Mr Lansdown's Comments In The Ep Re. Cotts

[Cardy]

I can't believe what I have just read. He is saying that we should be proud of the fact that 3 of our ex-academy produced players are now playing in the Premiership. Is he taking the piss or what ?

Proud, no Steve, extremely disappointed that your small time Chairmanship has allowed this to happen one way or another. This club should be aiming to get 11 of it's players playing in the top league but we never will whilst you remain in control. Take the money and run - you need it to finance the debts caused by all the other costly mistakes you have made over the last 4 or 5 years. It's working quite nicely though isn't it because the more mistakes you make the more of the ground you own....

You have no intention of spending any of the £2m anyway. You knew Cotts was leaving early on Wednesday morning and yet did nothing to fill the void by Thursday midnight. Bad joke.

As was sung at the ref at half time today - 'You don't know what you're doing'........You clearly do not have a clue what it takes to build a successful football club.

[And Its Smith]

I can't believe what I have just read. He is saying that we should be proud of the fact that 3 of our ex-academy produced players are now playing in the Premiership. Is he taking the piss or what ?

No he's not. Cant people understand that we are a club that LOSE money!! We need this money to (a) survive and (b) reinvest in the team.

You have no intention of spending any of the £2m anyway.

I'd love to know how you know this! I reckon that some of the money will be spent on players if Johnson wants to.

You knew Cotts was leaving early on Wednesday morning and yet did nothing to fill the void by Thursday midnight. Bad joke.

Please read what Johnson said about this on the main site - I cant be bothered to explain it again.

As was sung at the ref at half time today - 'You don't know what you're doing'........You clearly do not have a clue what it takes to build a successful football club.

I am a season ticket holder but didnt go today for personal reasons but if this is sung then I shake my head at my fellow City fans for the umpteenth time this season. He sold an unproven 18 year old for 2 million pound. Thats 1 million more than we got for a proven Lita. If he had turned it down and then Cotterill hadnt fulfilled his potential it would have been ridiculous - look at what happened to Fortune!!

[SimplyRed]

It's pointless speculating that it 'might' have backfired if we had rejected the offer.

The fact is, Cotterill was one of our better players with pace in abundance and a promising future.

We missed that pace badly today against Brighton.

This club likes to publicise the fact that it is ambitious and then continues to sell the only players that have the promise to get us out of this fleapit of a league.

We can't afford to buy in talent that can get us up - we have to 'grow' it. Selling them on when somebody just happens to wave a wad of cash under their noses simply shows up Lansdown for what he really is - an accountant.

[And Its Smith]

It's pointless speculating that it 'might' have backfired if we had rejected the offer.

The fact is, Cotterill was one of our better players with pace in abundance and a promising future.

We missed that pace badly today against Brighton.

This club likes to publicise the fact that it is ambitious and then continues to sell the only players that have the promise to get us out of this fleapit of a league.

We can't afford to buy in talent that can get us up - we have to 'grow' it. Selling them on when somebody just happens to wave a wad of cash under their noses simply shows up Lansdown for what he really is - an accountant.

But we are not talking about 500k or 1 million pound. If we were then I could understand your point of view - this is 2 million pounds we are talking about. A completely ubsurd amount of money for a player that (if you look back at old posts) a lot of fans were saying shouldnt even be in our team and were slagging off for inconsistency and no end product.

I'll say it again - 2 MILLION POUNDS - think about it for just a minute. When it was announced I was very happy and continue to be so.

[Ralph Milne]

But we are not talking about 500k or 1 million pound. If we were then I could understand your point of view - this is 2 million pounds we are talking about. A completely ubsurd amount of money for a player that (if you look back at old posts) a lot of fans were saying shouldnt even be in our team and were slagging off for inconsistency and no end product.

I'll say it again - 2 MILLION POUNDS - think about it for just a minute. When it was announced I was very happy and continue to be so.

For a club that loses money every year 2 million pounds for a player in our position should be snapped up every time

[SimplyRed]

But we are not talking about 500k or 1 million pound. If we were then I could understand your point of view - this is 2 million pounds we are talking about. A completely ubsurd amount of money for a player that (if you look back at old posts) a lot of fans were saying shouldnt even be in our team and were slagging off for inconsistency and no end product.

I'll say it again - 2 MILLION POUNDS - think about it for just a minute. When it was announced I was very happy and continue to be so.

So would you rather have £2 million or promotion? It may come to that. Who do we have with Cotterill's pace and promise? Players that can make a difference between gaining promotion and being also-rans?

[And Its Smith]

So would you rather have £2 million or promotion? It may come to that. Who do we have with Cotterill's pace and promise? Players that can make a difference between gaining promotion and being also-rans?

AAAAGGHHH!!! I cant stand this anymore.

There is no way we could turn that money down, no way in this whole world. Cotterill wont be the difference between going up and not going up, he is one player out of a squad of 18 or so.

Promise wont get you promoted mate, not this season. How can you say that it might come down to 2 million or promotion?! Cotterill's not even that good!

[ajs202]

FICKLE! Last week everyone is complaining Cotterill isnt good enough, he is dropped for a game, comes back has a great game on Sky, he suddenly turns into citys only good player(?), irreplacable within the squad(?). Moaning about getting £2mill, for a player that last week couldnt even guarantee himself a starting spot.

[Ralph Milne]

AAAAGGHHH!!! I cant stand this anymore.

There is no way we could turn that money down, no way in this whole world. Cotterill wont be the difference between going up and not going up, he is one player out of a squad of 18 or so.

Promise wont get you promoted mate, not this season. How can you say that it might come down to 2 million or promotion?! Cotterill's not even that good!

RD you are spot on

[greenun]

So would you rather have £2 million or promotion? It may come to that. Who do we have with Cotterill's pace and promise? Players that can make a difference between gaining promotion and being also-rans?

How did you expect City to keep Cotterill, when a Premiership club (probably) offered him 10 times his existing salary?

[SE23Red]

So would you rather have £2 million or promotion?

What happened to the other two options in the equation © £2m and promotion, and (d) no £2m and no promotion? I'll take © thankyou

If the question is as simple as you state it of course we wouldn't have sold him. But remember we had Cotterill in the team all of last season and failed to make the playoffs so it is never a simple either-or.

IMO the key to getting promoted out of this league is stringing together a year or two of consistently making the right decisions, and in waiting until we were offered silly money for Cotterill we have made the right decision.

Unfortunately in recent years every good decision has been followed by a bad one (e.g. Wilson out was followed by Tinnion in). I just hope a big cock-up is not around the next corner.

[megansdad]

Choice is something we really did not have - Cotts rightly wanted to test himself in the Prem how exactly should SL have made him stay?

[SimplyRed]

How did you expect City to keep Cotterill, when a Premiership club (probably) offered him 10 times his existing salary?

I didn't say City expected to keep him, I said they didn't even try.

[SE23Red]

I didn't say City expected to keep him, I said they didn't even try.

How do you think the fee got up to £2m? Although we don't know I bet teams tested the water with lower figures and got knocked-back. Clubs don't start the bidding at £2m when a League One club is involved. Once the £2m bid was in I wouldn't want the club to try and convince him to stay...

[SimplyRed]

AAAAGGHHH!!! I cant stand this anymore.

There is no way we could turn that money down, no way in this whole world. Cotterill wont be the difference between going up and not going up, he is one player out of a squad of 18 or so.

Promise wont get you promoted mate, not this season. How can you say that it might come down to 2 million or promotion?! Cotterill's not even that good!

I wish I was as sure as you obviously are. What other players do we have that have his pace and ability?

Johnson's relying on lower league journeymen to do the biz for us. I think we desperately need the innovation, freshness and pace that youth gives us and, apart from Williams, I don't see anyone else of the fringes, do you?

Of course Cotterill is not the be-all and end-all and obviously it won't come down to £2m or promotion, but I was merely trying to show the flip side of everyone else's blustering that we HAD to take the money. It's just not as black and white as that and I'm annoyed that it seems the club didn't even try to hold on to him.

How do you think the fee got up to £2m? Although we don't know I bet teams tested the water with lower figures and got knocked-back. Clubs don't start the bidding at £2m when a League One club is involved. Once the £2m bid was in I wouldn't want the club to try and convince him to stay...

I hope you're right...

[Guest]

Choice is something we really did not have - Cotts rightly wanted to test himself in the Prem how exactly should SL have made him stay?

I thought contracts did that; we all see the reasons why he went and we took the money and let him go; but the other side of the coin shows us as ALWAYS selling off our best assets, the money we get for these sales seems to be spent on lesser players or swallowed up in debts we have.

This is seasonal ritual with this club as is getting a few "names" in to promote s,t sales;

Thats fine but it doesnt seem to be actually getting us anywhere, maybe we should break this circle we are forever going around in

[no1cityfan_tucks]

I thought contracts did that; we all see the reasons why he went and we took the money and let him go; but the other side of the coin shows us as ALWAYS selling off our best assets, the money we get for these sales seems to be spent on lesser players or swallowed up in debts we have.

This is seasonal ritual with this club as is getting a few "names" in to promote s,t sales;

Thats fine but it doesnt seem to be actually getting us anywhere, maybe we should break this circle we are forever going around in

We didnt sell Brooker did we? We gave him another contract didnt we???

[robins72]

I know at least another championship club who offered 350k for COterill two weeks ago. When they made an enquiry this week they were told it was over a million.

[Guest]

We didnt sell Brooker did we? We gave him another contract didnt we???

Oh there`s time; Seasons not over yet and contracts don't seem to count for much.

[Brianred]

We didnt sell Brooker did we? We gave him another contract didnt we???

Until the end of the season if we don't go up, he will want higher league football. At the end of the day Gj has

to go all out for this, otherwise people will be shouting for his head.

[reddevil]

I can't believe what I have just read. He is saying that we should be proud of the fact that 3 of our ex-academy produced players are now playing in the Premiership. Is he taking the piss or what ?

Proud, no Steve, extremely disappointed that your small time Chairmanship has allowed this to happen one way or another. This club should be aiming to get 11 of it's players playing in the top league but we never will whilst you remain in control. Take the money and run - you need it to finance the debts caused by all the other costly mistakes you have made over the last 4 or 5 years. It's working quite nicely though isn't it because the more mistakes you make the more of the ground you own....

You have no intention of spending any of the £2m anyway. You knew Cotts was leaving early on Wednesday morning and yet did nothing to fill the void by Thursday midnight. Bad joke.

As was sung at the ref at half time today - 'You don't know what you're doing'........You clearly do not have a clue what it takes to build a successful football club.

I'm sorry but this is complete and utter nonsense, I don't disagree with the overall sentiment but in this case it was a deal that could not be turned down.

Two weeks ago Cotterill wasn't in our first eleven.

We were offered £2m, this is more than received in total season ticket sales for this season.

Also by all accounts DC has got a contract paying £10,000 per week. Would have liked to here the conversation between DC's agent and Steve L if we had turned the bid down. The Gallas transfer to Arsenal shows that even the evil Chelski can be a "selling club" if the circumstances dictate.

The only problem I have with the deal is the timing, thanks to the transfer window no opportunity to get a replacement and a left winger in, guess how much we spend depends on where we are by January.

[no1cityfan_tucks]

Until the end of the season if we don't go up, he will want higher league football. At the end of the day Gj has

to go all out for this, otherwise people will be shouting for his head.

I'm not knocking that mate, and i do agree, i was simply responding to glos boy who says we sell our best players!

[RedTop]

The general consensus up in the Dolman around me yesterday was that it was good business and we were right to sell - the same view that was taken on Lita and, indeed, Golbourne. Wigan have paid well over the odds for an extremely talented yet inconsistent youngster. Let's not forget he was (rightly) dropped from our first team as recently as a fortnight ago so while he does add excitement and pace along with his maddening ability to keep hold of the ball when he should pass, he is hardly irreplaceable.

We have to accept that there are times we must let players go if the price is right. Ask yourself what sort of performances Cotterill would put in now, and what attitude he would add to the dressing room, if we had denied him a chance for his dream move. Seeing the likes of him, Lita etc strutting their stuff in the Premiership offers evidence to those youngsters at our club, and those our academy is competing to sign, that coming to Ashton Gate is the right career move.

No club losing millions, as we do, can turn down an offer over the odds for a player like Cotts. We must have wiped out most of this season's losses in one moment. He was not central to our team. I would say, for instance, that Noble, Carey, Fontaine and Brooker are all far more important to our chances of getting out of this division this season than Cotterill.

Look at it this way. In a very bad week for BCFC, we have gained six points and two million quid. The win over Brighton, despite a very tiring midweek match chasing 11 men, proves that we do not need Cotterill. Jennison, while raw, young and prone to making wrong decisions (just like Cotts did when he started) adds the pace and unpredictability we lost in Cotts. Indeed, it was those elements that set up our winner, and in time he may become a better player.

By that time, hopefully, we will be in the Championship and he will be able to develop further in our team without having to move to a Premiership club. We have to accept, though, that if he does flourish, the day will come when a club higher up offers wages etc that we cannot match. When that happens, again we will have to sell in the wider interests of the club and the player, provided the fee is right.

[robins72]

Until we get out this league we will remain a selling club. We must be one of the few clubs in this league that has an acadamy. Whilst playing in the acadamy we are blooding local talent for the future and they are only going to stay with us if we progress up the leagues, if we don't then a championship or premiership club will snap them up. Cotterill has been on our books since the age of 10. I don't know how long the likes of Williams, Grubb, Wilson, Benyon to name a few have been with us but i would guess its been from a young age. They must have had scouts watching them progress for years. We are small fry for bigger clubs and the thought of playing in a higher league for such young talent is too good to miss. We would feel exactly the same if we were offered promotion at work with a bigger pay rise and bonus(I know I would!). Its sad that we have lost our local talent in the first team (albeit Carey and now Williams) but its a sign of the times these days. Lets just hope we can get a team together now who can push out of this league and use the talents we have to play a higher and more competative game of football.

[megansdad]

Red Top - spot on Glos Boy Sorry but this is the world we live in. The Premier clubs get the vast majority of football revenue and grow bigger and more powerful - it becomes more difficult for clubs on a budget and without the finances of a very rich individual to progress. Not impossible but more difficult and to do so we first have to build a side to get out of this Division. Standing in the way of DC would not have helped and you know as well as I that in football contracts mean nothing.

No one has yet provided a realistic answer to the question - how could we have kept DC? simply because his loss was inevitable once Wigan came in with the offer they did. The board should be congratulated on getting an excellent price rather than pilloried for lacking ambition.

GJ has been supported in the transfer market and while he has delat in free transfer largely the wage bill has probably been hit so money is being spent.

[downendcity]

When the rumours about DC's possible sale started on here, posters were saying that we had to get a good price for him. If I remember rightly, am sure that many of the postings were saying that we had to get at least £750000 to £1m. At that time, if you had suggested £2m would be our asking price then most would have (rightly)said that would be stupid, and would also have accused the club/SL/GJ of pricing DC out of the market.

If fans would then have readily accepted £1m for a young player with undoubted potential but who, even this season, has been inconsistent and not even certain of a starting place at City, then £2m respresents superb business. Bearing in mind, this deal was not about whether the club did or didn't want to sell, but more about the player not wanting to turn down the chance to play in the Prem and take his wages to an unbelievable level for an 18 year old, then this can someone please explain what other option the club had but to take Wigan's offer?

Given that we secured about £1m more for DC than we could ever have reasonably expected a week ago then this deal also does one more thing. It means we are less likely to have to sell another of our rising stars ( e.g. Jennison Double-Barrell) for financial reasons in the too near future and that is very good news for improving the team.

[Clevedon Red]

So we turn down £2m and then SL has to break the news to DC.

SL: Good news and bad news David. The good news is that Wigan, they play premiership football, have offered me £2m for you and that they were willing to increase your salary to £10k per week.

DC: Great I can buy a new car and a house and everything now and become finacially secure for life.

SL: Yes, the bad news is though is that I am not going to sell you because about once every 6 games you play really well and I want to keep you on a £2k a week and don't really need the money to keep the club going especially as the Premier Club is so successful.

DC: Oh what a shame, thanks for telling me though appreciate your honesty and I will promise to give 100% effort despite having my dreams taken away. By the way when is pay day as I am skint at the moment.

Ok so I have taken a bit of a liberty with some of this but get real people it would have been madness to turn the money down and what sort fo affect would this have had on Cotterill? Some people can be so selfish.

[no1cityfan_tucks]

So we turn down £2m and then SL has to break the news to DC.

SL: Good news and bad news David. The good news is that Wigan, they play premiership football, have offered me £2m for you and that they were willing to increase your salary to £10k per week.

DC: Great I can buy a new car and a house and everything now and become finacially secure for life.

SL: Yes, the bad news is though is that I am not going to sell you because about once every 6 games you play really well and I want to keep you on a £2k a week and don't really need the money to keep the club going especially as the Premier Club is so successful.

DC: Oh what a shame, thanks for telling me though appreciate your honesty and I will promise to give 100% effort despite having my dreams taken away. By the way when is pay day as I am skint at the moment.

Ok so I have taken a bit of a liberty with some of this but get real people it would have been madness to turn the money down and what sort fo affect would this have had on Cotterill? Some people can be so selfish.

Pure class! Made me chuckle CL

[RedUn]

How do you think the fee got up to £2m? Although we don't know I bet teams tested the water with lower figures and got knocked-back.

Was the fee this club agreed with Norwich last Wednesday £2m or somewhat less?

[Nibor]

Was the fee this club agreed with Norwich last Wednesday £2m or somewhat less?

Norwich's deal was something like £1.5m + clauses that would take it to £2m dependent on appearances and promotion. Wigan's deal is a guaranteed £2m.

Once a Premiership club bid for a player and offer a great deal more than he is worth (and £2m is definitely that), we are going to be selling. I can't see how anyone thinks we can or should do otherwise.