Here he is. The Messiah is to blame

[Porto Red]

9 minutes ago, underhanded said:

What if I don't think he's a messiah, but also don't think he's self-interested and single-handedly ruining the club?

 

Then there is no place for your balanced opinion on this or any other forum, get thee from hence 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Porto Red

[Davefevs]

9 minutes ago, underhanded said:

What if I don't think he's a messiah, but also don't think he's self-interested and single-handedly ruining the club?

 

That would make you….

FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg? 

REG: He's over there.

[Rob]

Nonsense I think applies to this

[bpexile]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

He could’ve kept tighter reigns / reins / rains on the budgets / spending.

I think his lack of knowledge on the football front prevented him Dave, put tooooo much faith in the wrong people.

[Davefevs]

4 minutes ago, bpexile said:

I think his lack of knowledge on the football front prevented him Dave, put tooooo much faith in the wrong people.

That’s the Big Tone Condensed version!!!

[Guest]

I think when SL finally hands over the club to the new owners and reflects on his tenure he will readily admit that he has got somethings right and somethings very wrong.

Whatever the % of his wealth large or small, he has provided funds to the club in terms of loans or share capital and that has kept us afloat,  that is beyond question.

The infrastructure that is in place and is to be further enhanced represents a huge improvement on that which he originally bought, that is beyond question.

Where I believe he is found wanting is the thing that is or should be most important to us fans, success on the football field, his tenure hasn’t been a complete failure, but I’m certain he would agree that some horrendous mistakes have been made, however well meaning they were intended to be.

Strange as it may seem I think he may have learnt his lesson, maybe, just maybe, NP will sow the seeds that grow into the possibility of a promotion push in the near future.

Evidence you say? Not much I have to admit, but a feeling that after some years of seeming lost in the wilderness I feel that there is the beginnings of a plan to take the club forward.

[bpexile]

13 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

That’s the Big Tone Condensed version!!!

Big Tone! - Now there's a legend 

[Silvio Dante]

Sigh.

I first went to AG in 1984. It was dilapidated then and got worse, despite the best efforts of good men like Des Williams. We now have a top class facility and training facility. That’s due to Lansdowns investment. And if you acknowledge that the training infrastructure is due to Lansdown, then he must take at least partial credit for the academy flow of players. For all that the successful managers (GJ, Cotts) we’ve had under his stewardship did well on the first team they didn’t give two hoots about the academy.

And, if we want to split hairs we’ve now been in this division for 9 seasons. Prior to SL, we had 4 seasons post 1990 and 1 under Ward so there is a case he’s done well football wise.

And genuinely, no bugger makes money out of football at our level. Nobody. So he’s not in it for that.

As far as I can see there are two main gripes against Lansdown:

- The feeling we should have done more based on the investment we’ve put in. I think that’s totally fair. SLs biggest weakness, for me, is that he couldn’t see through a bullshitter (Ashton) or someone who didn’t want the job (Coppell). He wants success so he’s blind to weaknesses, particularly on a footballing front (which is a major issue!). I think you can question decisions on this basis but not desire

- The feeling the club wasn’t “ours” any more. I get that. And the decisions by Jon like the comic sans font didn’t help. But it had to happen to allow the club to progress - at least infrastructure wise. England isnt the Bundesliga and sole ownership (custodianship) is the model here. However, I think with the work done by RG and the flow of youngsters then there is a case that this charge is improving.

On balance do I think he’s been more good than bad? Yep. Do I think some of his decisions footballing wise have been questionable? Yep. If he left tomorrow would we be in a better position than when he took over? Yep. Could we see worse? There’s an answer, and it’s the smoke and mirrors bullshit over the river.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Silvio Dante

[REDOXO]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

And…

Yep…I am talking about making poor decisions throughout his time here.

Appreciate his investment into infrastructure, don’t really think he should be praised for the other millions he’s wasted / allowed others to waste.

He could’ve kept tighter reigns / reins / rains on the budgets / spending.

I don’t think he should be praised for a number of things and most sensible people would say the same thing

Including 

Poor management selections over all, however the club is more than one man. But yes the bloke at the top Carry's the can. 
 

We could go through a few

Brian Tinnion

SOD an appointment that was universally supported Here 

Lee Johnson 

Dean Holden

And The fact the bloke who won us two trophies was not supported with proper finance when the utter nonsense of a man got multi millions
 

Also crappy decisions regarding those around the club. Including Mr Ashton, Mr Lansdown jr, Mr Gould etc etc (Gould no matter what some believe was not very good the first time and the idea he wasn’t waiting for the job at The ECB or something else is laughable) 

His continued support of Johnson, a bloke with no experience spending money was idiocy.
 

Johnson stupidly spent the clubs money while Mr Lansdown was underwriting the debt with stock purchases, this was always going to lead to a problem. However Covid buggered up the model faster than it otherwise would with a half wit running the team bringing us to the FFP issue we have discussed a thousand times 

So…. I have said personally all of this many times on this forum (my dislike of The Johnson era in my own head is pretty legendary) and Lansdown himself now knows the Johnson thing was nuts  

The biggest issue right now is we have a manager that is trying to make something of the Lansdown built training facilities and build/cobble together a team from that. So yes Lansdown is definitely culpable in that as he is responsible for our FFP ISSUES

….So we continue to not make it to the top flight, but being we are a club that have spent 4 years in it over the last 110 it is not really that big news 

The consistent failure of this club goes much much deeper. A couple of comments I’ve made on that recently are around. We always end up being a nice club that fails while shifting in and out of total nut baggery 

However we are in a position to maintain premier league football and like it or not are now an established Championship club and being as about half of my 60 years I’ve watched us in divvy 3/4 

The fact is yes massive mistakes have been made but the idea of failure in a historical context is nonsense. we are in a better position as a club than we have been throughout our history. God pray that the bloke he gets in for Gould is not another knob. 
 

Anyway all this is academic as the club is still actively looking for investment, (this means a sale, no matter what some think) I’m looking forward to how that plays out as we get toward a quarter of the 21st century under our belt!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

I don’t think he should be praised for a number of things and most sensible people would say the same thing

Including 

Poor management selections over all, however the club is more than one man. But yes the bloke at the top Carry's the can. 
 

We could go through a few

Brian Tinnion

SOD an appointment that was universally supported Here 

Lee Johnson 

Dean Holden

And The fact the bloke who won us two trophies was not supported with proper finance when the utter nonsense of a man got multi millions
 

Also crappy decisions regarding those around the club. Including Mr Ashton, Mr Lansdown jr, Mr Gould etc etc (Gould no matter what some believe was not very good the first time and the idea he wasn’t waiting for the job at The ECB or something else is laughable) 

His continued support of Johnson, a bloke with no experience spending money was idiocy.
 

Johnson stupidly spent the clubs money while Mr Lansdown was underwriting the debt with stock purchases, this was always going to lead to a problem. However Covid buggered up the model faster than it otherwise would with a half wit running the team bringing us to the FFP issue we have discussed a thousand times 

So…. I have said personally all of this many times on this forum (my dislike of The Johnson era in my own head is pretty legendary) and Lansdown himself now knows the Johnson thing was nuts  

The biggest issue right now is we have a manager that is trying to make something of the Lansdown built training facilities and build/cobble together a team from that. So yes Lansdown is definitely culpable in that as he is responsible for our FFP ISSUES

….So we continue to not make it to the top flight, but being we are a club that have spent 4 years in it over the last 110 it is not really that big news 

The consistent failure of this club goes much much deeper. A couple of comments I’ve made on that recently are around. We always end up being a nice club that fails while shifting in and out of total nut baggery 

However we are in a position to maintain premier league football and like it or not are now an established Championship club and being as about half of my 60 years I’ve watched us in divvy 3/4 

The fact is yes massive mistakes have been made but the idea of failure in a historical context is nonsense. we are in a better position as a club than we have been throughout our history. God pray that the bloke he gets in for Gould is not another knob. 
 

Anyway all this is academic as the club is still actively looking for investment, (this means a sale, no matter what some think) I’m looking forward to how that plays out as we get toward a quarter of the 21st century under our belt!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Silvio Dantedoes a far better job of explaining / mirroring my thoughts.

I don’t think it’s been bad but I don’t get the “he’s put £214m he’s beyond criticism” stuff. That’s what I’m trying to convey. 

[Silvio Dante]

Just now, Davefevs said:

@Silvio Dantedoes a far better job of explaining / mirroring my thoughts.

I don’t think it’s been bad but I don’t get the “he’s put £214m he’s beyond criticism” stuff. That’s what I’m trying to convey. 

I’ve always been more articulate than you Dave

[Davefevs]

Just now, Silvio Dante said:

I’ve always been more articulate than you Dave

Bollocks have you

[lenred]

1 hour ago, Porto Red said:

*I could be wrong, I could be right..."

Tune!

[Mr Chappers]

Excellent ground, excellent training facilities, good youth set up, committed chairman… So we moan. Some fans demanded we spend money to get promoted, so we did. Guess what, if it doesn’t work (As many of us warned), you struggle. Things could be a lot worse. 

[Port Said Red]

3 hours ago, BigAl&Toby said:

Well, well, well.

Here we are again. Wasn’t long ago that Korey smacked it home, we were deliriously delighted and Bobby scored from the spot.

Now we’re ****** over by the boys in Lincoln green. The call goes out. Nige is a clown. He has to go.

But all’s well in Planet Lansdown. The Messiah has deep pockets. We shall be grateful. We have a lovely stadium - I’ll grant ‘ee Steve - The Killers were superb.

He’s got his medal - services to sport? His home city? Making us proud?

He’s had to contend with Covid. And all that brought with it. Was there an opportunity to offer up AG for immunisation jabs? Did he do so out of the goodness of his heart? Anyone know?

He’s had to endure the issues around FFP. And for a professional investor he’s done that very well…. He let Ashton in and **** us over. He let Junior take up the reins and **** it up.

And now we have good old Tinman in a new role…. Who remembers the sorry state of Swansea affairs when “the legend” sat in the dug out as the lights were turned off?

Job for the boys? Don’t challenge me. Go now Nige. Go now. Self preservation. Like Mr Coppell…..

But it’s ok. We are grateful. Steve is doing a great job. For Steve and his merry, proud gang…..

Am I grateful? Am I bollocks. The only one who’s done well out of this debacle whilst Capn Steve has had his hands on the udders of the cash cow in BS3 is the Messiah himself.

Freeholds in Ashton Vale anyone?

What an ungrateful ***.

[Dredd]

Steve is essentially at least culpable for allowing the finances to get to the point where we are so tight to FFP limits that we can’t go out and sign anyone without selling. I say that because someone gave LJ and MA permission to go sign and load of expensive players on high wages who haven’t provided the expected return on the investment. A gamble that has backfired. 
 

On the flip side Steve deserves credit for us going from a team stuck in League One with crowds of 12k in a stadium on its last legs, to being an established Championship side (for now!) with an average crowd of 18k in a modern stadium and a top end training facility. 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

Some of you have very short memories.  Does anyone remember the disasters that were Robert Hobbs, that mob of jokers who took over in the early 80s, Scott Davison and John Laycock?  And if you’re talking awful managerial appointments, then there’s always Bobby Houghton, Jimmy Lumsden, Denis Smith, the second coming of Joe Jordan, Benny Lennartsson and Tony Pulis.

Be careful what you wish for.

[CyderInACan]

13 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Tony Pulis.

Please don’t mention this name ever again. 

[Marina's Rolls Royce]

So- the clamour from so very many posters on here for many many years has been for SL to get his chequebook out- SL a man rich enough but lacking ambition.

How many times have I read about how we must buy a striker and that SL has just got to put his hand in his pocket.

The threat of revolution if SL didn't step up to purchase Lee Tomlin and fans speaking of the consequences if he didnt. Similar about Nigel Pearson.

Trouble is with football fans is that we only sing when we're winning.

Steve Lansdown- Mr Bristol City, legend, benefactor, refreshingly British, self made but not beyond mistakes. 

He's been a good and honest owner and I'm grateful for that but I guess I don't feel so self entitled as others who have forgotten 1982, forgotten the years in Div 4 and Div 3. I'm not enjoying being a BCFC fan at the moment but all I have to do is remember games like Aldershot etc and the bogs in the Dolman and seeing the gas ahead of us. to bring me back to present day and a much better club.

[REDOXO]

19 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

So- the clamour from so very many posters on here for many many years has been for SL to get his chequebook out- SL a man rich enough but lacking ambition.

How many times have I read about how we must buy a striker and that SL has just got to put his hand in his pocket.

The threat of revolution if SL didn't step up to purchase Lee Tomlin and fans speaking of the consequences if he didnt. Similar about Nigel Pearson.

Trouble is with football fans is that we only sing when we're winning.

Steve Lansdown- Mr Bristol City, legend, benefactor, refreshingly British, self made but not beyond mistakes. 

He's been a good and honest owner and I'm grateful for that but I guess I don't feel so self entitled as others who have forgotten 1982, forgotten the years in Div 4 and Div 3. I'm not enjoying being a BCFC fan at the moment but all I have to do is remember games like Aldershot etc and the bogs in the Dolman and seeing the gas ahead of us. to bring me back to present day and a much better club.

Brilliant!…Seriously. 
 

If only we still had Matt Smith. 

But exactly how I see it!

[Davefevs]

42 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

So- the clamour from so very many posters on here for many many years has been for SL to get his chequebook out- SL a man rich enough but lacking ambition.

How many times have I read about how we must buy a striker and that SL has just got to put his hand in his pocket.

The threat of revolution if SL didn't step up to purchase Lee Tomlin and fans speaking of the consequences if he didnt. Similar about Nigel Pearson.

Trouble is with football fans is that we only sing when we're winning.

Steve Lansdown- Mr Bristol City, legend, benefactor, refreshingly British, self made but not beyond mistakes. 

He's been a good and honest owner and I'm grateful for that but I guess I don't feel so self entitled as others who have forgotten 1982, forgotten the years in Div 4 and Div 3. I'm not enjoying being a BCFC fan at the moment but all I have to do is remember games like Aldershot etc and the bogs in the Dolman and seeing the gas ahead of us. to bring me back to present day and a much better club.

Good post

[red panda]

1 hour ago, REDOXO said:

I don’t think he should be praised for a number of things and most sensible people would say the same thing

Including 

Poor management selections over all, however the club is more than one man. But yes the bloke at the top Carry's the can. 
 

We could go through a few

Brian Tinnion

SOD an appointment that was universally supported Here 

Lee Johnson 

Dean Holden

And The fact the bloke who won us two trophies was not supported with proper finance when the utter nonsense of a man got multi millions
 

Also crappy decisions regarding those around the club. Including Mr Ashton, Mr Lansdown jr, Mr Gould etc etc (Gould no matter what some believe was not very good the first time and the idea he wasn’t waiting for the job at The ECB or something else is laughable) 

His continued support of Johnson, a bloke with no experience spending money was idiocy.
 

Johnson stupidly spent the clubs money while Mr Lansdown was underwriting the debt with stock purchases, this was always going to lead to a problem. However Covid buggered up the model faster than it otherwise would with a half wit running the team bringing us to the FFP issue we have discussed a thousand times 

So…. I have said personally all of this many times on this forum (my dislike of The Johnson era in my own head is pretty legendary) and Lansdown himself now knows the Johnson thing was nuts  

The biggest issue right now is we have a manager that is trying to make something of the Lansdown built training facilities and build/cobble together a team from that. So yes Lansdown is definitely culpable in that as he is responsible for our FFP ISSUES

….So we continue to not make it to the top flight, but being we are a club that have spent 4 years in it over the last 110 it is not really that big news 

The consistent failure of this club goes much much deeper. A couple of comments I’ve made on that recently are around. We always end up being a nice club that fails while shifting in and out of total nut baggery 

However we are in a position to maintain premier league football and like it or not are now an established Championship club and being as about half of my 60 years I’ve watched us in divvy 3/4 

The fact is yes massive mistakes have been made but the idea of failure in a historical context is nonsense. we are in a better position as a club than we have been throughout our history. God pray that the bloke he gets in for Gould is not another knob. 
 

Anyway all this is academic as the club is still actively looking for investment, (this means a sale, no matter what some think) I’m looking forward to how that plays out as we get toward a quarter of the 21st century under our belt!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So SL didn't reach for the ring binder marked "Available managers guaranteed to be successful". Silly man!

So many posters are dismissive of LJ, but in December 2017 I felt more optimistic about this club than I've done in the last 40 years (that includes Wembley 2008).  It didn't work out, but I still believe it was worth a try.  And LJ was definitely part of our progression from Championship-League One yo-yo to an established Championship club. 

[HitchinRed]

I can’t help thinking where we would be without SL’s millions:

a) in the Premier League with a far richer and more experienced owner

b) a lower / mid Championship club struggling to meet ends meet

c) languishing in League 1 with a shit stadium but regular derbies with the Gas

Having lived through the pre Lansdown decades, I’m not at all confident it would be a)!

[HitchinRed]

9 minutes ago, red panda said:

many posters are dismissive of LJ, but in December 2017 I felt more optimistic about this club than I've done in the last 40 years (that includes Wembley 2008).  It didn't work out, but I still believe it was worth a try.  And LJ was definitely part of our progression from Championship-League One yo-yo to an established Championship club. 

Getting off topic now, but I’ve always thought LJ over-delivered with the players he had. I can’t think of any other manager that has done this in my time (including Nige)

Edited November 10, 2022 by HitchinRed

[Davefevs]

11 minutes ago, HitchinRed said:

Getting off topic now, but I’ve always thought LJ over-delivered with the players he had. I can’t think of any other manager that has done this in my time (including Nige)

Not being facetious, which of the various groups of players do you think he overachieved with?  If you wanna equate “groups” with seasons, e.g. the 17/18 group versus the 20/21 group as an example, that’s fine.  I’m just interested.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, REDOXO said:

I don’t think he should be praised for a number of things and most sensible people would say the same thing

Including 

Poor management selections over all, however the club is more than one man. But yes the bloke at the top Carry's the can. 
 

We could go through a few

Brian Tinnion

SOD an appointment that was universally supported Here 

Lee Johnson 

Dean Holden

And The fact the bloke who won us two trophies was not supported with proper finance when the utter nonsense of a man got multi millions
 

Also crappy decisions regarding those around the club. Including Mr Ashton, Mr Lansdown jr, Mr Gould etc etc (Gould no matter what some believe was not very good the first time and the idea he wasn’t waiting for the job at The ECB or something else is laughable) 

His continued support of Johnson, a bloke with no experience spending money was idiocy.
 

Johnson stupidly spent the clubs money while Mr Lansdown was underwriting the debt with stock purchases, this was always going to lead to a problem. However Covid buggered up the model faster than it otherwise would with a half wit running the team bringing us to the FFP issue we have discussed a thousand times 

So…. I have said personally all of this many times on this forum (my dislike of The Johnson era in my own head is pretty legendary) and Lansdown himself now knows the Johnson thing was nuts  

The biggest issue right now is we have a manager that is trying to make something of the Lansdown built training facilities and build/cobble together a team from that. So yes Lansdown is definitely culpable in that as he is responsible for our FFP ISSUES

….So we continue to not make it to the top flight, but being we are a club that have spent 4 years in it over the last 110 it is not really that big news 

The consistent failure of this club goes much much deeper. A couple of comments I’ve made on that recently are around. We always end up being a nice club that fails while shifting in and out of total nut baggery 

However we are in a position to maintain premier league football and like it or not are now an established Championship club and being as about half of my 60 years I’ve watched us in divvy 3/4 

The fact is yes massive mistakes have been made but the idea of failure in a historical context is nonsense. we are in a better position as a club than we have been throughout our history. God pray that the bloke he gets in for Gould is not another knob. 
 

Anyway all this is academic as the club is still actively looking for investment, (this means a sale, no matter what some think) I’m looking forward to how that plays out as we get toward a quarter of the 21st century under our belt!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agree with most of what you say including the highlighted bit; SC was given no-where near enough time/backing after delivering what was the best times in recent history only eclipsed by the AD promo season to the top div.

It also seems we have been here for about the same time by the way.

SL has left his mark on this club forever in bricks and mortar and poor managerial selections.

The current selection is yes working under a tight budget but so would anyone else other than NP, who apart from at Leics has not a great record. After 2yrs nearly it cannot be doubted that we are on the slide, we are far from a decent team but have some decent players.

While we could beat Watford, as we surely must raise our game for it, it is more likely that we wont. That could leave us in the bottom 3 for the break, in which many seem to think we will come back stronger when past breaks have shown the opposite.

We can post a million threads/posts on here, will make no difference SL will do it his way, cause he can, as he always has done. This position we are in atm has however been ALL down to his choices therefore it is down to him, not managers or the players they have brought here.

My thoughts remain the same I 100% want us to win Sat but if we end up with no points I would be looking for another manager before we really get stuck in the brown stuff, even in the NW mold, till end of the season, to get us all back together.

[HitchinRed]

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Not being facetious, which of the various groups of players do you think he overachieved with?  If you wanna equate “groups” with seasons, e.g. the 17/18 group versus the 20/21 group as an example, that’s fine.  I’m just interested.

The 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons stand out. During spells in those seasons we played exceptionally well. I know we had some classy players, but in my opinion we performed better as a team than the sum of the individual parts would indicate we should.

[chinapig]

8 hours ago, HitchinRed said:

Getting off topic now, but I’ve always thought LJ over-delivered with the players he had. I can’t think of any other manager that has done this in my time (including Nige)

How about his dad? Remarkable to get to a play off final with a squad that was nowhere near as good, as expensive or as big as the squads LJ had.

[Major Isewater]

11 hours ago, lenred said:

Tune!

Keep taking the Pills and may the road rise with you. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Major Isewater

[Davefevs]

55 minutes ago, HitchinRed said:

The 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons stand out. During spells in those seasons we played exceptionally well. I know we had some classy players, but in my opinion we performed better as a team than the sum of the individual parts would indicate we should.

I think if we look at the 17/18 team, several have gone on and played at a higher level / better clubs, or were from pedigree.

Flint - went to Boro who were bigger / better than us at the time

Baker - had come from PL pedigree Villa

Magnússon - went to CSKA Moscow (CL team)

Brownhill  - went to PL Burnley

Bryan - went to PL Fulham

Reid - went to PL Cardiff

I didn’t include Fielding / Steele, Wright, Pack, Smith and Paterson from the cup nor others like O’Dowda, Diedhiou, etc. But Paterson was a top player at that time too, so that’s 7 bloody good players.  Diedhiou had come from Lg1 in France.

When I look at this, we obviously over-achieved in the League Cup, and for a period we were flying in the Champ, but we finished 11th.  So, I wouldn’t say he over-achieved with that set of players.  That was the squad to get to the play-offs and sneak up with.  We blew it.

The 18/19 side on a similar basis:

Webster - went to PL Brighton

Kalas - had come from PL Chelsea

Kelly - went to PL Bournemouth

Brownhill - went PL Burnley

Weimann - had come from PL pedigree

Add in Paterson, Baker and Diedhiou (as per 17/18).

We went closer, finishing 8th.

Id say that that was a better achievement than 17/18 in some respects…but it was starting to rack up in terms of £££s spent….and when we did lose Webster, Kelly and Brownhill eventually we used the money poorly, and are counting the cost now.  Although in 19/20 I though Johnson managed to get good results over performance, but that was the worrying sign, that it would catch up with us.

But those two sets of seasons and the players are chalk and cheese to what we have now imho.

It’s a good debate no less.