Lee Johnson

[Port Said Red]

44 minutes ago, Robbored said:

I certainly agree with that but his limited man management skills are a hindrance - Players don’t seem to respect him and that’s reflected in their performances on the pitch.

Wow! I am almost lost for words. 

Of all the things you could say about Lee Johnson s time as Manager here, the last I think anyone (well anyone but you) would say was, "he's lost the dressing room" or "the players are not playing for him". 

Just a bizarre and unprovable statement, posted as fact. Precisely the sort of thing you are constantly taking others to task for.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Port Said Red

[Kid in the Riot]

9 hours ago, Davefevs said:

pedant alert, we finished 11th in 17/18….assume that’s the season you’re referring to?

That was a disappointing end to a mainly fantastic season.

 

9 hours ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

I'm not aware we were 2nd at Xmas last season and then failed to even make the playoffs. Which is the whole point when discussing that season. 

 

Thanks for prompting me to look this up and factcheck - we did indeed finish 11th.

So I'm definitely not buying the argument others seem to be making that finishing 11th with a budget ranked 14th can be classed as over achieving. Unless I've got my wires crossed! 

A fantastic first half to the season, for sure.

But 4 wins and 13 defeats from the last 25 games was appalling. 

2018 19 season chaps....

[Phileas Fogg]

2 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Wow! I am almost lost for words. 

Of all the things you could say about Lee Johnson s time as Manager here, the last I think anyone (well anyone but you) would say was, "he's lost the dressing room" or "the players are not playing for him". 

Just a bizarre and unprovable statement, posted as fact. Precisely the sort of thing you are constantly taking others to task for.

It genuinely made me chuckle - RR constantly bangs on with his bizarre views about the "OS".. and obsessively tries to belittle the notion that some posters might be "in the know" (essentially because he's jealous) yet he posts this  I respect the brass neck of it in some ways.

Another thing I genuinely do like about RR is his dogmatic determination to use the dated olde OTIB emojis (or, emoticons as they were called back then)...........

[johnheadbcfc]

Said it on an earlier page  I do not get the dislike of Lee Johnson. As a former player and manager who in my memory always seemed to give it his all but it just didnt work out , don't think I've ever heard him speak negatively about the club either.

Yet there are city fans that clap Holloway and are smitten by his cringe one liners.  Short memories of burning a city flag I suppose.

[Phileas Fogg]

10 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Said it on an earlier page  I do not get the dislike of Lee Johnson. As a former player and manager who in my memory always seemed to give it his all but it just didnt work out , don't think I've ever heard him speak negatively about the club either.

Yet there are city fans that clap Holloway and are smitten by his cringe one liners.  Short memories of burning a city flag I suppose.

I can understand why he could seem annoying.. but I don’t understand the will for him to fail at other jobs.. especially those in a different country ! 

I agree there’s genuine debate to be had over what Cotterill could have achieved with the financial backing and patience Johnson was afforded, but neither of those things are Johnson’s fault per se.

The job was probably a bit too early for him, and he almost definitely benefitted from a good relationship with SL.. but I do believe he genuinely cared for the club and tried his best. That’s all you can ask for really. Managers such as SO’D, Coppell and McInnes (who clearly didn’t ‘buy in’ to the club nearly as much as LJ did) don’t get anywhere near as much retrospective stick. 

[Robbored]

35 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

For someone who dismisses "wild speculation" this is quite a bold statement. 

I do believe though, he created problems for himself through recruitment of characters (Tomlin) who were too challenging to manage. Having someone that disruptive and problematic in the dressing room is always going to cause issues that don't need to exist.

I completely understand why he wanted to recruit Tomlin, but it didn't half make things more challenging for him. 

Tomlin wasn’t the problem PF.

[johnheadbcfc]

6 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Tomlin wasn’t the problem PF.

Seems he was at every club he's ever been at 

[Robbored]

43 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Wow! I am almost lost for words. 

Of all the things you could say about Lee Johnson s time as Manager here, the last I think anyone (well anyone but you) would say was, "he's lost the dressing room" or "the players are not playing for him". 

Just a bizarre and unprovable statement, posted as fact. Precisely the sort of thing you are constantly taking others to task for.

Firstly it was pretty obvious that the players weren’t giving everything on the pitch. Add to that, the players I chatted with had a meh attitude towards LJ without criticising him directly.

2+2=4.

[italian dave]

It’s quite early for two people to already be fishing on this thread. Just ignore RR like we have done the visitor from the other side and they’ll both go away. 

[IAmNick]

Our form in the cup season didn't surprisingly go downhill, it regressed to the mean. The surprising bit was the increase, not the decrease.

If someone is doing a job for 4 years and has one particularly good period of 3 months, then that period is the outlier.

I put it down to luck more than judgement myself, evidenced by the style and standard of football over the majority of his time here and the things he did around that time once it started regressing - he just happened to roll a double 6 for a few months basically.

If it was intent or skill he'd have been able to replicate it. He didn't and he couldn't.

[IAmNick]

42 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

but I do believe he genuinely cared for the club and tried his best. That’s all you can ask for really.

Not sure I agree with that. I can definitely ask for a lot more than just caring for the club and trying your best. I care for the club and would try my best if made manager but I think we're after a bit more than that!

I'd rather someone who didn't "genuinely" care for the club but got results.

 

[Bristol Oil Services]

1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

For someone who dismisses "wild speculation" this is quite a bold statement. 

I do believe though, he created problems for himself through recruitment of characters (Tomlin) who were too challenging to manage. Having someone that disruptive and problematic in the dressing room is always going to cause issues that don't need to exist.

I completely understand why he wanted to recruit Tomlin, but it didn't half make things more challenging for him. 

Running towards adversity, remember? That was (one of) the (many) vacuous sentiments plastered about the place (because Eddie Howe did this at Bournemouth so it must work).

So we ran toward the inevitable let-down of signing Lee Tomlin. Because Lee had been to that Michelin starred cafe run by the SAS to observe people working under pressure.  

[italian dave]

18 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Our form in the cup season didn't surprisingly go downhill, it regressed to the mean. The surprising bit was the increase, not the decrease.

If someone is doing a job for 4 years and has one particularly good period of 3 months, then that period is the outlier.

I put it down to luck more than judgement myself, evidenced by the style and standard of football over the majority of his time here and the things he did around that time once it started regressing - he just happened to roll a double 6 for a few months basically.

If it was intent or skill he'd have been able to replicate it. He didn't and he couldn't.

More than a little unfair, I’d suggest, to characterise LJs four years as one where we hade “one particularly good period of 3 months”.

The cup run was in 17/18. We finished 8th in 18/19. We were top six most of the first half of 19/20. 

[Phileas Fogg]

28 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Not sure I agree with that. I can definitely ask for a lot more than just caring for the club and trying your best. I care for the club and would try my best if made manager but I think we're after a bit more than that!

I'd rather someone who didn't "genuinely" care for the club but got results.

 

Good post, true. ‘All you can ask for’ was more a lazy figure of speech really - I think you get my point though.

I do feel he does get a harder time than he deserves on here. He obviously benefited from a great deal of patience and financial backing.  

1 hour ago, Robbored said:

Tomlin wasn’t the problem PF.

Ok, care to expand on that?

[RedLionLad]

1 hour ago, Robbored said:

Firstly it was pretty obvious that the players weren’t giving everything on the pitch. Add to that, the players I chatted with had a meh attitude towards LJ without criticising him directly.

2+2=4.

So, no facts, just your usual bullshit opinion

[RedLionLad]

2 hours ago, Robbored said:

I certainly agree with that but his limited man management skills are a hindrance - Players don’t seem to respect him and that’s reflected in their performances on the pitch.

Absolute rubbish. You are talking about professional footballers here doing a job to the best of their ability. Give some credit to some of the better ( or better organised) teams we were up against.

The thoughts you have are not facts.

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

 

2018 19 season chaps....

That was a weird season:

At Xmas we were actually mid table.

But had commenced the start of an unbeaten run that brought 8 successive wins.

We got to 5th:

Then went 5 w/o a win, but recovered back to 5th with 10 points from 4 games, before 5 winless to end the season.  We finished 8th, our best points tally (70) under LJ.  The game against Derby was a bummer.  The Villa game we got stuffed “2-1”, Villa could’ve scored ten!  But we had one disallowed unfairly too.  Kinda summed up the “era”.  I think LJ got results that were better than overall performance levels.  That’s not a criticism btw.  We played better in 17/18 (in the main).

[Leveller]

19 hours ago, 2015 said:

Imagine replacing our most successful recent manager (Steve Cotterill) for Lee Johnson. Nepotism 

Nepotism?? So was LJ appointed by GJ?

Or was LJ SL's secret love child. I think we should be told!

[Chivs]

2 hours ago, italian dave said:

More than a little unfair, I’d suggest, to characterise LJs four years as one where we hade “one particularly good period of 3 months”.

The cup run was in 17/18. We finished 8th in 18/19. We were top six most of the first half of 19/20. 

What you have to appreciate is that LJ kept throwing double-six, time after time. But he was always lucky with the roll of the dice....

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

 

Ok, care to expand on that?

Let me hazard a guess - no!

[italian dave]

3 minutes ago, Chivs said:

What you have to appreciate is that LJ kept throwing double-six, time after time. But he was always lucky with the roll of the dice....

I just wish we'd had a few more managers over the years who'd been able to throw those double sixes then! And, you know what they say about making your own luck.

Seriously, I'm not quite sure what "luck" you have in mind. As PF has said, he benefitted from patience (to a degree) and financial backing - although I'm not sure he was particularly lucky in having a character like Ashton working alongside him and pulling the purse strings. That, I feel, was his eventual undoing. And he certainly wasn't lucky losing the likes of Brownhill and Webster in the manner he did.

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, italian dave said:

I just wish we'd had a few more managers over the years who'd been able to throw those double sixes then! And, you know what they say about making your own luck.

Seriously, I'm not quite sure what "luck" you have in mind. As PF has said, he benefitted from patience (to a degree) and financial backing - although I'm not sure he was particularly lucky in having a character like Ashton working alongside him and pulling the purse strings. That, I feel, was his eventual undoing. And he certainly wasn't lucky losing the likes of Brownhill and Webster in the manner he did.

I think with LJ, you could put up any positive thing, and I could probably counter it with a negative spin, and the same with anything negative you came up with I could find a positive spin.  He did good things, he did bad things.  He had an egotistical CEO, which I’m sure in lots of cases made his job difficult, but I suspect in others were of benefit to him.

He will live in our heads rent free forever!!!

Many threads on OTIB will digress into a reference to him / his time here.

Its just the way it is…and it will always be.

 

[lenred]

3 hours ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Said it on an earlier page  I do not get the dislike of Lee Johnson. As a former player and manager who in my memory always seemed to give it his all but it just didnt work out , don't think I've ever heard him speak negatively about the club either.

Yet there are city fans that clap Holloway and are smitten by his cringe one liners.  Short memories of burning a city flag I suppose.

Never disliked or slagged him as a player.   Thought he was fine at what he did tbf and got very short shrift (no pun intended) from some of our fans.  Must’ve been hard form him as well given the circumstances with his dad being the manager and the relationship his family has with the owners.    However those relationships with the hierarchy then meant that as a manager he was given far far far too much leeway when things went bad, which turned the situation as toxic as it was come the last year or so of his time here.   He should never have been afforded that extra time and it hurt us as a club.  Lansdowns stubbornness and ‘my club’ interview didn’t help matters and only served to add pressure to LJ also.    I admire the bloke for what he’s done with his property portfolio - he’s obviously got his head very much screwed on - but I don’t think he’s a very good football manager and nothing he has done since he has left the City suggests any different and I’d be amazed once he gets the boot from Hibs that he gets a decent level role for a long long time, if at all.    

[Fuber]

20 hours ago, Pezo said:

Could someone argue that LJ has had our highest finish in the last 15 years so even if it was nepotism it was relatively successful?

Only at the backing of £45m in transfer fees and 110% increase in wages.

By comparison. Cotts only spent £3m the one window he had.

And the former only worked thanks to fees we received for Kodjia, among others.

[Dolman_Stand]

4 minutes ago, Fuber said:

Only at the backing of £45m in transfer fees and 110% increase in wages.

By comparison. Cotts only spent £3m the one window he had.

And the former only worked thanks to fees we received for Kodjia, among others.

We only spent 45m because it had been generated on player sales which LJ would argue was down to players improving under his coaching methods.This circle of argument in both direction will never be squared off

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

5 hours ago, Deluded Sag said:

They didn't respect him at C*ty because he was parachuted into the job. And your fans certainly didn't respect him when he was a player and accused him of only being on the pitch because of nepotism - I'm genuinely surprised he came back to the club after that. 

Johnson would have been better off staying at Strangeways for longer and learning from managing in the prison leagues, like a certain manager in north Bristol. 

 

[Fuber]

4 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

We only spent 45m because it had been generated on player sales which LJ would argue was down to players improving under his coaching methods.This circle of argument in both direction will never be squared off

The spending wasn't the problem - the wage spending exacerbated by the bloated squad was, still is, and remains the issue.

Fact of the matter is we're in the hole now entirely due to LJs clubs in bags approach, for every good deal - Brownhill, Webster; there is countless others that didn't work, Engvall, Djuric, Adelakun, Szmodics, Eisa, Hegeler, Marinovic, Rodri, Kent, Giefer, Palmer among others.

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, Fuber said:

The spending wasn't the problem - the wage spending exacerbated by the bloated squad was, still is, and remains the issue.

Fact of the matter is we're in the hole now entirely due to LJs clubs in bags approach, for every good deal - Brownhill, Webster; there is countless others that didn't work, Engvall, Djuric, Adelakun, Szmodics, Eisa, Hegeler, Marinovic, Rodri, Kent, Giefer, Palmer among others.

Dunno if this tells a story or not?

Basically, the make up of our match day squad.

Just in case you’re wondering why two slightly different shades of red for Academy, “Academy*” is for players signed into academy, e.g. Idehen, rather than cane through Academy from an early(ish) age, e.g. Conway.

Of the Holden / Johnson signings in Saturday’s squad:

Bentley (LJ)- unused sub

Kalas (LJ) - unused sub

Williams (DH) - unused sub

Dasilva (LJ) - unused sub

Wells (LJ) - started but has had contract extended by Nige

It is starting, ever so slowly, to become Nige’s squad

[Bazooka Joe]

Judging by the latest Edinburgh derby results, maybe Johnson's Hearts not in the game anymore.

If things don't improve it'll soon be Sunshine on Leeve.

Sorrow, sorrow,

Sorrow, sorrow.

Shame really.

The Hibee faithful deserve better, and perhaps Lee could do with a break.

[BigTone]

6 hours ago, Robbored said:

Tomlin wasn’t the problem PF.

He was one of them for sure