Joe Williams

[RedRoss]

The talk about losing characters and experience is overlooking likely due to their age. The experience/characters we'll have with just Knight and Bird.

This Derby interview with them both at 150 appearances each a year ago shows this:

 

[Simon bristol]

14 hours ago, BLRed said:

Not for me. Hasn’t done enough in his whole time playing here. Funny his performances start improving when playing for a new contract…. Too often we have fallen foul to that only to be hamstrung by having a player on a long contract we don’t want and can’t move on.

with TGH, knight, bird, stokes and Murphy, along with possibly Benarous and twine, we have enough cover to move Williams on along with king and James.

Our fan base are far too easily won over by short term performance. Perfect case in point would be the amount of players suggested we purchase having seen one half decent cup performance on tv!

williams is injury prone, is on a decent contract and has been missing for 65-70% of his time here, whether that be due to injury, suspension or just not performing to an appropriate level

Have to agree,,, though if he can maintain this level til the end of the season id maybe consider a 1+1 just in case the injuries start again. Apart from the last 2 months, he just has hasnt been worth the transfer fee and wages.

[Davefevs]

46 minutes ago, RedRoss said:

The talk about losing characters and experience is overlooking likely due to their age. The experience/characters we'll have with just Knight and Bird.

This Derby interview with them both at 150 appearances each a year ago shows this:

 

And we know Knight is a “standards setter” too.

[RedRoss]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

And we know Knight is a “standards setter” too.

For both of them to reach that many appearances already, both to captain Derby at times and Knight to represent his country 24 caps and captain us already should say everything.

[GrahamC]

I think what this season has shown is trying to run with the smallest senior squad in the division doesn’t work.

With King clearly on his way (& his effectiveness as a squad option likely to decrease) then keeping one of Williams or James makes a lot of sense.

Relying on Murphy or Stokes to make any sort of contribution seems a stretch & then if one of Bird, TGH or Knight are unavailable we’re short again.

Personally I’m not bothered whether that is Williams or James but you don’t have to be a genius to work out that one of these two is clearly edging towards the out door.

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I think what this season has shown is trying to run with the smallest senior squad in the division doesn’t work.

With King clearly on his way (& his effectiveness as a squad option likely to decrease) then keeping one of Williams or James makes a lot of sense.

Relying on Murphy or Stokes to make any sort of contribution seems a stretch & then if one of Bird, TGH or Knight are unavailable we’re short again.

Personally I’m not bothered whether that is Williams or James but you don’t have to be a genius to work out that one of these two is clearly edging towards the out door.

We're perhaps 2 light IMO, and yet imbalanced in the odd area overall.

3-4 GKs now..As in 2-3 to cover or compete wirh O'Leary.

Remove 2 of Bajic, Thomas, Wiles-Richards and get one more in to truly compete with O'Leary.

Think we're one CB light too ans maybe the odd area, but at the same time some of the absentees have been rolling and ridiculous..McCrorie joins summer, cannot feature until early January and then  Twine joins, across and is out injured.

[bcfc01]

28 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

And we know Knight is a “standards setter” too.

As an aside, Knight has now racked up over 200 EFL appearances and 24 full internationals at the age of 22 (23 next week).

He's scored 14 for Deby in 166 appearances (7 assists) and 5 for us in 36 appearances (4 assists) - we seem to be getting a lot more out of him in that respect, and more to come.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jason-knight/leistungsdaten/spieler/530780

[RedRoss]

7 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We're perhaps 2 light IMO, and yet imbalanced in the odd area overall.

3-4 GKs now..As in 2-3 to cover or compete wirh O'Leary.

Remove 2 of Bajic, Thomas, Wiles-Richards and get one more in to truly compete with O'Leary.

Think we're one CB light too ans maybe the odd area, but at the same time some of the absentees have been rolling and ridiculous..McCrorie joins summer, cannot feature until early January and then  Twine joins, across and is out injured.

It won't be Thomas he's extended for 18 months.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-city-goalkeeper-signs-new-9081438

I do agree though. Keep him as third keeper, move on (if possible) Bajic and let go HWR if not deemed good enough and get in proper competition for Max.

[GrahamC]

6 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We're perhaps 2 light IMO, and yet imbalanced in the odd area overall.

3-4 GKs now..As in 2-3 to cover or compete wirh O'Leary.

Remove 2 of Bajic, Thomas, Wiles-Richards and get one more in to truly compete with O'Leary.

Think we're one CB light too ans maybe the odd area, but at the same time some of the absentees have been rolling and ridiculous..McCrorie joins summer, cannot feature until early January and then  Twine joins, across and is out injured.

Think it is pretty clear there will be some changes in the goalkeeping department behind Max this summer.

Harvey Wiles-Richards appears to have told people he’s being released, James Piercy hinted this week that Bajic will look to move on this summer.

The surprising decision to offer a 26 year old lower league keeper in Lewis Thomas an 18 month contract has to be linked to this.

The club clearly rate both Duncan & Casa-Grande so whether they are thinking about putting one on the bench next season knowing they have the insurance of a far more experienced number 3 keeper available is a possibility.

Other alternative is we look to loan them out & bring someone in.

Assuming Atkinson’s ACL issues are over & that we don’t loan Knight-Lebel out, I think we are ok at CB, Naismith another option too, if he stays for the final year of his contract.

[Davefevs]

13 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

As an aside, Knight has now racked up over 200 EFL appearances and 24 full internationals at the age of 22 (23 next week).

He's scored 14 for Deby in 166 appearances (7 assists) and 5 for us in 36 appearances (4 assists) - we seem to be getting a lot more out of him in that respect, and more to come.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/jason-knight/leistungsdaten/spieler/530780

Glad you brought that up.

As everyone will know, I’m a huge Knight fan.  That’s not to say I don’t think he’s had some off-days, but generally he’s been one of our better players this season imho.  But there is lots of talk of lack of end product, but 5 goals / 4 assists in 36 appearances is a good return, especially (again imho) playing in a position where we don’t make best use of his ability to arrive late in the box.  He doesn’t really want to be playing facing away from goal or side-on, he wants to be driving into the box.

16 games left, I hope he can add another few to his tally.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Knight at Derby is interesting as it seemed in his early days as if there were goals in him and still clearly are but seemed to be an element of diminishing returns in this regard. Will also perhaps have had something to do with the chaos off the pitch and the steady decline of the team on it.

League Only

Derby

Championship

2019-20..31 Games (20 Starts)- 6 Goals, 0 Assists

2020-21..41 Games (41 Starts)- 2 Goals, 0 Assists

2021-22..38 Games (31 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

League One

2022-23..38 Games (33 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

Bristol City (so far)

2023-24..30 Games (29 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

[mozo]

3 hours ago, petehinton said:

I think this is where I’m at too. 
 

King, James, Weimann, Williams all going are huge leaders and personalities in the dressing room.
 

On yesterday’s Stick to Football, Neville & Keane made a huge point about how important it was for them to have senior successful pros to look up to, who they could aspire to try to replicate. Even put United’s recent downfall to having none of those characters over the last 10 years. 
 

If they are all to go, of which Weimann King & James are basically guaranteed to be off - that leaves Wells, Naismith and Cornick as the most senior experienced pros….

 

It’s a hell of a risk. 
 

Sunderland have an extremely young squad, but that was built with again some sprinklings of older quality, and ultimately just having extremely talented young players, more so than us. 
 

We all already knew we had a small squad, so I personally don’t see how recruiting Bird & the two young lads in cm (tbc on if they’d even be first team starters next season anyway), but letting 2 potentially 3 CMs go, strengthens us in any way possible.
 

Would require further CM shopping, as well as more than likely spending a decent chunk of cash on a new striker, and either doing the same for a GK or continue being weak in that department too. 
 

Over to Tinns, I guess!

Yeah totally agree. Manning stripes me as the time who would have sat down and applied some fancy personality categorising system to assess the squad. Matty James is a Green ENFJ Leader etc... but we've already got two of those... 

It'll be fascinating to see what balance we go with next season.

[Tre Bong]

19 hours ago, Mihai said:

Guys ? There are players earning more than 1 mil. pounds per year at City ?  If that so, Romanian football is cursed, Championship is the second league and we can't even match half of that for more than a few players and only at top teams,  and we are City not Southampton/Leicester because other teams which pay even more for sure... WAAAT is going wrong with football,  every player will loose his passion after a few years earning that much money. Most of them will see only the financial benefit and that will make this sport even more tactical than is already.

Nobody is earning 1 mil, our highest earner was Andi Weimann but now he's gone it's Jason Knight. Joe Williams is joint 6th top earner Andy King is one of our lowest paid.

[Northern Red]

7 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Knight at Derby is interesting as it seemed in his early days as if there were goals in him and still clearly are but seemed to be an element of diminishing returns in this regard. Will also perhaps have had something to do with the chaos off the pitch and the steady decline of the team on it.

League Only

Derby

Championship

2019-20..31 Games (20 Starts)- 6 Goals, 0 Assists

2020-21..41 Games (41 Starts)- 2 Goals, 0 Assists

2021-22..38 Games (31 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

League One

2022-23..38 Games (33 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

Bristol City (so far)

2023-24..30 Games (29 Starts)- 2 Goals, 3 Assists

He was also being played all over the place at Derby, wingback etc.

[1960maaan]

5 hours ago, Tre Bong said:

Nobody is earning 1 mil, our highest earner was Andi Weimann but now he's gone it's Jason Knight. Joe Williams is joint 6th top earner Andy King is one of our lowest paid.

Not disputing what you say, but would love to know where you got the figures, obviously if it's a "can't say" , then fair enough. 

The internet seems to think JW is on around 10/11k pw , with Knight on about £15k. If they are close, trying to reduce Williams salary in the next contract will be a hard sell. 

[ExiledAjax]

5 hours ago, Tre Bong said:

Nobody is earning 1 mil

Not on their basic £Xk per week wage no. But add bonuses on and the top earners are probably hitting £900k per year. Granted that is not £1m...but it's not far off.

[Malago]

39 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

Not disputing what you say, but would love to know where you got the figures, obviously if it's a "can't say" , then fair enough. 

The internet seems to think JW is on around 10/11k pw , with Knight on about £15k. If they are close, trying to reduce Williams salary in the next contract will be a hard sell. 

What will determine if Williams stays, or not, will depend on whether like sized clubs (Cardiff, Brum, Swansea) are A) interested in signing him and B) what they are willing to pay him.  I would imagine if we match any outside offers then he will stay, if we don’t, he won’t.