JamesBCFC

Albert is a great winger- perhaps I remember him with a tinted view because he was a bright spark in an awful season, but he is a great winger in this league and appears to have only got better since joining 'Boro.

I do hope you overpay for him too so we can get more from the sell on  but I would take him back here if the opportunity arose.

6 hours ago, av1 said:

I'm not sure automatic promotion, but the playoffs should be a minimum i think. The championship is a funny old league, you see teams knocking around mid table before putting 3/4 wins together and finishing in the top 6. 

There is normally 8/10 teams fighting relegation and 10 or so hoping/capable of making the playoffs. If we aren't one of those looking up rather than down after the investment made something is seriously wrong.

For me it's a bit like when people say the Premier League is the best in the world. It's subjective and depends what is meant by "best". But I believe the Championship is the best major league (so not the Algerian First Division- no disrespect to them) in terms of competitiveness.

Brighton went from a relegation fight one season to almost getting promoted the next. Brentford almost managed it while selling their best layers and buying relative unknowns using the Moneyball method, it's one of the hardest leagues to predict because although there seems to be one club that is a shambles each season (Bolton last year, Blackburn this), the rest is very tough to guess.

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Do you reckon he is worth the money?

Not £15mil. Personally I'd say £6-8m. But the price is driven up because we essentially have 3 years of his contract left (it's 2, but the club holds an option), WBA and Hull are also after him, so there's an element of a bidding war, we have no need to sell and only a couple of days to get a replacement signed (though Engvall is apparently done).

Then again, even if he scores 1 goal for you all season (he'll get much more), but it happens to seal promotion then he's worth it.

I'm pretty sure this is done, I'm not ITK at all, but someone on our forum who often gets tidbits (and is Birmingham based) has heard medical is completed, with the deal being £15m plus add ons.

At the same time it appears we are close to singing our replacement- Gustav Engvall from IFK Gothenburg for circa £2m.

8 minutes ago, TRO said:

Interesting.

My comment about being robbed was not singling out Bristol City.....more about the demise we have created in previous years.

But hey, A good scout or talent spotter is worth his weight in gold.

Can we sign Mark Ashton instead then?

Ps for a minute I thought you was from the Dark Side BCFC.......I went in to a cold sweat.

Hands off!

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

Robbing us is par for the course at present.

Haha, well it is normally us being robbed. Our record profit from a sale was what we got from a sell on clause when Bolasie was sold to Everton- we let him go to Palace for roughly 300k!

We have been ran amateurly behind the the scenes for years now, but we have had 2 fantastic summers in the last 3 years. For the first we brought in Mark Ashton fro Oxford to work as a consultant and we bought all the best players in League 1. The next summer he was gone and we managed just 1 signing, we couldn't even fill the subs bench. Then after Steve Cotterill was sacked we got Mark Ashton back in and have had a brilliant summer, signing players from Juventus, Bayern Munich and RC Lens when just  year earlier players were turning u down left, right and centre.

17 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Thanks James! Just what I was hoping to hear, basically. What is his conversion rate like? Not from stats, but from your own eyes? 

Personally not bothered about the money. As you say, the reasons you have given explain it along with the knowledge that we have it. We've gotta just get it done at this stage, time's up. 

He isn't the most clinical, it always feels like he needs 5-6 chances to score. But at same time he is very capable of creating his own chances out of very little, which makes it feel not so bad somehow.

He hasn't scored at all this season, but his endless running tired out the Wigan defence and allowed Abraham to come on as a sub and tear them apart, he would have a goal if not for a good save pushing his shot onto the post. Since then he has been played out wide so not had so many chances to shoot.

There are times where he goes down easy but should stay on his feet and times where he stays on his feet but perhaps (and I don't like saying this) should have gone down. Against Newcastle he cut inside the penalty box and was pulled back and then tripped, he stayed on his feet and lost control of the ball, but if he had gone down most referees would have probably given a penalty.

12 minutes ago, Gary Thomas said:

I likey.

Although not a goal, and I can't remember if he got the assist or if the ball was flicked on, but the highlights of our 2-0 home win against Forest show his tenacity. At one point he is fouled, but gets back up and crosses the ball in, Wilbraham scores.

Honestly that summary of it doesn't do it justice, he will really battle for the ball.

Another Bristol City fan here, came to give my thoughts of the game and to see the thoughts of any of you who made the journey yesterday.