impairment, Provision for Onerous contracts), Revenue not recovering as quickly as hoped?

E.g. based on some local media snippets, we shaved £6m off the wage bill last season.

Add in £5-6m for amortisation being shaved off, and revenue back up to say £26m but minus £6m in profit on disposal of players (was around £6m in 2020-21).

Well that is or should be a net improvement to pre tax losses of £15-16m, not £10m. Given that the amortisation decline is fairly easy to calculate, I wonder how much the wage bill actually fell by?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[TheReds]

33 minutes ago, gl2 said:

We all know why and who got us to this stage that we are at, The Boss has got us here, all his choices/decisions, the managers/players didnt bring themselves here.

And there was me thinking you have blamed our manager on occasions. Still at least we know he won't be in for any criticism from you now after clarifying that...

[Bar BS3]

18 hours ago, TheReds said:

You do seem to like to pick and choose who and what you respond to. There are multiple valid points on here that you just don't seem to want to address them?

When you say "the majority" how or where are you getting this information from??

Anyone can see how we changed the way we play with him in the side, has he cost us goals, without a doubt, have we gained (and more importantly) will we gain more points when he is playing in the future longterm - without a doubt in my opinion. There is a trade off with players like him who will take risks, but when the risks pay off we are on the front foot, it's risk v reward. Or would you prefer the keeper to just lump it up top and hope?

Atkinson as well comes out with the ball at times is very decent, and has had some blinding performances along with scoring a few important goals. A brilliant purchase imo.

James - overall a good player, he doesn't play like it's his last payday so I have no problem with that, should we never sign anyone around his age? Was he brought in to play 40+ League games per season, or was it partly his attitude to help others and to instil the right mentality in others?

Tanner looks decent and when he is back he looks like a great buy for 300k. We simply don't have millions to spend to "improve us" instantly, and that is down to letting the likes of MA and LJ go absolutely mental with a near blank chequebook costing us massively. Do tell us how many players they bought and how much they spent on fees and wages just for some clarification

I really wonder where the club would be now if NP didn't come in, a man who has previous form at Leicester for changing the whole club around from top to bottom. We are in a massive transition period, it's not like a new manager came in with money to burn.

Let's say NP has enough or we sack him tomorrow, who would you have come in?

You must have missed my trying to respond to many, many different opinions. 

I agree with you about Naismith - as frustrating as his mistakes are - I'd rather have him in the team, that not. 

It was other on a full thread about him, saying he needed to be dropped. 

I generally agree with much of what you say - but I also feel & said at the end of last season, that the world Cup break would be a good point at which to assess the progress we'd made on NP's well below par record here upto the end of last season. 

If that were to be reviewed at that stage, I'm not sure that the review (in a football sense & certainly a league position sense) looks like it's going to reflect as much progress as I had hoped for & expected. 

 

[TheReds]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

You must have missed my trying to respond to many, many different opinions. 

I agree with you about Naismith - as frustrating as his mistakes are - I'd rather have him in the team, that not. 

It was other on a full thread about him, saying he needed to be dropped. 

I generally agree with much of what you say - but I also feel & said at the end of last season, that the world Cup break would be a good point at which to assess the progress we'd made on NP's well below par record here upto the end of last season. 

If that were to be reviewed at that stage, I'm not sure that the review (in a football sense & certainly a league position sense) looks like it's going to reflect as much progress as I had hoped for & expected. 

 

The amount of people on that thread is a miniscule amount of our fanbase, it's like the people who think Twitter is the view of the Country or the whole World because of a few outraged people.

The well below par record has to be taken in context though with the overall job he had to do. How many players, that I would guess the majority would agree were inferior (inexperienced academy players) versus what we already had on the bench or left out the squad completely (high earners and experienced), were playing and starting games in the last couple of seasons? How many players made debuts at a young age, from our academy? Should they be putting in monster performances consistently? Do you think when we were safe and different formations and players were being chopped and changed should yield instant or even positive results? What about basically telling players if they don't want to be here then you won't be playing and find yourself another club - whilst replacing these players with freebies or inexperience? How many points should NP have gained during these games. 

If none of that was done previously where do you think we would be now? NP could have had a better overall record (win/points), but it was necessary to do what he has done for the longterm. Would you prefer he was now trying to get in the likes of Pring, Conway, Benarous along with the ones who were given chances, deemed to not be good enough and let go? We would probably be worse off than Huddersfield imo.

[Davefevs]

3 minutes ago, TheReds said:

If none of that was done previously where do you think we would be now? NP could have had a better overall record (win/points), but it was necessary to do what he has done for the longterm. Would you prefer he was now trying to get in the likes of Pring, Conway, Benarous along with the ones who were given chances, deemed to not be good enough and let go? We would probably be worse off than Huddersfield imo.

That is an argument I made in his first season (part-season) here too.  Beyond injured players he was starting to test out who needed to go / who needed to stay.  Results were crap, but we saw Scott, Bell, Britton, S.Pearson, Janneh make their league debuts.

He could of course have just played those senior players, even the ones on their way in the summer, and ground out a few more results / points.  But to what aim.

I see him as a bloke confident in his abilities and the security in his job to try to do the best for the longer term future of Bristol City, rather than insecure and needing results.  Of course he’d love results too, but I think we (as a club) end up in a better place as a result.

[Lanterne Rouge]

On 06/11/2022 at 08:32, Fuber said:

- Atkinson. The only player signd for fee in his tenure, bought for the same figure as O'Dowda, Engvall, and humorous other examples of failed LJ/MA signings.

 

Sometimes a typo can be more appropriate than the word it replaced!

[Fuber]

3 hours ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Sometimes a typo can be more appropriate than the word it replaced!

Indeed.

[Guest]

last 10 games last 13 games = 2 wins= enough said

[Sheltons Army]

1 minute ago, gl2 said:

last 10 games last 13 games = 2 wins= enough said

Careful you will use a whole years worth of whining in one night