Steve Lansdown sits in his office, with a nice malt and a tube of Pringles and his mind drifts off to the number of poor managers that have lost their jobs. He thinks to himself, THERE ARE SO MANY OUT THERE who have been much higher in the championship than we have this time round... he suddenly jumps up with START he's dozed off after counting to 53 of them, and spilt his malt in lap..... he composes himself pours out a treble and settles back down, and starts at A again Avram Grant Alan Irvine Alex Mcleish, Bruce Rioch .... Dave Jones ................. Martin Jol ....... Roy Keane Ruud Gullit ... Terry ... the door opens and his limo has arrived to take him home .. he scribbles out a note, gathers up his things and gets in the limo. A mile up the road he gets the driver to stop and gets out and posts the note in the post box. DRIVE ON.. the silence is broken as the driver says" was your letter important as the post doesn't go till Sunday night" No says Steve, it was only to Santa asking him to bring me a winning manager and team for Christmas ....
The key message in this JGF is 'poor managers', yet many on this board would have one of these in over SC in a heartbeat.........
The problem with City was the recruitment in the summer - we don't know whose fault that was Our current manager got 99 points last season
It is the players who deliver poor performances yet it seems it is the manager who always gets the blame. BCFC recruited well last year and it delivered well. This season to those in the know was always going to be one of consolidation in the Championship. In this respect the management failed to deliver our manager's requests and recruit the players he wanted. In the circumstances we will be lucky to hold onto him rather than the other way round i.e. blaming him. SL always said the Premiership was the aspiration of a 5 year plan. This years objectives are to survive and retain our manager. You only have to look at Leeds and Bolton before considering whether our approach is wise or not. The January window will be crucial to us.
3 wins in 20 time for action,this is relagation with a capital R. No sentiment from me the guy is paid a handsome wage and is not doing the business. That squad ran away with league 1 and should be comfortable in this league,clearly behind the scenes something is wrong. Time to act before it is to late.
He can only work with what he has. The only real Championship standard player we have is Kodjia. What do you expect ?
I do. Aside from the loanees and Kodjia, he's probably the only other player who has shown his consistent worth at this level.
We can defend our beloved players and manager all we like but 3 out of 20 is relegation form, relegation form is sacking form at this stage of the season. Its been quoted over and over again...this is a results based business, and we ain't getting results. I am sure Sir Steven of Lansdown just cannot even start to think of relegation after all he is doing at the ground, so if he thinks its time to change, he will have the final say. a case of dammed if you do, dammed if you dont. For what its worth, I really hope Cotts can turn it around, even if we stay up by just a point, then perhaps, for once, the club can look back and say"Ahhh, thats where we went wrong, lets not do it again boys and girls!
To be honest I've been in the Cotts must stay camp all season. I truly believed that he would get us out of trouble. I thought I saw the results and performances starting to pick up but now after these last two results I'm wavering. I don't think we should make a change just for the sake of change though. I don't think we should let Cotts go and then look around for a replacement and end up with Dean Saunders. If the board believe a quality manager with proven Championship (or above) experience would come to us then I think we should seriously consider that option. However we couldn't get players with that sort of experience to join us in the summer so what are our chances of getting a manager with it unless they had some soft spot for us, Moyes anyone? People thought Leicester and Southampton were harsh in sacking their managers but look at them now. They've moved on to a higher level. Its going to a balancing act. The next 4 games I think will determine our season and the fate of Cotts. If after the Charlton game on Boxing day we are in the relegation zone, Steve Lansdown will have to decision to make on whether he will trust Cotts with a transfer budget in January.
But for those few glorious years up there with the big boys, those Wembley appearances, winning a couple of cups the rest has been more than40 years of dented hope...my first game at the open was back around 1964, so long I cant even remember the exact year or game... but followed them since around 1953 when I used to go to the paper shop to get the GREEN'UN for my granddad. we used to play a game. alternate weeks we had the home teams or away teams and added up all the goals.. see who won at seasons end................
There have been a lot of desperate years for me too. With the occasional glimpse of what could or might have been.... Losing away to Hartlepool 3-1 on my Wedding Day in '82 was one of the lowest along with the club being 8 minutes from oblivion until the Ashton Gate 8 saved the day. And the euphoria of seeing us win 1-0 at dirty Leeds in the 1974 5th Round Replay is still my overall highlight, with the LC Semi against Spurs at '71 not far behind it.
