Does Bristol have a perception problem for today's top footballers? By RobPerkins Dwight Gayle and now Andre Gray have both turned down the chance to join Bristol City. And it's now beginning to be a real problem for Steve Cotterill to attract the calibre of player needed to fulfill the club's aims of not only competing in the Championship but ultimately making it into the Premier League. And as The Bristol Post football pundit Leroy Rosenior claims, it is a perception problem that today's footballers have about Bristol as a footballing city. He said: "For today's young footballers Bristol just has no history as a Premier League club and that is the problem. "These young gifted players all want to be playing the Premier League and they are looking at Bristol City and saying that they can't remember them having been in the top tier. "That lack of Premier League history is beginning to hurt City, especially when you look at the vast majority of teams in the Championship who all have recent history in the top tier. "This is the difficulty that Steve Cotterill is working with. He knows the players he wants to bring to the club, but the players are not convinced at the moment that Bristol City are ready to leap into the Premier League. "But when you look at the infrastructure, the stadium, the training ground and just how majority shareholder Steve Lansdown wants to put Bristol on the sporting map of England they couldn't be more wrong. "However, these players are asking themselves would Hull City, Brighton or Ipswich be better bets to get into the Premier League and voting not to come to Bristol. These places are smaller places but bigger when it comes to Premier League exposure. "That is why it is so difficult to get these high-profile players to sign. It would make people's eyes water at the amount of money being offered by Championship clubs to players in an effort to get into the Premier League. I know because my son Liam is playing in the Championship and it would really shock people. "Bournemouth are the exception that proves the rule but they gathered around them a bunch of young, talented and hungry footballers who - with the addition of goalkeeper Artur Boric - have made the Premier League having had no previous history. "Last season City were able to do all their transfer business under the radar early and benefited from it immensely, this season has been considerably more difficult and I'm sure it's down to that perception problem." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Does-B...blem-today-s/story-27651395-detail/story.html
I must be missing something here, surely the ultimate ambition is to get to the Premier League but we have only just gained promotion, our first priority must be to stabilise our status in the Championship then go for the big prize. We must be patient and learn to walk before we can run. please log in to view this image
Agreed, Rome wasn't built in a day, but at this moment in time I'm not convinced we have a squad capable of even surviving either.
We will be ok - the home performances indicate that we are not out of our depth (though I acknowledge only one point) This season is about stabalisation
This is the Leroy Rosenior article, what he is saying is that when people mention Bristol City to a player, it doesn't conjure the image in their mind of a team in the higher echelons of English football, and thus they are reluctant to come to us, as proven this past 10 days or so. It's a true statement and something discussed on this forum many times before, that Bristol is not seen as a hotbed of football, coupled with the City council's historical lack of support for sport in general, doesn't make players jump at the chance to come here. How fine the margins of success and failure, Hull City were no bigger than us and with no prior history, but that Wembley win has set them to be a club that has the finance and is now known to footballers worldwide as a club with Prem credentials and very recent history, coupled with Prem parachute payments means the agents are eager to sell a club like Hull to a player over us for their own financial gain, a pretty easy sell tbh, nothing really to do with the City of Bristol, who would choose Hull or Burnley if it was??
Bristol has always been a football backwater, and anyone who claims otherwise is really kidding themselves. However so was Wigan and Bournemouth, possibly even more so. The picture can change, but its a long road for Cotts. At least SL has now shown that he is ready and willing to compete with the rest of football. Makes you wonder what would have happened if he had allowed Coppel the same license
I have believed for a long time that we do not portray the image of a team that is destined for great stardom. If we ever wanted to prove the doubters wrong then the overall business plan must reflect our intent on reaching higher level football. Without that credo in place, and to hell with the 5 pillars nonsense, we cannot possibly move to the next step. Say what you do and do what you say - simples. Why not?
