What is happening at Bristol City… Again?

I’ve often found that in periods of significant turmoil that plotting out my thoughts is cathartic, but I get the feeling that the sense of anger I feel will only be exacerbated by this exercise. No bad thing, to be honest, Anger is something we should all be feeling right now. For too long our fanbase has been apathetic to the direction that our owner has been taking us in, too worried about a past that included the awful events of 1982 to feel anything other than gratitude to the local billionaire who bought us and renovated our tired home. But that framing of his tenure is no longer sufficient to mask the era of incompetence, of pettiness and of tantrums that truly embody the Lansdown legacy.

In the quarter of a century that I’ve been consciously supporting Bristol City this feels like arguably the most precarious moment so far. We have an oxymoronic owner who is both checked out and looking to sell but also an egomaniac control freak who cannot keep his thoughts and feelings out of the running of an organisation that he is not suitably qualified to run. We have an academy in crisis with parents viewing our system in a negative light in worrying numbers, where the standard of coaching and the blueprint for success have been ripped up and destroyed since losing Gary Probert (and a raft of excellent coaches) to Ipswich Town. We have a talent ID department with zero football experience and zero traditional scouts; we have a medical department that seems to make Harold Shipman look like Dr Gregory House. We have a budget stuck in 2016 and are a club without a philosophy. We have no discernible leadership short of an inexperienced CEO and an Interim Manager who was legally allowed to drink when England won the World Cup in 1966.

We are, for want of better phrasing, absolutely fucked. Rudderless, directionless and worst of all, utterly devoid of hope.

Struber sacking

The decision to sack Gerhard Struber and replace him with a man who is about to reach the average mortality age is mind-bendingly stupid. It is illiterate from a football perspective, it is counter-productive from any perspective. There have been criticisms of Gerhard recently and some of those criticisms are with merit. But for all that I come back to the opinion that no matter what he did in this recent run, it wouldn’t have been enough to make this available squad capable of winning football matches.

I’ve said it until I have been blue in the face, but “you cannot win football matches without the ability to win aerial duels”. Not only does it impact your ability to defend your own box or make use of attacking set pieces it completely hinders your ability to retain control of the game and dominate the central areas of the pitch in a league where high balls are common. Even possession dominant teams like Manchester City understand the importance of positional control and being able to play on the front foot is. If you are constantly under the cosh from not being able to effectively win headers you lose forward momentum and the ability to play the ball forward into unset defences yourself. Gerhard took the pragmatic decision to protect the limited number of defenders he had at his disposal in recent weeks and our willingness to keep the ball in deeper areas increased. This in turn made us less penetrative and less able to feed Horvat, Twine, Riis and co the ball in positions where they had less defenders to beat. There are some in our fanbase who have made the pre-school level analysis that “we don’t have any injuries up front so there’s no excuse for not scoring” but this is such a monumental simplification of football that it wouldn’t even work on Football Manager…

So, to then sack the coach for a failure of squad planning is just abhorrent. It was clear for all to see that a defensive roster of George Tanner, Noah Eile, Rob Atkinson & Rob Dickie was nowhere near enough bodies to withstand the demands of championship football. It was inevitable that we’d lose one, maybe two of those players before the season concluded. We in fact lost 3 (Although the loss of Tanner hasn’t made all that much difference in all honesty). We lost our best defender for £1.5m. Our best progressive passer, our leader, our calming influence. For the second straight January, we left ourselves short. Last season it cost us in the end with the players shattered for the playoff run in. This season we didn’t even get to February before the wheels fell off.

Struber publicly begged for help at CB. How could he be expected to win football games with one fit CB? A CB for that matter who isn’t an aerially dominant one. He has never been a first contact defender and he never likely will be. But no, there was no effort to provide that for him from our owner or his (Now former) Guru. Instead, we further weakened ourselves by releasing Jed Meerholz and Raph Araoye. By not recalling Jamie Knight-Lebel. Even the promising Archie Taylor was sent to Yate of all places. No option to put Raph in the middle of the defence and protect him. No options at all. That’s not to say it would have made a difference. It probably wouldn’t. But the lack of options makes this whole thing all the more laughable.

Tinnion

The almost hidden line in the announcement was that of Brian Tinnions demotion. A welcome decision but a half measure. Brian has been so far out of his depth for so long. A truly dreadful appointment in each of the roles he has had since retiring as a player. He should never have been hired as manager, he should never have returned to the fold as a loans manager and he certainly shouldn’t have been promoted to run the academy and then the football club as technical director.

This has never been a witch hunt or anything personal. (Don’t get me wrong, it could be… There are enough stories about Tinnion the man that would justify anyone demanding his removal, least of all the story in Danny Wilson’s book!) He has been a failure in every role he has had here. There’s no need to go over his tenure as manager in any great depth, it is the distant past. That said, the infamous line of “judge me on Tinnion” has even greater meaning in 2026 than it did back in 2005.

But his second non-player stint at Ashton Gate has been a complete disaster. There are many in the fanbase who still believe the myth that Tinnion was in someway responsible for the success of the academy under Nigel Pearson. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The man who delivered a functioning academy at Bristol City was Gary Probert, who left to become the Ipswich Town DOF and is now at Liverpool. Nobody has headhunted our “guru” since Forest Green Rovers offered him their DOF position a while back… Not exactly Liverpool is it?

No, Brian’s three roles have been “Loans Manager”, “Academy Director” for a short period and then “Technical Director”. As Loans manager he was responsible for loaning players out endlessly, Players like Zak Vyner, Antoine Semenyo and Cam Pring were loaned to the point that their careers here were almost lost. It took Nigel Pearson putting a forceful stop to that culture and playing those three regularly for them to blossom into the players they’ve become. His contacts in the game are seemingly limited to the Southwest and the odd Scottish side. So few of the loans we have sent our young players on over the last decade have been good or logical.

As Academy Director, Brian shifted the talent ID towards “Big, Strong & Quick” and the reputation of the academy age groups has dwindled as a result. His impact in the academy will not be felt for some time and I say this now, without serious intervention the barren spell we feel we have had will go on much longer. He alienated a lot of excellent coaches such as Luke Hussey who now works at Newport. He has presided over a shift in atmosphere at the academy that has led to a great number of parents pulling their kids away. Players who’ve been at the club from 10 to 21 have been released with less than a 5-minute conversation to acknowledge their time. It has become toxic.

Next, Brian was promoted to technical director and was responsible for the recruitment of players, squad planning and alignment to the coach. Here, once again he failed miserably. Our squad has been built with no discernible philosophy in mind. The closest we ever got to a “plan” was to recruit players who “have hundreds of appearances in the third tier in their early 20’s”. Utter twaddle. He was a year late to understanding ESC places and wasted our forays into the foreign market on Yu and Mayulu, He blew the budget in 2024. He built a squad not suited to either of the last two coaches. How does George Tanner suit Gegenpress? Let alone a City group positional play coach? Baffling.

Whilst it is positive news that Tinnion is no longer involved in the first team, it is a disgrace that he has not been sacked and his influence completely removed. Who would bet against another attempt to rehabilitate him into a position of power in a few years if the Lansdown’s remain in situ?

Lansdown and his legacy

There was a time in the not too distant past when any criticism of the Lansdown’s would have been met with plenty of disagreement. More than just the nonsensical “be careful what you wish for”, there were arguments that whilst he’d been unsuccessful, he had done lots of good things for the club’s infrastructure and had “tried” to get the club to the Premier League.

That narrative probably forms the bulk of Steve’s legacy, still. However, his relationship with the fanbase has deteriorated past the point of no return. His disdainful interviews in January did nothing to dampen the appetite for boardroom change and his decision, for the second time in the last 4 years, to sack a popular manager who was struggling to get results with an injury ravaged squad having been competitive before those injuries hit, has seen him pit himself against the majority opinion in the fanbase once again.

Now, football is not a democracy. It is “his club”. But more than that it is our club. Without the fans there is no football club. There is no Robins Foundation, there is no legacy for Lansdown in Bristol Sports. Lansdown’s continued arrogance in the face of justified criticism has destroyed his status with so much of the fanbase. His lack of honesty and integrity has shone through in recent months. As Pete Hinton said in the latest OSIB space, just eight weeks ago Steve Lansdown stated that Tom Rawcliffe deserved his promotion to CEO (Gone), Tinnion and his recruitment team were “Second to none” (Mostly gone) and Struber was a great coach who he was sure would take us forwards (Gone). These are either the ramblings of a man out of touch or embody the disdain with which Lansdown feels towards the fans. Empty platitudes, soundbites and drivel about being “Premier(ship) League ready” that people can now see through. He hasn’t uttered a word worth listening to in public for such a long time.

Worse still, the installation of Jon as Chairman is laughable. I’ve always quite liked Jon as a bloke. I genuinely think he’s a fan of the club. But his credibility as a decision maker has never been lower. He lacks the vision, the gravitas or the power to take the club forwards or wrestle enough resources and control from his dad. He is a lame duck who, despite his statements, has done nothing to improve the communication from the boardroom since the ill-fated sacking of Nigel Pearson.

The state of things and club “review”

As stated, the club is in disarray in pretty much every department. The first team squad is a muddled and confused mess of players who do not compliment each other and do not all suit the same style of play. We have key players (What’s left of them…) who are coming up to their final contracted years, we have a hole at Goalkeeper and striker that must be filled with premium quality players to elevate us. We have acquired an ungodly amount of deadwood, average players that need to be moved on. The recruitment task this summer is one of the biggest we’ve ever encountered if we are to get back to challenging for the playoffs next season.

To do that we need a complete revamp of our Talent ID and Scouting departments. I do think that Sean Gilhespy has a place at the club, but not as head of recruitment. I believe in Data Analysis, I think there is significant value in interpreting data and using it to build long and short lists. Performance is the best indicator of ability. But we need experienced and qualified scouts to supplement this.

Rumours abound that Rob “Biff” Newman is on his way into a senior recruitment position. This would be a fantastic addition to the recruitment team and would give us a range of contacts and expertise right across Europe. Newman was heavily involved in international recruitment and scouting at Manchester City for 12 years before moving to West Ham as Head of Recruitment in 2021 and has a wealth of knowledge of the French and South American leagues and a track record of identifying quality footballers.

One concern I have is that Rob Newman was the man who recommended Gerhard Struber. My hope is that Lansdown’s decision this week does not impact the official link up with Newman as Lansdown has form for flip-flopping.

Newman coming in must only be the start though. The key thing that needs to happen at Bristol City is the settling on a philosophy. Without one, we cannot hope to recruit in an efficient and cohesive manner. We need to start signing players who compliment the coaches we hire, we need to start hiring coaches that compliment the players we have. Those two things only happen when you have an element of consistency that we have never seen before under Lansdown’s ownership. Wilson to Tinnion to Gary Johnson to Coppell to Millen to McInnes to O’Driscoll to Cotterill to Lee Johnson to Holden to Nige to Liam to Gerhard. Not one logical progression, each one a completely different approach, each one a different style of football. Bristol City need to identify what they want and recruit coaches that play that way. Be it high press or possession based. I have my preferences, but the key thing is that the club needs to choose and needs to stick with it for an extended period.

But it’s not just recruitment that is in turmoil. The Academy is in as bad a place as it’s been in some time. As I covered in the Tinnion section, there is a growing feeling that the expertise available at Bristol City are no longer desirable. There needs to be a complete reset in how we approach our development of players. From the type of coaching we are providing to the environment in which these players are developing. The pathway is more than just a route to the Bristol City first team. It is about platforming every player in our system to reach their potential. At the moment there is a growing feeling that that isn’t what is in place.

The appointment of Dennis Baraznowski was a step in the right direction for the U21’s and u18’s but there are still too many dated coaches in our system who need to be moved on. Sadly, academy coaching remains something of an old boys’ club but if we are to maximise our academy we need to take a ruthless approach to bring it into the 21st century. No tinkering around the edges but a root and branch dismantling of all that is wrong and a rebuild into genuine excellence.

I don’t have much of an insight into the medical world. But one thing is for certain, whatever we are doing at the HPC is not working in terms of injury prevention and rehabilitation. Too many players are having setbacks and the amount of training injuries is beyond bad fortune at this point. There are questions that need to be asked not only of the individuals but also the facilities. Is there a reason that it feels like the move to the HPC has seen a marked increase in injuries or is that a coincidence?

Lastly, and most importantly, the place where we face the most issues and is in need of the biggest review is the playing budget. The masterful Dave Fevs has done some excellent analysis of the playing budgets (Wage Bill + Amortisation) for the entire league from last season’s accounts and as it stands only QPR, PNE, Plymouth (Relegated) and Portsmouth have a lower playing budget than us. Of the teams yet to reveal their accounts only Oxford, Sheffield Wednesday and maybe Blackburn Rovers are likely to have a smaller playing budget than us. The Wage bill of £25.8m per annum is below Millwall, QPR and Cardiff (Relegated). This is not sustainable and we will continue trending downwards until this is rectified.

In Simon Cuper & Stefan Szymanski’s excellent book “Soccernomics” one of the main conclusions drawn from a vast dataset from several decades of football history is that the most likely indicator of success is wage bill. You cannot outperform your budget to any great level and if we are to believe Lansdown wants to be promoted then he must increase the budget drastically to compete. Sadly, Steve seems to be living in the 2010’s still where £3m is a massive outlay rather than the going rate for a squad player.

It is possible to get better value for money, of course it is. The solution to our problems is not to simply throw money at it. Smart and efficient recruitment is absolutely what we should be aspiring to, but at present the budget does not allow us to compete with even the smaller teams in this division. These things must go hand in hand for us to stand a chance.

What is next? Where do we go from here?

Clearly, the most important position that needs filling is that of Sporting Director. Whomever we appoint needs to be given complete control of the football operation and a budget that empowers them to be bold and aggressive in pursuit of improvement.

One thing that does concern me is that Steve and Jon are still enamoured by the dated “positional play” model that even Pep Guardiola, its chief architect, has moved away from increasingly. An appointment of a SD who brings in a Russell Martin type will not only bore the life out of fans but also, judging by the trends in the game, not yield the desired results.

Whilst I was a fan of Gerhard Struber and Gegenpress, I think this is an opportunity to be ahead of the curve. Football is moving in a different direction; the Premier League is faltering as positional coaches struggle to deal with low blocks and teams like Arsenal revert to the wisdoms of the 1990’s with a focus on physicality and set plays.

The future of football is in “relationism”, the game model espoused by Fernando Diniz in Brazil and growing in popularity in North America and Scandinavia. Kim Hellberg has won many plaudits since joining Middlesborough for the way his team plays and the rotational, fluid system he employs. This is the way I would go. Whilst we are never going to have the biggest budget in the division, we can find value by being first/early to a change that many can see coming.

Whilst Wilfried Nancy failed at Celtic joining mid-season and replacing Martin O’Neill, a game simplifier, It shouldn’t put us off pursuing this line of coaching and model. Henrik Rydstrom is now sadly out of reach having recently joined Columbus Crew in MLS and Arda Turan is excelling at Shakhtar Donetsk having performed so well in Turkey for Eyuspor. Eder Sarabia of Elche is another name who, if given the right tools could be a coach to succeed in this country.

If not relationism (This is a pipe dream of mine to be honest) then what? NEC Nijmegen coach Dick Schreuder is producing the football Struber talked about and tried to implement. His tactical style is referred to as “Vertical Aggressionist” and his NEC team are one of the most interesting and entertaining teams in Europe. Could he be tempted to come to England and implement a style that would be completely new to the second tier?

All these questions will be answered when we appoint the new Sporting Director. It is arguably the most important appointment since choosing a replacement for Gary Johnson. That one didn’t go so well…

Conclusion

Bristol City are not failing because of one bad appointment, one poor transfer window, or one unlucky injury crisis. They are failing because the club has been allowed to drift for years without a coherent footballing vision, without competent football leadership, and without a budget that reflects even a modest level of ambition in this division. Every problem outlined here—recruitment chaos, academy decay, squad imbalance, medical failings, and endless managerial churn—flows from that central truth. This is not misfortune. It is the predictable outcome of structural neglect and poor decision-making at the very top of the club.

If Bristol City are to have any realistic chance of reversing this decline, cosmetic change will not suffice. Another coach, another review, another reshuffle of titles will only delay the inevitable unless power over football decisions is removed from those who have repeatedly demonstrated they cannot wield it effectively. The next Sporting Director must be empowered fully, backed financially, and allowed to impose a clear, long-term philosophy that governs recruitment, coaching, and development at every level of the club. Without that alignment, we will continue to cycle through the same failures under different names.

But even that may not be enough. History has been brutally consistent: under the current ownership model, good decisions are the exception, not the rule. Hope is not a strategy, and blind faith is not loyalty. Until there is a genuine change in ownership—or at the very least a complete abdication of football control—Bristol City will remain what they are now: a club with solid infrastructure, a proud support, and absolutely no idea how to turn either into progress on the pitch. Until that changes, the sense of being rudderless and directionless is not pessimism. It is simply an honest assessment of reality.