Don't waste your time watching the post match interview by Holden, here is a precis. Basically the same old **** different day, but he had the look of a man who knows that he is going to get his P45, well maybe. 'Come out fighting?" "We weren't at our best today?" "We are lucky that we have a game coming up so quickly?" "All of us need to look into the mirror". Blah, blah, blah
I just had a conversation with my son and I agree with his assessment, apart from the stadium and the academy the club is ****ed. Lets hope that there is a good mobile signal on Guernsey tonight, something has got to be done and an explanation given to the fans, an honest explanation for once.
Sometimes people get a little bit upset about the state of our team. I've been a supporter since the age of 11, I'm now 56 and still love them, Were always going to be disappointed but we have never been good enough to be in the premiership
We had opportunities to address the weaknesses in the January window and chose not to. People can blame LJ all they want for the squad Holden inherited, but he’s had one window since LJ to improve things and we are where we are.
R&W Holden should never have been appointed. However, whether it be Covid or what he's had zilch backing. Compare that to our previous encumbant. And give your honest opinion of the squad Holden inherited. I've said it a few times now but I ask you, name ONE player inherited by Holden, who'd get in a Norwich, Brentford, Swansea and now a Watford side. Because nobody else on here can.
I’ve agreed with you on this many times RP. Bentley and Kalas are the only ones to come close. I suppose you could argue that Palmer DID make it to Swansea
Yes and the procedure should have been the same here.....A coach set up ready to step in once LJ was fired.
So you agree the squad left by Johnson and Ashton was/is poor then surely it follows it's no surprise that we're heading south. With no backing I'm struggling to get past why any manager will get success moving deckchairs on the Titanic. This position is completely down to the wasted 4 years under Ashton and Johnson. They moved on our better players, (who would get in a Norwich etc side) and brought in much lesser replacements. Its no wonder why we are in this dire position. We can all moan about Holden who nobody, bar Ashton, wanted but can anyone hand on heart say Holden has had comparable backing. No this crisis is squarely down to Ashton and Johnson. And the final irony - it will be down to the failure Ashton picking our next manager.
The club is a shambles and a laughing stock and I hate every second of it. Forget Holden he's blameless, forget Ashton he's just milking it and abusing his position. There is only one person to blame for this unholy mess and that's Lansdown the smug overseer of a doomed club who knows business but has proved over and over again he knows eff all about football. The blame lies solely with him and him alone.
There are lot of things that should be done 'here', first and foremost treat the fans like fans and not in the way that they do like 'give us your money now **** off and keep your mouths shut and swallow all the **** that we are feeding you and without question and if we ask you to bend over, don't forget to bring your own vaseline". This is a brilliant piece in the BristolPost, Mcgregor seems to have personally had enough of the off hand way he is treated by the club and has finally found his voice, it to traces the present failures back to the same place that the majority of BCFC fans agree that the rot started to set in at the club, January 2018. There has been very little joy watching BCFC since that time, just the odd acceptable performance. And you are wrong about the squad he inherited, for me there are at least 11 players that need shifting and that doesn't include the 3 loan players + Mariappa that have been added to that particular pile of crap. The truth is we have a lovely shiny stadium, a wonderful training facility, a fantastic academy and a failing squad of players assembled over several years taking us on a one way trip to the likes of Horfield and owners and a CEO who are reenacting Nero in the last days of Rome, but inevitably having got the history wrong and installed Claudius 13 years to early but still using as their whipping boy. The difference is you on some level blame the fans for the removal of Johnson, where as most fans blame the club for the lies and deceit that followed over the next 10 weeks and the appointment of Claudius, the club in total chaos and Nero needs to emerge from Guernsey and start sorting out his and Ashton's **** show, because the fans have had enough. Lets be totally honest here if Holden is still in charge on Tuesday night to me that suggests that the owner does not care. Please read this piece it is fantastic and sadly too true, even down to Brian Tinnion's on air expletive during yesterdays game. I am sure I have said it before but the only thing the squad does impeccably well as a team is to take the knee and at a time when other progressive clubs like Brentford are dropping it and after Taylor and Zaha have both condemned it. Every City fan should read this piece, it is brilliant. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-city-verdict-football-club-5002587 PS:- Here is City's new game entrance music.
The squad as it was left was weak. We sold influential players who were not replaced time and again (Pack, Brownhill, Webster, Smith to name a few). Those players’ leadership lifted the rest of the squad and ‘gelled’ the rest to be more effective. Without them, our squad are a bunch of individuals rather than a team - and those individuals don’t possess the actual abilities needed to carry it off. We also sold off some pretty decent non-leaders like Eliasson - and we seem to be asking Wells or Semenyo to fill that role. We’ve had one transfer window under Holden’s regime to try and show us that they (Holden and Ashton) are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it. They haven’t - for reasons known only to them. If we are blaming LJ for leaving a poor squad behind then by the same token we have to blame Holden for not addressing it in his window. It’s crazy to continue to blame LJ when it’s impossible for him to have played any part in the January window - unless of course he still has the ear of uncle Steve all the way from the north-east of England!! I personally don’t blame either LJ or Holden 100%. Yes they carry SOME blame because they are managing the team selection and tactics, but our failure to recruit properly both on the pitch and in the dugout lies firmly with Ashton, Jon and Steve. We didn’t cut the head off the snake by sacking LJ, we simply clipped it’s tail. I love the Titanic analogy btw - totally agree. In fact I agree with almost everything you say except the proportion of blame you assign to LJ in all of this. He carries SOME blame as our former manager, but that blame dwindles every game since he left and imho has almost completely gone now we’ve had a transfer window to fix things.
R&W Come on be fair. The difference between Holden and previous windows is the fiscal impact of Covid. 'crazy' ? It's crazy to even suggest Johnson had input in the January window. Mentioning SL in that context is just silly.
That's not true regarding blaming the fans...... There were many fans that resented LJ for who he was and wouldn't have mattered had he promoted us, their hatred would have remained...yes I know, it's a sad world! I never had a problem with replacing LJ so long it was someone that would come in and take us to the next level.. Not for the sake of just a change and like for like, which is now where we find ourselves. You can shout and scream and throw toys out the pram all you like, this is how it was always going to end up..in fact you may wanna look back a few years on this forum...I think you'll find I predicted what we have now... Nothing is likely to change until SL & co employs football people rather than business people...I've always believed that SL likes to have a input into team affairs, it's his toy...David James was only the start of it!! Maybe it was the right time when LJ was sacked, but how it was handled and the timing was totally pointless....End of..
True, in fairness to SL, he has always backed the managers as much the club could afford, which in the Championship is obviously much more than when we were in L1, and would be more again if we were in the Premiership. It’s HOW that money has been spent is the crux of the issue. Also, COVID has also imposed the same financial restrictions on all Championship clubs (less the clubs still on Premiership parachute payments), yet there are many doing better than us, and many of them have no better, or worse squads than us.
