What Jimmy Phillips Thought - Bristol City

karlypants wrote:
Are you going to wear your mouse out having to scroll that little more?

I just don't read the posts. And I'm sure many others are the same.

Other sites restrict you to quoting just one post, this site should do the same.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

karlypants wrote:
Are you going to wear your mouse out having to scroll that little more?

I just don't read the posts. And I'm sure many others are the same.

Other sites restrict you to quoting just one post, this site should do the same.

Then again you just end up with abuse when it's cut short - don't you think?

FullofSprite wrote:I think you've made a lot of great points there Sluffy and I agree with you. I would just say though that players swear at managers, call them all sorts within the dressing room and managers do back. I agree telling Lennon to "F" of on Sky was going too far, and he was eventually disciplined for it. I realise it's verbal abuse, but since he came out of prison he hasn't physically assaulted anyone (as far as I'm aware). So from that point he has "learnt" his lesson.

Lennon gave him a second chance (as he trusted what his drinking mate Alan Thompson had said and in our position we needed somebody) and to be honest, I don't think Lennon got the best out of him, and I think he has played well, holding the ball up, just like Kevin Davies use to do. I think he gets too much of the blame and is too easy a target. Yes he is frustrating but the whole squad is. As for not disciplined, I think you can look at others as well. If any of them had put some effort in we wouldn't be in this position. Don't forget Madine was at Blackpool most of last season and he gave our defence the run around when it was playing well.

Personally it's not the Madines of this world that I blame for our position, more the Mark Davies's of this world who have had the talent and not used it. If only Mark Davies had some of Madines aggression, he might have made an England International. The lad was so laid back he was comotose. In lots of ways I'm glad we've gone down. Hopefully we'll be able to get some team spirit back. I'm certainly glad Mark Davies has gone the lazy barst****d

We know Spearing and Mark Davies have been told to find other clubs so it will be interesting to see who else is told to go. Wheater will  also be on his way, and he was another who didn't look interested either - even though he's been back from injury and training for the last 2 weeks - talk about attitude!

Just to clarify myself a bit, I'm not laying the blame for Bolton's situation solely at Madine's door, merely trying to give by way of an example why things have gone so badly wrong in my opinion.

I was trying to use the example of Madine as having an attitude not sought after by more successful clubs than us.  More of a poor judgement decision in recruitment on our part rather than his performances on the pitch since we gave him a contract, although I would argue that ultimately they would amount to the same thing.

Yes, you are right I have no idea how Madine has behaved himself since we signed him but equally we have no idea either how much the club may have hushed incidents up or settled out of court with non disclosure contracts any misdemeanours or scrapes he or anyone else may have got themselves into whilst at the club.  Would we have ever heard for instance of Lennon's behaviour with his 'other women' if she had not gone to the press - I very much doubt it!

Football is a mans game (yes I know but hear me out) and has been for years and is very much immersed in a 'laddish' culture - the girls, the drink, the gambling, the cars, etc, etc, and so is far from sin free but the better clubs and managers deal with it.  The problem players are soon identified and they don't stick around for long if they cause the team problems.

You will never, ever see any players behaving like Madine did to Lennon unless one or other of them KNEW one of them would be on their way soon enough.

Clearly by that game Lennon had lost the respect of players and by default his ability to manage them - who would gave a fuck what he said to them as Madine and probably others too didn't give a toss what he said to them or asked them to play.

Is it really such a leap from someone having been imprisoned for assault to the same person also not having a great respect for authority too?  I would say that it would probably be more likely in my opinion.

That's why I would have stayed clear of him in the first place, you want players to play for the team rather than for themselves.  In the season that should see Leicester as the Champions you can't really ask for a better example of how peoples characters need to be taken into account in building successful teams to compete with others than have infinitely more money and resources than themselves.

Ok, it isn't easy to build such a team from scratch - you clearly need luck and opportunity too but part of the formula was not to recruit people with the wrong attitude and values - it's not rocket science really.



For what it is worth I stated my opinion that Wheater was a very poor defender at the time we signed him - once again I am not being smart after the event and it gives me no pleasure to have been proved right.

To be successful any team needs to be greater than the sum of its parts, clearly BWFC has not been for quite some time now.  Poor leadership, bad decisions, dreadful recruitment of managers and players and suicidal financial management have all been critical in bringing us down to the humbling position we have now and frankly I still think worse it to come as I can't see how Holdsworth can turn the ship around quickly enough before he racks up too much debt to be able to manage.

Clearly a good leader is required at all levels of the business.  We need leaders on the pitch - we don't have any.  We need a manager and assistants that the players we have will listen to and carry out what is required from them.  We need Holdsworth to find a way to bring money into the club fast, without saddling us with a millstone of a debt which will eventually crush us.

I honestly don't think it can be done when the existing culture of the club is so rotten that you have youths such as Clough and Vela telling Freedman what he could and could not do (via twitter) and Alex Samizadeh touting himself to Derby, let alone Madine subbing himself and calling the manager a "fucking prick" in front of the TV cameras and Mark Davies refusing to go to Sheffield Wednesday because he wanted more money to go (even though he knew club staff were not getting paid because we were desperate for cash flow).

Grim picture really.

And one that has been self inflicted!

Sluffy wrote:

FullofSprite wrote:I think you've made a lot of great points there Sluffy and I agree with you. I would just say though that players swear at managers, call them all sorts within the dressing room and managers do back. I agree telling Lennon to "F" of on Sky was going too far, and he was eventually disciplined for it. I realise it's verbal abuse, but since he came out of prison he hasn't physically assaulted anyone (as far as I'm aware). So from that point he has "learnt" his lesson.

Lennon gave him a second chance (as he trusted what his drinking mate Alan Thompson had said and in our position we needed somebody) and to be honest, I don't think Lennon got the best out of him, and I think he has played well, holding the ball up, just like Kevin Davies use to do. I think he gets too much of the blame and is too easy a target. Yes he is frustrating but the whole squad is. As for not disciplined, I think you can look at others as well. If any of them had put some effort in we wouldn't be in this position. Don't forget Madine was at Blackpool most of last season and he gave our defence the run around when it was playing well.

Personally it's not the Madines of this world that I blame for our position, more the Mark Davies's of this world who have had the talent and not used it. If only Mark Davies had some of Madines aggression, he might have made an England International. The lad was so laid back he was comotose. In lots of ways I'm glad we've gone down. Hopefully we'll be able to get some team spirit back. I'm certainly glad Mark Davies has gone the lazy barst****d

We know Spearing and Mark Davies have been told to find other clubs so it will be interesting to see who else is told to go. Wheater will  also be on his way, and he was another who didn't look interested either - even though he's been back from injury and training for the last 2 weeks - talk about attitude!

Just to clarify myself a bit, I'm not laying the blame for Bolton's situation solely at Madine's door, merely trying to give by way of an example why things have gone so badly wrong in my opinion.

I was trying to use the example of Madine as having an attitude not sought after by more successful clubs than us.  More of a poor judgement decision in recruitment on our part rather than his performances on the pitch since we gave him a contract, although I would argue that ultimately they would amount to the same thing.

Yes, you are right I have no idea how Madine has behaved himself since we signed him but equally we have no idea either how much the club may have hushed incidents up or settled out of court with non disclosure contracts any misdemeanours or scrapes he or anyone else may have got themselves into whilst at the club.  Would we have ever heard for instance of Lennon's behaviour with his 'other women' if she had not gone to the press - I very much doubt it!

Football is a mans game (yes I know but hear me out) and has been for years and is very much immersed in a 'laddish' culture - the girls, the drink, the gambling, the cars, etc, etc, and so is far from sin free but the better clubs and managers deal with it.  The problem players are soon identified and they don't stick around for long if they cause the team problems.

You will never, ever see any players behaving like Madine did to Lennon unless one or other of them KNEW one of them would be on their way soon enough.

Clearly by that game Lennon had lost the respect of players and by default his ability to manage them - who would gave a fuck what he said to them as Madine and probably others too didn't give a toss what he said to them or asked them to play.

Is it really such a leap from someone having been imprisoned for assault to the same person also not having a great respect for authority too?  I would say that it would probably be more likely in my opinion.

That's why I would have stayed clear of him in the first place, you want players to play for the team rather than for themselves.  In the season that should see Leicester as the Champions you can't really ask for a better example of how peoples characters need to be taken into account in building successful teams to compete with others than have infinitely more money and resources than themselves.

Ok, it isn't easy to build such a team from scratch - you clearly need luck and opportunity too but part of the formula was not to recruit people with the wrong attitude and values - it's not rocket science really.



For what it is worth I stated my opinion that Wheater was a very poor defender at the time we signed him - once again I am not being smart after the event and it gives me no pleasure to have been proved right.

To be successful any team needs to be greater than the sum of its parts, clearly BWFC has not been for quite some time now.  Poor leadership, bad decisions, dreadful recruitment of managers and players and suicidal financial management have all been critical in bringing us down to the humbling position we have now and frankly I still think worse it to come as I can't see how Holdsworth can turn the ship around quickly enough before he racks up too much debt to be able to manage.

Clearly a good leader is required at all levels of the business.  We need leaders on the pitch - we don't have any.  We need a manager and assistants that the players we have will listen to and carry out what is required from them.  We need Holdsworth to find a way to bring money into the club fast, without saddling us with a millstone of a debt which will eventually crush us.

I honestly don't think it can be done when the existing culture of the club is so rotten that you have youths such as Clough and Vela telling Freedman what he could and could not do (via twitter) and Alex Samizadeh touting himself to Derby, let alone Madine subbing himself and calling the manager a "fucking prick" in front of the TV cameras and Mark Davies refusing to go to Sheffield Wednesday because he wanted more money to go (even though he knew club staff were not getting paid because we were desperate for cash flow).

Grim picture really.

And one that has been self inflicted!

Interesting you should bring up Leicester, who had all those discipline problems last season, including the managers son (at the time).



I do agree that there is something rotten to the core at BWFC and whether Deano can sort it out, I'm not sure. Think we may need to ditch some of the young talent to regain control of the club. I'm not sure whether the job isn't too big for fans favourite Phil Brown. Some one told me yesterday Brown is coming in with Kevin Davies as his assistant - I hope not!

Just a word on the mistress, does anybody here suppose the average football manager is tucked up with the wife seven nights a week watching Midsomer Murders?

Lennon's a complete rat, no doubt about it, but the real crime from a footballing point of view was being the one in every thousand cheating bastards in the game to let a story get out.

So how much has it actually affected the squad and performances? Well I think Lennon has cheated himself as much as anybody or anything else. Madine's an all round lunatic, a "fuck off" that just happened to get picked up on camera doesn't necessarily indicate a general lack of control in the dressing room, in fact not many things he could do would, but being as awful as we are people are going to speculate and rightly so.

FullofSprite wrote:Interesting you should bring up Leicester, who had all those discipline problems last season, including the managers son (at the time).

I think you may have missed my point for doing so.

It is how Leicester DEALT with the matter and set the tone for the future that was the important thing - all the players (including the managers son) were SACKED.

This obviously did not sit well with Pearson and he ultimately was sacked too - even though he had just brought about a miraculous escape from relegation.

How many other teams would have swept the matter under the carpet in order to keep their manager who had been successful for them sweet?

Instead they took the more difficult decision of stating they did not want people with those sorts of attitude at their club (the players had videoed themselves having an orgy and being racist) and set the culture of unacceptable behaviour not being tolerated at their organisation.

Compare that with Bolton where shady goings on - Craig Allardyce, the agent change on the McCann transfer, Megson's agent being approached to find the next manager after Lee who happened to turn out to be (surprise, surprise) Megson!  Wife beating, drunk driver Diouf becoming a crowd favourite, running up a club debt bigger than every club in the world apart from Manchester United, Real Madrid and Valencia (little old Bolton - yeah right), right up to not even taking action when the boss is bringing his shag to the team hotel the night before the game!

I'm not saying people have to behave like saints but Leicester clearly knew where the line was and had the balls to act when it was crossed even though it cost them a manager they clearly did not want to lose and on the other hand we had a chairman and our most successful manager in almost a century being involved in very murky transfer deals and a culture where the line had been crossed by so far and so many times that no one knew where it was any more!

Leicester stance could have blown the club apart but it clearly took that chance to say collective professionalism is greater than unacceptable individuals behaviour, no matter how key they are within the team or organisation.

Clearly no one knew at the time how this season would turn out for them but I guess at the time their fans where more worried about if the new manager could keep them in the Premier let alone go on to win it!

The basic thing is that the organisation did what was the right thing to do by punishing the bad attitude of individuals and signalling that they wanted a culture of being united together and not being divisive individuals with their own aims.

God knows what Bolton's culture is but the behaviour of players like Clough, Vela and Samizadeh seems to suggest it has already purveyed the junior ranks of the club.

We get what we deserve I suppose.

Good luck to Leicester - they deserve to be champions.[/quote]

doffcocker wrote:Just a word on the mistress, does anybody here suppose the average football manager is tucked up with the wife seven nights a week watching Midsomer Murders?

Lennon's a complete rat, no doubt about it, but the real crime from a footballing point of view was being the one in every thousand cheating bastards in the game to let a story get out.

So how much has it actually affected the squad and performances? Well I think Lennon has cheated himself as much as anybody or anything else. Madine's an all round lunatic, a "fuck off" that just happened to get picked up on camera doesn't necessarily indicate a general lack of control in the dressing room, in fact not many things he could do would, but being as awful as we are people are going to speculate and rightly so.

It is not my point that Lennon had a mistress but how he put her in front of his job!

Shag her outside of football times if he must but don't bring her to the team hotel and flaunt her about!

What does that do to his authority the next time he wants to lay the law down to players - they only have to tell him to fuck off or they will send his wife a picture or two with him and his shag at the team hotel!

A extraordinary stupid thing for Lennon to have done and symbolic of the lack of control in himself and the players he was supposed to manage. He obviously could see no wrong in what he was doing (I don't mean the adultery bit) so I guess that sort of behaviour was something of the norm. If the manager was brining in a girl for a shag then no doubt it was ok for players to do so too?

If it is ok to have a woman in your room then it must be ok to have a drink too - yes? So why not make a night of it then. Iirc correctly didn't Spearing and a couple of others get dropped the day of an away match for doing that very thing!

The culture seems to be fucked at Bolton, it might be a great place for people to have fun but the eye has been taken off what they are there for and that is to be successful at football.

Sluffy wrote:
 don't bring her to the team hotel and flaunt her about!

Did he do that? I presume you mean he took her to an away game and she stayed over with him? I find that very difficult to believe unless of course they are an item and had already squared it away with Lennon's missus.

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure it was reported as being in the DeVere Whites before (at least) one home game.

so that's why he insisted on the team staying in the hotel before home games, the crafty sod 

You can imagine him saying to the wife, don't ring me love i'll be busy talking tactics and doing in depth analysis with the boys

"Take that woolly hat off! But leave the stockings and suspenders on...."

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:
 don't bring her to the team hotel and flaunt her about!

Did he do that? I presume you mean he took her to an away game and she stayed over with him? I find that very difficult to believe unless of course they are an item and had already squared it away with Lennon's missus.

Yes it was a regular thing, went on for over a year.


Over the year they spent together, Kim claimed the pair had sex at Lennon’s home, at her flat and at the team hotel – normally the Macdonald Kilhey Court, Standish – before matches.

At a different hotel, on the night before Bolton’s 2-1 win over Wolves, on September 12, Kim found a text on his phone from a contact named “Shay” which simply read “Morning xxx”.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


NOTE - even though we OWNED our own hotel and were in massive debt we still PAID for the team to use another one in Wigan.

Crazy!

Was he bumming Shay Given as well then....?

The dirty sod.

Sluffy wrote:

FullofSprite wrote:Interesting you should bring up Leicester, who had all those discipline problems last season, including the managers son (at the time).

I think you may have missed my point for doing so.

It is how Leicester DEALT with the matter and set the tone for the future that was the important thing - all the players (including the managers son) were SACKED.

This obviously did not sit well with Pearson and he ultimately was sacked too - even though he had just brought about a miraculous escape from relegation.

How many other teams would have swept the matter under the carpet in order to keep their manager who had been successful for them sweet?

Instead they took the more difficult decision of stating they did not want people with those sorts of attitude at their club (the players had videoed themselves having an orgy and being racist) and set the culture of unacceptable behaviour not being tolerated at their organisation.

Compare that with Bolton where shady goings on - Craig Allardyce, the agent change on the McCann transfer, Megson's agent being approached to find the next manager after Lee who happened to turn out to be (surprise, surprise) Megson!  Wife beating, drunk driver Diouf becoming a crowd favourite, running up a club debt bigger than every club in the world apart from Manchester United, Real Madrid and Valencia (little old Bolton - yeah right), right up to not even taking action when the boss is bringing his shag to the team hotel the night before the game!

I'm not saying people have to behave like saints but Leicester clearly knew where the line was and had the balls to act when it was crossed even though it cost them a manager they clearly did not want to lose and on the other hand we had a chairman and our most successful manager in almost a century being involved in very murky transfer deals and a culture where the line had been crossed by so far and so many times that no one knew where it was any more!

Leicester stance could have blown the club apart but it clearly took that chance to say collective professionalism is greater than unacceptable individuals behaviour, no matter how key they are within the team or organisation.

Clearly no one knew at the time how this season would turn out for them but I guess at the time their fans where more worried about if the new manager could keep them in the Premier let alone go on to win it!

The basic thing is that the organisation did what was the right thing to do by punishing the bad attitude of individuals and signalling that they wanted a culture of being united together and not being divisive individuals with their own aims.

God knows what Bolton's culture is but the behaviour of players like Clough, Vela and Samizadeh seems to suggest it has already purveyed the junior ranks of the club.

We get what we deserve I suppose.

Good luck to Leicester - they deserve to be champions.

 I got where you were coming from.