What we are paying in wages vs those sides is not what is the difference; it's what the managers/coaches are getting out of them, that is the difference. Or, are you saying that if our wage bill was halved, we would be better? A pointless argument to have yet another pop at the previous regime instead of acknowledging that this one is worse.
You need to read the thread, not one post in isolation. Firstly I am not having a pop at the previous regime, I am and always have been having a pop at the owner who allowed the club to rack up a huge wage bill on a very average squad. The other teams invested far better than us and for less money, that is the difference. We recruited poorly and paid over the odds for that poor recruiting, I give you Wells, Palmer and ODowda for starters. The knock on from our huge wage bill from last season was not being able to have a squad size to even compare to other rivals mentioned, we released 13 players and brought in less than half that amount and it would appear the same is going to happen for next season. We are paying for gross mismanagement. 3 of the 5 teams who had bigger wage budgets than us were promoted last season and as the figures for the record loss cover 3 seasons we have never looked like challenging for even a top 6 finish. LJ, Ashton and little Jon left the cupboard bare. With no funds to improve a piss poor overpaid squad and SL signed it off, but hey if you still believe that we had/have a reasonable squad, that's up to you, yesterday for instance we had our best midfielder playing at right wing back, our most prolific goal scorer playing in midfield, 2 virtually novice centre backs and another who has barely played for 2 years and we matched a team who were in the premiership last season are still in the top 6 and going for the play offs with the safety net of parachute payments.
NP has signed 4 new defenders this season, plus re-signed Baker, so if he hasn't signed a decent RB that is on him, not MA,LJ or JL. Again, NP chooses to play Weimann at RWB, Midfield etc. he has to take accountability for his decisions.
He signed Tanner, I think he was hoping him and Vyner would cover RB, but Vyner has not worked out. I agree though, tanner is more for the future, and cover, we need a championship standard RB/RWB.
For my 2 pennyworth; PPs give newly-relegated teams a big advantage - they enable newly relegated teams to spend big whilst staying within the constraints of FFP. That's a huge advantage over the rest of us and when exploited properly will see those teams bouncing straight back to the Prem - like Fulham has and Bournemouth is highly likely to this season. Yes there is always one or sometimes 2 'anomaly' clubs (WBA, Cardiff) who for various reasons cannot exploit their gifted financial advantage. Financial injections don't guarantee success, but it takes the pressure off and makes success a lot easier to achieve when you don't need to sell your best players to balance the books. Regarding the squad; when LJ was sacked, we were STILL mathematically within a shot of reaching the playoffs - albeit hugely unlikely. We had successive top half finishes with LJ's 'piss-poor' squad, so either LJ was a managerial genius for overachieving with such dross (which Pearson can't), or the players LJ had simply weren't that poor. I don't see how there is any other possible explanation for our successive top half finishes. Expensive yes. Piss-poor no. There is a difference.
We can blame all the managers we want and then throw in Covid for good measure but when it comes down to the crunch the owner has to take the fall. All decisions must go through him and not around him which only leaves one culprit at the end of the investigation and again that is Steve Lansdown. During this season of abject failure he has virtually disappeared from view and even though that is a criticism from me I'm not so sure I can take his smug grin anymore. We are taken from problem to the next problem under his ownership and the chance of a miracle happening gets less likely by the year and so expecting anything different and exciting coming down the pipe is wasted energy. If we should fall afoul of the FFP gurus it will be solely down to the lousy decisions made and money wasted by our hierarchy based on permissions given to people who didn't have a clue what they were doing but regrettably that can't be used as an excuse. We are what SL has allowed us to be and that failure to do his duty in a ore sensible way could be our undoing.
The cupboard was left bare by the free spenders and signed off by the owner, he signed what he could afford to sign, especially given the huge wage packets spunked on players who are not and never were good enough and certainly not worthy of the those inflated wages and Pearson is not responsible for that. I am assuming that you would leave out your mate's Onefer's joint man of the match Martin to accommodate Weimann? Who would you have played in midfield then? Still we have made progress, at least you seem to abandoned you argument about the stadium and academy being the reason for the record debt.
The highlighted underlined portion is utter fantasy, mathematical? barely, 5 games left 5 wins needed and + a 16 goal turnaround, you will have lead me to any team historically who have managed that particular miracle. So if these players are so good, why are they still here? Oh yes the huge wage packets, I mean we couldn't even give them away in January, that's how good they are. Top half finishes? 5 teams had a higher wage bill and 3 of them were promoted FFS, surely with that outlay in fees and wages, you would expect a play off finish at least? I suppose we will know more when the bids come in for these stellar players, yeah right, I would expect that the best we can hope for is to offset some of their huge wages or pay them off, great business, whatever way you look at it we are looking a huge wedge of our now meagre wage budget, to rid ourselves of them.
I said it was massively unlikely. Mathematically if you add 5 to 295 you ‘barely’ get 300. However it was closer than we’ve been since we’ve changed managers. If we win 5 games with a plus 16 GD now it would make no difference at all. I wasn’t suggesting it was LIKELY - just that it was mathematically possible - which it was. ‘The league table doesn’t lie’ - is an old, but true saying - and it’s telling the truth now. I’ve acknowledged the financial cost too. We have a very expensive squad. Too expensive - no argument there. However expensive they were/are, most of them got us to the top half of the table for LJ so they can’t be ‘piss poor’ on the pitch - it’s THAT statement that I was challenging.
Just to add: - our squad is EXPENSIVE and we’ve historically overspent. - The core of that overpaid expensive squad is capable of a top half finish - as proven - Those overpaid expensive players who delivered a top half finish, have failed to deliver a top half finish since LJ left. I’ve agreed they are overpaid and expensive. I’m not saying they are ‘value for money’ - never. I’m saying that on the pitch they’ve delivered top half safe championship football before, but not now. What’s changed????
You will have to remind me how players like Wells, Palmer and ODowda have actually contributed consistently to BCFC since the day that they signed, all 3 are meant to be match winners and have been shockingly poor since the day they arrived. This makes interesting reading. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-city-squad-costs-championship-6977173
