Inheritance Tax

[Davefevs]

Copied from the sack Nige thread, but thought it worthy of its own thread.

Unfortunately it is gonna take longer to pay it off, that’s the sad fact about it all.

Heres all the players (non-Academy) Nige inherited:

25 players - cost us £45.150m - plus the wage bill increase that goes alongside it

12 released for nothing (OOC) ***Mariappa should say 0 and 0, not Loan and End

3 sold (at least 2 if not all 3 cost us to move them on) - earned us £0.200m

1 retired (sadly).

Basically £45m down the shitter!!!  That is harrowing imho!!

Of the 9 remaining players:

- Bentley, Dasilva, Kalas, Moore and Massengo might leave for nothing (OOC)

- Martin exercised his own option

- just Weimann and Wells have re-contracted (plus Baker who’s since retired, see above)

- Cundy and Bakinson had their options exercised

- Williams 18 months left

It is gonna take at least until this summer to see any semblance of normality return, and then you’re at the mercy of recruitment.

Those are the hard facts of the situation.  I don’t care if people are Nige In, Nige Out or Nige Shake-it-all-about, but this is the context.  Thank **** for the Academy.  This is what the new manager inherits if you want Nige out.  Fine if you do.

We signed players for too big a fee and for too high wages.  Until virtually all of those players are off the books or on current climate contracts we are in a mess.

[AppyDAZE]

 

[And Its Smith]

It will cost more to go down than to sack Pearson. Is he maximising what he can get from this squad?  Surely nobody thinks he is.  The previous mismanagement of the club is good context but the squad he has is better than he is showing.  Hopefully he can turn it around.  I would suggest he doesn’t keep trying the same thing and expecting different results 

[Davefevs]

Just now, And Its Smith said:

It will cost more to go down than to sack Pearson. Is he maximising what he can get from this squad?  Surely nobody thinks he is.  The previous mismanagement of the club is good context but the squad he has is better than he is showing.  Hopefully he can turn it around.  I would suggest he doesn’t keep trying the same thing and expecting different results 

I agree they are better than they’re showing, but not by too much.

[GrahamC]

I genuinely don’t know the answer, I think it is highly unlikely we would look outside the club for our next appointment & so am left thinking if it is Euell up next or even Andy King, that is some gamble.

I doubt he’ll survive if we lose the next 2 badly but what is obvious is we can’t go on like this, we either need to facilitate a minor shake up in the squad, by selling an asset (so Scott or Semenyo) & trying to move a couple of others (Martin, Klose) on or make a change at the top at that point.

Or do both.

[cidercity1987]

Increase the rate, reduce the Nil rate band, redistribute amongst all of the young

[tin]

32 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

It will cost more to go down than to sack Pearson. Is he maximising what he can get from this squad?  Surely nobody thinks he is.  The previous mismanagement of the club is good context but the squad he has is better than he is showing.  Hopefully he can turn it around.  I would suggest he doesn’t keep trying the same thing and expecting different results 

Relegation would cost more than sacking Pearson, but what’s the guarantee we stay up if he gets the boot? There is none and in all probability his sacking would make a bad situation worse, particularly when it’s likely we’d end up with someone like Euell in charge going on SL’s track record.

Edited December 26, 2022 by tin

[Roger Red Hat]

16 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

It will cost more to go down than to sack Pearson

What's the figures for sacking NP, employing someone else, and going down?

[And Its Smith]

Just now, Roger Red Hat said:

What's the figures for sacking NP, employing someone else, and going down?

That’s the most worstest 

[Cardy]

Consistently playing Weimann as a Ring Wing Back & King as a Centre Back are sackable offences on their own.

[spudski]

I get the general consensus from here, that many fans see our squad as a lower to mid table squad. When we were playing attractive football and scoring goals for fun early season...many thought we were capable of mid to play offs, if we could tighten our defence.

 That's with the squad NP inherited. And the few he's added or taken from academy.

 I've said this on numerous threads...but NP said that he thought this squad is capable of being around the play offs.

If NP thinks that, and the players are consistently losing games and now fighting relegation, how can we trust NPs judgement? 

He thinks they are capable...many fans think not. 

Who's right....

He sees them in training and knows what they are capable of. He's got years of experience.

So I'm saying NP knows better than us.

So why are we underachieving going by NPs views to our ability?

For me it's in the way we play, our set up and playing players out of position.

That's down to NP. 

These players are capable of better.

So the excuse of poor inheritance is being used too often to given NP an excuse.

Yes it's poor financially.

But our players are far better than what our results are.

They are underachieving. 

 

[Kid in the Riot]

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

[cidered abroad]

I don't know if the players are following instructions or doing it of their own volition, but we are playing so many passes sideways across the back three and so many passes backwards by the midfield. 

We are not putting pressure on the opposition and allowing opponents to press us and make breakaways. Our forwards are now relying on long, aerial passes and it isn't how we were doing it early in the season.

Continue like this will bring only one end to the season.

[Lack of Action Man]

35 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

Summed up my thoughts quite nicely KITR.

I think as fans we all acknowledge the financial shitstorm, and accept that it hampers our maneuverability in the transfer market.

What I can't accept is the piss poor performances on the pitch, which surely any other manager with a bit of tactical know-how at this level would be able to improve upon.

Yes we have some crap players, but we also have some good players who are being dragged down to the standard of the crap ones by Pearson's god-awful negative tactics.

[Lack of Action Man]

24 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

I don't know if the players are following instructions or doing it of their own volition, but we are playing so many passes sideways across the back three and so many passes backwards by the midfield. 

We are not putting pressure on the opposition and allowing opponents to press us and make breakaways. Our forwards are now relying on long, aerial passes and it isn't how we were doing it early in the season.

Continue like this will bring only one end to the season.

I got a bit bored of us being utterly pants in the second half so started counting our average number of touches before a pass is made, vs WBA.

WBA on average was 1-3 touches followed by a pass. We were about 4-5 touches.

WBA played quick and sharp football, we play slow and ponderous football.

[RedRock]

13 minutes ago, OddBallJim said:

I got a bit bored of us being utterly pants in the second half so started counting our average number of touches before a pass is made, vs WBA.

WBA on average was 1-3 touches followed by a pass. We were about 4-5 touches.

WBA played quick and sharp football, we play slow and ponderous football.

…and that’s the difference between the front-foot, aggressive, high-tempo modern game and the old style passive, possession one.

Basically, we’re England in disguise, but far, far worse. 

[Lack of Action Man]

Just now, RedRock said:

…and that’s the difference between the front-foot, aggressive, high-tempo modern game and the old style passive, possession one.

Basically, we’re England in disguise, but far, far worse. 

We also try to play out from the back far too often, when we clearly do not have the players equipped for that type of play. 

Naismith doesn't do it for me. I'm probably in the minority with that opinion though.

[BigAl&Toby]

3 hours ago, OddBallJim said:

We also try to play out from the back far too often, when we clearly do not have the players equipped for that type of play. 

Naismith doesn't do it for me. I'm probably in the minority with that opinion though.

No you’re not. There’s at least one other who thinks he’s shit. Me.

Oh hang on. Might be a minority of 2!

Naismith is useless and clueless. When Capn Dan and he are in charge across the back it’s painful.

Capn Dan plays it short to Naismith.

Naismith fannies about and then has a dribble. Naismith loses the ball on or about the halfway line. Ball gets played back in over Naismith and pressure is back on.

Repeat. Week after ******* week…..

And that was at the beginning of the season. Pointing it out then and shot down in flames.

Naismith was the answer. And look where we are now.

Hasn’t Steve done well?

[MC RISK77]

8 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

Spot on

[old_eastender]

8 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

It will cost more to go down than to sack Pearson. Is he maximising what he can get from this squad?  Surely nobody thinks he is.  The previous mismanagement of the club is good context but the squad he has is better than he is showing.  Hopefully he can turn it around.  I would suggest he doesn’t keep trying the same thing and expecting different results 

 

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I agree they are better than they’re showing, but not by too much.

I'd settle for better than we are showing but not by too much, and the safe mid-table position that would bring. Trouble is NP is a stubborn mule, won't accept when he is wrong - playing King CB (although King did ok today, it cost us 3 pts v Stoke), wasting Weimann at RWB - are two obvious examples.

In the earlier part of the season, once we had finally ditched Martin from the starting line-up, we played some of the best football seen in years. We have the players to get back to that, but NP is not utilising them properly. My Dad used to say "there is none so blind as them that don't want to see", certainly applies to NP if he thinks watching yesterday the players "gave everything", some tried, others just went through the motions, fed-up I suspect with NP lack's of tactical nous, players being frozen out and others being played out of position. 

[Sir Geoff]

8 hours ago, Roger Red Hat said:

What's the figures for sacking NP, employing someone else, and going down?

About £9 million.

[Andy082005]

8 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

Agree with all of this 

We are not far off from heading into free fall and there is no reason why we should be. We may not have a top 6 squad but I refuse to believe man for man, we have a poorer squad then those you mentioned 

It’s 7.30am the day after and I’m still trying to work out why Andy King played Centre half again, and why last seasons top scorer played right back most of the game . 
 

People are frightened to death to lose Pearson because even I have to admit, I have no idea who comes in behind him to save us. He is quite clearly in control of a lot more than the first team squad as the absolute jokers above him do not have a clue . 
 

There are huge comparisons to this situation and the one we found ourselves in 10 years ago. We look absolutely terrible. I genuinely don’t see us getting out of this mess at this moment in time 

[Edgy Red]

8 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

Absolutely spot on... A managers job is to work with the players at his disposal (a large number of which are his own signings).

The FFP card has been used as a shield to protect him from day one and while i understand that finances are incredibly tight, that is the same for many clubs in the football league.

He has to be judged on the product on the pitch and sadly, we are a weak disorganised team that lacks physicality. He has had 2 years to put his stamp on things, but if anything, we look worse than when he joined.

His recent interviews and team selections indicate that his time may be coming to an end. I just hope that a new manager can instill some confidence and organisation to the group (quickly).

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, GrahamC said:

I genuinely don’t know the answer, I think it is highly unlikely we would look outside the club for our next appointment & so am left thinking if it is Euell up next or even Andy King, that is some gamble.

I doubt he’ll survive if we lose the next 2 badly but what is obvious is we can’t go on like this, we either need to facilitate a minor shake up in the squad, by selling an asset (so Scott or Semenyo) & trying to move a couple of others (Martin, Klose) on or make a change at the top at that point.

Or do both.

Agree with you, my feeling is that King is the anointed one, but that may not come to pass.

Rumour completely unsubstantiated is that Scott has been sold with a loan back agreed, that would provide some funds to buy perhaps two players.

Also unsubstantiated Martin to be released (probably with a pay off).

I think the question we need to ask ourselves is would an experienced manager take over, and would he improve things? 
 

There are bound to be some experienced managers out of work, so yes someone would take over, would they improve things? It would seem difficult not too.

[Dullmoan Tone]

9 hours ago, spudski said:

I've said this on numerous threads...but NP said that he thought this squad is capable of being around the play offs.

If NP thinks that, and the players are consistently losing games and now fighting relegation, how can we trust NPs judgement? 

I’m not convinced he meant it. The problem is he could hardly say anything else without causing uproar.

It’s clear he doesn’t mind upsetting the players, but telling the fans and most importantly The Lansdown’s we aren’t good enough would not be smart - he’s long enough in the tooth to know this.

OTIB keeps quoting this comment and yet the reality is we had a better than expected start, his judgement is compromised because of his desire to freeze out players (and play what’s left out of position at times) but I don’t believe for a second he thought we were capable of mounting a serious play off push - our defence was still leaking soft goals (just like last season) and no team outscores a crap defence !

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

21 minutes ago, Dullmoan Tone said:

I’m not convinced he meant it. The problem is he could hardly say anything else without causing uproar.

It’s clear he doesn’t mind upsetting the players, but telling the fans and most importantly The Lansdown’s we aren’t good enough would not be smart - he’s long enough in the tooth to know this.

OTIB keeps quoting this comment and yet the reality is we had a better than expected start, his judgement is compromised because of his desire to freeze out players (and play what’s left out of position at times) but I don’t believe for a second he thought we were capable of mounting a serious play off push - our defence was still leaking soft goals (just like last season) and no team outscores a crap defence !

Well he shouldn’t have said it then.

[GrahamC]

36 minutes ago, Dullmoan Tone said:

I’m not convinced he meant it. The problem is he could hardly say anything else without causing uproar.

It’s clear he doesn’t mind upsetting the players, but telling the fans and most importantly The Lansdown’s we aren’t good enough would not be smart - he’s long enough in the tooth to know this.

OTIB keeps quoting this comment and yet the reality is we had a better than expected start, his judgement is compromised because of his desire to freeze out players (and play what’s left out of position at times) but I don’t believe for a second he thought we were capable of mounting a serious play off push - our defence was still leaking soft goals (just like last season) and no team outscores a crap defence !

Nor me & in his defence if he’d said I think avoiding bottom six would be an achievement the same people moaning about it would have gone mental.

I do think we are at a crossroads & things will have to change (manager and/or up to 3 players) next month.

[exAtyeoMax]

10 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Nor me & in his defence if he’d said I think avoiding bottom six would be an achievement the same people moaning about it would have gone mental.

I do think we are at a crossroads & things will have to change (manager and/or up to 3 players) next month.

Especially to coincide with the new CEO possibly? 

[One Team]

11 hours ago, Davefevs said:

 

Copied from the sack Nige thread, but thought it worthy of its own thread.

Unfortunately it is gonna take longer to pay it off, that’s the sad fact about it all.

Heres all the players (non-Academy) Nige inherited:

25 players - cost us £45.150m - plus the wage bill increase that goes alongside it

12 released for nothing (OOC) ***Mariappa should say 0 and 0, not Loan and End

3 sold (at least 2 if not all 3 cost us to move them on) - earned us £0.200m

1 retired (sadly).

Basically £45m down the shitter!!!  That is harrowing imho!!

Of the 9 remaining players:

- Bentley, Dasilva, Kalas, Moore and Massengo might leave for nothing (OOC)

- Martin exercised his own option

- just Weimann and Wells have re-contracted (plus Baker who’s since retired, see above)

- Cundy and Bakinson had their options exercised

- Williams 18 months left

It is gonna take at least until this summer to see any semblance of normality return, and then you’re at the mercy of recruitment.

Those are the hard facts of the situation.  I don’t care if people are Nige In, Nige Out or Nige Shake-it-all-about, but this is the context.  Thank **** for the Academy.  This is what the new manager inherits if you want Nige out.  Fine if you do.

We signed players for too big a fee and for too high wages.  Until virtually all of those players are off the books or on current climate contracts we are in a mess.

Great post Fevs which highlights very well our situation. The Mark Ashton era continues to blight our club even now. 

I don’t believe that we’ve a top 6 or even top half squad, just ask yourself how many of our players were better than West Brom’s or would get in their starting 11. One or two at most? 

If Pearson goes whoever comes in (or most likely gets promoted) has these constraints and issues to deal with. Maybe they would do a better job, maybe they wouldn’t. 

To points elsewhere as much as I appreciate what SL has done in terms of infrastructure I’ve no faith he will make a good decision in terms of replacement, if that happens. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by One Team

[REDOXO]

19 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Well he shouldn’t have said it then.

I agree. He shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was true, maybe he did though, who knows! Europa League in five years was LJs downfall, a far more idiotic statement, that lead directly to the spreadsheet at the top of the page!

I don’t agree with the statement pretty much every club is in this situation! Pretty much every club has financial issues unless they are getting/still getting parachute payments that’s for sure. However how many are unable to spend money due to being so close to FFP, having spent the above, that comparatively small amounts count?

The above is 100% the responsibility of the bloke who said my money my choice (what is clear is it really wasn’t his money, it was the clubs money as the club would suffer from it being flushed down the shitter, to paraphrase the OP), with LJ, MA, JL AND the idiot bunch of **** yes men board members all sucking from the idiots tit! 

This in itself has created the situation where, we are told with some evidence, that we must bring through our own to a much greater extent and sell to buy. Now I’m not an expert in a lot of things, but changing the strategy so massively is a major difference to many other clubs. 
 

You can point to many who have maintained a long term strategy of buy and build and then sell to ***** like Bristol City, Luton and Brentford among others immediately spring to mind. Their long term strategies are clear, ours was akin to Derby, Birmingham and others which was throw money at it and pray the **** we have in charge is up to the challenge. ******* Laughable. You now also add in to the situation the more laughable resignation of stop gap Gould (I don’t care who you are and what you think, was crap the first time) and the employment of yet to be defined (let me know if I have missed an appointment) new CEO to overlook this utter shitshow. 
 

However here we are actually implementing a pillar policy having thrown our advantages away due to the hubris, greed and sheer bloody incompetence of those mentioned. Kind of an 82 situation with money!

The question is can Pearson produce again what he has before and get the Lansdown family and the supporters out of the same crapper. I’m no longer sure! I want it to work with Pearson, but we are watching shit shows, with players that are unable to perform as a unit and are frightened that their place is gone once the inevitable sales of Scott Semenyo and now on the grapevine Conway have been completed.

Who is out there that would take this on? Answer loads of people, either externally or internally as staying up is the only aim! But are they better equipped with the man we have? I’m not sure either way BUT the greater issue is getting a new CEO who is able to operate unfettered and is not the sham schiester that is the hated Ashton and can hold it together coming after what ever **** wittery Gould comes up with in the next few weeks!
 

 

 

 

 

[And Its Smith]

33 minutes ago, One Team said:

Great post Fevs which highlights very well our situation. The Mark Ashton era continues to blight our club even now. 

I don’t believe that we’ve a top 6 or even top half squad, just ask yourself how many of our players were better than West Brom’s or would get in their starting 11. One or two at most? 

If Pearson goes whoever comes in (or most likely gets promoted) has these constraints and issues to deal with. Maybe they would do a better job, maybe they wouldn’t. 

To points elsewhere as much as I appreciate what SL has done in terms of infrastructure I’ve no faith he will make a good decision in terms of replacement, if that happens. 

Top half budget and top half transfer cost apparently.  Pearson isn’t getting close to the max from this squad. One home win since August.  

[Redtrojan]

Interesting financial comments above.

Clearly recruitment has been poor ,however just checked on transfermarkt,not sure how accurate it is ,but suggests when slagging LJ ‘s transfer activity (on a financial basis-there is no doubt a lot of rubbish was bought),may not be fair.

We look like we made 19m profit in 18/19 and 15m profit in 19/20 and 4m profit in 20/21-purely based on transfer ins and outs .

 

[Alessandro]

I think the club will be looking to avoid sacking Nige at all costs.

As I said before - I think we're currently hanging on for Jan, where selling will fund some buying to sure things up.

I think that's our only play right now as our options are so limited financially. Survival is the only target and we've lost the luxury of holding on to our best players.

 

FWIW - however there are some 'but's' with all that:

- I think the squad is still underachieving at present. Questions over tactics/set ups.

- Performances are on a continued downward curve - bottom 5 form.

- We're starting to see more cracks in NP's facade which is usually not a good sign. Does he have the fight if all the blame/anger turns on him? Will he be a SL scapegoat?

- Questions for me over the team around NP. We know previous success for NP were built with coaches he no longer has around him. 

 

So although I don't think they want to pull the trigger, things are not good at all and relegation simply isn't an option.

But they'll be looking at the league table and luckily for NP there are currently 6 teams below us and 4 are in worse form, for now. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Alessandro

[firstdivision]

‘So the excuse of poor inheritance is being used too often to given NP an excuse.’

Bingo. 

[Merrick's Marvels]

12 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation...

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation....

We should be doing better.

I agree we should be doing better - mid table, perhaps.

And, whilst it's true every club has been affected by covid, not every club was as perilously close to a breach as we were. Which has hamstrung us in a way unlike many of our rivals.

We can't do what, say, Forest did when they were staring at relegation - spend so much money they got promoted.

Not every club has been financially mis-managed for years the way we have - our ratio of wages to income has been dangerously out of control for years and far more so than most other clubs in this division. So not every club has had such drastic problems off the pitch to address.

Not every club has had such drastic problems to address on it either. The trajectory of our results on the pitch has been on a downward spiral for years too.

Not every club has had a basically spineless team for the last several seasons - ie. we've had long term injuries to cornerstone players at centre back, central midfield and striker. On taking the job, Pearson had every right to be enthused about building a side around Bentley-Kalas-Baker-Williams-James-Weimann. He's discovered the keeper and his deputy are flaky and the rest of that spine has been decimated by injury. We've been spineless for years, literally and metaphorically. Pearson's managed to fashion alternatives up front from within the squad but has had no meaningful money to re-inforce the other areas - to the point every other team in the division can spend more than us at present.

Not every other club has a squad as unbalanced as ours - over reliant on naive youngsters and old pros.

Not every other club has had to blood so many kids because they've no other option. Thank goodness one or two are half tidy.

Not every other club has had so few players in the right age range - 25 year olds with games under their belt, under contract, happy to be here and motivated.

Not every other club had a medical department unfit for purpose that needed sorting. 

In fact, not every other club had a whole culture that needed sorting - comfortable, lazy, life on easy street at BCFC. From top to bottom the mentality is wrong (which is how minnows out do us - you know them, Luton, Millwall, Brentford on and on). This perhaps is Pearson's greatest challenge - changing mentality and behaviours. 

I could go on but you get the point.

Fact is, Pearson is having to tackle a quite unique - and awful - set of circumstances.

To say everyone else is in the same boat as us is nonsense. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Merrick's Marvels

[Mr Popodopolous]

It's a valid point though because if as we have to do, you have to implement strong cuts and you are already struggling with a wage bill of £35m NP is or has been asked out of necessity to do more with less.

It is difficult. Failure to do it adequately combined with the associated points deductions relegated two clubs. It can put a club into a bit of a downward spiral, Reading came close to the drop too last year post cutbacks and deduction and they were top 6 contenders in 2020-21!

Otoh I think we are better than the last two home games and in particular the 2nd half of these two games- I watched the highlights v Stoke last night we actually had some good chances and spells of pressure, nice build-up at times but the two goals we conceded were dreadful.

We had to work significantly harder for our goal than Stoke did for either of theirs.

@Merrick's Marvels

Glad you mentioned Nottingham Forest. They were in a worse position than us FFP wise coming into last season yet the expenditure was night and day- I am puzzled as to how they had room to sack a manager and pay compensation for Cooper, sign some of those they did, no major sales and remain within FFP. Unless Carvalho to Olympiakos was their major sale.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Davefevs]

13 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

I don’t agree that pretty much every club is in a similar situation.

Gould said we can afford to pay top 10 wages to the right players, e.g. a free transfer for a senior player…not the whole squad.

Most clubs aren’t in FFP danger, they have Cashflow issues.  Stoke, Reading and us are the main FFP ones.

Re LJ, and I don’t want to get into a huge debate in in, as it’s been said and done, but his wage bill grew from £15m to £30m (Football Club Ltd not AG) in his tenure.  I’d definitely agree he got decent value through some of that time, but his £30m squad achieved 12th by the time he left.  As he replaced the promotion squad with higher paid players, the performance levels tailed off.

 @Merrick's Marvelssaves me a lot of typing, ta.

2 hours ago, REDOXO said:

I agree. He shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was true, maybe he did though, who knows! Europa League in five years was LJs downfall, a far more idiotic statement, that lead directly to the spreadsheet at the top of the page!

I don’t agree with the statement pretty much every club is in this situation! Pretty much every club has financial issues unless they are getting/still getting parachute payments that’s for sure. However how many are unable to spend money due to being so close to FFP, having spent the above, that comparatively small amounts count?

The above is 100% the responsibility of the bloke who said my money my choice (what is clear is it really wasn’t his money, it was the clubs money as the club would suffer from it being flushed down the shitter, to paraphrase the OP), with LJ, MA, JL AND the idiot bunch of **** yes men board members all sucking from the idiots tit! 

This in itself has created the situation where, we are told with some evidence, that we must bring through our own to a much greater extent and sell to buy. Now I’m not an expert in a lot of things, but changing the strategy so massively is a major difference to many other clubs. 
 

You can point to many who have maintained a long term strategy of buy and build and then sell to ***** like Bristol City, Luton and Brentford among others immediately spring to mind. Their long term strategies are clear, ours was akin to Derby, Birmingham and others which was throw money at it and pray the **** we have in charge is up to the challenge. ******* Laughable. You now also add in to the situation the more laughable resignation of stop gap Gould (I don’t care who you are and what you think, was crap the first time) and the employment of yet to be defined (let me know if I have missed an appointment) new CEO to overlook this utter shitshow. 
 

However here we are actually implementing a pillar policy having thrown our advantages away due to the hubris, greed and sheer bloody incompetence of those mentioned. Kind of an 82 situation with money!

The question is can Pearson produce again what he has before and get the Lansdown family and the supporters out of the same crapper. I’m no longer sure! I want it to work with Pearson, but we are watching shit shows, with players that are unable to perform as a unit and are frightened that their place is gone once the inevitable sales of Scott Semenyo and now on the grapevine Conway have been completed.

Who is out there that would take this on? Answer loads of people, either externally or internally as staying up is the only aim! But are they better equipped with the man we have? I’m not sure either way BUT the greater issue is getting a new CEO who is able to operate unfettered and is not the sham schiester that is the hated Ashton and can hold it together coming after what ever **** wittery Gould comes up with in the next few weeks!
 

 

 

 

 

Thought provoking. the reference to 1982 too!

2 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

Top half budget and top half transfer cost apparently.  Pearson isn’t getting close to the max from this squad. One home win since August.  

We overpaid.  We got ahead of ourselves.  I do agree he should be getting a bit more from them, but not much more.  Yesterday was v.poor, but imho we’ve not been like that very often this season.

1 hour ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

I agree we should be doing better - mid table, perhaps.

And, whilst it's true every club has been affected by covid, not every club was as perilously close to a breach as we were. Which has hamstrung us in a way unlike many of our rivals.

We can't do what, say, Forest did when they were staring at relegation - spend so much money they got promoted.

Not every club has been financially mis-managed for years the way we have - our ratio of wages to income has been dangerously out of control for years and far more so than most other clubs in this division. So not every club has had such drastic problems off the pitch to address.

Not every club has had such drastic problems to address on it either. The trajectory of our results on the pitch has been on a downward spiral for years too.

Not every club has had a basically spineless team for the last several seasons - ie. we've had long term injuries to cornerstone players at centre back, central midfield and striker. On taking the job, Pearson had every right to be enthused about building a side around Bentley-Kalas-Baker-Williams-James-Weimann. He's discovered the keeper and his deputy are flaky and the rest of that spine has been decimated by injury. We've been spineless for years, literally and metaphorically. Pearson's managed to fashion alternatives up front from within the squad but has had no meaningful money to re-inforce the other areas - to the point every other team in the division can spend more than us at present.

Not every other club has a squad as unbalanced as ours - over reliant on naive youngsters and old pros.

Not every other club has had to blood so many kids because they've no other option. Thank goodness one or two are half tidy.

Not every other club has had so few players in the right age range - 25 year olds with games under their belt, under contract, happy to be here and motivated.

Not every other club had a medical department unfit for purpose that needed sorting. 

In fact, not every other club had a whole culture that needed sorting - comfortable, lazy, life on easy street at BCFC. From top to bottom the mentality is wrong (which is how minnows out do us - you know them, Luton, Millwall, Brentford on and on). This perhaps is Pearson's greatest challenge - changing mentality and behaviours. 

I could go on but you get the point.

Fact is, Pearson is having to tackle a quite unique - and awful - set of circumstances.

To say everyone else is in the same boat as us is nonsense. 

Thanks for summing up pretty much all my thoughts.

I’m quite sad this is “my” club being referred to.

[robin_unreliant]

15 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

I don't know if the players are following instructions or doing it of their own volition, but we are playing so many passes sideways across the back three and so many passes backwards by the midfield. 

We are not putting pressure on the opposition and allowing opponents to press us and make breakaways. Our forwards are now relying on long, aerial passes and it isn't how we were doing it early in the season.

Continue like this will bring only one end to the season.

This was where I am losing patience. Yesterday it was so predictable. Long ball over the top out wide. Most of which we got nowhere near winning. Early in the season our attacking play was pretty fluid and good to watch. Now we seem to have lost the benefit of Weimann's running up front and become easy to defend against. Maybe it is confidence but certainly appearing to have gone backwards.

[Midlands Robin]

The challenge that Pearson faced on arrival and continues to face is obviously a big one. He's been tasked with transforming a low value, high wage squad into a high value, low wage squad while improving the performance of the team on the pitch. You can't say he wasn't aware of the size of the task on arrival especially as he had a short-term contract to begin with that either side could have ended.

I think one of my biggest problems with Pearson's approach is his absolute stubborn refusal to use the loan market. We've seen loans improve squads on many occasions. We ourselves only have to think back to Tammy and Lee Tomlin. It's all very noble to say that it's about building the club up from within and that loan players don't always come with the right attitudes, and they aren't long term options etc, etc but the right loan will improve on field performances and buy time to help develop other players around them. I honestly can't see the difference in bringing in an out of contract player such as Klose and a similar player on a loan. Klose used his short-term contract to put himself back in the shop window and, when offered a new City deal, spent part of the summer seeing if he could get better terms anywhere else before eventually signing the one we offered him. That hardly shouts, "commitment to the cause".

There are some similarities with the situation that Terry Cooper was handed in 1982 all be it nowhere near as severe. Though I wasn't around at the time, I wouldn't see my first match at the Gate for another 10 years, it seems that the way Cooper built a team spirit in that side from scratch, was key to the gradual turn around in performances. Nige seems like quite an abrasive character around the dressing room. He definitely needs to praise in public and bollock in private. Teams with deep squads can afford to unsettle a few players, stick them in the under 23's and let them run out their contracts, again, we don't have that luxury. Players work alongside each other and talk to each other outside of work. Who's to say that someone like HNM isn't a popular lad in the squad and his current situation is causing a few players to question the managers approach?

I agree with the sentiment raised in other threads, if not Pearson then who? Talk of the Coventry or Plymouth managers is hilarious and if coming from the other side of Bristol would rightly be condemned as fantasy. Currently successful managers in other teams are in no way going to be tempted out of those roles and into the basket case that is ourselves at the moment.

If the on field and football related areas (coaching, physio, recruitment etc) have had to be overhauled mostly under the guidance of Pearson, the flip side of this coin is the absolute omnishambles that is the leadership structure at the top of the club. While Richard Gould was day and night better than Swiss Tony, the reason we have a CEO in charge is because the owner has taken a huge step back and the so-called Chairman seems to have absolutely no interest in the day to day grind of being the boss of a football club. The direction and vision of club should stem from the very top and be felt all the way down to the lowest grade member of staff. This has been mentioned in a number of threads, but we have no off-field leadership structure at all. We have an owner, a chairman, a group financial officer and a CEO. I've had a look at Norwich's board, they have a boardroom of about 11 directors, a main board of directors who are joined by a sporting director, financial director, programmes director etc. There isn't a one person trying to do everything role and certainly not one vaguely interested chairman not doing a lot role.

We've got one transfer window and 5 months to turn this current shambles around and maintain our position as a championship club. We all know the definition of madness is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. During the remainder of the season, we need to do as Fev's suggests and park the long-term strategy. Things aren't going to improve on that front until the summer for all the reasons shown in the original post. We need to start playing players in their normal positions, dip in to the loan market as well as seeing what funds can be scraped together for signing or two and hope we can hold on until May.

We also need our owner to become self-aware, while it's fantastic how he continues to back this club with his hand in his pocket, creating the type of facilities we could only dream of 30 years ago and writing off debts by converting debt to shares and so on, he needs to realise the current club structure is not working. As an example, a strong and well-staffed board of directors would have hopefully questioned Swiss Tony a long time before the finances became so critical. There is no off field accountability. This must end. I know it’s a case of be careful what you wish for but outside investment with a co-owner would provide a foil for Lansdown and hopefully create a greater sense of direction and improved decision making. Having a single owner means it’s his money and his train set. When someone else’s cash is involved, both have to think a lot more clearly about the decisions they make.

[t_b]

19 hours ago, Davefevs said:

 This is what the new manager inherits if you want Nige out.  Fine if you do.

We signed players for too big a fee and for too high wages.  Until virtually all of those players are off the books or on current climate contracts we are in a mess.

Quite disingenuous to point out the squad based on pre-Pearson signings. 
 

Have his signings improved the squad? We might not have spent big fees like we used to, but you’d argue that through Pearson’s man management and approach to playing them all have seen their market value decrease. 

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, tommy_b said:

Quite disingenuous to point out the squad based on pre-Pearson signings. 
 

Have his signings improved the squad? We might not have spent big fees like we used to, but you’d argue that through Pearson’s man management and approach to playing them all have seen their market value decrease. 

I’ve already posted the whole squad in other threads, this thread was about what he took over in Feb 2021….not the current squad….hence the title, so not disingenuous at all. Although thread titles not my strongpoint today .

The value of those players is gonna be tiny come the summer.  No arguments from me that Nige may have contributed to some of that lost value.  But I’m trying to point out how tens of millions can lost and therefore takes a while to recover.

And on the flipside of those players losing value under Nige, there are a number who’ve gained value that allow us to hopefully exit this mess in the summer.  Whether Nige is wholly responsible for the development of someone like Scott, or it’s just the kid doing it all himself is gonna be one opinion over another, just like it might be for a player who’s lost value.

Have his signings improved the squad?  Depends on the expectations on those players.  Not all signings are the same.  Klose v Atkinson for example.  That debate is on another thread.

 

[Fuber]

18 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Dave, you continue to portray a terrible situation. Pretty much EVERY other club in the division is in a similar situation. 

Gould claims we have a top 10 wage budget. We have paid fees for a few players.

We are close to FFP failure due to covid. Lots of other clubs in the same situation. 

IMO, and also in the view of Swiss Ramble etc, LJ had a lower wage bill but achieved top half twice. 

Mark Robins at Coventry. Gary Rowett at Millwall. Blackburn, QPR, Preston... 

We should be doing better.

When did LJ have a lower wage budget?