will Nigel walk away?

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gaffer

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very despondent on R/S tonight re no planning of signings pre window closure. my guess is they promised him a lot and delivered nothing. as per usual
 

yeah. 14 players signed or something. we didnt plan anything................

What we should have done is make sure we got Brayford, Coady & a replacement for HM.

I would have been happy with say 8 players who really improved rather than squad fillers.

However that is me talking football manager bollocks. The reaity is probably different in that the above 2 were out of reach due to them wanting to play in the Championship
 
yeah. 14 players signed or something. we didnt plan anything................

What we should have done is make sure we got Brayford, Coady & a replacement for HM.

I would have been happy with say 8 players who really improved rather than squad fillers.

However that is me talking football manager bollocks. The reaity is probably different in that the above 2 were out of reach due to them wanting to play in the Championship
We know they were out of our reach,so what they should have done is had the scouting network out there and found the next players of this ilk.I know i make it sound easier than what it is but it is achievable none the less.

Cloughy quite clearly stated he would only sell Maguire if it was to make the team better,only Cloughy and the board can tell us what went wrong there then.

I do agree thats what we had to do,and that is to get replacements for the players you mentioned but unfortunately we haven't even come close to replacing them yet,lets see if the board can suprise us:rolleyes:
 
The scouting system cannot be blamed, as it shouldn't be required. What we as a 'financial powerhouse' (lol) in the division should have done is just sign PROVEN players at this level. How many of Bristol City's signings had you heard of? I imagine all of them, certainly all the starting players. We know them because they have performed well at this level or above.

You didn't need to be a scout to recognise Freeman, Little, Wilbraham, Agard etc were good signings as they have been good performers for a while. Basically we've taken players released by other league 1 clubs or from Holland/Scotland where they are complete unknown quantities. To get out of the championship you need an excellent scouting network to find hidden gems, but the best way to get out of league 1 is by simply buying good league 1 players. We saw it with wolves last year too.
 
The scouting system cannot be blamed, as it shouldn't be required.

Sorry but I'm not sure I agree with that statement or that the championship and league one are THAT different ? Perhaps we should give the scouts a year off (more likely two) - maybe they could travel, see the States, chill and come back tanned and relaxed when they are required ? Every club needs good scouts, no club has endless pockets and value for money is always important. I am just not sure Simon Clough is any good from the sound of some of the tosh we have bought.
 
Sorry but I'm not sure I agree with that statement or that the championship and league one are THAT different ? Perhaps we should give the scouts a year off (more likely two) - maybe they could travel, see the States, chill and come back tanned and relaxed when they are required ? Every club needs good scouts, no club has endless pockets and value for money is always important. I am just not sure Simon Clough is any good from the sound of some of the tosh we have bought.

Well basically, the difference is, you either get out of championship by spending mega bucks (a la Leicester, QPR) or by excellent scouting (a la Burnley). If you don't have massive amournts of money, you better have the ability to seek gems on the cheap.

The difference is, good league 1 players are everywhere and well known. They can also be acquired pretty cheaply too. As I say, I think every Bristol fan will have known they were bringing in good players, where as with all our signings we all went 'who?'.
 
My feeling is HRH has a token club for his ego, McCabe has shifted the debt and there is no credible promotion strategy just a clean well run club with a "big name" manager and a hope that it will just come together.
Let's see how long the investors stick around if we have a mediocre season without a Wembley event. Will Cloughy walk at this point, nah, he will stay unless a better local offer comes in.
Truth is its not working (again). Yes it's early in the season but we can only react to results and a gut feeling we do not have a squad that given the resources should DOMINATE this seasons piss poor league

Rant over, I'm still hurting!
 
every Bristol fan will have known they were bringing in good players, where as with all our signings we all went 'who?'.

I don't disagree with you vis a vis the relative quality of Bristol's signings and ours. And yes there are top division one players out there - several of whom moved in the summer. Your post does though seem to suggest that a good scouting set-up isn't necessary in League One. That is what I am questioning.

The difference between us and Bristol seems to be that Bristol identified the right targets (its where the scouts come in) and had the infrastructure and resources there in place to make sure they landed them. Our scouts seemingly only had bus passes to Walsall, the "bargain" basement store at Blackpool, plus a red rover ticket for Scotland. Targets we identified we didn't land - be that because of lack of funds or incompetence in the bidding team (none of us really know what the transfer allocation was/is and whether it has been used up). It was a similar scenario at Derby with Simon Clough as head scout.

He might have been a good scout in the conference and division 2 level but it seems to me he is out of his depth at this level ( and size of club) looking at his performance at Derby and here to date . And I do wonder how nobody noticed that Higdon (setting aside talent level/suitability) looks like he has to shift about two stones to reach target weight ( Evans is more likely to be match fit before him).
 
It's an odd situation when your manager comes out and states he'll only be signing players who will be able to progress up to a higher league and then signs this lot.

We've had a very poor scouting system for a long time. Only the person who is responsible for Scotland has unearthed actual talent.
 
The scouting system cannot be blamed, as it shouldn't be required. What we as a 'financial powerhouse' (lol) in the division should have done is just sign PROVEN players at this level. How many of Bristol City's signings had you heard of? I imagine all of them, certainly all the starting players. We know them because they have performed well at this level or above.

You didn't need to be a scout to recognise Freeman, Little, Wilbraham, Agard etc were good signings as they have been good performers for a while. Basically we've taken players released by other league 1 clubs or from Holland/Scotland where they are complete unknown quantities. To get out of the championship you need an excellent scouting network to find hidden gems, but the best way to get out of league 1 is by simply buying good league 1 players. We saw it with wolves last year too.
Freeman was outstanding against us last season, and Korey Smith with Oldham gave us the runaround at AG. As did Posh. Agard was a standout player, clearly, with his 26 goals. That is one third of your team. The policy seemed to be very much: we know the best individuals in League One, which ones are better than what we've got, and which ones are likely to sign for us? And it was also to sign players in the 21-25 age group, players with their best years just ahead of them. Theoretically. We were trying to sign Freeman in January. It was all planned and thought out in advance and all but Agard were signed early and went on the 2 week preseason trip. For once, we were ahead of the game and the preparation has contributed to a great start. We have got it wrong so many times before but some lessons have been learned from previous mistakes. One example of this being getting Agard in before Baldock was sold. And making a decent profit in all that. That hasn't always happened before.

Finally losing the last of the highly paid Championship failures still here freed up some wages, loads of wages, and we were in a strong position to tempt some of the better players to come here. Agard came here because, in part (we think), we are in the south and not too far from home (London). Little, Ayling and Freeman are also young, London lads.

Wilbraham and Elliot are the experience, but experience with leadership qualities. Good characters. Role models, even.
It's almost like someone has sat down and thought it all through. Incredible. If we can do it, then anyone can. But we have local people owning the club, they have been here for 15 years or whatever, they know this level of English football and have demonstrated some capacity to learn from many mistakes made in the past.

Not that we have achieved anything yet. Anything more than a strong start. But that start is no accident. There was a lot of intent over the summer, intent and planning and preparation. And that sets the tone for the players. It has to come from the top.

How we cope with setbacks (pretty sure we have picked the same team, only making changes at left wing back, plus Agard replacing Baldock) remains to be seen. When you go a while without losing, it can be a jolt to finally lose and surprisingly knock confidence. We looked classy at 3:1 up yesterday, then uncertain and quite ordinary at 3:2. The subs proved to be not up to the task. It would be little surprise to most here if that first defeat is next Saturday. Then we will see what we are made of after that.

One last thing, the relationship between manager and owner/ people making decisions and dolling out the money is very good, currently, with a lot of "seeing eye-to-eye," "singing from same hymn sheet," etc. The way to go about things. When there is little harmony in this relationship, it generally is reflected out on the pitch. At least that is how it goes down here, much of the time.

Oh, and look out for the odd, mysterious, stand behind the stand when you go to Fleetwood. Over to the left (if you are standing). What's that all about? Also, didn't see one copper anywhere, and the local fans we spoke to were Blackpool fans watching their "other" team. Interesting day out it was....
 
Freeman was outstanding against us last season, and Korey Smith with Oldham gave us the runaround at AG. As did Posh. Agard was a standout player, clearly, with his 26 goals. That is one third of your team. The policy seemed to be very much: we know the best individuals in League One, which ones are better than what we've got, and which ones are likely to sign for us? And it was also to sign players in the 21-25 age group, players with their best years just ahead of them. Theoretically. We were trying to sign Freeman in January. It was all planned and thought out in advance and all but Agard were signed early and went on the 2 week preseason trip. For once, we were ahead of the game and the preparation has contributed to a great start. We have got it wrong so many times before but some lessons have been learned from previous mistakes. One example of this being getting Agard in before Baldock was sold. And making a decent profit in all that. That hasn't always happened before.

Finally losing the last of the highly paid Championship failures still here freed up some wages, loads of wages, and we were in a strong position to tempt some of the better players to come here. Agard came here because, in part (we think), we are in the south and not too far from home (London). Little, Ayling and Freeman are also young, London lads.

Wilbraham and Elliot are the experience, but experience with leadership qualities. Good characters. Role models, even.
It's almost like someone has sat down and thought it all through. Incredible. If we can do it, then anyone can. But we have local people owning the club, they have been here for 15 years or whatever, they know this level of English football and have demonstrated some capacity to learn from many mistakes made in the past.

Not that we have achieved anything yet. Anything more than a strong start. But that start is no accident. There was a lot of intent over the summer, intent and planning and preparation. And that sets the tone for the players. It has to come from the top.

How we cope with setbacks (pretty sure we have picked the same team, only making changes at left wing back, plus Agard replacing Baldock) remains to be seen. When you go a while without losing, it can be a jolt to finally lose and surprisingly knock confidence. We looked classy at 3:1 up yesterday, then uncertain and quite ordinary at 3:2. The subs proved to be not up to the task. It would be little surprise to most here if that first defeat is next Saturday. Then we will see what we are made of after that.

One last thing, the relationship between manager and owner/ people making decisions and dolling out the money is very good, currently, with a lot of "seeing eye-to-eye," "singing from same hymn sheet," etc. The way to go about things. When there is little harmony in this relationship, it generally is reflected out on the pitch. At least that is how it goes down here, much of the time.

Oh, and look out for the odd, mysterious, stand behind the stand when you go to Fleetwood. Over to the left (if you are standing). What's that all about? Also, didn't see one copper anywhere, and the local fans we spoke to were Blackpool fans watching their "other" team. Interesting day out it was....

Show off.
 
Show off.
Sorry! Didn't mean to come across like that. Just trying to say, if things aint right, it's probably not because of team selection, or formation, or because of referees, etc. It'll be somewhere behind the scenes, but you know all that anyway....

So, er, yes, I agree with you, most "Bristol" fans knew we were signing some very good players and we could scarce believe it. There was plenty of optimism down here going into the season (well, leaving aside the first game, we thought. Sorry,again!). But unbeaten in the first nine, few "Bristol" fans expected that.

"Bristol"? Like it. One team in Bristol. Spot on, mate...
 

Freeman was outstanding against us last season, and Korey Smith with Oldham gave us the runaround at AG. As did Posh. Agard was a standout player, clearly, with his 26 goals. That is one third of your team. The policy seemed to be very much: we know the best individuals in League One, which ones are better than what we've got, and which ones are likely to sign for us? And it was also to sign players in the 21-25 age group, players with their best years just ahead of them. Theoretically. We were trying to sign Freeman in January. It was all planned and thought out in advance and all but Agard were signed early and went on the 2 week preseason trip. For once, we were ahead of the game and the preparation has contributed to a great start. We have got it wrong so many times before but some lessons have been learned from previous mistakes. One example of this being getting Agard in before Baldock was sold. And making a decent profit in all that. That hasn't always happened before.

Finally losing the last of the highly paid Championship failures still here freed up some wages, loads of wages, and we were in a strong position to tempt some of the better players to come here. Agard came here because, in part (we think), we are in the south and not too far from home (London). Little, Ayling and Freeman are also young, London lads.

Wilbraham and Elliot are the experience, but experience with leadership qualities. Good characters. Role models, even.
It's almost like someone has sat down and thought it all through. Incredible. If we can do it, then anyone can. But we have local people owning the club, they have been here for 15 years or whatever, they know this level of English football and have demonstrated some capacity to learn from many mistakes made in the past.

Not that we have achieved anything yet. Anything more than a strong start. But that start is no accident. There was a lot of intent over the summer, intent and planning and preparation. And that sets the tone for the players. It has to come from the top.

How we cope with setbacks (pretty sure we have picked the same team, only making changes at left wing back, plus Agard replacing Baldock) remains to be seen. When you go a while without losing, it can be a jolt to finally lose and surprisingly knock confidence. We looked classy at 3:1 up yesterday, then uncertain and quite ordinary at 3:2. The subs proved to be not up to the task. It would be little surprise to most here if that first defeat is next Saturday. Then we will see what we are made of after that.

One last thing, the relationship between manager and owner/ people making decisions and dolling out the money is very good, currently, with a lot of "seeing eye-to-eye," "singing from same hymn sheet," etc. The way to go about things. When there is little harmony in this relationship, it generally is reflected out on the pitch. At least that is how it goes down here, much of the time.

Oh, and look out for the odd, mysterious, stand behind the stand when you go to Fleetwood. Over to the left (if you are standing). What's that all about? Also, didn't see one copper anywhere, and the local fans we spoke to were Blackpool fans watching their "other" team. Interesting day out it was....
I thought you looked bloody awful against us tbh
 
Sorry! Didn't mean to come across like that. Just trying to say, if things aint right, it's probably not because of team selection, or formation, or because of referees, etc. It'll be somewhere behind the scenes, but you know all that anyway....

So, er, yes, I agree with you, most "Bristol" fans knew we were signing some very good players and we could scarce believe it. There was plenty of optimism down here going into the season (well, leaving aside the first game, we thought. Sorry,again!). But unbeaten in the first nine, few "Bristol" fans expected that.

"Bristol"? Like it. One team in Bristol. Spot on, mate...

I was only joking pal. I am jealous of your transfer window, think you've one exceptionally well and gone about it in the correct manor. Don't want to be offensive, but I do deel quite depressed that I am looking at your club with jealousy as we really shouldn't be, but fair play to you.

You're going to win it, of that I am fairly certain, but I also think you've bought quite well for the next stage as well. Little, Agard, smith and freeman are certainly capable of being decent championship players.

Edit: 1 minor criticism of your post. I doubt Agard moved to Bristol to be closer to London! If he did, he needs a good geography lesson!
 
Can I just make a point that in the current last 6 form table ,future world cup winners Bristol City are top with 14 points ,followed by future world cup runners up MK dons and meadowhall relegation material Sheffield United with 13 points.
 
The difference is, good league 1 players are everywhere and well known. They can also be acquired pretty cheaply too. As I say, I think every Bristol fan will have known they were bringing in good players, where as with all our signings we all went 'who?'.

Totally agree. Kieran Agard - £750,000, Jobi McAnuff (Undisclosed, but I reckon about £500,000 max.) Both gone to our 'rivals' and that's with just 2 minutes thought. 'Can't afford them'? May as well pack it in. 'They wouldn't drop down to the Third.' Er, they have. The excuses are beginning to wear thin.
 
I actually prefer Rovers to City. Sorry BB.

I liked their scoreboard; Gas V Blades. I also liked the make shift stand, scaffold poles and tarpaulin. I think I had a balti pie as well, which was tasty.

HH
 
I thought you looked bloody awful against us tbh
I was only joking pal. I am jealous of your transfer window, think you've one exceptionally well and gone about it in the correct manor. Don't want to be offensive, but I do deel quite depressed that I am looking at your club with jealousy as we really shouldn't be, but fair play to you.

You're going to win it, of that I am fairly certain, but I also think you've bought quite well for the next stage as well. Little, Agard, smith and freeman are certainly capable of being decent championship players.

Edit: 1 minor criticism of your post. I doubt Agard moved to Bristol to be closer to London! If he did, he needs a good geography lesson!

Not only because of this but word has it that being back in the south of the country was appealing to him. Put it this way, if we were a league one club north of the midlands he might have found another club nearer London offering similar money. Some lads from the north don't like it down here and prefer being nearer home, too.

I think the idea was to go for players that will be capable in the Championship, too, yes. That was part of the thinking. And they will be going into their peak years should we get there next year, or the year after. And also the right age to make a good profit, if we end up selling one or two on. Posh seem to have got the hang of much of this in recent years, although not so much the getting-into-the-Championship bit. It is frustrating for us looking at them (Posh, a "smaller" club than us) with a vastly superior transfer/ recruitment record to us. Size is little to do with it. Look at Fleetwood. It is just people either making good decisions or poor ones, and the size of your club is irrelevant. Perhaps it can be a drawback sometimes? Man Utd have made some poor decisions in recent years.

Anyway, will leave it there, as this thread is meant to be about Nige walking or not. We won't be winning the world cup anytime soon, and I have no idea what will happen at the top of League One this season. And Judge, I thought we were okay against you lot, good in key moments, but neither brilliant or "awful." Much like all 9 games thus far.

Sorry to intrude
 
I actually prefer Rovers to City. Sorry BB.

I liked their scoreboard; Gas V Blades. I also liked the make shift stand, scaffold poles and tarpaulin. I think I had a balti pie as well, which was tasty.

HH
The pies are definitely better over their place. Long may they be your favourite non-league club down this way, HH. Anyway, back to Nigel, everyone.....
 
Clough is not a "quitter". Look at his managerial record.

Should he ever leave because of "differences in ambition" then I would fear for the clubs future.

After 58 years supporting our "selling club", and remaining loyal and committed, that would be my final straw.
 
I think Alcock seems steady, but Mark Little was first choice at Peterborough, and in the season opener had Murphy in his pocket and ran circles around Bob Harris. What made us go for Peterborough's second choice right back, and not the first choice? Clough seemed to like Alcock's ability to play at centre half as well, was that it? He may have thought his right back signing would only be back up for Brayford, so a versatile cover signing may have been good enough?
 
The scouting system cannot be blamed, as it shouldn't be required. What we as a 'financial powerhouse' (lol) in the division should have done is just sign PROVEN players at this level. How many of Bristol City's signings had you heard of? I imagine all of them, certainly all the starting players. We know them because they have performed well at this level or above.

You didn't need to be a scout to recognise Freeman, Little, Wilbraham, Agard etc were good signings as they have been good performers for a while. Basically we've taken players released by other league 1 clubs or from Holland/Scotland where they are complete unknown quantities. To get out of the championship you need an excellent scouting network to find hidden gems, but the best way to get out of league 1 is by simply buying good league 1 players. We saw it with wolves last year too.

Excellent post Blader, the four players you mentioned, I'm baffled as to why we never showed an interest in them, especially the latter who was only down the road. Aren't there any talented young players in the premiership u21 sides we could tempt to come on loan ?, other teams seem to do well out of them, think of Aneke's loan spell at Crewe.
 

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