That's your opinion, to me it shows that LJ was getting the best out of them, as until a poor run after the lockdown, he had them top 6 all season. DH knew the squad as he was the No2 for 4 years, so he can't say he didn't know the player's strengths and weaknesses, as a new manager would. I said at the time that letting our most (only) creative player in Eliasson leave was a mistake, now it looks a massive gaff by DH. I think some players need to have a good look at themselves as well, Kalas for me has been poor for about a year now, DaSilva as well, Rowe is a one-trick point, much the same with Hunt. We lack a leader in the team, and have done for several seasons, Kalas is not a Captain, nor is Hunt, this has to be DH number 1 target in the Jan window.
Letting Korey go was the first problem. I’ve heard that Brunt is not on the money that some think and is on less than Korey was. But to me Korey should of been retained as he was the only leader we had. One thing I’ve learnt is, if someone says a player is “different gravy” then the village tool puts a **** curse on them. Because Brunt and Martin have done **** all for me. We should drop Martin and go with Wells in his natural position and have players like Semenyo behind him.
That's due to the fact that LJ had his best players taken away from him and were never replaced with the same quality and as Dean is finding out, you can't do that and expect progress. We will see what Dean is made of as LJ had non stop criticism from the off. Maybe LJ's tinkering with his underwhelming replacements kept us competing....It could be what Dean needs to do, that of course unless SL opens up his cheque book..
No excuses says Holden Wednesday, December 16th 2020 Dean Holden insists there will be no excuses as the Robins regroup after a second consecutive defeat in the Sky Bet Championship. A deflected shot from Tom Bradshaw and Mason Bennett’s curled strike to finish a counter-attack dealt the blows in a 2-0 defeat for City at Ashton Gate. Nahki Wells went agonisingly close with a free-kick which Lions’ keeper Bartosz Bialkowski pushed on to the post but the Robins’ task was made more difficult when Famara Diédhiou was sent off for a second yellow card. Despite nine players on the treatment table, Holden reflected on a disappointing evening as City created few opportunities against a well-drilled Millwall side off the ball. “It was a disappointing performance for us,” Holden told Robins TV. “It’s a game we fancied to get something from. It was an improvement from Saturday’s performance, some of our play was good until the final third but we couldn’t find the quality to create enough chances. Nahki had the effort in the first half cleared off the line and we have to take that on the chin. “[Now we] stick together, keep fighting, [there’s a] no excuse policy. We’ve said we don’t look for excuses, everybody knows it’s a tough schedule for us and we keep going with another game in three days. We’ll look at this game, we can’t write it off. "We conceded a deflected first-half effort and caught trying to play out for the second one. Some of our play was good, it was much better compared to Saturday when we didn’t play our way at all. Tonight, we moved the ball pretty well but we weren’t able to open up a team who came here and sat deep behind the ball. “They probably came here to nick a goal on the counter or from a set-piece. They got the deflection, they sat deep and made it difficult for us but we move on.” Next for City is a Friday night trip to Preston North End, live on Sky Sports. Holden will be without the suspended Diédhiou for the trip to Deepdale, while the head coach remains hopeful Tomas Kalas (dead leg) will recover after having to be subbed off against the Lions. Diédhiou’s dismissal on Tuesday night came after he received a second yellow card for a high foot. The striker was attempting an overhead kick but caught his opponent. “He’s clearly got his eyes fixated on the ball. No, it’s not [a red card],” said Holden. And on Kalas he added: “Fingers crossed he’s back with us for Friday. We’re missing ten and hopefully it won’t be 11. “I’ve said in there that we stick together; we have to. It’s a tricky run we’re on and teams will go through this. We have to stick together and look for a result on Friday.” City versus Preston (December 18th, 8pm KO) will be broadcast live on Sky and therefore, due to EFL regulations, will not be streamed on Robin TV. https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/no-excuses-says-holden/
'And on Kalas he added: “Fingers crossed he’s back with us for Friday. We’re missing ten and hopefully it won’t be 11.' You can't keep using this for an excuse, although we all must admit mass injuries don't help the cause but a full squad of players is supposed to cover us for all purposies. Another problem is if we want to invest in new players in January, just how much finance is in the pot, all of our crown jewels or family silver has been sold off and mostly spent under the LJ regime, what room for manouvre will MA allow DH to have to spend?
He applied for and accepted the poisoned chalice and to be honest is part of the problem IMHO. He has been here for 4 years and has only just realised that we lack the quality in the final third of the pitch to unlock defences and create and score goals, that problem has been a constant, another constant has been the point that Rowatt alluded to that we struggle against physical teams, again has it taken him 4 years to realise that FFS?. The last 4 seasons can be summarised in the last 4 games, Birmingham, Rotherham and Millwall physical sides all on long winless runs until playing us. And we will have a further physical test on Friday night against our favourite championship side in the guise of Preston.
I think you are correct to a point, LJ did get the best out of them for half of each 4 seasons and then the struggle against physical teams and lack of midfield quality in and around the opponents undid all the good work, just like it is now.
Ever since our 2016 promotion Korey has been a part of a dysfunctional midfield and part of the reason is that he may have been inspirational but he was not a leader, we needed to identify that player and pair them, somebody to organise the midfield properly. That we have singularly failed to do. I agree about Brunt, but Martin? really?, without his assists Wells would hardly have scored and I think Wells has been poor and Semenyo take away his assists and he has been poor also. The truth is Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy would not score with the lousy supply from our current useless in a long line of useless midfields over the past 4 years, I am surprised that any striker would want to sign for us given the lack of service they would receive. In the past 25 years we have had strikers scoring 20 or more league goals on a woeful 6 occasions, since our promotion an even more woeful once and he was a loanee who now plays in the prem and for England.
Give your head a wobble ROD -Martin and Wells thrive of service from defence and midfield they are getting fed scraps. Both players are being wasted two of the best strikers in the championship before they arrived here.
On the subject of poor signings or more accurately value for money signings, we spent around half of our Brownhill fee on a striker who is now 30 years old and as with many other strikers we have signed in the past, we cannot play to his strengths and he looks bang average because of that.
Korey was injured a lot and playing alongside Pack let’s go slow for those 4 years. Now getting rave reviews at a playing team like Swansea. When I saw him play in Malaga with only a small crowd, all you could hear was Korey Smith barking orders and organising others. Martins assist have come from long balls. Take the target man away and long balls are rendered useless. It encourages players to play through teams like in 2017. Diedhiou came back players started lumping it forward again. Playing Wells out on a wing is taking away his threat.
Fammy and Massengo cost £13million. That takes some believing. Of the players signed by Ashton only Webster and Brownhill have made a profit. As for the other 50 signings, thank goodness for our Academy who allowed Junior free reign in Ashton's sweet shop.
If those figures are true - not sure anyone knows exactly what we paid for Massengo, as I have seen anything from £2-8m branded about, then that is very, very poor business. MA would have brokered that deal, so if he sanctioned anywhere near £8m for him then SL should fire him.
At least there's ONE thing to make me smile from this dire footballing situation Everything else seems dour and miserable - I think the Johnson family put a curse on us whenever one of them gets fired.............
All that may well be true but as was discussed we lost 2 great midfielders in Smith and Brownhill, sadly in the 4 years they played together they were never a consistent pairing, whoever was paired with Smith were never a consistent pairing not his fault but Smith for me did his shouting and organising once the ball was dead, the problems occur when both centre midfielders are caught out in front of the ball when an attacking move breaks down, because usually the wing backs are in the same position and also one of the centre backs, a quick ball over the top and we are vulnerable. As for Martin's assists can I suggest that you revisit because my memory tells me that most if not all of his assists are either inside the box or on the edge of the box and little or nothing to do with long balls. # Just checked 3 from great wide crosses and 2 from inside the box, not an aimless long ball in sight.
