Come on, stick with it..

[GrahamC]

4 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

8 losses in the last 21, but 20th in the league, meaning 19 teams are bettering our record. Huddersfield got a win in midweek, Wigan have just made a change to try and protect their Championship status, West Brom will be absolutely fine with that squad and Corberan. Blackpool are a recently promoted team but have shown how competitive they are at this level. That's the only 4 below us. My remit has always been the same with Nige, keep him unless relegation is looking a serious possibility. We're there. 

Fair comment.

However I said to someone in the week I think realistically we are in a competition with 5-7 others to stay up.

Huddersfield, Wigan, Blackpool, Rotherham, Cardiff, Hull, maybe Reading.

Can’t see anyone else in the mix.

For every comment about Rotherham winning at Sheff U, it is worth remembering we did so at Blackburn & West Brom (who have won their last 2), plus people moaned about the draws v Coventry (won 6 of their last eight) & Boro who then hammered Blackpool away in midweek.

I genuinely think the WC break comes at a good time, we’re in poor form & badly need Naismith & Kalas available to give us better defensive options.

January is a complete unknown, can we shift one or two who are out of favour? Will we get a huge bid for Scott?

Don’t think we are going to be in a position to do any real business otherwise.

[BCFCGav]

4 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Fair comment.

However I said to someone in the week I think realistically we are in a competition with 5-7 others to stay up.

Huddersfield, Wigan, Blackpool, Rotherham, Cardiff, Hull, maybe Reading.

Can’t see anyone else in the mix.

For every comment about Rotherham winning at Sheff U, it is worth remembering we did so at Blackburn & West Brom (who have won their last 2), plus people moaned about the draws v Coventry (won 6 of their last eight) & Boro who then hammered Blackpool away in midweek.

I genuinely think the WC break comes at a good time, we’re in poor form & badly need Naismith & Kalas available to give us better defensive options.

January is a complete unknown, can we shift one or two who are out of favour? Will we get a huge bid for Scott?

Don’t think we are going to be in a position to do any real business otherwise.

Well put. I'm not resigned to relegation or anything silly, we've every chance of staying up. I just feel with the players we have, we shouldn't even be in the conversation (though the loss of Naismith is brutal). I'll be with them til the end and remain somewhat optimistic we'll do ok. If Pearson turns it round I'd happily eat humble pie as I really like the man and want him to succeed. I'm crossing everything for the Watford game, we do like a bounce back this season. 

[ExiledAjax]

16 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

My remit has always been the same with Nige, keep him unless relegation is looking a serious possibility. We're there. 

My view is to keep Pearson until it looks as though the club as a whole cannot improve further under him. I don't think we are there yet. I think it's the rest of this season, plus probably enough of the summer window. Giving him that long also allows us to see how he operates under Gould's successor, and that is something I think is important.

I don't think we will be relegated if we stick with him.

I agree with @GrahamC above that the break comes at a perfect time for us. We lose only one player to the WC, that gives us weeks to regroup, get key players like Naismith back to fitness, and we go again in December.

The numbers and predictions that have rung true over the past few seasons, those same projections that predicted we wouldn't make the play offs even when we were second, that predicted we wouldn't get relegated even when it felt inevitable, they all currently point to a final points tally of somewhere in the low 50s and therefore a finish of somewhere between 18th and 21st.

I can understand that such a finish is too close to relegation for many, but it's not too close for me, so I'll stick for the moment and reassess in the spring.

[robinforlife2]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

My view is to keep Pearson until it looks as though the club as a whole cannot improve further under him. I don't think we are there yet. I think it's the rest of this season, plus probably enough of the summer window. Giving him that long also allows us to see how he operates under Gould's successor, and that is something I think is important.

I don't think we will be relegated if we stick with him.

I agree with @GrahamC above that the break comes at a perfect time for us. We lose only one player to the WC, that gives us weeks to regroup, get key players like Naismith back to fitness, and we go again in December.

The numbers and predictions that have rung true over the past few seasons, those same projections that predicted we wouldn't make the play offs even when we were second, that predicted we wouldn't get relegated even when it felt inevitable, they all currently point to a final points tally of somewhere in the low 50s and therefore a finish of somewhere between 18th and 21st.

I can understand that such a finish is too close to relegation for many, but it's not too close for me, so I'll stick for the moment and reassess in the spring.

At what point do you pull the trigger. If we are 22nd on Saturday night, do you not think that is a catalyst.

There is no guarantee he will motivate the players over the month off. Why should he get January to fix his own mess out?

What happens if he signs 2/3 loan players or free agents in January, sells Semenyo and moves on Massengo and then start of February, we are in the relegation zone. At that point you have set the impossible task, and relegation would be more than likely. If we seriously don't want to gamble, he gets until Xmas at the longest. If we are within 3pts of the bottom three after the West Brom game on Boxing Day, then he has to go.

I do think he should be sacked now, I think if we lose on Saturday he definitely has to go, but I wont stand in the stands chanting Pearson out, as that doesn't help the players on the pitch. But if he is still here after Saturday, I think the club have to publicly give him a vote of confidence and make it clear, in this position around Boxing Day and he has to be shot of, before he can do more damage in January. 

[Superjack]

8 minutes ago, robinforlife2 said:

At what point do you pull the trigger. If we are 22nd on Saturday night, do you not think that is a catalyst.

There is no guarantee he will motivate the players over the month off. Why should he get January to fix his own mess out?

What happens if he signs 2/3 loan players or free agents in January, sells Semenyo and moves on Massengo and then start of February, we are in the relegation zone. At that point you have set the impossible task, and relegation would be more than likely. If we seriously don't want to gamble, he gets until Xmas at the longest. If we are within 3pts of the bottom three after the West Brom game on Boxing Day, then he has to go.

I do think he should be sacked now, I think if we lose on Saturday he definitely has to go, but I wont stand in the stands chanting Pearson out, as that doesn't help the players on the pitch. But if he is still here after Saturday, I think the club have to publicly give him a vote of confidence and make it clear, in this position around Boxing Day and he has to be shot of, before he can do more damage in January. 

Rubbish.

[winsaw]

For me Nigel made it clear when he started with us it would take him 3 whole seasons to sort out the mess we were in, so I think this is still a transition season, 

We need to let him finish the project he started the time to judge him with be this time next year not now, I think the upcoming world cup break is coming at the right time for us to get players back and start to push up the table again, 

[ExiledAjax]

19 minutes ago, robinforlife2 said:

At what point do you pull the trigger. If we are 22nd on Saturday night, do you not think that is a catalyst.

No, I don't think that's the catalyst.

19 minutes ago, robinforlife2 said:

If we are within 3pts of the bottom three after the West Brom game on Boxing Day, then he has to go.

Why? Typically teams finish the season roughly where they are at Christmas. That is especially true of teams who are in a fair position at that time. If we're clear at Christmas I will be even more confident of finishing clear in May.

21 minutes ago, robinforlife2 said:

I do think he should be sacked now, I think if we lose on Saturday he definitely has to go

Ok, that's your prerogative to have your opinion. It's a valid opinion, but it isn't one that I share.

What I'll say though, is that I do believe he needs to be replaced, at some point, if we are serious about ever being promoted. I do not think that Pearson will ever get us promoted. That's been my opinion ever since he was appointed. He has done a good job in helping us through a painful and tedious financial reset, and there is still more work to do there. My counsel, for the little it is worth, would be to let him do that, then change when we can shift to a more aggressive financial footing and launch an assault on the upper reaches of this godforsaken division.

[Davefevs]

6 hours ago, robinforlife2 said:

Nail on the head.

Pearson has had two years to get his team playing football and performing on the pitch.

I know it’s your opinion, and you’re perfectly entitled to it, but it still bugs the hell out of me!!  Sorry

But that takes no account of any internal / external factors, like what’s happened to the squad over that period for example…and why the squad was what is was and is what it is now.  What does playing football and performing on the pitch really mean in that context.

One might argue he’s performing miracles with what he has.  Btw, I don’t think that, but there’s definitely an argument that says you need to take the resources into account, whichever view you take.

Our budget is bigger than all bar West Brom and Boro around us in the league and people keep saying the same thing about money, but the fact is, Pearson can't make use of the tools he's got, and he's added tools to his bag.

Fact? Or your opinion?  Why in your opinion “can’t” he make use of his tools?  And why aren’t you asking what tools he no longer has, or are broke / unable to be used?

Re budgets, do you mean wage bill?  If so, yes it’s higher than a lot of clubs…but it’s other costs of running Bristol City, that are having a big impact.  It is why we are now only looking at free transfers, because amortisation was a £14m a year millstone around our neck!

It's not like we had 35 players, he has sold 15 and brought in no one. The main core of the team is the same that were performing better than before Pearson was here.

and those core players are?  Who played regularly at the end of LJ and then Holden - then who’s still here?

Bentley, Kalas (injured virtually all this season), Vyner (Lg1 according to many and he only broke through under Holden) Wells and Weimann.

I’m not sure 5 players constitutes a core (I’ve probably missed one or two, but the point stands).

The core pre-Nige was Hunt, Webster (one season), Baker, Rowe (first season then in / out), Diedhiou, Paterson, Nagy, O’Dowda, Eliasson, etc.

Basically some squad members might be the same in some cases, but this is nothing like the core

Massengo was in / out, so not core, Dasilva wasn’t core previously due to half season injuries.  Williams didn’t play for two seasons.

So it’s nothing like the core pre-Pearson is it?

People say he got rid of waster like Palmer and Bakinson, but they weren't playing anyway and if anything what they've been replaced with is hardly anything better.

because in Palmer’s case especially it cost us money to let him go!

The progress is off the pitch, but on the pitch we are a shambles, but we don't have a bad squad.

We don’t have a good squad, we have a small core of good players that is exposed when they’re not available.  They are then supplemented by players (generally) at the start of ends of their careers, or someone like Vyner who’s been around but has never been deemed good enough (he’s done well this season in the main).

People say part the problem is, a number of these players know they are on their way out the door, and this is one of the reasons why a new manager is vital. If a new manager comes in, suddenly with no money to work with, he will assess every player and give every player a chance to prove their worth, you may actually find that some of the players who expect to be released by Pearson, or not given contracts or be sold, might find form, as they have a chance of impressing someone and earning a new deal.

square that theory off with when Nige took over from Holden.  Did Fam suddenly want to stay, or importantly ask, could we afford him to stay?

The fact is people say we need rid of DaSilva, Kalas, Wells, Bentley, King, Klose, Martin and then think we will be able to replace them easily. 

What we should be doing is negotiating new deals for DaSilva, Kalas, Wells and Bentley that fall within our wage structure, to keep proven quality players at this level at the club. King, Klose and Martin wont be on huge money, but the reality is, one if not two of those will need replacing and there is no guarantee, that we can replace them with 2 better players for the money.

and if our wage structure is now too low, they won’t sign.  Which is what’s happening.  It’s all rumours but apparently one player on £x p.w, want 35% more to sign an extension.  We want him to take 30% less than his current deal.

If people expect us to recruit, we have to sell Massengo in January, if we don't we may as well play him. For all he is not a solution to the problem, he is not the 6th best central midfielder we have, so he should be around the 1st team. The same as Bentley is arguably our best, if not 2nd best keeper, he should not suddenly be 3rd choice. A manager refusing to involve these players is in fact wasting money by not having them involved.

I tend to agree, but we have no power over being able to sell them without it costing us…which means we have less money to recruit.  How does that help?

We have three key assets, Scott (long term deal), Conway (just signed new deal) and Semenyo (out of contract at the end of next year). The latter is the most sensible to sell. In fact to do any respectable recruitment, whether short term or long term in January, he has to be sold.

I tend to agree.

If you approached DaSilva, Kalas, Wells and Bentley and asked them to extend for one year on 20% less wages, I suspect most would.

I think you’d be surprised.  And you’d wait until the summer to check the market to see if you could do better.

They will know that they are unlikely get better than that deal, it gives them security of another year, and take at this view. Say Kalas is on 20K, Wells 20K, bentley 15K and DaSilva 15K, it would save 14K, so it would mean keeping 4 quality players at this level, and effectively getting one big fee off the books. It would be like moving one on, but keeping all four.

I suspect we’ve pitched that sort of wage decrease to them, and they’ve said “nah, I’ll take my chances in the summer”.  I doubt they’d want a simple 1 year extension either, they want commitment back.

The players really isn't the problem, finances don't help, but the biggest problem is, for whatever reason a number of the players are not playing to their best, and the person in charge of getting them to play to their best is the manager. If the manager can't get the best from the group of players he has, the solution is not to start getting rid of the players, but to get rid of the person unable to get the best out of them.

or maybe they aren’t as good as you or I think, and their levels are masked by others?

Look at any business, 

If the recruitment team head hunt and recruit a team of 15 people they know are up to the task, and employ me to manage them, if the team don't perform, they are not going to think, hang on we made the right choice in appointing this guy to manage the team, so we recruited badly with the 15, they will say, the team is not the problem, the manager is, and it is the manager who will be replaced. We are in no different situation.

what if the recruitment team aren’t very good at identifying your 15 man team and sell you a pup?  It’s not like history says we’ve recruited well is it?

Either every player in the team is not worth their place (and Nigel recruited a number of them) or the one managing the team is not up to the task.

he recruited what he could afford / was available / willing to come here.

I am firmly with the latter. Good players with the exception of an aging Martin and King don't become average players overnight. Many times we see good players disappoint here and get a new lease of life somewhere new, that is because we have had poor manager after poor manager who has been unable to get the best out of our players.

I’m interested in which players in recent years you put in that bracket.  Paterson one.…for half a season at Swansea (if I’m being harsh).  Who else out of interest.

There is no guarantee that the next manager will get the best out of all of them,

oh!

but the chances are they will get more out of the current manager who is failing to get them to perform consistently and is already starting to isolate players, pick on players, give out labels that they are letting him down. When this starts to happen, it's the beginning of the end.

When he starts using the terms, players I can trust and so on, that's when you know he's a dead man walking.

I expect us to struggle against Watford,

I do too, they are a superior team on paper.  But I hope we fight as a collective.

and hopefully the board will then see the light, that the manager is not getting the best out of the team, and that is the reason, why he has to go and someone else has to try and galvanise this group of players for a survival bid over the next six months, as  the team have clearly lost faith in Pearson and are no longer trying for him, and performing. Probably down to frustrating tactics and so on, but at the end of the day, most managers get the sack and with a 29% win rate, Pearson has been given plenty of time to get the team performing better. This is not knee jerk, it's been months and months of gradual decline.

. One of the most agenda fed opinion posts I’ve read in a long time.  Very much baseless /  subjective, little to no examples used to back up / clarify your opinions and everything must be the fault of the manager.

 

[robinforlife2]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

 

Why? Typically teams finish the season roughly where they are at Christmas. That is especially true of teams who are in a fair position at that time. If we're clear at Christmas I will be even more confident of finishing clear in May.

 

Bristol City have gone backwards after Xmas pretty much every season for the last 5/6 years, the last two years under Pearson have been no exception. If this team goes backwards this season after Xmas, we're in League one. 

[Davefevs]

33 minutes ago, robinforlife2 said:

Bristol City have gone backwards after Xmas pretty much every season for the last 5/6 years, the last two years under Pearson have been no exception. If this team goes backwards this season after Xmas, we're in League one. 

Mmmm, more tripe:

• 20/21 - Pearson wasn’t here at Xmas
• 21/22 - 18th at Xmas, 17th end of season

second sentence depends on next 3 games, you may be right.

[ExiledAjax]

3 hours ago, robinforlife2 said:

Bristol City have gone backwards after Xmas pretty much every season for the last 5/6 years, the last two years under Pearson have been no exception. If this team goes backwards this season after Xmas, we're in League one. 

But not when we've been low down at Christmas. Here is a little table showing where we've been at Christmas each season since our promotion back into this division, then our finishing position that season, and the change. You'll remember that in these seasons we changed manager between Christmas and the end exactly three times: 2015/16, 2019/20 (although for just the final 5 games), and of course in 2020/21. In only one of those seasons did we improve our position from where we were at Christmas to the end of the season.

So yes, on average in that time we have slipped two places from our yuletide position. However in the 4 seasons where we have been in the bottom half at Christmas we have finished higher in 3 and just one place lower in 2016/17. The big slides have come in seasons where we were high in the table at Christmas. So although we do have a tendency to slip a little, that doesn't show itself historically when we are starting where we are now.

Another table that you might find interesting is what happened to the teams in 20th after 20 matches in each of these seasons. Of those 7 teams, only one ended the season with relegation. In all other cases the team finished slightly higher up the table, or in the case of Burton in 2016/17, saw no improvement. Whether this is encouraging or depressing will depend on your outlook. Whether the historical performance of other teams gives you any cheer may similarly be dependent on your current view.

Did they change their manager though?

• Huddersfield 2015/16 - no, Wagner joined in November 2015 with Huddersfield in 19th
• Burton 2016/17 - no
• Hull 2017/18 - yes, Adkins joined on 7 Dec 2017, just after game number 20 when they were 18th
• Rotherham 2018/19 - no. They went down
• Luton 2019/20 - yes, but not until the spring when Graeme Jones left in late April, and Nathan Jones joined in May and managed them through the COVID restart
• Forest 2020/21 - no, Hughton joined in early October, when they were 22nd
• Cardiff 2021/22 - no, they changed manager after the 14th game when they were 21st

So of these teams that were 20th after 20 games, only one stuck with the manager that they had for game 20 and went down. That club was Rotherham who's wage bill was basically £30.

Final table - what happened to the teams that actually were in the bottom 3 after 20 games? Well most of the time those in the bottom 2 were relegated eventually. Only Rotherham in 2015/16 and Stoke and Barnsley in 2019/20 successfully resurrected their seasons. For those in 22nd it's a bit more nuanced, with some recovering and others not managing it. So, even if we were 22nd now, or if we slip to that position after the weekend...who cares? It's not a death sentence by any means.

We're not going down, and we shouldn't change manager at this point.

Edited November 10, 2022 by ExiledAjax

[PFree]

Much improved today, big shout out to the team all of whom put in a good shift, but also to the fans, stayed with it and created a result positive atmosphere.

We have competed with the teams at the top well and there’s no reason to feel we won’t go on an have a decent season and mid table plus finish from here.

Well done all, deserved a result today...