Lee Johnson

[Robbored]

5 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

.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.  

Ok, care to expand on that?

No doubt that Tomlin could be awkward to manage but other managers coped pretty well with him. I don’t think that he was the real problem behind LJs failure to achieve anything at City, the issues were much deeper than just one difficult player.

[Port Said Red]

22 minutes ago, Robbored said:

No doubt that Tomlin could be awkward to manage but other managers coped pretty well with him. I don’t think that he was the real problem behind LJs failure to achieve anything at City, the issues were much deeper than just one difficult player.

I am sorry, I agreed with @italian dave earlier and thought, no I'll leave the bloke to his inane statements that he thinks are facts, but this is too much. 

Please name for us the Managers who "coped pretty well with" Tomlin. This should be fascinating coming from a bloke who constantly tells us he doesn't have any interest in players outside of the. City team...............

[RedLionLad]

1 hour ago, Robbored said:

No doubt that Tomlin could be awkward to manage but other managers coped pretty well with him. I don’t think that he was the real problem behind LJs failure to achieve anything at City, the issues were much deeper than just one difficult player.

It’s always what you think. Where is your factual proof?

Truth is, you don’t have any to back up your thoughts.

 

[italian dave]

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

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.

 

Never a truer word, Dave...!

And in managerial terms he was here for a relatively long time, and there was certainly lots going on. It was an eventful time.

He once said something about the tales he could tell if he wrote a book - and I would love to read it if he ever did! Maybe one for the OSIB "Cider With...." team in the future!

[Lanterne Rouge]

4 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

I am sorry, I agreed with @italian dave earlier and thought, no I'll leave the bloke to his inane statements that he thinks are facts, but this is too much. 

Please name for us the Managers who "coped pretty well with" Tomlin. This should be fascinating coming from a bloke who constantly tells us he doesn't have any interest in players outside of the. City team...............

Even Colin couldn`t get a tune out of him which tells you a lot IMO.

[Redtucks]

12 hours ago, Robbored said:

Tomlin wasn’t the problem PF.

I don't believe that until I see it on the OS!

 

[downendcity]

18 hours ago, Tim S said:

Pretty much spot on. Lee is a very good coach, forward thinking and not afraid to think outside the box.

Lee is a very modern coach. But I think he needs a strong number 2 who is a bit old school to help balance things. When he finds the right balance in his coaching team and at the right club - I truly believe it will click into place and he will be successful.

I agree that LJ was a forward thinking and pretty good coach, but always thought that one of the problems was that LJ thought he had to prove just how clever and forward a coach he was.

This resulted in  overthinking and overcomplicating things,  leading to him seeming to focus increasingly more on countering the opposition strengths rather than playing to our own.

 

[cidered abroad]

10 hours ago, downendcity said:

I agree that LJ was a forward thinking and pretty good coach, but always thought that one of the problems was that LJ thought he had to prove just how clever and forward a coach he was.

This resulted in  overthinking and overcomplicating things,  leading to him seeming to focus increasingly more on countering the opposition strengths rather than playing to our own.

 

In other words, a crap manager!

Football is a simple game not a bloody chess tournament.

[phantom]

Interesting discussion on SSN about Hibs and LR just now, mentioned him signing too many players that are not good enough for the squad and don't get included

Was it "really" all down to Mark Ashton the mess we ended up in?

[2015]

3 minutes ago, phantom said:

Interesting discussion on SSN about Hibs and LR just now, mentioned him signing too many players that are not good enough for the squad and don't get included

Was it "really" all down to Mark Ashton the mess we ended up in?

Of course it wasn't. However, if you look at Ipswich as well they have signed a ridiculous amount of players since Ashton came in.

In other words Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton were a match made in hell for our club.

[ashton_fan]

22 hours 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.

I'm sure the wage levels of the players signed was nothing to do with LJ, Ashton would have negotiated wage levels. Also the players we signed would have been identified by the recruitment team. Although there were more losers than winners some of the winners were extremely big ones. LJ had his faults but can't be blamed for everything, the main reason we're in a financial mess is because of COVID before that we were well within the FFP levels.

[Robbored]

1 hour ago, 2015 said:

Of course it wasn't. However, if you look at Ipswich as well they have signed a ridiculous amount of players since Ashton came in.

In other words Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton were a match made in hell for our club.

Makes me wonder if Ashton signed loads of players at Oxford. 

[2015]

5 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Makes me wonder if Ashton signed loads of players at Oxford. 

Looks like during his spell of 3 transfer windows from July 2014 until January 2016 he signed 18 players and 14 of them were free transfers.

I'll give him some credit, it does look like he did well at Oxford, they won promotion to League 1 in 2015/16. Roofe, Sercombe, Lundstram all pretty good signings at League 2 level whilst already having O'Dowda and George Baldock on their books.

[Fordy62]

1 hour ago, 2015 said:

Of course it wasn't. However, if you look at Ipswich as well they have signed a ridiculous amount of players since Ashton came in.

In other words Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton were a match made in hell for our club.

And herein lies the problem. We didn’t have an money before LJ&MA and we haven’t had any after. No one has ever had carte blanche like they did.

Lansdown’s biggest mistake. Backing a couple of blokes who hadn’t earned it. 

[Robbored]

33 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Looks like during his spell of 3 transfer windows from July 2014 until January 2016 he signed 18 players and 14 of them were free transfers.

I'll give him some credit, it does look like he did well at Oxford, they won promotion to League 1 in 2015/16. Roofe, Sercombe, Lundstram all pretty good signings at League 2 level whilst already having O'Dowda and George Baldock on their books.

Free or not that’s still a lot of signings. He did the same at City and again at Ipswich. I wonder how many other CEO’s  made as many signings at different clubs?

Edited January 25, 2023 by Robbored

[2015]

14 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

And herein lies the problem. We didn’t have an money before LJ&MA and we haven’t had any after. No one has ever had carte blanche like they did.

Lansdown’s biggest mistake. Backing a couple of blokes who hadn’t earned it. 

They made a lot of money in 2016 off of Jonathan Kodjia which enabled the club to make some transfers.

I'm glad we had John Pemberton as assistant during that period for about a year after Johnson took over, he was the experience head the club needed during that time. 

[2015]

3 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Free or not that’s still a lot of signings. He did the same at City and again at Ipswich. I wonder how many other CEO’s  are as many signings at different clubs?

From Oxford's POV though it got them promotion and made a pretty healthy profit from the signings he made during his time there on Roofe and Lundstram. I don't like Mark Ashton, but from an Oxford perspective he did a decent job and now they are a steady League 1 club.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, ashton_fan said:

the main reason we're in a financial mess is because of COVID before that we were well within the FFP levels

I disagree, Covid just brought it on a bit quicker.  We’d sold the golden geese!!!

[Fuber]

2 hours ago, ashton_fan said:

I'm sure the wage levels of the players signed was nothing to do with LJ, Ashton would have negotiated wage levels. Also the players we signed would have been identified by the recruitment team. Although there were more losers than winners some of the winners were extremely big ones. LJ had his faults but can't be blamed for everything, the main reason we're in a financial mess is because of COVID before that we were well within the FFP levels.

No we were not. As fees received were never guaranteed.

On a simple turnover versus playing wages comparison, we were over.

 

[ashton_fan]

47 minutes ago, Fuber said:

No we were not. As fees received were never guaranteed.

On a simple turnover versus playing wages comparison, we were over.

 

We weren't over the FFP limit at the time or we'd at least have been threatened with a penalty, your 'simple' figure is meaningless - I don't think our turnover has ever covered wages while we've been in the Championship we've always relied on SL to cover our losses.

[petehinton]

 

[Fuber]

3 hours ago, ashton_fan said:

We weren't over the FFP limit at the time or we'd at least have been threatened with a penalty, your 'simple' figure is meaningless - I don't think our turnover has ever covered wages while we've been in the Championship we've always relied on SL to cover our losses.

We were if it wasn't for the inflated Webster fees - literally the only reason, we're currently only under it now thanks to NP and Gould.

If LJ/MA had kept wages around the 16/17 margin of £20-21m mark, we would have had a wages to turnover ratio of circa 80% and would have been partially sustainable.

Only reason why it never happened under early LJ and the Cotts era was due to the stadium revamp capping turnover up to £12-14m, which we were allowed allowances for.

If you apply a wage cap of £23m, i e. Up to a 10% increase, between 17-19 would have been sustainable.

Not bloating that to £33mpa - which even the likes of Tomlin and Szmodics etc contribute towards as irrespective of breaking even on the transfer fees we still had to pay their wages.

The sheer turnover of playing staff was stupidity. Irrespective of it being LJ or MAs responsibility. LJ doesn't help himself when he himself coined the clubs in bag tagline.

It was an idiotic strategy that if not for SL would have had us in utter financial peril. Ergo it was never sustainable.

[ashton_fan]

2 minutes ago, Fuber said:

We were if it wasn't for the inflated Webster fees - literally the only reason, we're currently only under it now thanks to NP and Gould.

If LJ/MA had kept wages around the 16/17 margin of £20-21m mark, we would have had a wages to turnover ratio of circa 80% and would have been partially sustainable.

Only reason why it never happened under early LJ and the Cotts era was due to the stadium revamp capping turnover up to £12-14m, which we were allowed allowances for.

If you apply a wage cap of £23m, i e. Up to a 10% increase, between 17-19 would have been sustainable.

Not bloating that to £33mpa - which even the likes of Tomlin and Szmodics etc contribute towards as irrespective of breaking even on the transfer fees we still had to pay their wages.

The sheer turnover of playing staff was stupidity. Irrespective of it being LJ or MAs responsibility. LJ doesn't help himself when he himself coined the clubs in bag tagline.

It was an idiotic strategy that if not for SL would have had us in utter financial peril. Ergo it was never sustainable.

I'm sure SL approved of the transfer policy and you can't ignore the money from the Webster transfer just because it kills your argument!

[REDOXO]

17 minutes ago, Fuber said:

We were if it wasn't for the inflated Webster fees - literally the only reason, we're currently only under it now thanks to NP and Gould.

If LJ/MA had kept wages around the 16/17 margin of £20-21m mark, we would have had a wages to turnover ratio of circa 80% and would have been partially sustainable.

Only reason why it never happened under early LJ and the Cotts era was due to the stadium revamp capping turnover up to £12-14m, which we were allowed allowances for.

If you apply a wage cap of £23m, i e. Up to a 10% increase, between 17-19 would have been sustainable.

Not bloating that to £33mpa - which even the likes of Tomlin and Szmodics etc contribute towards as irrespective of breaking even on the transfer fees we still had to pay their wages.

The sheer turnover of playing staff was stupidity. Irrespective of it being LJ or MAs responsibility. LJ doesn't help himself when he himself coined the clubs in bag tagline.

It was an idiotic strategy that if not for SL would have had us in utter financial peril. Ergo it was never sustainable.

To be fair it was coined by GJ! LJ hijacked it!

12 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

I'm sure SL approved of the transfer policy and you can't ignore the money from the Webster transfer just because it kills your argument!

Of course spending at these levels would have had to been approved by SL or someone working on his behalf (Jon). 
 

However what gets me is where was a CFO amongst all this. It seems SL and his minions would back Ashton and Johnson at any cost. Quite literally! 
 

 

[Fuber]

19 hours ago, ashton_fan said:

I'm sure SL approved of the transfer policy and you can't ignore the money from the Webster transfer just because it kills your argument!

It doesn't kill my argument - it supports it and is quite literally my main point.

SL gets equal blame along with Jon, MA, and LJ, I've never stated I don't include SL as accountable as I thought that was a given - I'm very critical of his role in all this as well as his general running of the club.
The buck stops with LJ, for me, simply due to the fact the latter can simply have said he no longer needed players, if he was being overridden in his role of manager then he should have resigned - it's quite literally that straight forward if he has/had any integrity on the assumption that was the situation. So for my view of LJ, and this is purely my opinion not fact - he loses face for myself in either situation.

My point is that we were reliant on just one or two transfers - but we were relying on keeping that up. Before Semenyo's emergence the last twelve months and Pearson blooding the like of Vyner, Scott, Pring, and others, we were in the proverbial shitter.

With regards to a chairman whose message was - 'sustainability' - from the outside in, I view it as utter incompetence and stupidity when contrasting that with the club accounts.

For example, we would of needed net transfers profit of £10m per annum to keep anywhere near FFP guidelines, never mind being self-sustaining under the strategy.  Demand from outside can not be managed or assumed - ergo its a high exposure risk that should not have been undertaken in that setting.

You must reinvest wisely and not blow huge fees out for that system to work, including wages, to emulate the likes of Brentford which is what we in effect needed to do, between academy players, free agents', loans, and a good scouting network getting value for money where possible.

The fact that the previous scouting setup was loyal to MA and not the club, speaks greater volumes than anything else. There was nothing sustainable about that period, so no quarter should be given for such.

SL is bankrolling his own ****-ups currently, appointing both MA and LJ, and we're in the climax of the storm in terms of weathering the impact of it.

18 hours ago, REDOXO said:

To be fair it was coined by GJ! LJ hijacked it!

Of course spending at these levels would have had to been approved by SL or someone working on his behalf (Jon). 
 

However what gets me is where was a CFO amongst all this. It seems SL and his minions would back Ashton and Johnson at any cost. Quite literally! 
 

 

Doubt there was one, Nepotism at its finest with zero checks in place to balance actions from the top.

[bcfcredandwhite]

I don’t subscribe to the polarisation opinion that a lot of people do on here. It seems that you either love the guy or absolutely hate him - with no in between. 
I’m probably in a tiny minority here, but I thought LJ was ok. Not brilliant and not godawful. Just ok - both as a player and a manager. 
Some people (probably correctly) quote nepotism, ‘charmed life’, ‘uncle Steve’ etc but you still need to have SOME ability to hold down a job in what is probably the most cut-throat of industries. 
As a player he was ok. Plenty of people gave him stick for being in the squad under his dad, but he wasn’t the worst player we’ve had at BS3 by a long chalk. He wasn’t brilliant but he was ok and part of the squad that got us closer to the promised land than any squad has since the days of Alan Dicks. 
As a manager too, a lot has been made about the money spent during his tenure and you can’t argue with figures, but you still need to select a side, choose tactics and adjust when losing - Lee did all that pretty well imho for most of the time he was at the Gate. 
He was ok in my book - we’ve had a lot worse  

My opinion only of course and like I said I recognise I’m in the minority. 

[JBFC II]

6-0 win for Johnson today v Aberdeen, perhaps a winning streak is on its way...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64356678

[RedLionLad]

15 minutes ago, JBFC II said:

6-0 win for Johnson today v Aberdeen, perhaps a winning streak is on its way...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64356678

 Best of luck to him

[AshtonRobin21]

Every now and again when I see the LJ thread appear, I ask myself the one real important question…..

What on earth happened to that 100000 inch TV screen he was so desperate for?

He copied the idea from a German club (Hoffenheim?) and begged SL for it.

There’s no way Nige is using that thing in training. 
 

I bet it cost a fortune! We really did throw money at anything at that time.

[CodeRed]

9 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Every now and again when I see the LJ thread appear, I ask myself the one real important question…..

What on earth happened to that 100000 inch TV screen he was so desperate for?

He copied the idea from a German club (Hoffenheim?) and begged SL for it.

There’s no way Nige is using that thing in training. 
 

I bet it cost a fortune! We really did throw money at anything at that time.

I wonder if Nige is using the drone....and the grass measuring device !