Lee Johnson

[Davefevs]

16 minutes ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I know, Dave. Was just having a little fun with you there.

Well, don’t!  This is a very serious part of the season!

[The Coach]

4 hours ago, Riaz said:

And what people always forget in that debate, was LJ was often spending money gained from losing players.

off the top of my head, Kodjia, Kelly, Bryan, Reid & Flint, all went for big fees.

Pretty sure he spent less than fees brought in.

But was that money well spent? No

 

3 hours ago, miketh2nd said:

 

Yes he had more to spend than any manager but the teams around us were doing the same and it is known that many signings were bought whether LJ or his team wanted them or not .  

The highs were very high but the lows were darn low. Other than the man utd season he couldn't quite find the right balance but as stated above his best players were always being sold . For me I think Webster was the biggest loss ,  such a shame we only had him for one season . 

I ll enjoy keeping an eye out to see how LJ does in Europe.

Did other teams go through 70 odd players over those few years also? Not that I know but I highly doubt it.

There was only one real high with Lee Johnson and it was the cup run against Man U. Then the position prior to Wolves. Over than that. It was awful

[Riaz]

It was to begin with, when he built a team from the kodjia money.

Once he sold Flint Reid and Bryan, no that money was not well spent.

We went from investing in youth which he did great, to then trying to buy more established players - and that didnt go so well (Palmer dasilva etc)

He did sign Josh Brownhill and Adam Webster though.

My orginal point was that his net spend was actually negative.

[Northern Red]

In that last couple of transfer windows (Summer 19 and January 20) we abandoned any pretence of team building and it was trading for the sake of it, e.g signing Nagy and Massengo so Pack had to go, signing Szmodics, giving him preseason then deciding to buy Palmer so Szmodics was written off and Paterson had to go out on loan.

[Davefevs]

19 minutes ago, Riaz said:

My orginal point was that his net spend was actually negative.

On transfer fees alone, but when you add in loan fees, the huge wage increase, etc….it starts to seriously undermine the “bollocks” that is “net spend”.  That’s not aimed at you btw, just generally “net spend” is a poor metric for deriving success in the transfer market.

[Gol]

55 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

On transfer fees alone, but when you add in loan fees, the huge wage increase, etc….it starts to seriously undermine the “bollocks” that is “net spend”.  That’s not aimed at you btw, just generally “net spend” is a poor metric for deriving success in the transfer market.

yep going by the accounts when Lee Johnson (and Mark Ashton who came in just before)  came in  our Wage Bill (including all non playing staff) was just under £15.5 million p.a.

When he left in 2020 it had raised to £27.3million

 

The season Ashton left it was over £30million!

 

 

[Riaz]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

On transfer fees alone, but when you add in loan fees, the huge wage increase, etc….it starts to seriously undermine the “bollocks” that is “net spend”.  That’s not aimed at you btw, just generally “net spend” is a poor metric for deriving success in the transfer market.

But why would you want to include wages?

If you did that, all managers would struggle to be in the positive. 

Whilst wages are a factor, think The net spend, is a good indicator of how a manager has spent. But nothing more. 
 

I personally talk about it, because people seem to forget players sold and that he had to replace them. So when people say “he was given more money to spend” - it does not tell the whole story. When you lose your best players, you have to replace them and that is usually costly 

[Porto Red]

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Well, don’t!  This is a very serious part of the season!

Ah, yes. The serious part of silly season.

[Davefevs]

35 minutes ago, Riaz said:

But why would you want to include wages?

If you did that, all managers would struggle to be in the positive. 

Whilst wages are a factor, think The net spend, is a good indicator of how a manager has spent. But nothing more. 
 

I personally talk about it, because people seem to forget players sold and that he had to replace them. So when people say “he was given more money to spend” - it does not tell the whole story. When you lose your best players, you have to replace them and that is usually costly 

Yeah, I get that.  But it’s often / usually used a singular context…ie great we had a positive net spend, but f+-k all the other player costs that led the club into a shit situation.  Also it’s not a good gauge of recruitment when £x million comes from players from our academy that cost zip, or players recruited under previous regimes for example.  In some respects we had to sell players because we wasted money on needless players.

[The Coach]

Likes of Brownhill and Webster were great signings. But how many were on that level?

Old saying goes. Throw enough shit, some will eventually stick.

@Davefevs I don’t suppose you have a list of incomings during the Johnson reign? Including loans. I can’t think of many we could deem successful.

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, The Coach said:

Likes of Brownhill and Webster were great signings. But how many were on that level?

Old saying goes. Throw enough shit, some will eventually stick.

@Davefevs I don’t suppose you have a list of incomings during the Johnson reign? Including loans. I can’t think of many we could deem successful.

Does a bear shit in the woods…of course I do!

These are all the ones from summer 2016 onwards, until Ashton left.

summary:

 

Rather than list the likes of Kalas (loan and perm) twice, I listed once in the season they came on loan.
 

*** Massengo might earn us some compo.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Davefevs

[The Coach]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Does a bear shit in the woods…of course I do!

These are all the ones from summer 2016 onwards, until Ashton left.

summary:

Thanks Dave. Knew you would

Does not read well does it? If you were to split green as successful and red as unsuccessful. You would have enough red lines to paint the major roads as a no stop zone.

[Dolman_Stand]

15 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Does a bear shit in the woods…of course I do!

These are all the ones from summer 2016 onwards, until Ashton left.

summary:

 

Rather than list the likes of Kalas (loan and perm) twice, I listed once in the season they came on loan.
 

*** Massengo might earn us some compo.

£6m a year in expenditure  on transfers to move from struggling at the bottom to play off chasing (and definitely should have been at least once) whilst playing some decent stuff and a cup run of a generation....its not brilliant but its not awful is it?

[johnheadbcfc]

2 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

£6m a year in expenditure  on transfers to move from struggling at the bottom to play off chasing (and definitely should have been at least once) whilst playing some decent stuff and a cup run of a generation....its not brilliant but its not awful is it?

Don't try to speak positive about a manager that only has good things to say about the club mate it only makes them mad.

Try telling everyone that Holloway is a character, that lightens the mood

[Davefevs]

13 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

£6m a year in expenditure  on transfers to move from struggling at the bottom to play off chasing (and definitely should have been at least once) whilst playing some decent stuff and a cup run of a generation....its not brilliant but its not awful is it?

9 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Don't try to speak positive about a manager that only has good things to say about the club mate it only makes them mad.

Try telling everyone that Holloway is a character, that lightens the mood

Just presenting facts.  As I’ve often said, his time here was a mix of good and bad.  Overall he did a decent job.

The one thing, albeit my opinion only, is that our recruitment was anything but world leading / best in class / an exemplar that other clubs came from far and wide to see.

When you look at what he / the club achieved with what he inherited plus some targeted recruiting, it shows how far off-target he / the club went after that.

Ive no doubt he has fond memories and worked bloody hard whilst here, but the collective of recruitment and its processes let the club down.  His involvement in that collective meant he created problems for himself in some ways.

[red panda]

35 minutes ago, The Coach said:

Thanks Dave. Knew you would

Does not read well does it? If you were to split green as successful and red as unsuccessful. You would have enough red lines to paint the major roads as a no stop zone.

And enough green for all the cycle lanes in Bristol, with lots to spare. Honestly, there are quite a few gems on that list

[Cityboy1954]

7 hours ago, bcfctim said:

Not just the cup run either. 6-0 Vs Bolton, 4-0 Vs Sheff Wed, 4-0 Vs Huddersfield (twice!), 4-0 Vs Fulham away, 4-1 Vs Derby, 3-1 Vs Aston Villa....

Some of the pressing, front-foot football we played in his early years was a joy to watch, and as much as I'm happy and optimistic about the direction of the club at present, I don't think we've quite reached those heights under Pearson, yet.

And that's pretty much all before we started getting silly in the transfer market.

The team that beat Man Utd and was 2nd in the league ~2 years into his reign:

Steele

Wright Baker Flint Magnússon

Brownhill Smith Pack Bryan

Paterson

Reid

5 of those were already at the club when he joined (including Bobby Reid who was well on his way out the door before he arrived). Steele was a loan to cover the injured Fielding which would have made 6. Wright/Paterson/Brownhill signed for nominal fees, all were good value (and spectacular in brownhill's case) The only two signings for £1m+ were Baker and Magnússon, the latter being the only one you'd describe as poor or wasteful and even he had his moments.

People say LJ only had success because we threw money at him, I'd argue almost all of his success came before we started spending stupidly, and when we did it worked to our detriment on the pitch as well as off.

Obviously he's got to take his fair share of the blame for the way things stagnated and the lack of a coherent plan once the purse strings were loosened, but the way people talk about him on here sometimes you'd think he never got anything right to begin with - and that's just straight up not true.

All  about opinnions but some of the dross he and that other clown brought in sixty odd players put the club in the shit we are in now pal .

Edited June 5, 2023 by Cityboy1954

[Dolman_Stand]

26 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Just presenting facts.  As I’ve often said, his time here was a mix of good and bad.  Overall he did a decent job.

The one thing, albeit my opinion only, is that our recruitment was anything but world leading / best in class / an exemplar that other clubs came from far and wide to see.

When you look at what he / the club achieved with what he inherited plus some targeted recruiting, it shows how far off-target he / the club went after that.

Ive no doubt he has fond memories and worked bloody hard whilst here, but the collective of recruitment and its processes let the club down.  His involvement in that collective meant he created problems for himself in some ways.

Agree with most of what you say here, if we had gone from LJ straight to Pearson then he would be remembered more fondly. A lot of damage was done in that transitional summer with Holden that set the club back the last few years

[Lrrr]

2 hours ago, Riaz said:

But why would you want to include wages?

If you did that, all managers would struggle to be in the positive. 

Whilst wages are a factor, think The net spend, is a good indicator of how a manager has spent. But nothing more. 
 

I personally talk about it, because people seem to forget players sold and that he had to replace them. So when people say “he was given more money to spend” - it does not tell the whole story. When you lose your best players, you have to replace them and that is usually costly 

If you're replacing players with those of a similar wage value I would agree, however ours during that period tended to be replaced by 2 or 3 players on larger wages than the person who was sold which balloons the wage budget and how much the club spends, which is exactly how we got in the situation where we've had to be strict for 2/3 seasons.

[italian dave]

17 minutes ago, Dolman_Stand said:

Agree with most of what you say here, if we had gone from LJ straight to Pearson then he would be remembered more fondly. A lot of damage was done in that transitional summer with Holden that set the club back the last few years

It’s a good point. And the other factor was covid. I almost posted something similar earlier in response to @shelts ‘s post above. I’d agree that his sacking wasn’t a surprise, but with hindsight I often wonder whether - in the circumstances - it was the right decision.
It was almost as though SL had determined that it was top 6 or the sack (and we’d actually been top 6 a few weeks earlier) and ploughed on regardless of the entirely unexpected events playing out at the time.

With no plan B other than ‘appoint the assistant’, and with the devastation that covid caused, it just left us completely rudderless at the worst possible time. 

[Ron W]

Sacking LJ was the right decision at the time with the run we had been on, the rhetoric from him about how we would fly out of the blocks and then what transpired at Blackburn. It wasn't solely based on that one game and the fact he has remained as streaky as ever since leaving us doesn't do anything to suggest we missed a trick.

On the black-and-white scale he's probably as grey a manager as we've had. There were highs, real highs, but not GJ-esque enough to paper over the lows at either end of his stint. He wasn't a terrible manager for us by any means but neither was he anywhere near one of our best. But he managed to reach that mediocrity by having some of the best, and the worst, runs of recent times. He's a really curious case and that's been the same at Sunderland and Hibs, watching from a distance.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Ron W

[italian dave]

10 hours ago, Ron W said:

Sacking LJ was the right decision at the time with the run we had been on, the rhetoric from him about how we would fly out of the blocks and then what transpired at Blackburn. 

But the point I’m making above is that there was a lot more (unexpectedly) going on that we seem to have taken no account of.

You’ve put the decision purely in the footballing context (the run we’d been on). And I wouldn’t argue with that.

But we were in the relatively early stages of the pandemic, with huge uncertainty hanging over football, and I just question whether (in hindsight) that was the right time to plunge us into even further uncertainty - especially since we clearly had no credible plan b in place.

Did the pandemic not matter at all in that decision? 

[Ron W]

14 minutes ago, italian dave said:

But the point I’m making above is that there was a lot more (unexpectedly) going on that we seem to have taken no account of.

You’ve put the decision purely in the footballing context (the run we’d been on). And I wouldn’t argue with that.

But we were in the relatively early stages of the pandemic, with huge uncertainty hanging over football, and I just question whether (in hindsight) that was the right time to plunge us into even further uncertainty - especially since we clearly had no credible plan b in place.

Did the pandemic not matter at all in that decision? 

Right, I get what you mean - but still think we should judge him from a footballing perspective personally…

The pandemic was a factor outside his or BCFC’s control so did he deserve more time because of that?

If we hadn’t made a real mess of appointing his replacement, surely we wouldn’t be having this debate either. So was that not the issue rather than whether or not we kept LJ?

[italian dave]

4 minutes ago, Ron W said:

Right, I get what you mean - but still think we should judge him from a footballing perspective personally…

The pandemic was a factor outside his or BCFC’s control so did he deserve more time because of that?

If we hadn’t made a real mess of appointing his replacement, surely we wouldn’t be having this debate either. So was that not the issue rather than whether or not we kept LJ?

I’m not saying that he deserved more time: it’s more about the club than about an individual and I just wonder whether, as a club, we shot ourselves in the foot by adding to the chaos that was unfolding around us.

I don’t think you can disregard non footballing factors, especially when they are as massive as the pandemic was for football. 

And, yes, agree that the mess around his replacement contributed…but again that could have been avoided by hanging on with him in place and getting a proper plan b in place.

I’d hasten to say that I’m suggesting all this with the massive benefit of hindsight! At the time I wasn’t particularly surprised or upset - although I think I probably hoped that we had a replacement lined up. But it’s just that I’ve often wondered since where we’d have ended up if we had hung in there for a little longer.

 

[Portland Bill]

On 05/06/2023 at 10:40, Riaz said:

You must have missed alot of football then. Pulis days? Russell Osman days?

They weren’t good either, but Pulis and Osman didn’t have the luxury of spending the massive amount of money Johnson was able too.

I think it was four transfer windows he said he needed?. Whereas he was actually doing alright until he let all of Cotterill’s players go and bought his own in!. He was given all the riches, and dismally failed. 
I actually quite liked him as a player, as a manager he ended up sending me to sleep!. 

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Portland Bill said:

Whereas he was actually doing alright until he let all of Cotterill’s players go and bought his own in!.

I liken this to Michael J Fox’s photo in Back To The Future!  As each 14/15 winner left, Michael “LJ” Fox became a bit weaker.

[Riaz]

8 hours ago, Portland Bill said:

They weren’t good either, but Pulis and Osman didn’t have the luxury of spending the massive amount of money Johnson was able too.

I think it was four transfer windows he said he needed?. Whereas he was actually doing alright until he let all of Cotterill’s players go and bought his own in!. He was given all the riches, and dismally failed. 
I actually quite liked him as a player, as a manager he ended up sending me to sleep!. 

As i explained in earlier posts - he kept having to sell his best players throughout his time and he was always spending the transfer money that had come in - so i'd argue he didnt actually spend money!

Moreover - the team that beat man utd and pushed champions man city all the way - is the best city team i've ever seen. Watch the highlights of the first man city game. That team was class.

 

[Rob k]

1 hour ago, Riaz said:

As i explained in earlier posts - he kept having to sell his best players throughout his time and he was always spending the transfer money that had come in - so i'd argue he didnt actually spend money!

Moreover - the team that beat man utd and pushed champions man city all the way - is the best city team i've ever seen. Watch the highlights of the first man city game. That team was class.

 

Of the team that played the 2nd leg i reckon only Scott, Pring and Vyner would get in that team from the current one.

It’s tough to see how far we fell from that position, Lansdown took his eye off the ball and it’s caused mayhem.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Rob k

[Riaz]

21 minutes ago, Rob k said:

Of the team that played the 2nd leg i reckon only Scott, Pring and Vyner would get in that team from the current one.

It’s tough to see how far we fell from that position, Lansdown took his eye off the ball and it’s caused mayhem.

I think changing the policy from signing young hungry players to attempting to go for it a bit, is where we went wrong.

We sold Flint Bryan and Reid the same summer and started signing slightly older players on high wages - that was a mistake IMO

 

[italian dave]

38 minutes ago, Rob k said:

Of the team that played the 2nd leg i reckon only Scott, Pring and Vyner would get in that team from the current one.

It’s tough to see how far we fell from that position, Lansdown took his eye off the ball and it’s caused mayhem.

 

15 minutes ago, Riaz said:

I think changing the policy from signing young hungry players to attempting to go for it a bit, is where we went wrong.

We sold Flint Bryan and Reid the same summer and started signing slightly older players on high wages - that was a mistake IMO

 

I think that where we also took the eye off the ball was in allowing the financial imperatives to take precedence over the footballing ones.

We all knew that we were having to balance the two - making the top 6 whilst also making the club self sufficient, which meant buying players cheap, developing them and selling them at the height of their value. 

Early on, we did well with players like Kelly and Kodjia: we maximised value but we did so in the knowledge that we had a plan B in place on the pitch.

Towards the end we failed on the footballing front. We might have maximised value from Webster and Brownhill, but we did so with no plan B in place at all. 

I’d love to know how we’d have got on that season if we’d kept both those players. There’s no doubt in my mind that they left massive gaps.