A major change in our regime is needed to get back on track and unless we address our personnel we will continue to struggle. I look at our off season business over the last few years and still cannot see any concerted effort to bring in new players to rectify the obvious problems with the squad. How much longer must we suffer the inability of our management to see the glaring deficiencies in our team? Every supporter who goes to the ground know the problems and yet our management seem to be walking around with blinkers on and ignoring the obvious. The word "unfashionable" gets bandied around and perhaps that is our main problem, because it seems that every player that is available who could address our deficiencies seem to give AG a wide berth. Look at what other teams have done during the off season to strengthen their existing squads and then compare that with our dealings and it becomes painfully obvious that we don't cut it. I don't think that our management is capable of getting the necessary business done because potential players don't see us as a forward thinking club unlike some others in our division. I believe SC left so early in his tenure because he saw a management structure that would not offer him the resources to get the job done. Right now I see a similar situation with KM although I have never been a great fan of his managemnt skills based on his poor decisions in team selection etc. If we don't want to end up with the mid-season fears of last year, decisive action needs to be taken immediately and that means that KM has to go now. From there we need to re-assess the entire setup and address the major deficiencies, otherwise we are in for a disastrous season that's been in the making for 2-3 years. Perhaps we don't have the financial resources to sign new players and if we continue to attract low crowds to AG we never will. A very sad state of affairs at AG that will get worse until someone has the strength to do the right thing - something that's been lacking at AG for quite some time.
Yes 100% behind you on this one,the club is in freefall,second lowest crowd in the championship,people are not confident in the current manager.clearly showing with a very poor attendance,considering Ipswich had 1500 that was a poor turnout by the city fans.
Thanks rr but what would you like to see? The NM situation only highlights our inability to seal deals and let players know that we want them at AG. When I look back at the quality players available (some on frees) during the summer it concerns me that we are rarely, if ever, in with a shot which leaves me to believe that our team is not a destination of choice. Do you think we are short of money to bring these players on board or are we just apathetic? Why do we consistently state our problem areas to the media and then stubbornly refuse to go out to get a possible remedy? How much longer can we go on this way without suffering the inevitable fate, which is relegation, and take the team backwards towards the dark ages again? Total lack of commitment to the supporters seems to be the order of the day which is a shame. We are better than this and it's time to face the facts.
NM is hedging his bets - he is doing us the courtesy of displaying loyalty but keeping his options open. We want him to stay and I think he would like to but I am not sure he sees much of a future under the KM regime so he is stalling to see what happens...
The club were going in the right direction up until we blew automatic promotion and then the Play Off Final after coming up from L1. Everything from then on has been Ski Sunday (downhill fast). I genuinely though that we were going in the right direction and building a real momentum at the club, but ever since January 2008 we have effectively been going backwards. Buying the likes of Adebola changed what had been a very good, successful and exciting footballing team which was full of goals. I witnessed the awful 2-0 away defeat at Southampton in the March when we went into the game as league leaders and finished it looking like a relegated team. We could have had our pick of decent managers when we (rightly) got rid of Johnson.....O'Driscoll, Howe, Cotterill, Jewell and a host of others would all have been good choices but we get bloody Millen. No wonder we continue to go backwards. The guy has to go and we need someone with a personality, experience and some credence, whether it's now or in the future, because Millen is not, and never has been, the answer.
Rumour i heard today ,not i must admit a good source;Millen out,and David James in.I don't know where it came from originally,and i don't know if anyone else has heard anything?
Anyone want to stake 50p we beat Cardiff and everyone suddenly thinks its not quite the end of the world?
I've said for the past nine months Keef was not up to the job....... I expected it and did get slated for an article I wrote in old 606. Many fans wanted him to be given a chance, but gut feeling and his lack of skill as a manager at this level was there to see. Coppell's appointment and what happened was just one of those things, but was the sort of manager that would make our club progress. I have fingers crossed that before SL washes his hands from our club he will push one last time to progress this club and help finance a new appointment. Otherwise, there is no point in pushing for a new stadium and being in league 1 with no money.
Spot on onefor! It's time for the pitch at AG to be covered in 2 feet of sand so some people can act like ostriches and ignore the plain truth. Burying our heads in the sand only hides us from facts and your reply said everything in a nutshell. Time to choke the ostrich in us and demand better from our management and team because poor attendances will only make matters worse and rob us of the chance to move forward. The mangement team need to realise that to get good crowds you need a better squad and if they don't understand, or cannot react to that simple fact then we are truly doomed to living in the wilderness.
We have to be prepared for the fact the club may be consolodating in the Championship, trying to keep costs down and staying up rather than pushing for a promotion. We may have a few years of meadiocrity to help get the stadium built.
My feelings exactly lummie. I think lack of finances, or at least the need to control them, has led to our current situation. Remember SL has said on several occassions that the club has to be self supporting without regular cash injections from him, and that players have to be sold to finance new players. Clearly this is a strategy that is currently in place and leads to the seemingly impossible task of moving the club forward in to contention. I think the same credo is true with respect to our manager, in that he probably doesn't have the necessary funds to be active in the transfer market. Looking back at the SC debacle, I am a firm believer that he saw that he would not have access to the funding he felt was needed to improve our fortunes. Knowing that he got on his bike and left with very little feedback as to why he quit so soon. At some point in the not so near future the top brass at AG need to sit down and look in the mirror and ask themselves whether the current policy is correct. I think most of us don't want us to break the bank, but surely some semblance of duty to the supporters needs to be evident. I just wish they would be more honest with us and tell us truthfully the strategy for the next 2-5 years. Perhaps this would make us all sit back and say they are worthy of our support because, should the poor performances continue, the attendances will drop like a stone. Attendances are the keystone of future growth for Bristol City and to get there we need a commitment from management to improve the on-field product. Without that commitment we could be in serious trouble.
If we can do what Ipswich did to us last week then we're in with a shout, they produced a classic away performance and made us pay. (And yes, I know we helped them on their way...)
Nothing every changes with the club. For a man who runs a very successful business I don't think SL ran the club the way a top businessman would and think that he sometimes did things the way we wanted rather than what made business sense which is why the club has a big loan now that we are slowly paying off. I still think Danny Wilson should have been given a 1 year extension as he did do better every season he was in charge so if he kept the pattern we should have got promoted that next season or you then let him go. We saw at the time Tinman was brought in, maybe a cost saving move? but he was one of the lads and did not have the personality to lead off the pitch. GJ was brought in and did put the club playing wise back on track but he lost the dressing room and rightly so had to go. I think again Millen was brought in as a part of either its the cheap option or over loyalty but would SL had made the same choice again in his company? probably not. I think Millen probably chose the wrong assistant who has had NO success anywhere he has been involved in, guess we should not mention the summer with England u21. Give Millen a few games but I think appointing David James as a caretaker manager to Christmas would be a better option with Alan Walsh as his assistant, as you can't argue with Walshes record as Reserve manager and he was Millens Assistant after GJ left when Millen only lost 1 game. Behind every good manager is a great Assistant manager!
We really do have to back our manager and players for a minimum of 10 games before judgements are made and I'm not one of the Keefers,I don't want our club to have a repeat of the turmoil of last season.. Breathe deep,wait,there is plenty of time and if we are failing then sack him but we could still zoom up the table.....
Fine, I can handle that BUT, that is not the issue right now - the problem is that "we're playing football Jim, but not as we know it"... We are disorganised, there is no plan, no leadership on the pitch, and we are NOT PLAYING FOOTBALL This is what needs addressing as it appears that the current incumbants are is not capable of arranging any of the above
