Alex Scott - £25m to Bournemouth- Confirmed

[Shauntaylor85]

17 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

I think the frustration is we have never really seen the club “go for it.” When have we had momentum and push on? Been here almost ten years and lucky enough my first season watching city was promotion and JPT. 
 

We had a young and hungry squad coming of massive success. Did we back that and make it stronger? No

We then solidified our position in the league for a couple seasons. Nothing wrong with that. 
 

Then we had a strong season where we flew through the first half of the year. We didn’t seem prepared for January and while we got players in, we ultimately fizzled out. 
 

That summer, we sold two top players for us but with that we strengthened a bit. We had a really good season and sustained it right the way through. Finished 8th I think? Good position to build on, right? Well we will just sell arguably our best player after only one season. Ok wasted the opportunity to get better with the money. 
 

Then few years of struggle after a pandemic. Ok, we sort the wage bill out. Bring through academy players. Start building a squad and a big part of that is this gem we developed. Financially we are ok. The squad hasn’t been this strong in years. He has two years left on his deal. What do we do? Sell our best player again going into what should be a season of success(whatever you think that is). 
 

For me, we sell at the wrong times for the most part. We also rarely get the right players with the money. I’d like to see us actually hold firm for once and say no, we want to see where this goes. 
 

Maybe we’ll be better for it down the road. That said just always feels like it is next season. 

We did go for it in 2019/20, look at the cash LJ splashed, £4M Wells, £4M Palmer, £8M Kalas, £2M JD, Massengo, Nagy etc approx £5M, Bentley £2M approx. Imagine if Nigel was given that backing and what financial return have we had for that outlay? £0! Ashton and LJ were the wrong people at the right time sadly. I have to give SL credit there, he didn’t pocket any of the Webster/Kelly deal, re-invested it, we just bought badly. 

[Shauntaylor85]

6 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Think the doom and gloom should wait until after the window closes. Pearson and Tinnion have been on the ball for a while now

I don’t think Nige and Tins are the issue here, they will both have targets, it’s just whether it is signed off. Let’s wait and see what happens in next three weeks. 

[Port Said Red]

9 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

He really isn’t good enough at commanding his box, he’s a decent player but he’s not going to get you top 6, thought he was very poor for their goal. We definitely need a better goalkeeper.  

On that aspect you are completely wrong. When it comes to commanding your box the most important thing is that defenders know what you are going to do. I have it on the best authority that the defenders all preferred to play with Max rather than Bentley last season because they knew when he was coming and when he was staying.

 

[johnheadbcfc]

5 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

We did go for it in 2019/20, look at the cash LJ splashed, £4M Wells, £4M Palmer, £8M Kalas, £2M JD, Massengo, Nagy etc approx £5M, Bentley £2M approx. Imagine if Nigel was given that backing and what financial return have we had for that outlay? £0! Ashton and LJ were the wrong people at the right time sadly. I have to give SL credit there, he didn’t pocket any of the Webster/Kelly deal, re-invested it, we just bought badly. 

I prefer the way the club is now seeing academy players coming through rather than your chris brunts signing and literally doing nothing 

[Supersonic Robin]

1 hour ago, Lrrr said:

Essentially you’re otherwise saying by not selling him this summer we’re sacrificing what is essentially a years worth of losses in the hope we have a good season, particularly where 3 strong teams have dropped down from the premier league making it all the harder. I think if we were genuinely in and around the play offs last season there’s a different case to make but off the back of a lower mid season finish it’s hard to make 

Exactly this IMO. We may well have to 'gamble' and hold on to our top players for an extra season at some point. 

However, that time should probably come once we've at least finished in the top 10, and a push for promotion looks like a realistic possibility.

We finished 14th last season. With or without Scott, the chance of us being promoted this season is very very small.

To gamble on promotion this season and cost ourselves £10m in Scott fees would seem pretty naive. 

[miketh2nd]

I think some people actually Forget Scott's journey and that he was so fed up of travelling back and forth from Guernsey that when he left Bournemouth  he went to Guernsey fell out of love with football in time joined a amateur team then  to Guernsey FC to get some of his life back, then we picked  him up.

Some will think Oh Bournemouth are a small club but he is still only 19 and is switched on when it comes to life it appears from interviews, so no surprise if he wants to join them , they are in the Prem and he's closer to mates and friends. 

Anyway lets get this thread to 200 pages

[Nogbad the Bad]

9 hours ago, Ian M said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if Pearson isn’t handed any funds from the sale. I’m not so sure the Lansdowns are as big fans of him as many of the fans are and a season in lower mid-table would justify not offering him a new contract.

I've felt this for some time.

Iirc the quote at the time of his appointment was that Nige absolutely blew them away at the interview. He'll have told them some uncomfortable home truths (turns out the situation was even worse than he thought) but they knew exactly what they were getting.

Whether SL likes him personally or not should be irrelevant, NP's no doubt done exactly what he said he would do and the club is now in a far healthier position. SL should be counting his blessings NP was not only available but willing to take on such a complete mess of a club.

If, as you suggest, the plan is to make life difficult for NP to find excuses to replace him the fans will see through it. There is still residual anger and frustration from the Cotts out/LJ in debacle and I can't see some sort of repeat being tolerated.

Have the fans ever turned against SL? He should not be too sure they never will.

Whatever his personal feelings may be SL must back NP now, publicly and financially, for the good of the club.

[supercidered]

As much as it grinds my gears, the transfer was always going to happen. However, in a scenario like this i.e. a prized clubs asset is sold to a club higher up the food chain. Then usually, the fee, at least a significant part of that fee, is then spent to further strengthen the team. In this instance, as things look and sound. That isn't happening! 

This is the part that I'm really the most disappointed and flat about. I'm a bloke in my 50's so I've seen plenty of punches to the gut when it comes to decisions made at Board level. I'm definitely no happy clapper but the job NP and Tins have done to undo the terrible reigns of Mark Ashton and LJ has been admirable. How must NP in particular be feeling this morning? My guess is, angry and let down and what f@ck is the point? Hopefully, he doesn't get too despondent because if he did decide that he's had enough then we really could be heading back to square one. Again!  

[RedRock]

As the direct opposite to the dysfunctional commercial side, the ‘players out’ model we operate is run like a well-oiled machine. 

Alex, has incredible talent, and I’m pretty confident he will go on and have a great career in the Prem. He has been in the shop window for the past 6 months and everyone at the Club has been ensuring he’s a visible ‘for sale’, but only at a decent fee. The classic was Nige’s recent interview, with the reference to the ‘Alex Scott mug.  Smart, and not the first time we’ve promoted players in order to avoid being fleeced.

Key to the success of our model and promotion to the Prem, is the ‘players in’ side of the equation. I get The Academy is now delivering but imo that, alone, won’t get us into the Prem. Feel more confident with Nige and Tins at the helm of player recruitment… but still worry about the lack of a network of experienced, proven talent scouts. Hopefully, will be proved wrong and our new ‘batch’ of incomers will push us on to the long-promised land.
 

 

[fisherrich]

Would prefer it was Bristol City in the Prem chasing players to sign like AS, not Bournemouth. This is a risky move for AS in my opinion. Chances are he will be back in the Championship next season playing against Brizzle City

[Red Exile]

32 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

....just always feels like it is next season. 

The story of the Lansdown years in a nutshell! 

I think the sale of Alex Scott is wholly understandable. Exciting to see so many young players come through. Whilst it's a shame to see him go I can see that giving talent the chance to move on is part of the attraction of the City set up. I'm hoping that with an experienced PL CEO and manager in place City will invest wisely and that the years of feast or famine and SL's personal 'project' appointments are behind us. Time will of course tell, but the next couple of weeks will give an indication.

[Phileas Fogg]

1 hour ago, wtf said:

 

 

Quote NP Bristol live; "Planning to keep him" "Better chance of success if we keep our best players" now which ever way you cut it we wont get as good players for less than what we recieved for them, maybe you should think why clubs like Bournemouth take our best players ? wait I know........they are prem clubs we never will be while we continue with our mindset; bottom line WE DIDNT HAVE TO SELL SCOTT and wont replace him with better even if we spend every penny we got for him.

Please get it, we cannot continue to sell off our prize assets and hope to progress under the belief that we are building some awesome powerfull squad, for the simple reason when we do get anyone awesome we sell them off, that is not progress its going around in circles.

Statements like that are all smoke and mirrors though. If Pearson indicated we were planning to sell for the right offer, it lowers our bargaining power.

If we’d have kept him, we’d be gambling. The contract situation means he’s probably at his peak value we could sell him for right now - perhaps with the exception of this coming January if we were top 3 and things were tight. 

We’re not the only club in the world that sells our best players - it happens at every single level, even with the superclubs to an extent where only really Real Madrid can't be gazumped.

Is it likely we will replace Scott with a player who has as much potential? No. Is there a chance the squad can be strengthened from the funds (thus making us a better side)? Yes.

I am a bit surprised by the naivety on here by some - I guess it’s partly because it’s difficult for some to fathom Bournemouth being able to buy our best players. 

It’ll be a shame to lose him, but it’s a huge amount of money, potential add ons and improves our reputation as an academy and club.

It wasn’t that long ago people were bemoaning Southampton and even Cardiff dominating in youth development whilst we were producing Jennison Myrie-Williams, Dean Grubb and Craig Woodman. In the last few years, relatively speaking, we’ve outperformed most clubs in the country in that field. Success stories like Scott, and even Bryan/Reid, make us an attractive option for the best young talent.

[Major Isewater]

1 hour ago, Northern Red said:

Running a football club is evidently a piece of piss.

Running a football club is a bit like making love to a beautiful woman. 

[Phileas Fogg]

7 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

I've felt this for some time.

Iirc the quote at the time of his appointment was that Nige absolutely blew them away at the interview. He'll have told them some uncomfortable home truths (turns out the situation was even worse than he thought) but they knew exactly what they were getting.

Whether SL likes him personally or not should be irrelevant, NP's no doubt done exactly what he said he would do and the club is now in a far healthier position. SL should be counting his blessings NP was not only available but willing to take on such a complete mess of a club.

If, as you suggest, the plan is to make life difficult for NP to find excuses to replace him the fans will see through it. There is still residual anger and frustration from the Cotts out/LJ in debacle and I can't see some sort of repeat being tolerated.

Have the fans ever turned against SL? He should not be too sure they never will.

Whatever his personal feelings may be SL must back NP now, publicly and financially, for the good of the club.

Agreed. It’s clear the Lansdowns have a preferred type. I can see someone like Russell Martin being more up their street.

[Phileas Fogg]

3 minutes ago, fisherrich said:

Would prefer it was Bristol City in the Prem chasing players to sign like AS, not Bournemouth. This is a risky move for AS in my opinion. Chances are he will be back in the Championship next season playing against Brizzle City

I’m not so sure. The signings and managerial appointment Bournemouth have made are forward thinking. Neither are the appointments of a club aiming to survive and nothing else. 

[supercidered]

3 minutes ago, RedRock said:

As the direct opposite to the dysfunctional commercial side, the ‘players out’ model we operate is run like a well-oiled machine. 

Alex, has incredible talent, and I’m pretty confident he will go on and have a great career in the Prem. He has been in the shop window for the past 6 months and everyone at the Club has been ensuring he’s a visible ‘for sale’, but only at a decent fee. The classic was Nige’s recent interview, with the reference to the ‘Alex Scott mug.  Smart, and not the first time we’ve promoted players in order to avoid being fleeced.

Key to the success of our model and promotion to the Prem, is the ‘players in’ side of the equation. I get The Academy is now delivering but imo that, alone, won’t get us into the Prem. Feel more confident with Nige and Tins at the helm of player recruitment… but still worry about the lack of a network of experienced, proven talent scouts. Hopefully, will be proved wrong and our new ‘batch’ of incomers will push us on to the long-promised land.
 

 

I think we just need to forget about this 'promised land' idea.

We are what we are. That is a club looking to be sustainable rather than successful. 

The City Board version of successful is basically being sustainable. The majority of the fans' vision of success is something different.

[Bristol Rob]

A lot of talk about this potential sale being pushed through to satisfy the bean-counters, well spare a thought for the Bournemouth bean-counter.

"Right, so you're telling me I have to pay £20mil tomorrow, and then a further £5mil over the next few years for this player?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And this is the player who only a few years ago, was training with our club and could have been ours for absolutely nothing whatsoever???!!!!???"

"Err, yes."

"This makes no sense!!!"

[YGBjammy]

Have slept on it now, and I think my overriding feeling is just that I hope he absolutely ******* smashes it at Bournemouth and continues his trajectory up the league. (Hopefully giving us a nice chunk of change along the way). The more clubs he goes through the more likely it is we get some money from it. So maybe in our best interest to start at the lowest club and work his way up.
Yeah it is gutting it's Bournemouth, as it's not a "big club" in the traditional sense, but at the end of the day £20-25m is £20-25m.

In terms of if we will go out and spend, I think the most likely theory is that the money is used to basically cover the losses we have already incurred over the last few years isn't it? It's not a case of it being spent or not being spent. It all goes into the accounts in one way or another! Some people seem to think transfer fees are our only outgoings sometimes!

Edited August 10, 2023 by YGBjammy

[the1stknowle]

5 minutes ago, fisherrich said:

Would prefer it was Bristol City in the Prem chasing players to sign like AS, not Bournemouth. This is a risky move for AS in my opinion. Chances are he will be back in the Championship next season playing against Brizzle City

Nah - Sheff Utd being total dross means basically 2 relegation slots. One likely to be Luton. Bournemouth have very decent chance of staying up. 

[mozo]

30 minutes ago, the1stknowle said:

Completely understood, but some silver linings:

1. Crazy good money in the bank for a championship player and, if he fulfills potential, I assume we have the chance to make another really good sum down the road.

2. Another high profile sale to the prem. Our reputation in that area builds. Promising players want to come to us because they see a pathway. Youth players want to develop here for same reason. That means more gems down the road. We have already signed some.

3. Related to 2, and the biggest silver lining for me, we now seem to have a recruitment operation that knows what a promising young player is and our transfer business and known targets are always really exciting now. Never trusted the football side of City so much as I do today. If Tinnion/Pearson say a player is class and I think he's onions, I know that I'm wrong. Even if they can only spend a fraction of that money over next few windows, I'm excited to see who they bring in. 

4. I know this isn't universal, but for me, there is a massive element of pride in seeing a youth team player achieving like this. I'm not on board with the 'just Bournemouth' stuff. Hope he smashes it in a fun Bournemouth team and is in the England squad in next few years.

5. Players want to play in prem and history says you have to take your chance or you could miss it. Short career that can be over in one tackle. One day, we will be in that league, and we will have a chance to sign the best players from much bigger Championship clubs and their fans will be shouting 'why Bristol City?' and we will love it. 

If someone had said to us three/four years ago that a teenage midfield  genius would be gifted to us with no scouting required and he'd be fast-tracked into the first team and sold for £20m plus after just two seasons, we'd be amazed at how lucky we were!

Fair enough the coaches deserve  redit for developing him, but really it's like walking down East St, seeing summat shiny on the pavement, picking it up, dusting it off, and low and behold it's a diamond and you're minted. 

What's even better is, this happened to us and not the Gas!!

[And Its Smith]

Pearson v Lansdown feels like it’s coming down the tracks fast.  Pearson saying it’s not his decision. I think Lansdown would probably prefer him to be a bit more diplomatic than that.  Pearson saying he just needs to be told about funds and ‘doesn’t need a meeting with people’.  We will have to see how this one plays out! 

[robinforlife2]

There was me hoping this would get to 200, before he was sold. 22 pages in a day, can we do it ? 

[mozo]

Just now, And Its Smith said:

Pearson v Lansdown feels like it’s coming down the tracks fast.  Pearson saying it’s not his decision. I think Lansdown would probably prefer him to be a bit more diplomatic than that.  Pearson saying he just needs to be told about funds and ‘doesn’t need a meeting with people’.  We will have to see how this one plays out! 

The Alex Scott zip mouth emoji and a couple of the Pearson comments do add a bit of intrigue to the whole thing.

[johnheadbcfc]

12 minutes ago, fisherrich said:

Would prefer it was Bristol City in the Prem chasing players to sign like AS, not Bournemouth. This is a risky move for AS in my opinion. Chances are he will be back in the Championship next season playing against Brizzle City

But on 40k a week

[And Its Smith]

14 minutes ago, fisherrich said:

Would prefer it was Bristol City in the Prem chasing players to sign like AS, not Bournemouth. This is a risky move for AS in my opinion. Chances are he will be back in the Championship next season playing against Brizzle City

It’s not risky at all. If they are relegated then he will shine and leave. 

[KegCity]

Whilst I'm realistic enough to know we won't be spending crazy money, surely we're in the clear enough with FFP to bring in 1-2 players this summer? I can accept sales like this if we're proactive and use the money to move forward but if the club end up sitting on a lot of it, and don't then start retaining future stars, then this is quickly going to become tedious.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

SL talks about the PL all the time, as does all of our PR. Reality is can you really see us getting there under him? Luton, Blackpool, Brentford, Bournemouth, Barnsley have all done it, all smaller clubs than City. 

He invested far too much time in the Johnson family IMO, then made the Fawthrop, Millen, Tinnion mistake again with Holden. Didn’t back Cotts after all he did that season prior to get the board out of the mess from the previous champ era ending, he finally has someone at the club who knows how to build for success and you just get the feeling we will throw it away. 

I know well that in 2016 after we sacked Cotts, Warnock wanted the City job, I was at Charlton and my heart sank when I heard LJ had been appointed. Warnock went to Rotherham, performed a miracle and then did the same at Cardiff next year with a 2nd placed finish spending half of what LJ had at City. Had we appointed Warnock we would for sure had been promoted by now, or at the very least a couple of play off finishes. The point I am making is the Nige and Warnock’s of the world know how to run a club at this level to achieve success, but for our board you seem to get the impression to be too outspoken. 

Cardiff were in receipt of Parachute Payments  between 2014-15 to 2017-18. Warnock benefited from these albeit lower than now in the last 2 years.

What we are seeing now is Cardiff without..last two years bottom third, an income of £20m or so hemming them in..

Warnock has a strong track record for sure but Parachute Payments have assisted. Pearson I see as more progressive, the promotion of youth, the progress in playing style etc.

[slartibartfast]

1 hour ago, bpexile said:

Or a Coppello 

[W-S-M Seagull]

5 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Pearson v Lansdown feels like it’s coming down the tracks fast.  Pearson saying it’s not his decision. I think Lansdown would probably prefer him to be a bit more diplomatic than that.  Pearson saying he just needs to be told about funds and ‘doesn’t need a meeting with people’.  We will have to see how this one plays out! 

I think you're reading too much into it. When it comes to the media, Pearson is a master at using it to our advantage. 

No major decisions happen at this club without Pearson having a significant input.

[haggis_farewell]

4 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I think you're reading too much into it. When it comes to the media, Pearson is a master at using it to our advantage. 

No major decisions happen at this club without Pearson having a significant input.

That's my read of it too. Pearson has got us out of relying on expensive end-of-career cloggers and resorting to hoofball to more attractive, attacking football with young players who have come through the club. A good part of that is tied to the financial situation we were in, but it's a great progress in playing style and we're now seeing a definite approach.

Pearson is clearly using the media to make clear to SL that a situation where he cannot bring 1-2 quality additions in with some of the AS money is not OK. He'll get that we won't reinvest it all, but I'd be surprised if he didn't get c. £5m in transfer & wages made available or so if we assume at least £20m up front. Otherwise we can't deliver what he's been asked to do: as many have said, this is the year when we have to kick on a bit.

Edited August 10, 2023 by haggis_farewell