Millen

He told us after his first holiday he wanted 'everybody in by the start of pre-season training' - 1st July. In June he said he wanted the 'new faces' to be in ready for the Portugal trip.
Well, we face Ipswich 2 weeks Saturday and still no sign of a defender in sight. And all we hear after the 3 fantastic friendlies is we must learn to defend better and his pathetic threat that 'some have played their way out of the team'.
Is he honestly saying he's only just realised that the likes of Nyatanga will never make a Championship defender, Carey and Macca are getting to long in the tooth, Rib's body isn't up to football etc etc
And perhaps Millen's forgotten that Caulker and Spence have left the club.
We have a half decent midfield, Cisse does a great job in front the back 4 and we still have Maynard up top.
Unless Millen addresses our useless defence all this talk from fans of a top 6 finish is daft beyond words.

 

Sadley I think Millen is totally goverened by money, or the lack of it to be more acurate.

I am sure he has identified targets, and made it clear who and what he would like, but with all those defenders still under contract we are not buying anymore.

Fontaine, Carey, Nytanga, Stewart, McAllister, Ribero, Wilson, Hunt, Cisse, and Skuse. You could argue we have an abundance of defensive options, but we need some out before the next guys can come in, and sadly the guys that we want rid of are digging there heels in.

In Hunt and Stewart you have two blokes on top end wages that will not be played unless we get desperate, if we could get shot then we would have spare cash to pay two other top end players.

I can understand that we wont just keep buying more and more if the ones we have seem content to just sit out their contracts not playing. Its just a shame for KM that none of them appear to be his signings, he has to work with what he has.

We will just have to wait and see if we get lucky with a loan again.

 

no wum here, serious opinion, looking at pre-season results and lack of signings and injuries and maynard still not signed a new contract, i think you could well be struggling next season.

a few on here have said pre-season games mean nothing and its just about match fitness and sorting out tactics. well strikers on form breeds confidence and im sure our strikeforce are raring to go after scoring 14 in 4 games. winning mentality breeds confidence.

 

You said the same last season & look where you are now 4th tier, while we are looking forward to another season in the Championship.

Your wums are very poor CJS, just like your side.

 

I think Lummies hit the nail on the head tbh. We're tied by the players that we already have here and while they are borderline competent for the Championship I don't think we have any worries for our safety, but I agree that anyone talking of top 6 is optimistic with what we currently have.

 

"Top 6" - now c'mon lads, the way you're set up at the moment you'll be lucky to finish outside the bottom 6. We all know pre-season games can be so misleading, but to dismiss them as just that is a big mistake.

I'm not sticking up for Cap'n Jack above here, but you really need to get something fresh into the mix. Retaining virtually the same squad and management would seem on the face of it to be a recipe for building an efficient unit to go forward, but sometimes you've got to accept that it isn't working.

Admittedly, you can go the other way like our recent past , and hopefully we've learnt a lot from that.

Finally, to "bottle it" like we've done at the final hurdle is a right bummer, but you've got to give yourself a chance even if you do blow it.

 

I think the Mighty Reds will still get at least one more defender in, we really require Hunt, Stewart, and Nytanga to find themselves new clubs and free up the wages to bring in a CB pair that will earn thier corn.

If everyone stays I would expect to see us loan someone in, I am sure when the Premeirship teams name their 25 man squads their will be a few cut out begging to come nd play for us for a year. I am looking at Sunderland buying two new first choice CB, and thinking they must have someone sat there pissed off.

Man City have a ton of players, Utd and Liverpool always have a ton of quality youth, Chelsea have some going begging as always, and even the three promoted clubs must have lads that are championship quality that wont be getting a game now.

I am sure we can scrape together a few quid to get someone in on a borreey.

 

The thing is Wiz, we have looked like a very good attacking unit, even against Burnley who simply couldn’t handle us. Not saying we are better than them obviously, but we beat a decent Burnley side with relative ease last night and they had possibly their starting line up on the pitch, so we can see we have a bright future providing we continue to play like that.

This is no WUM but I can seriously see you lot struggle this season to the extent that you may have to claw yourselves out of the relegation zone within the last couple of weeks, weather you can sign new players and play as a team before then is to be seen (by yourselves obviously, wouldn’t find me watching your side if it meant curing myself from cancer!) but I hope for Bristol football, in all honesty, that you survive and we get promoted to the CCC over the coming years so we can have a proper football derby. None of this Swindle bollocks as they simply mean jack **** to me. I simply cant get the satisfaction out of beating them like I do when we beat the dirty red un's