Gustav Engall - £2m player on Loan..

Anybody who thought that Moore or Engvall would be ready for an immediate impact in the Championship is quite frankly an idiot. These players are the poster boys for the building for the future scenarios. Its not their fault that the players who should be making an impact this season are not doing so, which focus people's attention on these two signings.

 

£15 Million is nothing in the Championship, its average spend for a club, (not forgetting that we are actually in profit on our transfers dealings), there are 17 or so teams in the Division who have been in the Premiership at one point all another, competing with these teams on any level isn't a walk in the park. Anybody that thinks £15 million is a lot of money in the Championship should probably go and support Mansfield Town or some similar club. This is football in the modern era, not your jumpers for goalpost's game from thirty or forty years ago.

Yes its a disappointing season but the building for the future policy is a good one and the likes of Engvall, Moore, O'Dowda, Brownhill, De Girolemo, Magnusson and even Zak Vyner have plenty of time to come good and look astute signings.

 

THE GULF is getting bigger, teams like Norwich, Newcastle, Villa,QPR and Cardiff are all in benefit from parachutes...possibly Reading and Wigan still having residual amounts1 that's almost 1 in 3 of the teams. WE cannot compete with that, we need to try and get up there, survive a season or 2 try and build and should we fail try again = get in that loop!
I don't think it is happy clapping to "see" what others might not ... the future, (in any form) ..investment in youth, where do a lot of the bigger teams get most of their "youngsters " from? they poach from lower leagues ! we are doing similar. Building strength from within now this comment is difficult to classify/comprehend, My interpretation would be that we get our players at an early age and guide them to how we would like to play as this would put the 1-2 - 3 of "future" -"youth" - "within" in an understandable course of action, and that wont be "a season"
with the closure of all dealings (almost) of transfers and loans outside the transfer windows is this a bit of clever thinking on behalf of CITY!
Imagine the scenario of 2 or more players from the same position being out right back /strikers you go and get a loan! not now Did Vyner do well? I think he did....

As for loans ... these can be very hit Tammy OR miss = quite a list

 

I know you're seemingly arguing against each other but I think you're both correct here to be fair. Completely agree, I think Taylor Moore has a very exciting future and it's not his or Engvall's fault that the first choice XI are not performing properly.

 

And what about the smaller clubs at this level whose comparatively meagre resources when compared to ours belie their league positions because they have people in charge who have a clue what it's all about
Preston
Barnsley
Brentford
Burton
for starters

 

City have brought in 17/18 new players? recently only three were in the first team. Johnson obviously doesn't think they are good enough!!!

How much do you think is a lot for Bristol City and then how much would not be nothing in the championship??? if City can afford more than nothing shouldn't they be making sure of better value and spending the money on players who will play in the first team now instead of rolling the dice???

 

What makes you think the manner of player you are suggesting would want to come to Bristol City when players like Kodjia, Ayling and Freeman are fighting to escape here ?

 

Anyone who thinks building for the future before you are even close to having a sustainable present is also an idiot and might as well sit on the FA. Another group of incompetents who are trying to emulate models that stopped working a long time ago. Deluded.

 

What do you mean by a 'sustainable present'? Do you not think that with a decent manager we'd instantly be on course to that?

 

I'm saying that unless you are considered one of the better teams in your division (top 6) there is very little point in building a future team. Any progress the likes of Engvall or any of these supposed "future" players make, they will be snapped up off of us. So why bother? We aren't a big club, we are a feeder club to the likes of Burnley for crying out loud.

What is the point on using large resources to recruit young hot prospects that we may only have for a season? You need to have a strong first team before you worry about spending large capital on fringe youth.

You can't build for a future that may never materialise, especially if you don't have the ability to compete with what you have in the present. That's horrendous business sense and even more silly in football.

Cotterill and Millen had the right idea, loan these fantastic prospects or sign very competent journeyman looking to run out their careers, then they can take you to the next level so you can compete to sign and hold a team round them. We don't have the ability to sign a future star and keep hold of them. How long does it take to learn that? Kodjia, Heaton, Bolasie, Adomah, Maynard.

 

That's completely the opposite approach to how I'd take it but each to their own. Sensible purchases and long-term planning with transfers has worked for clubs like Bournemouth and to a lesser extent Brighton. Yet signing competent journeymen was ultimately what caused our downfall in the Championship under GJ.

 

you are implying city can get decent. I think City do and have. Problem is Johnson.

 

But that's not how it works. You're not going to have all of those clubs interested, it's based on the market, what money clubs have, what positions clubs need to strengthen in.

We've signed plenty of mid to high rep players. Going by that logic, we'd never have been able to sign Gary O'Neil, Lee Tomlin, Josh Brownhill (very highly rated by many clubs before joining), Aaron Wilbraham, JET and Sam Baldock. Just a few examples over the past 5 years or so.

 

Over recent years we've talked like big shots, but we can't deliver a believable or sustainable plan when it comes to attracting top talent on or off the field.

We are and am beginning to think always will be, just a small provincial football club when compared to the likes of Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and co.

And that in itself is hugely sad when I think of what we could be if a little thought was put into it............................

 

No doubting the validity of this argument, a mixture of a manager that suits, players that perform and their own "feed them through/ pick them up from lower leagues format. Brentford over the past couple seasons been good at that, PNE 4 years in div 1 planning for champs! in the past Crewe were good at it, finding and selling players that helped them be stable, as was Burnley long before the massive premiership handouts ..
is this a format City is trying to adopt out with stop start/ knee jerks and lets do as builders do put in the foundations and then build a skyscraper !