It seems that we may have slightly exceeded the budget lately. Can we continue to afford a wage bill like we have now...? Of course not, in fact it will not be permitted under FFP (however it remains to be seen if we can do a stadium naming rights deal). So on the assumption that we will have to cut our cloth accordingly, it would seem that we will have to rely on finding the occasional gem from non league but mainly, OUR ACADEMY. But our academy is rubbish and has barely produced a player in years. Oh, but wait a minute, what a good job we have spent loads on rebuilding and upgrading it to meet the next level up on the chain in the last 6 months. According to some, if we are successful, it will at best purely act as a feeder to higher level clubs. Interesting then how that only yesterday, we were able to secure the services of Joe Morell despite I understand, strong competition from Liverpool. Times have supposedly moved on however accordingly to our website;- “It’s clear he is a talented boy and there has been a lot of interest in him from Premier League clubs, one in particular. “We couldn’t be more pleased that Joe and his family have opted to commit their future to the club. “They’ve seen a significant change in the Academy set-up recently and decided this would be the best place for Joe to develop Interesting too that we were able to secure the services of a highly prized young defender in Greg Cunningham despite fierce competition and undoubtedly more lucrative offers. (The test of his loyalty will no doubt come next month but I believe he will stay). Likewise, we achieved a coup in gaining the services of a highly rated young striker in Sam Baldock and Matthew Bates has also joined us and hopefully he will stay as he also has that touch of class. Steve Davis is also a class act and is still only 24 So perhaps someone could tell me what it is that good quality young players see in our manager that persuades them to sign for us when some of our supporters think he would be more at home on the Downs. Maybe our footballing Einstein's would care to comment, I wonder who knows better... The now is not so good but we will survive and in the meantime, we continue to build a better quality team that WANTS TO PLAY FOR US. Given a degree of success and most importantly, MOMENTUM, SL will invest to keep these players with us. watch and learn...
Is all this latest rhetoric from the club all smoke and mirrors or are we in serious trouble? Even in the heady days of our return to the Championship when the seats were almost full to capacity for every game we still managed to lose money. Does this mean we have incompetent chumps in charge of the affairs of Bristol City or are the cold hard facts that monetary discipline is ignored at your own peril more to the fore? Probably a combination of both factors but have the people in charge really paid due diligence to the financial woes of our club, when we have constantly heard that the wage bill needed to be reduced drastically. Frankly I would question as to whether that side of the problem equation has been handled in a way that might reduce our losses. I still see a reasonable flow of new talent arriving at Ashton Gate with little, if any, positivity in the results column or at the turnstiles. Results and attendances are always linked in the revenue column and our recent form has been bleeding red ink not just now but for many years and it makes me wonder, do we actually have the right personnel in place? We tend to look at these problems solely from the perspective of Bristol City but we all know that there are many more clubs suffering the same financial woes, and I don't see the major wealthy clubs stiffing up monies to help the grass roots of the game that serves them so well. Greed and inequality is alive and well in the Football League and clubs like Bristol City are one of the many sufferers of financial disparity and I can't see any help on the horizon in the immediate future. So that obviously leaves us with the status quo and who knows where that will lead, let's just hope to survival yet again.
Instead of bending the rules deal with the obscene overspending. We will be singing are we Portsmouth in disguise soon!
Let me think....If I was that good of a player, who would I prefer to sign for to further my career?.........An established premiership club or a club bound for League 1, heavly in debt because of bad decision making by the board and a clueless manager...................................It's a No brainer! I for one can see through the smokescreen that's making some believe "progress is being made at the club" but the FACTS are; We've made approx 12/13m loss per year on average in the past 5 years through bad decision making. We are 3rd from bottom of the championship & with current form will be relegated. We have a manager who is clueless in putting a team together with players everyone agrees is better than we had last season. Our attendence figures are the lowest in 5 years Our season ticket sales are down Now tell me, is that a good advert for up and coming talent? If you thought your son was a special talent and could play at a really good level or maybe more and a premiership side came knocking on the door you would turn them down over our club in the situation it's in?
Not in my books onefor. Let's face the fact that we are in a complete mess and it seems that we have no realistic person onboard that can sort out the problems. We have wandered aimlessly from year to year and for some stupid reason have expected the results to change and our financial woes to miraculously heal themselves. George Osborne said the said the same thing yesterday and expects the nation to stand up and applaud his speech whilst in the background the knives are out. The problem is that you can't legislate stupidity and until someone can find a loophole in that premise then Bristol City will be confined to the limitations of it's poor business plan. Sorry but that's the way it is and until we the supporters have a say in how the club is run then we just have to sit back and go along with the wave hoping that we don't drown. God bless her and all who sail in her.
We are a club in free-fall.............be under no illusion, we are up sh1t creek without a paddle. OK, we can all second guess and make our own conclusions as to how we got in such a mess, but has anyone got any idea how the hell we get out of it? I am really despondant right now, but this could well be a bigger situation than back in 1982, the saving grace being Mr Lansdown this time around. Forget Saturdays team selection and results ect, there is so much more going on with our club at the moment to be concerned about. There is no way on earth a club the size of ours can continue like this.........something is going to give sooner or later. I fear the worst, I realy do...sorry.
Steve maybe the saving grace but IMO it's down to his error of judgement that got us there in the first place.....again I stress, I'm not digging or knocking him for what he's tried to do for the club and continues trying, but IMO it's down to him to sort it out. You fear the worst, I only fear the worst if he turns his back on us leaving the club in a mess that he put us into.............Over to you Steve!
Mike, this is the whole point of the new stadium. At the time when it loomed on the horizon we were within touching distance of the Premier League and even back then, the talk was that if we could make it that even if AG was full to the 19,500 capacity every week, it could not sustain PL football or even championship football wages over any long period of time. This is more and more apparent, the longer I spend looking at the accounts. We need to be successful in a bigger stadium, simple as but of course making it to the PL would be the real game changer as the TV money would probably account for 50% of our income...
You really ought to do a bit of research before making rash statements like that: Granted it made a difference of possibly around £4m in the last financial year with £1.9m going towards paying up contracts, mostly Coppell's duds in Sinclair and Hunt I suspect and another £2.5m on the wagebill probably mostly our 6 loanees with wages, fees, etc. We did however get Nicky's money put back in at £1.5m but the whole in-out thing in football is so fluid that the dynamic probably averages out over the years... So no, when you analyse it, the "bad decision making" probably didn't have that much of an impact on the overall picture as whatever happened, the loss would be probably £10m plus EVEN GETTING IT ABSOLUTELY PERFECT Fact is that we need a bigger stadium and of course, more success on the pitch, the latter being taken as read. Our AVERAGE salary at the moment is about £10k per week across the entire playing staff although there will of course be those on more and some on less. I have no great problem with this BEARING IN MIND THEY PROBABLY ONLY GET MAYBE 6-8 YEARS AT THIS LEVEL to earn enough to live off for the rest of their lives but this just goes to put the spotlight on those players who are underperforming. Over to you chaps..... It also goes to even further tell me how grateful I need to be to our benefactor so,.. Thank you Sir Steve...!!!
Just read some of the tweets from tonight's meeting. Some of them very interesting, states that he would like to play 4-4-2 but whilst he was playing that at St Jonstone he felt he had a better defence. He'is admitting that he needs defenders. Also states that he wanted Bikey but his demands were far too high, the same with Cisse. Mentions that Baldock and Davies were only signed as small fees compared to other demands from different players. Feels that Baldock and Davies will each score in region of 15 goals this season. Because he feels the club can't defend as well as he would like reduces the amount of game time those can play AT the moment. Looking to move and recruit more players in January window. He wants to use Bobby Reid more but feels that now is not the right time whilst they are in this fight. Danns loan will be extended. But can't see anything beyond that. Feels that the players confidence at home is low, it did get better at the end of last season beginning of this but has slipped again. Mentions that Norwich and Southampton have a good academy and feels in a few years time we shall see the benefit of it. THEY HAVE REDUCED THE PLAYERS ANNUALLY WAGES SINCE MAY 2012. Joe Morrell really excites him and feels that he signed for us not Liverpool because we can feed him into first team before Liverpool could. Also the club is on course for FFP and feels other clubs at the moment are burying their heads in the sand about it. It is difficult when dealing in transfer talks with players as you have to offer championship wages with clauses for going up as well as down. These are snippets that I can remember when my wife just read them out earlier. (will look later but working at mo) Plus I wasn't there so don't quote me on any off them!!!!
