Davefevs

Never been the sane since they gave him a mouth.

Yep, I see that.

Think that’s fair….they were bloody dangerous together! Would’ve liked to see LJ with Keith Burt!

I’m sure it wasn’t quite as simple as that, but Pelling allegedly meddled, tried to go back to Brentford / Hull and tried to do a “better” deal, and both clubs thought City / Pelling was taking the pi$$. In Hull’s case they upped the fee, basically saying if you want to take the pi$$, so will we. In Brentford’s case it was let’s see if anyone else is interested and if we can get more by way of a bidding war….that’s when Burnley came in and the £4m went to £6m, and Gray could start asking for more wages too, £18k instead of £14k. Things dragged on into the season. With Burnley’s interest, he was only ever gonna go there, despite us still trying. So, Cotts tried to get Gayle.

Not sure Lingard was anything more gossip. Gayle was a case of Gray or Gayle I think, not both….we had Kodjia by that point.

I don’t think anyone is calling him a messiah, but we see a man with a good vision and is starting to execute that plan. That vision extends wider than what goes on for 90 minutes once or twice a week. What other managerial roles has he had where he’s chance to do another Leicester? And at least he’s done it at one club (success both times). Many, many managers never taste success once. Anyway, I’m happy with progress….I’ve written a “couple” of posts why. I’m happy with my reasons. I’m sure you’re happy with yours.

Guess the unknown is whether Pearson was happy with the second half because of Kalas or as a team overall? I thought for 20-25 mins second half we were pretty much in total control, and scored in that spell too. Second question is - if we think Vyner isn’t good enough going forward, do we expect Kalas to offer more? As a fan base a lot are pretty anti-Baker at LB because of his limitations on the ball. Does Kalas offer more? Or what is more likely is that if we play 3 CBs (Kalas at RB, Atkinson and Baker) that frees up Nige to play Dasilva to play LB. if that’s the logic then I can happily get my head around it. You’ll know I’m quite an advocate of lopsided / non symmetrical shapes / formations. Watch this space!!! Well on Saturday anyway.

£2.5m Maguire, £4m Gray wasn’t it?

Ta. The beauty of watching live from different view points. I thought the majority of our build up play first half was down “your side” (our right). Very little came from our left apart from a couple of runs from Pring. I was quite encouraged by Zak from the far side. Vyner does go long too quickly at times, that’s an area to improve no doubt. Some boring stats ??? 1st half, passes 158 made / 112 success (71%) - Zak 36 / 23 (64%) 2nd half, passes 115 / 87 (76%) Stats summary: heavily involved, made 23% of our passes just not very accurately. I don’t always present stats to prove my point, this shows he was wasteful with the ball. So I see / concede to your view from closer. ?? But it probably does show it’s when he passes longer that he lets himself down. The link up with Scott wasn’t there. I still think he defended well. One near post challenge on Jerome, and one brilliant interception from a Lansbury pass, where after intercepting he got his body in position to win the next challenge. He isn’t perfect, but I still reckon he’s alright. ?

If you want to judge Nige’s success purely on results, that’s fine, but you will find posters like me looking beyond that and giving an alternate view. The clue is in the words “creating” and “culture”….the theory is that will lead to “results”. That’s not a smart arse response. You can build a house quickly and it look amazing, but unless you spent the time laying the foundations, which look effin ugly, your house might collapse. It’s a crap analogy, yep. Do you listen to Nige’s interviews (club and press). He’s explaining that he’s happy to compromise and play the long-game. That’s why he’s not bought a striker, he can’t afford the one / type he wants, so he’ll wait. He’d rather try to improve what he’s got than waste money short term. He’s trying to communicate to fans that it’s a work in progress. You could look back at last season and say Holden built that lovely house in 5 games, and then suffered subsidence! What was your thinking last year. We’re you “all-in” on results then? If not, why not? What were you like by November? But it’s about opinions. I like having that debate on OTIB.

That is the story, I’m inclined to think there was a lot of truth in it. The source of it has a creditable source. That night in Portugal / Tenerife (?) I thought Cotts was gonna quit. He was steaming.

I guess he might not have been asking a question, but the question mark being slightly tongue in cheek. Unlikely though, think I’m giving him too much credit.

Credit to @The Journalist too, his initial post, my twitter ramblings.

We’re they unobtainable if (allegedly) fees and wages had been agreed for both Gray and Maguire?

I was having that exact discussion on twitter after Saturday when many were bemoaning Baker’s selection, with pre-match or in hindsight. Nige is setting the culture for success, showing them what it takes. As you say it’s not about Luton it’s about the next 2-3 years.

Nope. Yep.

Don’t worry, the lifecycle of the common Hampshire Reds housefly - Press keys on keyboard, press enter, whinge to mods / other posters, repeat. ???

Where do you sit DT? Tony sits just below me in LS near SS. I agree. Think Scott having a poor 37 mins in front of him didn’t help. Shame for Scott, got a heavy challenge early on and didn’t seem himself. Yet, the professional manager thinks he is. As did the Rotherham manager. He has most of the attributes to be a very decent RB at this level. He does need to work on his feet in one v ones though. Its funny whenever we don’t win, there has to be a scapegoat. Vyner is the leading candidate to be pounced on after a game. None of the critics prepared to give him credit though v Cardiff for example…..silence.

Plus 3 suspended too. Plus they need to be under a business plan too, but that hasn’t been agreed. Puts them bottom, below Forest.

I thought Vyner had a very good first half, surprised at the sub at h-t.

Exactly….we have a system that makes us competitive. In 5 of 7 games we’ve been exactly that, if not better in some cases. Boro we were poor bar 20 minutes second half. Tonight we allowed Luton to have 3 or 4 spells where they created decent chances at will. We were still able to take a point. We actually looked pretty solid in spells, dealt with Luton’s changes second half, and almost got an undeserved 3 points. Matt Withers on twitter said perversely it was a point earned, which it was because Luton were the better side. I just don’t think we were as bad as many people made out tonight. Fans expectations of dominating games, hammering the likes of Luton, Preston, Millwall, Blackburn, etc is cloud cuckoo land. We are very much a new team, staring from a low base, and we’ve picked up 9 points from 7 games.

Too quick for me!!!

Unfortunately TWTD is not as capability rich as OTIB. But seeing as they’ve been looking me up on here, they have full access to all my factual stuff….if they want to really look at why I think like I do….and that I’m not winding them up….despite my poor choice of word “stirring”.

Part of the problem was that he’d sold all the “Adam Webster’s” if that makes sense. There was no £20m player last summer, when Covid hadn’t really affected the transfer market, because most clubs thought we’d be back inside full stadiums in Oct 2020. He’d looked good in the good years….Flint, Bryan, Kodjia, Reid, Webster and Brownhill. Hell, he even benefitted from Bolassie to the tune of £4m!! But last summer what was he left with. You don’t make £10m on an £8m signing like Kalas. So some flaws in his approach. Not all sh1t, but a fair bit of it. In some ways he was hamstrung by a manager who couldn’t make up his mind which system to play abd who was in his trust group. That’s where his lack of skills in Talent ID and recruitment strategy let him down….he didn’t know enough about football (the playing side) to rein LJ in, nor do I suspect he wanted too, as each signing was a vanity trip. There are some crappy clubs, but beyond the PP clubs I suspect we are trending towards the bottom of the clubs that’ aren’t Derby, Reading etc. That’s a bit of a fall from grace. Thanks…but I think that is where his “personality” lets him down. I could ignore that if he achieved here, but it’s another reason to dislike the bloke. We should never have divisive appointments at our club really. You can argue LJ was divisive too (some fans dislike him as a player, nepotism, etc), so to have 2 such characters was a double whammy. I guess this one about where you are drawing the line from, and I’m possibly being slightly biased. If I go back to 18/19 when we finished 8th, that was the point to kick-on. Instead our costs have played a part in us going backwards….we treaded water in 19/20, a bad end saw us finish 12th. Then last season….eeeek! So looking at where we are now, I liken it to 16/17 and the journey from there. That’s why I say we are set back. But I can see why you think we aren’t in too bad a position to kick on….if we can maintain the improvement. Nige should’ve had a better hand to deal with and future resources to invest to make us stronger, which is where LJ and MA were in 16/17, peaking sporadically over the next 2 seasons. It was ok to talk year on year league position improvement, but if you go all-in on that without looking at the bigger financial picture (was always my argument you can’t look at league position in isolation) then you will find it hard to work out the reason why it went wrong. Its all about opinions, the above is mine. I think it has sound basis, but I’m always willing to hear another viewpoint. (and I’ve finally worked out how to quote a section) ??????

TWTD wanted a Bristol City fan to explain, so I took the challenge. I worry for your club, a club I like. When I hear US investors saying their pension fund want PL football but there is still returns to be made in the Championship, it made me think back to the Venky’s at Blackburn, who didn’t know you could get relegated from the PL. True Story - I know one a Financial Consultant who worked for them. There is no money for a team to make in the Championship, unless you are returning as a relegated PL club on PPs. That to me sounds like they’ve been sold a dream, not a reality. Of course there is a dream of doing a Barnsley, a one off stellar season. There is a dream of doing a Brentford, but Brentford had to go one step forward two steps back with player sales until such a point where they got a critical mass of good players together for a real-go at it….knowing the team would probably break up if they didn’t go up. That is the risk. Doing a Brentford with a stagnant transfer market is going to be a real challenge. As I’ve said many times, Ashton isn’t the devil incarnate, but he portrays himself in a much better light than his performance and salary warrant.