If the season ended today, could it be considered successful for Bristol City? The Robins currently sit seventh please log in to view this image As the first weekend without football grinds slowly by, thoughts are slowly but surely starting to turn to the future - and how the season will finish. We are in uniquely unchartered waters and every man and his dog seems to have an opinion over what the best way to resolve things would be. One rather controversial idea is to end the season now - either by declaring the current standings to be the final league table, or by simply stating the campaign is null and void, allowing everyone to pick up again in pre-season as if nothing happened. What would that mean for Bristol City, though? Could seventh place with 37 games played be considered a success? It's an unfair question to ask, but these unprecedented times means it is a question that may well have to be asked. Calling the season finished now would leave a sour taste for some and a frustrating feeling of things going unresolved, but have the Robins met their goal of making progress this year? Here are our writers' thoughts on whether 2019/20 could be considered a success for the Robins if the curtain fell on the campaign today. Gregor MacGregor - Bristol City writer Though plenty of fans might point to Bristol City's spending this season, which includes the club record purchase of Tomas Kalas and fees that we understand are around £4m for both Nahki Wells and Kasey Palmer, and suggest that the Robins should have finished in the top six, this writer disagrees. Yes, the club themselves (Steve Lansdown on the radio before the opening day defeat to Leeds) said they wanted to finish in the play-off spots and they couldn't have got any closer of things were cut off now with seventh place achieved. But that all neatly forgets the backdrop to the season. While Lee Johnson has suggested there are three books to write on the events on this season regarding the personal circumstances of the players this campaign, we would also point at the big sales of key players that have underpinned the spending. Adam Webster was sold for one of the largest ever EFL to Premier League club fees, widely purported to be worth more than £20m, while the full value of Lloyd Kelly's switch to Bournmeouth was likewise in the same area with all clauses considered. Lee Johnson had promised a bold summer of transfer work, and senior pros Marlon Pack and Jamie Paterson departed on deadline day of the summer, with Josh Brownhill and Bailey Wright in January. These key dressing room figures have been difficult to replace, and given the turnaround in staff - and at awkward times such as once the season had already begun - plus the damaging blow of losing Benik Afobe a few games into the season, plus long-term injuries to Jay Dasilva, Korey Smith and Adam Nagy having to be negated, yet another season of league position improvement is not to be sniffed at. We would categorise a seventh place finish as a minor success, with the club nicely placed to go on and compete for the top six with more assuredness in 2020/21, depending on their summer transfer business and either successfully retaining or replacing star players. David Byrom - Football writer The unique situation that football finds itself in makes this a difficult question to answer - but I think there has been enough progress to feel relatively positive about the campaign. Of course, if the season ended today, it would be another play-off challenge that ultimately just fell frustratingly short, but City have once again closed the gap on the top six - and may well have actually got into the play-offs in the final nine matches of the season. If you compare the Robins' starting XI now, it is radically different to the one that ended last season, and, in future years, this may well be looked upon as a campaign of transition as the old guard were phased out and younger players were brought in. To be in a position where the club are still challenging for the play-offs whilst bedding in the likes of Han-Noah Massengo, Adam Nagy and other new signings is a minor achievement in itself. There are other mitigating circumstances that have ultimately frustrated the Robins this year, such as losing their star striker for the majority of the season just a month after he signed. There was also an illness that struck the squad ahead of a crucial away trip to Leeds - if City had won that game, they could well have been in with a shout of automatic promotion. Performances in the last month - and maybe longer - have not been good enough. Yet the Robins' ability to grind out results with a squad still getting used to each other can only bode well for the future. Max Baker - Football writer Ultimately, I don’t think you can answer simply yes or no as to whether Bristol City have had a successful season or not. It’s very hard to decide because of the ‘streaky’ nature of their performances. Of course seventh is yet another year of progress up the league table and I think it’s clear that City have by no means let themselves down this season. Without the fallback of parachute payments they’ve constantly shown they’re a threat in this league and the play offs aren’t far away, it’s just taken longer than some would have hoped. If looking solely at the league position then the season is going some way towards a success, but the goal at the start of the campaign was for a play off spot, so in that sense they not achieved their target and that will be a disappointment. Combine that with some poor performances in the second half of the season and I think its difficult to say that the season has been a total success. They would have wanted the play offs and they have fallen short again. The verdict has to be that the season ended with a bitter taste. But that doesn’t mean that it’s time to panic and make rash decisions. Progress if positive, no matter how slow, and if they do one better next season they’ll have achieved their goal. While the board, Johnson and players may not be completely happy, I don’t think any change is needed and with the backing of Lansdown the club is still heading in the right direction. https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport...s/season-ended-today-could-considered-3952037
Very moderate season so far, there could still be plenty to play for but promotion or top 6 was Steve Lansdown expressed preferences.
I think successful! To a great degree we haven't performed to our full potential - possibly affected by injuries - but we are 7th. I still believe that if we were firing on all cylinders we would be up there with West Brom and Leeds. Hopefully, the seasons end will show what we are truly capable of!!
well it is a fence sitter … there is 3 things "that could have happened" ..... .....we scored more points than PNE before the last game... were 4 points in front so could afford to lose and finish 6th .....finished the real season in 7th on GD .....Teams below us had a better run in and we finished 10th 2pts outside of top 6 IT CAN ALWAYS BE SAID 2019/2020 was not a true season, to many things in the past 4 or 5 games and the games still come not being a true reflection. ... before all this broke .. City had an illness problem .. based on stamina? ...lack of .. was the milder form with us back then? if you get infected by say someone sneezing / vaping on you/etc [ the covid cloud ? 1000 viruses .. ] ... your initial infection is either weak or strong [ will use simple terminology ] 1... you inhale from a distance or a cross wind intervenes and you absorb just a few … say less than 50 … your body then starts to immunize creating and building anti bodies ..you get a cough sore throat .. temp is body working on producing anti bodies so is nominally higher … in a few days your body has generated anti bodies and the virus has only been able to regenerate to say 500 before being killed off … you may not know you have had it ... 2... the middle ground …… 3 …. you take in a good gulp of the cloud 700-800 of the blighters .. the body starts to fight back and begins producing anti bodies ..it is in turbo mode temp rises a few degrees as each virus doubles anti bodies struggle to catch up/keep you know you have it and being on the lungs clogs up the ability to convert the air we breathe … so CO2 stays there??? … Note... I have been in a situation twice, once more serious .. in my hobby I often "work in a pit" underground. The serious issue was one afternoon whilst digging the pit deeper the air started to change... my breathing became laboured and I said to my friend I will do 3 or 4 more bucket loads then I am done .. I nearly was!!!!!! at 4m deep 3m wide and just .75 m wide the narrowest it was a free climb out with no holds sides were smooth … I was dizzy, my vision was like tunnel vision .. my heart was pounding breaths were gulps about every 2 secs or less and I hadn't even start to climb … I said to my friend, who couldn't reach out to me, i had better make this in the first go or I am f*****. I AM HERE SO OBVIOUSLY I DID.... About 5m from the lip of the pit was a small chamber, I lay on my back for about 3 mins … THOUGHT IT WAS MUCH MUCH LONGER... breathing was very rapid and shallow, my mind told me concentrate deep breathing and hold to calm down pulse/heart beat was about 90 after I had slowed deep breathing to about once every 10 secs probably about 3 -4 mins after getting out 15 mins later as if nothing had happened. the heart as we all know pumps the oxygen rich blood around the body. it senses when CO2 is higher so takes in more air to extract more oxygen becomes a vicious circle breathe quicker and transfer fails so needs to breathe even quicker etc etc .. the virus clogs the lungs … bit like cigarette smoke!
Looking at the hard facts, 7th is a better position than last year and the year before that etc so we have improved year on year. To look at that as ‘success’ might be hard to swallow for some, but is certainly can’t be classed as ‘failure’. Doomsayers might point out that we would have dropped away before the season properly ended, whilst ‘happy clappers’ might point out that we could have gone on one of our winning streaks and ended up in the playoffs - or even snatched an auto place. Both scenarios are equally possible, but simply hypothetical so are therefore irrelevant. For me, it’s been a success.
The disappointing thing for me is I believe we have the squad to have done better. We haven’t really performed to our full potential, if we can achieve that in the remainder of the season (if there is one) then top 6 is achievable.
If year on year progress is the yardstick, then yes. If it was to be in the play-offs as a minimum, then-No. It all depends on the 'Measure' of success!
I have to say as the season has progressed, I have become more and more frustrated. LJ has never in his 4 years sorted the right back position, Hunt is great going forward but poor at defending, Pereira is a talent but runs out juice on the hour mark IMHO. I think that starting the season without a specialist back up left back was crazy, Rowe was OK but I think we needed him in midfield, an area where I believe all of our problems lie. Our midfield is weak, don't always protect the defence as well as they should and lack creativity, we get bullied by teams we should be beating especially at home. There is a lack of leadership in midfield, I love Smith but he is not an organiser somebody who can calm things down put their foot on the ball and bring players like Eliasson into the game, our midfield is lacking creatively, too many games we barely manage a shot on target, we have a proper goal scorer now but the poor bloke has been given just 2 chances both of which he buried but we should be creating far more for him. Paterson can be a match winner on his day no doubt about that, but defensively he is a liability far too lightweight and when he plays along with Eliasson it weakens our midfield severely, I think we can play one but not both. Odowda has been poor a real disappointment to be honest and that hasn't help us. Now I come to Diedhiou another player that I love, nobody can fault his commitment, but he frustrates the hell out of me, he rarely anticipates a ball being played to him, he never makes near post runs at all, always at the far post usually behind his marker, near post runs might drag markers away from the far post especially at set pieces for a player coming in behind and hopefully he would occasionally connect with a near post cross. But do you know what? I don't blame him he is either reacting to instructions or very badly coached. If Afobe does stay next season, we need to either give Walsh a proper shot, the guy is being described as the best player in league 1, I found LJ's decision to recall the injured Vyner but leave Walsh at Coventry bizarre. We need to bring in a Barry Bannan type to properly anchor our midfield, I am assuming that Vyner will be our right back cover and maybe Pring as left back cover. I still think Palmer could be the answer, yes he loses the ball in dangerous positions at times trying to be too clever, but about 6 weeks ago Mcgregor produced stats suggesting that when he does play he is our most productive player after Eliasson. LJ needs to sort that one out and fast. So if the season finished now, I would be frustrated at what might have been, yes the loss of Afobe was a huge blow for us but I fear even with him our midfield would still not be producing enough chances for him. This is only my opinion and I am sure others will a different view, I have seen every single game live or on BCTV for the past 3 seasons.
Had we been better at home and got more points from our games at the Gate then I would have said we'd been successful.Plus we'd have been several places higher in the league. As things stand, not so sure but not dreadful by any stretch of the imagination
I agree not dreadful but frustrating, because it could and should have been so much better. Mistakes with the right back and left back positions, a weak, non creative midfield confounded by LJ's obvious dislike of Palmer (rumour is LJ never wanted him), recalling Vyner and not Walsh and what I perceive as poor coaching of Diedhiou are in my opinion schoolboy errors by LJ. We cannot blame poor refereeing decisions because we have gotten away with quite a few ourselves, DaSilva was a big miss (I consider him the best left back in our league) as was Afobe but everybody club has their sob stories during a season. I want LJ to succeed as I want everybody at BCFC to succeed but we have to one day accept that there is a point called stop, where we might have to say "thank you Lee for all of your efforts and improvements, but you have probably have taken us as far as you can". I sense at games and on various forums the LJ support is split is 50/50 and I am so far on the fence.
I can't say it has been successful because we haven't won or achieved anything (like the reach the play offs) and our years as classing escaping relegation as a successful season are thankfully over (for now). However once again we have progressed and hopefully we will continue to do so
welcome and a perfect opening script. I agree with all of this. Afobe getting injured was a complete game changer. Afobe coming back could be a game changer.
Afobe was bad luck, the rest IMHO was self inflicted. Afobe will only be a game changer if we create chances for him, as I originally said Wells has been set up with just 2 chances so far and he buried both of them, we have to somehow create more, for me I would give Palmer his chance at the expense of Paterson, my midfield would be Eliasson, Smith, Nagy, Palmer.
Afobe, Kalas, Da Silva, Nagy - all out at more or less the same time Add Smith to that list too. None of them came back the same players as before their injuries. I’m not saying this is the main reason for our inconsistencies, but it can’t have helped.
What it probably proved is our squad overall is not adequate. Injuries happen, but there have been several avoidable mistakes, like 4 years on the right back position is still an issue, 4 years on the midfield is still an issue, not having specialist left back cover is an issue and bringing back Vyner and leaving Walsh and maybe even Morrell on loan is an issue. LJ is a smart bloke and I expect that he will learn the lessons of this season, lets hope they are not repeated next season, the good news is hopefully a fully fit Vyner, hopefully a fully firing Walsh and Morrell and a more experienced Pring and also Taylor Moore finally trusted more by LJ. I expect several players to be leaving maybe Eliasson who has not been handled well and Palmer who must be fed up with life at BS3, maybe even Diedhiou. DaSilva, Kalas, Bentley and Massengo will interest bigger clubs, I have heard that Nagy has not settled and out of the loans I suspect only Henrickson might be of interest, although he started really well I personally wouldn't bother with Williams.
