Debts are greatly reduced, costly long contracted players all dispatched, wage bill under control,owner has just invested £25m in new shares purchase increasing cash reserves, £25m valued player asset is still available, 3 new signings and possibly more to come, strong, unified, settled squad with discipline, skills and standards, coaching and fitness programmes succeeding, acadamy pathways providing the next generation, strong, experienced management, providing leadership in both commercial and playing policy issues,, stadium and HPC ( training) strongly contributing, completely unified fan base, 14000 plus season tickets already sold. The owner is up for it, the fans are desperate for it, we are in a sounder position than we have been for years, Nige, it's up to you, we are with you all the way, it could be our time, our turn. Steve Lansdown £240m investment - https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport...istol-city-losses-championship-rivals-8386461
Everything seems to be coming together ... on paper and at the the end of the season that is what counts ... those figures on the balance sheet [ accounts ] and where we are! Championship... premier ..... beaten in the top 6 play offs [ including final! ] We have a manager [ believed to be best for the job ] a youthful looking team [ balanced with own grown bought in younger players ] and a couple of more experienced "veterans". A hopefully profiecient coaching staff !!! although I still think the coaching set up is a bit weak! CF was a defender [ fullback ] JE was a forwaed / midfielder? Tinman is sound as a pound .... my Q is why is our defence so bad, we ship quite a few goals! should be less than a goal a game average, and some have been rather simple errors [ more than should be expected ] At the moment I cant see us being better than the middle group 9th to 16th and my forcasting prog seems to concur with that!
SL's input ...we have been through a horrific Covid era 2020 to end of 2022, and now is time for the "next x ? year plan! and attempt at Promo .. so a cash injection whilst not exactly being £25m to spend, more a melting of our debt pile, it does give some freedom to spend a bit on the right player. We have lost [ let go ] a couple/ few players that seemed to fit in with NP's aims for the future .. [ and the team as was, at present time of asddress ]. I still cant see through the "get rid of player x, to expensive wages wise" only to go out and pay circa £2 million fee [ plus all the commissions and a wage likely up to £10k less ].. A player costing £2m is actually closer to £2.25m?+ over 4 years at £10k a week it costs £2,080,000! We have seen this last week an 8 year contract, and quite a few Prem clubs now contracting players to circa age 29/30... looking at this process in depth it does seem to have some large degree of sense attached when applying things like "surplus to requirements running contract own on going transfer fee and of course the manager saying after half the contract time " you dont fit in" so gets a transfer fee! as player will want to play so moves on!
With all of that in place, if we are managed properly, there should be no excuses to having a very good season....
The only improvement left is our league position. Given all the positives above, I wonder what the expectation SL has set for NP this season? While Promotion & Play-off's is always the aspiration, I still think our squad isn't good enough for that just yet. Anything less than a top 10 finish has to be considered a failure this season, surely?
No surprise of the comments from 1For and Supcon. Anyway we are solvent, just, because of SL. I think we're still a very long way from competing for automatic promotion due in no small measure of the of the parachute payments afforded to the 3 relegated sides from the Premiership. Realistically our only hope/long shot is of a playoff finish. The bookies have us finishing mid table, they won't be far wrong.
What have I said, that isn't true?? Sorry, you have hung LJ out to dry and used his and MA's alleged failings for leaving us in a financial mess the last few seasons, while trying to compete with teams coming down with parachute payments, this is not a new thing this season for City, and NP to deal with!. That has now gone, apparently. We also now have the experienced manager you craved, and also knocked LJ for not being. Time for the excuses to stop, and the current manager be judged in the same manner you did LJ, but you won't. The club have money, and we're led to believe that NP knows this, if he chooses not to use it to improve the squad, and in turn our league position, that is also a failure. I hope it isn't so, I have always wanted every City manager to do well (unlike you, and others...)!
I think, given the likely strength of the league, we will do well to finish in the top 10 That will be an achievement in itself
It's tough and strong competition every year, and has been for years tbh. It depends on what our ambition is, we spent big before trying to match the better funded clubs in this division, and didn't make the top 6, narrowly missing out before COVID struck. Parachute payments doesn't guarantee success either, look at Norwich, Watford and WBA. We have to balance our spend vs ambition, Luton and Coventry were probably the exception to the rule of low spend to reach the play-off and promotion. If we can manage wages and contracts in the current financial landscape, then the policy we had before COVID of spend and sell big before was very close to working. Add in the experience and know how that NP clearly has over previous managers, we should be well set. We can't be scared to spend based on the previous experience of the unforeseen issues of COVID, otherwise, we will spend more years than not in the bottom third/middle of the pack. Maybe that is our level tbh?
I think we have true ambition, and I don’t think we’re scared and think we’ll be competitive Whether it will result in any sort of success remains to be seen We can but hope ! Up the City !!
Top 10 a must. Top 6 a target and promotion.,This time if we make top 6, I’d hope we could go one better than last time.
scared /competitive = success! WELL, if we are able to defensively lock down any lead or draw after 85 minutes then we may succeed. However there has been a dramatic failure of doing this over the past 2 seasons and has to be the responsibility of the coach's to ingrain into the defence how to conduct themselves. Use of subs is going to very important especially in the last qtr of the game. More often than not our subbing and timing of has led to a disappointment and we go in with heads hung as lost 3pts for 2pts or 1pt from a drawing position! .... we need to score more than 2 on more occassions .. and score first!!!
I think we have a dodgy keeper and Vyner. We also have 2 midfielders, James and Williams who will do well to play 25 league games each next season. Add to that a couple of kids up front. Obviously I hope I'm wrong but I can't see anything better than a mid table finish.
The competition gets harder every season and unless Nigel has some rabbits in his hat I expect we will have the same kind of campaign as we have had for a million years. We should not have to beg for relief but the ones that get parachute payments have us by the nuts, and it plays out just about every season, and only those that can't regroup in three years fall down the evolutionary ladder to join us in the mid-table congregation. We all know what needs to be done to get above our lot in life but the ramifications of getting it wrong can linger for a decade or more. Mediocrity is boring to watch so let's hope for something more exciting this season but don't hold your breath too long as it is dangerous to your health. Then again so is watching the same old Bristol City and expecting a different outcome, but that's a different thing altogether.
RP - parachute payments were there when LJ and Ashton were in charge. No change there. I personally think we should be comfortably top half at the least. I’m not arrogant enough to EXPECT top 6 but given the financial shackles are off we should at least expect an improvement on last season.
to be honest the financial shackles are not off! r else we would be getting in a couple real potential game changers and paying the going rate!
Apart from Vyner, I agree. I think we have to sell Scott, and let NP bring in 4 or 5 more experienced heads to beef up the squad.
