The bigger picture?

[Dr Balls]

So it’s now a week since Nige was sacked and it’s been followed by a load of word garbage about the reasons for this. However it is perhaps the case that the 2 Directors of the club (yes there are only 2 - 1 is JL, the other is the CEO) have let the cat out of the bag. It’s not that they want promotion this season but rather that they need Premier League football and the associated money next season to make Bristol Sport a worthwhile asset to sell.

As it stands, all of the various components of Bristol Sport are loss-making, with only the men’s football club having a chance of breaking even by selling players it develops at a high price. This produces the said “nest egg” but there is no guarantee that this will ever be spent. In fact, it may just be used to help cover further financial losses.

Bristol Sport has turned into a major headache for SL and he wants out. ETM holding up the development of the housing at “Longmoor Village” turns off the revenue stream wanted to develop the “Sporting Quarter” including the new arena, which has now been delayed with no sign of anything happening there any time soon.

In the meantime, men’s professional rugby is a financial basket case, with all clubs losing money like it was going out of fashion. That is likely to make any overseas investor keen on buying the men’s and women’s football teams, plus Ashton Gate and the HPC think that there must be better options elsewhere, especially given the supposed asking price for Bristol Sport of £200 million. And SL won’t want to be left with just the rugby and basketball teams, and then having to pay to rent out their playing venues.

The bottom line is that promotion is no longer a vague aim, but it is essential to the wider aim for the Lansdowns of selling up and getting out. Now that might be a good thing for fans if it was realistic, I.e. appreciating we needed to use the “nest egg” to buy the players needed to achieve it, but the impression given by our 2 directors and Tinnion, the technical director, is that our current squad is good enough to get promotion. Having seen our performance yesterday against the bottom team in the league, who were down to 10 men for more than 60 minutes, you would have to suggest that they have either been taking something fairly hallucinatory or they have no idea of Championship football. Neither suggests that the current demand for any incoming new head coach is achievable.

And so any person interviewed for the vacant post is quite rightly going to ask “And what resources are you going to give me to make this happen?” If the answer is you have to work with the current squad, I think most would say “forget it”. And if the answer is “You can use some of the nest egg” that suggests that the owners always intended getting rid of Nige and not allowing him anywhere near those funds I.e. they were deliberately setting him up to fail. Especially as he would have told them that we don’t have a squad to compete with the likes of Leicester, Leeds or Southampton, and Luton to a greater or lesser extent “got lucky” doing it on the cheap.

So there we have it. Are we an attractive option for an ambitious head coach? Only if the available resources match the stated aims. And will SL manage to sell Bristol Sport? Only if the stated aim is achieved, which suggests having to splash the cash in the January transfer window, which as we know is not a good time to try buying players at a decent price. And the fall guy for all of this and the one that has done most to put the club on a more stable footing both in football and financial terms in the past couple of years is Nige, who is likely to have pointed out the currently unrealistic nature of the aims. Unfortunately it seems that if you don’t like the message, it’s always easiest to shoot the messenger!

[Davefevs]

Nice summary.

On paper, this is a mid-table squad, a squad of fairly equal ability players bar a few, so that when our best players are fit and available the team can perform as a top half team.

But squads are never 100% fit and available.  And if it’s your “better” members of the squad that are out then the back-up struggle to raise the team quality.  If the better members are available and it’s the others that are unfit, the better players can carry the rest.

What we were hoping for was that team spirit, culture, never say die would give us those fine margins.  In a number of games it has, but that’s not enough.

To think that this squad is top-6 on paper is absolute horseshit.  If you think it is top-6 because of the previous bold para, then you must be attributing some (most?) of that uplift to the manager and his staff as being the ones to get the players to outperform their individual parts.

As a recruitment team, they need to be very confident that the next appointment is capable of equalling (bare minimum) or improving that intangible uplift.

Can’t wait to see who comes in.

 

[Southport Red]

All of which makes the double standards more galling. 
 

in Pat Lam, the Bears have one of the most respected coaches in the game. City also have a coach widely respected in the game too…oh, wait a minute. 
 

the Bears also have two England props (although perhaps Sinkler shouldn’t play again for a while). I realise rugby players are cheaper than footballers, but City never get close to that level of quality. 
 

I thought the Lansdown understood the value of experienced and talented coaches with genuine achievements on their CV’s. 

[White Stripe]

One question I have is how would this club actually cope in the Premier league from a governance point of view?  They aren't doing that much of a job running a Championship club. I could be wrong but BCFC seems devoid of heavy hitters and football people. Surely the demands on the club would require a vastly improved governance structure. We would need several people of a similar calibre to Gould across the board.  How would SL cope with that?  Or Jon for that matter?

[awbb]

Another issue is that I get the feeling that Tinnion, in particular, overrates the academy products. 

Many interviews over the last few years where he mentions ‘got even better ones coming through’ and we may well do, but the idea that we can just throw teenagers in and be successful seems fanciful, since only 1 player has ever really done it in the second tier in the last 30 years.
 

Obviously, for him, the development of these players was the be all and end all of he role at City. Now it’s just a part of it and it’s understandable that he might have a bias towards those players, even if it’s not really correct, and may pass that bias up the chain and give those people the impression we are better than we really are.
 

The classic is the question of whether Idehen or Araoye are better than Andy King as a Championship centreback?
 

Possibly, but if you’re lacking nous, experience and leadership elsewhere on the pitch as it is, then possibly not.

[chinapig]

5 minutes ago, Elmore James said:

One question I have is how would this club actually cope in the Premier league from a governance point of view?  They aren't doing that much of a job running a Championship club. I could be wrong but BCFC seems devoid of heavy hitters and football people. Surely the demands on the club would require a vastly improved governance structure. We would need several people of a similar calibre to Gould across the board.  How would SL cope with that?  Or Jon for that matter?

Steve doesn't want heavy hitters on the football or admin side it seems. Perhaps because they will tend to tell him the truth rather than saying on a weekly basis how great the Lansdowns are.

Governance is somewhat lacking when you have a Chairman with no discernible qualifications for the job, no non-executive directors, no CEO and a preference for yes men on the football side.

From that perspective the Premier League would be a disaster without a major upgrade in the quality of management.

[ExiledAjax]

13 minutes ago, Elmore James said:

One question I have is how would this club actually cope in the Premier league from a governance point of view?  They aren't doing that much of a job running a Championship club. I could be wrong but BCFC seems devoid of heavy hitters and football people. Surely the demands on the club would require a vastly improved governance structure. We would need several people of a similar calibre to Gould across the board.  How would SL cope with that?  Or Jon for that matter?

You've answered your own question.

[Mr Popodopolous]

In theory with a fair wind, with a lot of luck with injuries and perhaps some officiating wise a tilt at a play-off place isn't impossible, however under NP I'd have had more faith.

However in our current reality, more like top half to midtable, perhaps lower midtable bottom half with a bad injury situation.

[CliftonCliff]

1 hour ago, Dr Balls said:

So it’s now a week since Nige was sacked and it’s been followed by a load of word garbage about the reasons for this. However it is perhaps the case that the 2 Directors of the club (yes there are only 2 - 1 is JL, the other is the CEO) have let the cat out of the bag. It’s not that they want promotion this season but rather that they need Premier League football and the associated money next season to make Bristol Sport a worthwhile asset to sell.

As it stands, all of the various components of Bristol Sport are loss-making, with only the men’s football club having a chance of breaking even by selling players it develops at a high price. This produces the said “nest egg” but there is no guarantee that this will ever be spent. In fact, it may just be used to help cover further financial losses.

Bristol Sport has turned into a major headache for SL and he wants out. ETM holding up the development of the housing at “Longmoor Village” turns off the revenue stream wanted to develop the “Sporting Quarter” including the new arena, which has now been delayed with no sign of anything happening there any time soon.

In the meantime, men’s professional rugby is a financial basket case, with all clubs losing money like it was going out of fashion. That is likely to make any overseas investor keen on buying the men’s and women’s football teams, plus Ashton Gate and the HPC think that there must be better options elsewhere, especially given the supposed asking price for Bristol Sport of £200 million. And SL won’t want to be left with just the rugby and basketball teams, and then having to pay to rent out their playing venues.

The bottom line is that promotion is no longer a vague aim, but it is essential to the wider aim for the Lansdowns of selling up and getting out. Now that might be a good thing for fans if it was realistic, I.e. appreciating we needed to use the “nest egg” to buy the players needed to achieve it, but the impression given by our 2 directors and Tinnion, the technical director, is that our current squad is good enough to get promotion. Having seen our performance yesterday against the bottom team in the league, who were down to 10 men for more than 60 minutes, you would have to suggest that they have either been taking something fairly hallucinatory or they have no idea of Championship football. Neither suggests that the current demand for any incoming new head coach is achievable.

And so any person interviewed for the vacant post is quite rightly going to ask “And what resources are you going to give me to make this happen?” If the answer is you have to work with the current squad, I think most would say “forget it”. And if the answer is “You can use some of the nest egg” that suggests that the owners always intended getting rid of Nige and not allowing him anywhere near those funds I.e. they were deliberately setting him up to fail. Especially as he would have told them that we don’t have a squad to compete with the likes of Leicester, Leeds or Southampton, and Luton to a greater or lesser extent “got lucky” doing it on the cheap.

So there we have it. Are we an attractive option for an ambitious head coach? Only if the available resources match the stated aims. And will SL manage to sell Bristol Sport? Only if the stated aim is achieved, which suggests having to splash the cash in the January transfer window, which as we know is not a good time to try buying players at a decent price. And the fall guy for all of this and the one that has done most to put the club on a more stable footing both in football and financial terms in the past couple of years is Nige, who is likely to have pointed out the currently unrealistic nature of the aims. Unfortunately it seems that if you don’t like the message, it’s always easiest to shoot the messenger!

This is spot on.

I remarked on another thread earlier in the week that SL really has painted himself into a corner with the way he’s structured this interconnected nest of companies.

if it was just BCFC he wanted out of, it’s impossible to sell as a stand alone entity. It’s long ceased to be an independent football club and, crucially, no longer has the security that comes with owning your own stadium. It cannot now be extricated from this convoluted corporate network and the only way to dispose of it is to flog the entire group together, which - surprise, surprise - nobody wants to buy.

To use the most apt sporting metaphor, it’s a spectacular own goal. The growing desperation that lies behind the current situation is reflected in the increasingly erratic decision making, culminating in this week’s self-defeating and destructive behaviour. 
 

It’s a thoroughly demoralising and alarming time to be a supporter and it’s very difficult to see at the moment how a positive outcome can be achieved.

[sunningdalered]

A neat and thoughtful analysis. Thanks for sharing. Lansdown Snr is not commercially stupid, and can afford decent advice. If he gambled the whole BS venture on city getting into the Premier league that would be astonishing. You have to think that there is a buyer for BS out there, and it is the price attached to it that SL will have to compromise on. 

[George Rs]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

To think that this squad is top-6 on paper is absolute horseshit.  If you think it is top-6 because of the previous bold para, then you must be attributing some (most?) of that uplift to the manager and his staff as being the ones to get the players to outperform their individual parts.

 

Agreed, In both post Nige interviews our senior staff seem to think we have a top 6/8 team that can outperform their ability based on numerous factors. I just don’t see that at all. 

Pretty clear to me we have a midtable squad, one in a relatively good position for the new HC as it’s got a relatively low average age and most of the assets are tied down to new contracts. Will be a good squad to build from in the next few windows. 
 

I do agree we have the ability to outperform based on our fitness levels etc. Still feel like that was what nige was doing though, could easily see us finishing in the top 10 by the end of the season. But that’s done and dusted now. 

[Davefevs]

17 minutes ago, George Rs said:

Agreed, In both post Nige interviews our senior staff seem to think we have a top 6/8 team that can outperform their ability based on numerous factors. I just don’t see that at all. 

Pretty clear to me we have a midtable squad, one in a relatively good position for the new HC as it’s got a relatively low average age and most of the assets are tied down to new contracts. Will be a good squad to build from in the next few windows. 
 

I do agree we have the ability to outperform based on our fitness levels etc. Still feel like that was what nige was doing though, could easily see us finishing in the top 10 by the end of the season. But that’s done and dusted now. 

I probably shouldn’t have used the term “horseshit”, maybe misguided.

I’m not a great fan of Tony Thorpe as a co-commentator, but his post-match summary about us being a mid table team prompted my thoughts.