Sammy cant stop scoring.

[Roadrunner]

Well another ex player keeps on scoring sammy got a hattrick in the FA cup today.

[One Team]

8 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Well another ex player keeps on scoring sammy got a hattrick in the FA cup today.

Might get more yet, game still going.

Szmodics must be the biggest slip up in recent years. If only we’d played him! 

[Mr Popodopolous]

The thing is we don't know. I won't defend the treatment but sometimes players need to go back to progress again- his stint at Peterborough and the setback for him here could have helped him grow as a player.

Here..would he have lit up the side. Maybe maybe not. Good luck to him and feels like one that got away but we just don't know.

Edited January 6 by Mr Popodopolous

[One Team]

2 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The thing is we don't know. I won't defend the treatment but sometimes players need to go back to progress again- his stint at Peterborough and the setback for him here could have helped him grow as a player.

Here..would he have lit up the side. Maybe maybe not. Good luck to him and feels like one that got away but we just don't know.

All good comments mate. It’s the same with managers when people say “we were going down” or players that do well elsewhere but not here. You are quite right, we will never know. Some players just fit clubs.

Edited January 6 by One Team

[Dr Balls]

1 minute ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The thing is we don't know. I won't defend the treatment but sometimes players need to go back to progress again- his stint at Peterborough and the setback for him here could have helped him grow as a player.

Here..would he have lit up the side. Maybe maybe not. Good luck to him and feels like one that got away but we just don't know.

Couldn’t have done much worse than Kasey Palmer, given the fee and wages we paid out on him by comparison. Szmodics was a good piece of scouting and that’s about all you can say positively about his time with us.

[The Nest Egg]

A victim of the scattergun approach to recruitment at the time. Maybe would have had more of a chance if we didn't sign Palmer that summer too

[WarksRobin]

IIRC Szmodics had a really good preseason for us, scoring goals. Once the season started he was nowhere to be seen, replaced by Kasey Palmer.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 minute ago, WarksRobin said:

IIRC Szmodics had a really good preseason for us, scoring goals. Once the season started he was nowhere to be seen, replaced by Kasey Palmer.

Some of the opposition weren't the most taxing but that was all very odd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Bristol_City_F.C._season

[Port Said Red]

So we would all have been patient and waited until he was 28 years old before he showed his full potential, but we are more than ready to pass on Mehmetl, Bell or even Conway at 22? OK, sounds believable.

[1960maaan]

Ahh , see.  That Lee Johnson had an eye for a player. 

Didn't know what to do with them , or have a system in mind , or know how he wanted to set up or play , but he could definitely sign a player. 

[Dr Balls]

2 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

Ahh , see.  That Lee Johnson had an eye for a player. 

Didn't know what to do with them , or have a system in mind , or know how he wanted to set up or play , but he could definitely sign a player. 

“Clubs in the bag, clubs in the bag”. As provided by Mark Ashton and his Top Trumps approach to recruitment.

[joe jordans teeth]

This goes firmly at the feet of our owner and at some fans who like a singalong I’m afraid 

[Galley is our king]

58 minutes ago, One Team said:

Might get more yet, game still going.

Szmodics must be the biggest slip up in recent years. If only we’d played him! 

Why when we had Kasey Palmer?

.....

[petehinton]

I’ve never been able to find the quote again, but didn’t LJ say something along the lines of “I didn’t really want to sign him, but all of his numbers/stats suggested I should” ??

[Northern Red]

1 hour ago, The Nest Egg said:

A victim of the scattergun approach to recruitment at the time. Maybe would have had more of a chance if we didn't sign Palmer that summer too

100%. Signed him, then signed Palmer because we could so that was the end of that. Just showed how little thought and analysis was going into recruitment by that point, it was all about stockpiling and trading players.

24 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

This goes firmly at the feet of our owner and at some fans who like a singalong I’m afraid 

There was nowhere near as much clamour from fans to sign Palmer as there had been for Kalas in the same summer, or Tomlin a few years before.

[DOZZYBCFC]

51 minutes ago, petehinton said:

I’ve never been able to find the quote again, but didn’t LJ say something along the lines of “I didn’t really want to sign him, but all of his numbers/stats suggested I should” ??

Yea I recall this quote too!

[BCFC31]

If I remember rightly palmer didn't really pull up any trees while on loan with us, and had to make do with coming off the bench alot. we had szmodics in the building aswell that summer who was having a great pre season, I then remember being completely baffled as to why we signed palmer. I understood kalas and Dasilva but it completely blocked sammies pathway into the starting XI, especially given the pressure would have been on to play palmer given his massive wages at the time. You can certainly see why there is no love lost between us and szmodics 

Edited January 6 by BCFC31

[joe jordans teeth]

1 hour ago, Northern Red said:

100%. Signed him, then signed Palmer because we could so that was the end of that. Just showed how little thought and analysis was going into recruitment by that point, it was all about stockpiling and trading players.

There was nowhere near as much clamour from fans to sign Palmer as there had been for Kalas in the same summer, or Tomlin a few years before.

And all 3 turned out to be duds apart from kalas maybe when he was fit which wasn’t often 

Edited January 6 by joe jordans teeth

[Davefevs]

10 minutes ago, BCFC31 said:

If I remember rightly palmer didn't really pull up any trees while on loan with us, and had to make do with coming off the bench alot. we had szmodics in the building aswell that summer who was having a great pre season, I then remember being completely baffled as to why we signed palmer. I understood kalas and Dasilva but it completely blocked sammies pathway into the starting XI, especially given the pressure would have been on to play palmer given his massive wages at the time. You can certainly see why there is no love lost between us and szmodics 

There was a story that he was being signed to feed Nketiah.  However true or not it was, I recall thinking - hadn’t we paid £5.3m for Diedhiou and now he’s being cast aside for a 18 year old loanee???

[Mr Popodopolous]

20 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

There was a story that he was being signed to feed Nketiah.  However true or not it was, I recall thinking - hadn’t we paid £5.3m for Diedhiou and now he’s being cast aside for a 18 year old loanee???

Things seemed to be working albeit with flaws until Afobe injured.

(Kalas, DaSilva, Nagy all got medium term too and Smith carried his).

Back to Palmer, behind Weimann and Afobe we were looking quite sharp. Diedhiou absolutely didn't fit that style.

Palmer behind Weimann and Nketiah again absolutely could have been interesting.

Two very divergent styles though.

[Silvio Dante]

I remember in the pre season community game at Hallen Smodzics was exceptional playing behind a front two. Granted the standard of the opposition was not great, but I thought I could see a plan of either him or Pato behind the front two. KP signing changed that and SS got pushed down the pecking order - and when he did play for us (I think I remember Swansea home) he looked miles off the standard.

In short, we didn’t help him but when he did get opportunities he didn’t look ready. My criticism of the club is not not keeping him, but signing Palmer which without that, would have given more time to see if he could develop. I don’t see the need to hang the club on this one for any reason other than poor recruitment outside of SS

[Sleepy1968]

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

I’ve never been able to find the quote again, but didn’t LJ say something along the lines of “I didn’t really want to sign him, but all of his numbers/stats suggested I should” ??

Pete, I remember this as well. I thought it was such a disrespectful thing to say.

[James54De]

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

I’ve never been able to find the quote again, but didn’t LJ say something along the lines of “I didn’t really want to sign him, but all of his numbers/stats suggested I should” ??

Not quite. 

[Sleepy1968]

1 hour ago, Northern Red said:

100%. Signed him, then signed Palmer because we could so that was the end of that. Just showed how little thought and analysis was going into recruitment by that point, it was all about stockpiling and trading players.

There was nowhere near as much clamour from fans to sign Palmer as there had been for Kalas in the same summer, or Tomlin a few years before.

Yeah, Palmer was a bit underwhelming in his loan spell, and I thought we'd dodged a bullet.

But fair play to mark ashton who was to pay 2-4x his worth in transfer fee and wages.

Then LJ was forced to backtrack a bit and mention that he wanted to get a full preseason training in with KP.

It was an absolutely idiotic period, that's for sure.

 

 

[Sleepy1968]

10 minutes ago, James54De said:

Not quite. 

But near enough. LJ made it clear SS was a 'numbers' signing.

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Things seemed to be working albeit with flaws until Afobe injured.

(Kalas, DaSilva, Nagy all got medium term too and Smith carried his).

Back to Palmer, behind Weimann and Afobe we were looking quite sharp. Diedhiou absolutely didn't fit that style.

Palmer behind Weimann and Nketiah again absolutely could have been interesting.

Two very divergent styles though.

Afobe was the last minute plan b for Nketiah….the point I was trying to make (badly) was less about Palmer, and more about casting aside your record signing of 12 months earlier.  Magpie - new shiny object - must have it - sod the £5.3m!

[GrahamC]

14 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

I remember in the pre season community game at Hallen Smodzics was exceptional playing behind a front two. Granted the standard of the opposition was not great, but I thought I could see a plan of either him or Pato behind the front two. KP signing changed that and SS got pushed down the pecking order - and when he did play for us (I think I remember Swansea home) he looked miles off the standard.

In short, we didn’t help him but when he did get opportunities he didn’t look ready. My criticism of the club is not not keeping him, but signing Palmer which without that, would have given more time to see if he could develop. I don’t see the need to hang the club on this one for any reason other than poor recruitment outside of SS

Agree with every word.

Palmer was an utterly baffling signing, people like to jump on the bandwagon and say all 3 of the Chelsea players were poor but the other two made perfect sense.

Szmodics didn’t look ready in his very few opportunities & when he left us for (League One) Peterborough I don’t recall many (any?) of these posters complaining.

At 28, over 3 years since he left us it is clearly all coming together for him, but to pretend that there was a majority opinion at the time that said keep him is nonsense.

[Mr Popodopolous]

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Afobe was the last minute plan b for Nketiah….the point I was trying to make (badly) was less about Palmer, and more about casting aside your record signing of 12 months earlier.  Magpie - new shiny object - must have it - sod the £5.3m!

Ah yes, when you put it like that..his flip flopping of style, ooh new player, new style new player etc did us few favours.

[NewquayRed]

So depressing posts like this, at what point do we start not giving a monkeys ?

[GrahamC]

5 minutes ago, NewquayRed said:

So depressing posts like this, at what point do we start not giving a monkeys ?

When they get sold & do nothing, because those players never get mentioned again.

You could probably find loads of threads saying we’ll regret selling/releasing so & so but when like in the cases of Liam Walsh or Ryley Towler it doesn’t happen they’re not brought up.