DAILY - News, Interest, Rumour & Transfers.

Pembo did what everyone but Coterill could see needed to be done. He steadied the sinking ship. LJ turned it around and pointed it towards the top 10 in the table. Coterill was fantastic for us in L1 no doubt about it, it was a phenomenal season, but he just couldn’t adapt to the Championship.

 

Funny how his fundamental disagreement coincided with our appalling form and his lack of ability to adapt. I don’t recall any issues the previous season when it was all golden. Easy to have a disagreement with someone when your performance is under scrutiny!

 

Sunday 12th

They’d moved from league 1 to the championship, the disagreement was about how to improve the squad in preparation for the step up to the championship, the Lack of form in SC ‘s mind was directly linked to not being allowed to improve the squad in the way he wanted, we’ll never know if he was right. But what we do know is we were promoted early which gave us extra time to prepare, that time was wasted. I think we missed a trick not allowing him the players he wanted and squandered any momentum we had.

 

Conner Hourihanne available on a free get wells gone and this will be a cracking signing if wages could be agreed. Scores for fun.

 

So let’s get this straight. We are in the process of bringing wages down and you suggest Hourihane. Shall we offer Bale a contract as well, he’s free and needs to get game time for the World Cup.

 

Unless I’ve misunderstood I thought SC was able to make approaches for Gayle, Gray and Maguire. He wouldn’t have made those approaches without SCs knowledge and backing - if he did then he’s an idiot. Assuming that he DID have permission to go shopping, the Gayle and Gray bids were rejected by both the players and their clubs - they didn’t want to come to Bristol City. It’s quite straightforward and nothing to do with any disagreement between SC and SL. We made bids and they were rejected - end of.
The Maguire bid was where it got messy; apparently we made a bid which was accepted, but someone (I can’t remember who) went behind SCs back and reduced the money on offer. This made Hull angry and the whole deal fell through, with Hull vowing never to do business with us ever again. I absolutely sympathise with SC on this - it was an outrageous belittling of the man.
What happened then however was purely down to poor tactics and bad decisions from the dugout. SCs team played a 3-5-2 system which worked a dream in L1 but in the Championship it got found out. Forest fans called him a ‘one trick pony’ and I can see why. He either couldn’t change or he WOULDNT change - neither of those show him in good light. No matter how angry you are with your boss you should always try and do your best and if he was trying to use our club to make a point to SL then that in itself is outrageous.
Anyway, like LJ, GJ, Delboy and others he’s consigned to history and I wish him all the very best - but like the others I’ve mentioned I would not want him back - unless we found ourselves back in L1 by some disastrous reason.

 

I did say if wages could be agreed

 

I’d imagine it’s very unlikely he’d come anywhere near our wage level.

 

If wages become our sole factor in new signings which could be the reason for us looking at the lower tiers to date then we may have issues meeting the mark for the Championship. Surely we will need some landmark signings to come up to par to compete next season and although there is still time but that could disappear rapidly if we don't act decisively soon. At least we are doing something and not just sitting back expecting miracles, which is good. Carry on Nigel and mind the gaps.

 

Similar with Gray, Cotts agreed a lower figure and was all settled. He went on holiday and Maguire and Gray deals were undermined with lower offers. When we went back for Gray the fee was increased and then Burnley came in and took him. But what I read he was coming prior to someone going in lower.
Cotts was never SL’s choice, so he had no issue with backing the reduced bids.

 

If Cotts wasn’t SLs choice, or at least authorised by SL, how did he ever arrive at BS3?

 

Monday 13th

Keith Dawes, persuaded SL to employ him.

 

I don't ever recall this being the issue with the Gray deal? We all know it was with Maguire, which was scandalous, and I understand why SC would have been fuming about that, and had every right to be. From my recollection, Gayle and Gray simply didn't want to play for little ol Brizzle City who were newly promoted to the Championship at that time. I guess it presented too much risk to their brand. I always thought at the time that while I liked the signal of intent by SC on trying to sign Gayle in particular and Gray, the reality was we never had a chance, and we became a bit of a laughing stock as a result.

 

Thats the standard of player SC would have brought To the club had he not been undermined, which is why I disagree when he’s accused of not being good enough at championship level, how do we know. If those deals had not been scuppered things may well have been much different, and you can understand why he was pissed off.

 

From what I was told, we offered something like £5-6 million which was agreed for Gray (as previous year he went in early on transfers before others were interested) . He met with Gray and was all going through. The person in charge before Ashton then went behind Cotts back and tried reducing Cotts bids. Brentford then refused and when Cotts came back off holiday went in at a higher bid to out bid Burnley but Gray felt messed about, as did Brentford.
Gayle did not want to join us, and would not come to speak to little ole Bristol City, but Gray like Maguire were both set to join.

 

The Maguire debacle is well known, but I didn't know this about Gray. As I've stated before on numerous threads, Cotts had very good reason to be mightily p!55ed off and I sympathise with him 100% on this issue. However, this still doesn't excuse the failings on the pitch and the bizarre (lack of) tactics, which resulted in us firmly camped in the relegation zone - which was turned around with immediate effect as soon as he left.
IMHO we are talking about 2 different issues: (1) Cotts was 'sabotaged' when attempting to land players of his choice which I totally understand him being (rightly) angry about and (2) Cotts couldn't, or wouldn't, play the remaining squad effectively, either out of stubborn inability at this level, or deliberately out of sheer spite.

 

Good players in their time - all of them - which goes to emphasise my point that Cotts couldn't (or wouldn't) get a tune out of them in the Championship. They only started playing Championship music immediately after he left.

 

Even if we accept your conclusion about SC, imagine how much better equipped the next manager would have been if he had Maguire and Grey onboard.

 

I thought SC cooked his goose in front of families and children with a tirade of abuse after a bad game ...!?