Again, not true. LJ did play him. Ayling let himself down at Cheltenham races and Lansdown wanted him gone, that's well known. At that time we had Mark Little who had been outstanding in L1 (as we now know, being a success in L1 is different to the Championship....), and we signed an ex-Premier League defender, Matthews I think, who after a great loan turned out to be dog$****e when he joined permanently. Therefore, paving the way for Ayling to leave. Also, a fact that has been cruelly exposed this season Ayling is not a good defender, he is good going forward.
I'd take any of those finishes over last season and where we will finish this season. We have been pi$$ poor all season, at least in the ones you mention above we had very good spells, spoilt by very bad spells. This season it's a one-game good spell. I agree on the finance piece, I have also said it since the day City announced theirs, we were amongst, if not the first to do so. There was no way that we were going to be as bad as some who had run at a big negative for 2 years before COVID hit.
That is a wholly different argument to the challenging for play offs revisionism and one that all fans can get behind because the evidence is clear. My hope is Wells, ODowda, Palmer, Vyner and Moore can be shifted on and judging by his omission and last 2 performances Massengo has almost certainly made his mind up as well, hopefully we can get good money for him. PS:- A good fee for Massengo to add to the 6mil for ODowda, Moore and Vyner, will be very handy indeed.
We were always there or there about and comfortable under LJ, not fighting relegation.....with whatever players he had and of course, maybe could have stretched to a playoff or even better had our best players were not sold on.. I just think his insight to the modern game was better than what we have now.......if he was at fault for the players that came in to replace, then that was a department that he wasn't good at.............nothing says to me that NP is any better.......but we will see.
Supcon 'As always you miss the point' - From you, Classic. 'Look at the 2 goals we conceded on Tues evening with Vyner sat on the bench' And Vyner would have stopped them ? Of course he would.
Down to bad coaching overall imo. Just for the first goal, Weimann lost his man to give away the corner.. then defending the corner, not one of our players knew who they were marking. Again imo Bentley being keeper and captain should be organising..Massengo was marking a 6ft plus player.. yeah that works!! We are full of mistakes, with or without Vyner so better to play players in correct position if available, plus I believe we missed Weimanns pressing up top.
I couldn't agree more other than playing Vyner at all anywhere across the back 4. As for him playing RWB all I'll say, being polite, it might be interesting and he might even help defending set pieces. Going forward he'd find very difficult.
Then the manager shouldn't play a wing-back system if he doesn't have the correct assets to do so. This is what I have said before, this comes down to poor setup, tactics and formation from the manager.
He has to pick a system with the players at his disposal. We don't have full backs full stop so he tries to negate that weakness by playing 3-5-2. To exacerbate this problem we don't have a RWB either. The poor sod has tried Bell, Scott and Weimann back there, none of which he'd pick there if there was anyone else available. He can't win. Are you suggesting the option to play a back 4 with Vyner and DaSilva as full backs ? If you are - We've been there, it's a disaster. Roll on the summer window.
The stretch is that we were ever close to a play off spot and given that our failures to reach a play off spot were always in the 2nd half of the season and also given that apart from Brownhill none of his better players were ever sold in a January window and even that was a desperate bid to try to turn our fortunes around, so none of your post has any fact whatsoever, except the part about poor replacements.
Can't remember fighting around the relegation places....but none of my post has any fact...so you must be right again!!
And I cannot remember from the start of the new year being in play off contention and I cannot remember (apart from Brownhill) players being sold in January that might have given rise to our annual slump away from the play off places.
2017-18 season finished 11th - 8 pts off of playoffs 2018-19 season finished 8th - 4 pts off of playoffs sold off Reid, Bryan, Flint, Duric 2019-20 season finished 12 - 7 pts off of playoffs. sold off Kelly & Webster.................. Brownhill January 2020 A darn sight better than last season finishing 19th- 26 pts away from playoffs and our current position of 18th and 16 pts away from playoffs.. We've been worse since he left..progress that was promised from his departure is way off..
Nobody is saying your final paragraph is wrong. Things are far worse, the present manager has had 2 financially wrecked windows, something most of our opponents seem to have ignored and our owner is assisting them by trying to get them all a free pass for their spending. But claiming we were pushing for a play off spot is bullshit, at no stage after January/February were we ever in control of our own play off destiny regarding the play offs and all of those players bar Brownhill were sold in the summer and our form up until January/February was good and took us into play off contention. Maybe we should be asking why did our seasons become so predictable?
Even in the summer, if key players depart from the squad it disrupts momentum IMO, basically starting again, especially when they are not replaced like for like in quality....As we enter the second part of the season, we have players, tired, out injured and no quality to cover....IMO in the main, that is what happened.. This will happen again to us next season if we lose the likes of Massengo, Semenyo, Scott, etc..and replaced with inferior players..IMO
You have managed to excel yourself with BS excuses here. So it disrupts momentum but not until January/February? but presumably the 3 wise men LJ, Ashton and little Jon never worked that one out? perhaps just perhaps being more active in January might have helped in that regard? to help with the poor overworked underpaid cherubs not getting so tired kicking a sack of air around for a living? You then expect us to replace like for like? and presumably at a cheaper cost? perhaps you should be employed in this role because boy they need help? the way the club runs is we sell high and buy up and coming talent at cheaper prices and that is where the failure actually lies far too many 'up and coming' were never good enough and of course we can choose any combination of the 3 wisemen to blame for that, because I am sure that they all had a hand in it. But at least it's progress because at least you seem to be accepting that we bought a lot of inferior players adding to the poor squad we have ended up with. As for the last sentence how do you expect to sell these players and not replace them with inferior players? even up and coming players will be inferior to start with much like Massengo and Semenyo especially. But the irony is only one man has actually had the set of balls to tell God and his son that constantly selling your best players is utter madness and the little un even tried to defend the model FFS. It's the model that is ****ed it doesn't and has never worked since day one and only one person can change the model, the only good news is that although our recent buys have not been great, the academy is still producing.
Even NP has quoted that he doesn't like to do or have deals done in Jan....now I wonder why that is? I'm also saying that we will not progress if we sell our best players and not replace like for like, it's not possible, it's what we found out with LJ and IMO became his downfall and what we will find out with NP if we use the same method. Unless Bristol City's method, is just to maintain Championship status and like you say, "sell for high" and bugger the Premiership.. Most of our problems since we've been in the championship, is not having half decent quality when we have injuries etc......IMO fact. It's not BS excuses, just the way we've been operating. You just excel with rants, moans and groans with no constructed input....normal for you..
Fair enough if they don't like doing business in January, then zero excuses for January/February burn outs, not a single excuse, that was self inflicted. I am not sure Pearson will be willing agree to selling them all, if he does I am sure he will make his feelings known as he did when little Jon made his stupid uneducated comment. For me Massengo looks already gone, I thought there were 1 or 2 occasions where I would have expected him to put his foot in and never did. Massengo is the most vulnerable with just a year left in the summer, whereas the other 2 are contracted until 2025, so that one is almost certainly out of his hands, Scott is at the age for a loan back to us. Your last sentence is more what I expect from you. I have made CONSTRUCTIVE input, like my very first point in this reply, not doing business in January for a squad you claim is running out of steam is ridiculous, so how about a constructive answer to that, if you are correct the lesson was never learned and that in my book is a BS excuse. The difference is under the trio we were bullshitted into believing that the premiership was the goal, but actions say otherwise, your constructive input over the right back problem is to recall Vyner even though he has single handedly cost us loads of points from the first game of the season. If your looking for more constructive input, I have been saying for most of this season that Kalas is carrying injuries and of course I was right, i'm surprised with constructive input you missed that.
You've more or less answered in your last sentence what I've been saying....Kalas injured as well as others, it's March, no decent players to cover...to me that's Daja Vu..Is that a January thing or putting a decent squad together at the start of the season.....NP stating, he didn't want to bring in for the sake of, brought us more or less nothing IMO. Vyner has made mistakes, but still more natural to put him in than play Weimann out of his position.....but hey, it worked on Tuesday...oh no it didn't did it?
