ATRUEREDBLUE Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 Congratulations to the guys at Forever Bristol City - what a great podcast with input from supporters who know the game and Bristol City in particular. As things have evolved this season and the FBC cast have been chewing over the issues I have become increasingly depressed. We all know that we are in a mid-table mediocre tumble dryer of a position - and it seems to me that the strategy of the club has very little chance of breaking this cycle and if anything this could be as good as it gets. The thing that concerns me is that the FBC team appear to have become more accepting (in a slightly brow beaten kind of way) of the clubs position on this and it has been interesting to see Ian in particular who over a period of time seems to have moved closer to the clubs stance - perhaps this reflects his increasingly closer position to people who are close to the club if indeed that is the case - is Ian a poacher turned gamekeeper? I am sure Ian would say he is just being realistic. The reality is that we will need to be very lucky and have all the stars aligned in our favour to get promoted if we continue with the stated approach of relying on the academy to develop players who we can sell to help us balance the books leaving little left to buy the quality of players we need. This policy involves us not being able to consolidate and build team performances in an upward trajectory because our use of such players in their prime will only be for one or two seasons at best before we sell and we still can’t buy the players we really need- the policy either requires us to hit the jackpot with these special players (if indeed we develop players of the quality of Scott or Semenyo which is less likely than likely) so that they are in the club for long enough to give the team a chance to move upwards (which again is less likely than likely) or the manager we have chosen needs to turn out to be something special and starts to show that he can make a silk purse out of a sows ear (a slightly unfair analogy but I wanted to make the point). Unless I am missing the point this strategy is very limited and risk averse. To get promoted this way looks unlikely unless we get a dose of good luck with the two issues referred to above. The reality is that the club must accept that it needs to take more risk to give us a better chance of going up. If a billionaire can’t take a risk then who can? We all know that we need two or possibly 3 quality players to move our squad from its current level to the next level and give us a better chance - this means an investment of circa 15 million but as Ian says, this ain’t gonna happen! If that’s the case, I think City fans need to adjust their ambitions and hope of going up and for the likes of Ian DP and myself we may not see premier league football in our lifetime. The problem I have with all of this is two fold (1) it seems to me that this strategy is less likely to achieve SL’s stated objective of selling the club - if we don’t go up how is the clubs value/potential going to change from what it appears to be now in the eyes of prospective investors (there have been no takers as things stand) - it is important to acknowledge that SL has done a great job in building the off pitch infrastructure but he still owns the value in this so in many respects and on the contrary his spending is not all lost - if he wants to sell out in the best way possible he needs to do more and review his approach to risk and I am not talking about excessive or catastrophic risk. (2) As an outsider (and I stand to be corrected) my view is that SL has been successful in financial services, made a lot of money and spent a proportion of that money in developing the infrastructure at Bristol City but he has underperformed as a wealthy owner on the pitch. My sense is that he has been a little naive and slightly parochial in his approach to the football performance side of the business. I felt from the beginning that Mark Ashtons midland sales patter was hollow and I think SL gave him trust too early. I don’t feel that SL has recruited premier league standard people to deliver for him on the football side and this in my view is continuing. SL has done great things for the club and this must be recognised but it would be a shame for his legacy not to go that extra step. Conclusion - I would like to see SL acknowledge this and take steps to bring in top tier football executives - he could do this (buy the best) give them responsibility for developing a new 3year football strategy with incentives to get results (they may or may not decide that LM is the man for the head coach job) and with responsibility to inform SL what he should realistically do to improve the squad to make City a promotion chasing club but working within sensible financial parameters (15 or so million not 50 million). SL could then say that he did everything he could to achieve what we all want. If it worked we would all be happy, the ownership succession plan would be more straightforward SL would get a return and his legacy would be protected in perpetuity. If it didn’t work at least SL could say he did everything. If he does not address his appetite for risk and continues with the current plan I sense that we will maintain our position or even go backwards and this would tarnish SLs legacy which would be unfair - he does deserve a statue. So, let’s stop trying to get to the top tier with 2nd tier people and a risk averse strategy - let’s start talking about taking a carefully planned risk to move forward - let’s show some guts and ambition and please FBC keep challenging the club and don’t give up! 8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 £15m? Ok then.. Paragraphs, mate, paragraphs… 4 4 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superjack Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 43 minutes ago, GrahamC said: £15m? Ok then.. Paragraphs, mate, paragraphs… What did it say? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1960maaan Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 48 minutes ago, GrahamC said: £15m? Ok then.. Paragraphs, mate, paragraphs… Fair play if you read that Graham . I started , saw the block of text and scrolled on . 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Geoff Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 11 minutes ago, 1960maaan said: Fair play if you read that Graham . I started , saw the block of text and scrolled on . Me too. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wedontplayinblue Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 TLDR 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1960maaan Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 3 minutes ago, Wedontplayinblue said: TLDR Hands up those who had to Google it 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exAtyeoMax Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 17 minutes ago, 1960maaan said: Hands up those who had to Google it Thanks 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrs Court Red Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 Executive summary please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harvey54 Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 Roughly translated, it says "Domino hoo hoo". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATRUEREDBLUE Posted April 3 Author Report Share Posted April 3 Apologies if this was too long for you all - see Executive Summary requested Executive Summary 1. Love the Forever Bristol City Podcast - but are they becoming too accepting of the clubs current strategy? 2. The Clubs current strategy is very unlikely to give us a chance to get promoted - relying on developing young players, selling them to balance the books with little remaining to purchase the quality we need is unlikely to give us the opportunity to challenge unless we are lucky and can retain those players for long enough (if indeed we develop them in the first place - Scott and Semenyo won't be easy to repeat) and/or our manager/head coach turns out to be exceptional and capable of getting us into the running with lower quality on paper than our rivals. It feels like this approach is unlikely to bring success. 3. It feels like the club and SL's appetite for risk is pretty low. Less risk - less reward. In the context of SL's overall wealth it feels like the risk we need to take is not that great. Further, the current approach does not seem to be capable of bringing the ownership succession that SL wants either. 4. SL has been a great custodian of the club but as a wealthy owner he has underperformed on the pitch. I think this is because he has tried to get to the top tier relying on 2nd tier expertise. 5. Why not pay for the best football executive leadership he can get - give them responsibility (with incentives) to develop a plan to get us out of the championship in 3 years. Assess their plan and the associated financial risk and make a decision. This may or may not lead to a change of head coach depending on what the new football executive leadership advise. 6. SL can at that point decide to go with the new strategy or not. If he does not we will continue as is. If he decides to go for the new strategy we will have 3 years to make it happen. If SL goes for it, he can then say that he tried everything. If it works the fans will be happy, SL's succession options will go through the roof and his legacy will be protected. If it does not work SL can then say he tried everything and his legacy is less likely to be affected. 7. It feels like we all have a shared objective but are not doing the right things to make it happen. If that's the case let's not settle for that. Lets keep challenging the club to do more otherwise we will never get out of our current position and if we are not careful we could start to go backwards. 6 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aipearcey Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 It weird, I was thinking the absolute same this evening whilst listening to the pod. One point I would make is that Ian says everything as if it’s fact, Steve Lansdown said last year we've got to bide our time' - 'we can't compete with the parachute payments' - 'if we can sell players for £25m every year we're building that nest egg up to be able to compete in the longer term' if it is no longer the case and he has in fact been informed that there won’t be money to spend why is he not calling lansdown out for making statements like this? - @headhunter as much as I love the pod and genuinely think Ian brings a lot to the shows, it would be refreshing to sometimes dig a little bit deeper how he thinks he knows these things he speaks of as if they’re facts with very little substance to them. Speaking of the Lansdowns, I also believe that one of the biggest issues which has been ongoing for many years is the constant banging of the “we want to get to the premier league drum” yet don’t back this up with their actions. And finally (tin hat on and something I never wanted to say……) maybe we were all wrong about Mark Ashton! In the last 10 years the closest we’ve got to getting anywhere near within a chance it was under his direction. Had we had a different manager who didn’t have the streaky runs would be have maybe made it to the play offs or further? Whilst yes we’ve spent the last few years recovering from that period of time, are we not all saying that the only realistic way we achieve promotion is to again take a risk in giving it a go in one season and risking breaking FFP like we did under him? Seeing how we are now and looking at Ipswich from a distance, I can’t help but think maybe he did know what he was doing here, knew it was going to be s#+t or bust but that’s the best chance a club like us or Ipswich have of getting up. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davefevs Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 12 minutes ago, Aipearcey said: And finally (tin hat on and something I never wanted to say……) maybe we were all wrong about Mark Ashton! In the last 10 years the closest we’ve got to getting anywhere near within a chance it was under his direction. Had we had a different manager who didn’t have the streaky runs would be have maybe made it to the play offs or further? Whilst yes we’ve spent the last few years recovering from that period of time, are we not all saying that the only realistic way we achieve promotion is to again take a risk in giving it a go in one season and risking breaking FFP like we did under him? Seeing how we are now and looking at Ipswich from a distance, I can’t help but think maybe he did know what he was doing here, knew it was going to be s#+t or bust but that’s the best chance a club like us or Ipswich have of getting up. I’ve always said Ashton is a good “football administrator”. But you give him rope to allow his ego to think it’s all about him, and then let him act like he is, unsupervised, then the shady Ashton can’t wait to break out. And boy did he here, Watford and Oxford. Ipswich allowed him some rope in season one. He overstepped his boundaries. Mark Steed (pension fund bloke) paid a visit at the end of that first season. Put Ashton in his place. There’s a great interview with Steed somewhere (can’t find it) where he basically said “if I think you’re f++king with me, I’ll f++k you over”! 6 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozo Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 We do have to appreciate that we are currently 12th in the Championship. So it's not like this is a tragic period in our history. The senior structure is quite clearly not right at the club, but we're just waiting for new investment/ownership to shake things up. I'd love us to take the next step to becoming playoff contenders but I think we need some reinforcements and a bit of luck. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elhombrecito Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 Thanks AI... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curr Avon Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 3 hours ago, elhombrecito said: Thanks AI... Thanks, but I prefer ChatGT. Your AI, My AI. (And yes, its still funny) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transfer reader Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 Waiting for a condensed version from @BigTone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin_unreliant Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 I'm beyond reading posts that suggest that SL brings in some top, experienced football executive to run the club. We all know that's the root cause of our under performance on the pitch. We also know he won't do it. Feels pretty depressing at times. Then I remember all those years stuck in L1, wishing we could just be a solid Championship club. Helps me get it in perspective. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDOXO Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 On 03/04/2024 at 15:21, Barrs Court Red said: Executive summary please. @BigTone please for the love of god summarize! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobtherobin Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 On 03/04/2024 at 20:35, 1960maaan said: Fair play if you read that Graham . I started , saw the block of text and scrolled on . Thanks for sharing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reddogkev Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 Unfortunately SL seems quite happy to let the club meander along the river of the Championship, growing each year in small ways, providing expensive and sometimes decent football in a nice, modern, quiet stadium, that offers the occasional brilliant game amongst a sea of sub-standard football, and one day his ownership might take us to the Premier League, at this rate in about 15 years, in which case he probably won't be around to see it anyway and Ryan Reynold's Wrexham would have won the Premier League at least three times by then, so what's the bloody point? I wish they would speed the whole thing up, chuck a little bit of Luton magic at it. Oh, if only we had Tony Bloom, or the Brentford owner, although I don't actually know who that is! I like SL, just wish he woke up one day and realised this club would be freaking huge in the top tier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Geoff Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 1 hour ago, robin_unreliant said: I'm beyond reading posts that suggest that SL brings in some top, experienced football executive to run the club. We all know that's the root cause of our under performance on the pitch. We also know he won't do it. Feels pretty depressing at times. Then I remember all those years stuck in L1, wishing we could just be a solid Championship club. Helps me get it in perspective. Nothing wrong with being a solid Champioship club, if the football is attractive and fans can see that the owner is 100 per cent committed to taking the leap to the next level. What isn't acceptable is being a mid table Championship club where the football is akin to a snore fest, the owner has given up and handed everything over to an incompetent (liar) heir. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lack of Action Man Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 On 03/04/2024 at 23:58, ATRUEREDBLUE said: Love the Forever Bristol City Podcast - but are they becoming too accepting of the clubs current strategy? In short, yes they are. Ian and Mark culpable of this, whilst Neil, Tom and Dave P seem to be a bit more representative of the level of concern I’d say that a lot of fans have about the general mismanagement at the club from top to bottom. Ian had a lot of air time in the most recent episode, as a result he seemed to have the biggest opportunity to control the narrative of the pod. Personally I’d like to see Tom back asap and more contributions from Neil who I rarely (if ever) find myself disagreeing with. The pod is certainly enhanced by both of them being present on the panel. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigTone Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 (edited) On 03/04/2024 at 20:30, ATRUEREDBLUE said: Congratulations to the guys at Forever Bristol City - what a great podcast with input from supporters who know the game and Bristol City in particular. As things have evolved this season and the FBC cast have been chewing over the issues I have become increasingly depressed. We all know that we are in a mid-table mediocre tumble dryer of a position - and it seems to me that the strategy of the club has very little chance of breaking this cycle and if anything this could be as good as it gets. The thing that concerns me is that the FBC team appear to have become more accepting (in a slightly brow beaten kind of way) of the clubs position on this and it has been interesting to see Ian in particular who over a period of time seems to have moved closer to the clubs stance - perhaps this reflects his increasingly closer position to people who are close to the club if indeed that is the case - is Ian a poacher turned gamekeeper? I am sure Ian would say he is just being realistic. The reality is that we will need to be very lucky and have all the stars aligned in our favour to get promoted if we continue with the stated approach of relying on the academy to develop players who we can sell to help us balance the books leaving little left to buy the quality of players we need. This policy involves us not being able to consolidate and build team performances in an upward trajectory because our use of such players in their prime will only be for one or two seasons at best before we sell and we still can’t buy the players we really need- the policy either requires us to hit the jackpot with these special players (if indeed we develop players of the quality of Scott or Semenyo which is less likely than likely) so that they are in the club for long enough to give the team a chance to move upwards (which again is less likely than likely) or the manager we have chosen needs to turn out to be something special and starts to show that he can make a silk purse out of a sows ear (a slightly unfair analogy but I wanted to make the point). Unless I am missing the point this strategy is very limited and risk averse. To get promoted this way looks unlikely unless we get a dose of good luck with the two issues referred to above. The reality is that the club must accept that it needs to take more risk to give us a better chance of going up. If a billionaire can’t take a risk then who can? We all know that we need two or possibly 3 quality players to move our squad from its current level to the next level and give us a better chance - this means an investment of circa 15 million but as Ian says, this ain’t gonna happen! If that’s the case, I think City fans need to adjust their ambitions and hope of going up and for the likes of Ian DP and myself we may not see premier league football in our lifetime. The problem I have with all of this is two fold (1) it seems to me that this strategy is less likely to achieve SL’s stated objective of selling the club - if we don’t go up how is the clubs value/potential going to change from what it appears to be now in the eyes of prospective investors (there have been no takers as things stand) - it is important to acknowledge that SL has done a great job in building the off pitch infrastructure but he still owns the value in this so in many respects and on the contrary his spending is not all lost - if he wants to sell out in the best way possible he needs to do more and review his approach to risk and I am not talking about excessive or catastrophic risk. (2) As an outsider (and I stand to be corrected) my view is that SL has been successful in financial services, made a lot of money and spent a proportion of that money in developing the infrastructure at Bristol City but he has underperformed as a wealthy owner on the pitch. My sense is that he has been a little naive and slightly parochial in his approach to the football performance side of the business. I felt from the beginning that Mark Ashtons midland sales patter was hollow and I think SL gave him trust too early. I don’t feel that SL has recruited premier league standard people to deliver for him on the football side and this in my view is continuing. SL has done great things for the club and this must be recognised but it would be a shame for his legacy not to go that extra step. Conclusion - I would like to see SL acknowledge this and take steps to bring in top tier football executives - he could do this (buy the best) give them responsibility for developing a new 3year football strategy with incentives to get results (they may or may not decide that LM is the man for the head coach job) and with responsibility to inform SL what he should realistically do to improve the squad to make City a promotion chasing club but working within sensible financial parameters (15 or so million not 50 million). SL could then say that he did everything he could to achieve what we all want. If it worked we would all be happy, the ownership succession plan would be more straightforward SL would get a return and his legacy would be protected in perpetuity. If it didn’t work at least SL could say he did everything. If he does not address his appetite for risk and continues with the current plan I sense that we will maintain our position or even go backwards and this would tarnish SLs legacy which would be unfair - he does deserve a statue. So, let’s stop trying to get to the top tier with 2nd tier people and a risk averse strategy - let’s start talking about taking a carefully planned risk to move forward - let’s show some guts and ambition and please FBC keep challenging the club and don’t give up! Condensed Version If a billionaire can’t take a risk then who can? Edited April 6 by BigTone 1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldstandrobin Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 (edited) On 04/04/2024 at 09:27, mozo said: We do have to appreciate that we are currently 12th in the Championship. So it's not like this is a tragic period in our history. The senior structure is quite clearly not right at the club, but we're just waiting for new investment/ownership to shake things up. I'd love us to take the next step to becoming playoff contenders but I think we need some reinforcements and a bit of luck. Spot on. Many a year when we were in the old third division or later, League One, we dreamed of this. But a lot of us older fans have come to realise that the dream of competing at the top table was given us once and like Halley's Comet only re-appears after many many years ! Edited April 6 by oldstandrobin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slack Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 I wonder how long until a club somewhere in the pyramid, tries to put AI as a manager 23 hours ago, elhombrecito said: Thanks AI... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon bristol Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 The problem is that for 20 years there have continually been bad appointments, but now finally, we are going to get it right with a 3 year plan? No one has any faith that it will be sorted this time, least of all lansdown I suspect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcusX Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 1 hour ago, Slack said: I wonder how long until a club somewhere in the pyramid, tries to put AI as a manager I’d imagine stats, data and “intelligence” are already doing a fair amount of selections and scouting all ready - over traditional gut feeling and favourites 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bow Legged Chicken Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 Condensed version. Stick or twist. Atrueredblue thinks twist, as they are getting old and have less to lose if we bust. I’m risk averse, waiting for stars to allign. In the meantime, can we use AI to script managerial comments? Less time wasted for all concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.