I never said that you did, but having just found the comment, it came from a very predictable and totally ill informed source on this forum and was never challenged apart from by me.
SC did brilliantly for us and delivered us from the HORRIBLE league that is League 1. I will love him forever for that. Once in the Championship, under SC we struggled. There is talk of SC being denied funds but there is counter-talk that we we made £10m+ bids for Dwight Gayle, Andre Gray and Harry Maguire - none of which came to fruition. Whatever the truth is around the funding, SC set out the SAME side playing 3-5-2 every game and only deployed his like-for-like subs after 80 minutes when chasing the game. That is either poor management or a deliberate sabotage act. I would prefer to think that it was simply bad management on Sir Steve's behalf. I wouldn't like to think of ANYONE deliberately trying to lose us games and sabotage Bristol City, my club, just to prove a point to the board. As soon as SC went and Pembo was appointed, we immediately reverted to a 4-4-2 formation and started to win points straight away - THE VERY NEXT GAME. That shows that something was wrong under SC and Pembo instantly fixed it. Ok, there is the 'dead cat bounce', but when LJ replaced Pembo we continued to stabilise and, despite our record losing streak, have survived the last 5 years in the championship since, without ever looking like being relegated - until now. Ultimately under LJ the football had become 'stale' and it was right he went - although I would have probably left it until the end of the season to sack him. There is detail under this of course - available players etc, but those are the FACTS. DH was the wrong appointment. I wish him and his family all the best, but he should never have been given the job. If LJ was sacked for failing to reach the playoffs within 5 years, how could we POSSIBLY expect DH to do it? He had even less experience than LJ. Ridiculous. Nigel Pearson however is exactly the type of manager we have needed since Coppell left. I am really excited about seeing what he can do and as long as SL can keep MA in check - and NP stays after the summer - I seriously think we can be promotion contenders at last.
The only person I remember saying anything negative about Cotts was JGF and that was only he wasn’t 100% sure on him. Plenty of negatives when he first came, and some towards the end of his tenure. But no one was negative to his achievement or belittled his season with us in promotion.
Think you will find, that you became easy bait over Nige, so it became a running joke with me and others against you.
very true my opinion changed after the first few games in his favour, and although we got to wembglee and promo was never 100% sure of him but not in anyway as a negative. Could never put a finger on it … LJ I liked a lot [ thought his downfall was, and results back it, loss of Brownhill ] and DH thought he was deserving of the opportunity, but I will always say he never really got a flat playing field or the rub of the green …..
