Nigel Pearson gathered his Bristol City first-team squad for a hastily scheduled meeting on Monday, during what was supposed to be a day off. Even the injured players were summoned to the Robins High Performance Centre for what was, in-part, a weekend debrief, a sharing of thoughts but also a not-so-subtle reminder of their responsibilities.
If the previous week’s 2-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest was stark evidence of the chasm between City and the better sides in the division, Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Birmingham City was a much deeper shock to the system.
Blues were without their first-choice front two and two-thirds of their best defensive line-up, and yet bar a period at the start of the second half, the Robins were outplayed and outfought and if not for Dan Bentley that scoreline wouldn’t have been nearly as flattering.
On 40 points, 16 from the bottom three and with 10 matches to play, it is unlikely that City will be in any relegation danger this season - FiveThirtyEight rate their chances of demotion at less than one per cent, while they’re priced at around 100/1 by most bookmakers to go down; if Wayne Rooney leading Derby County to survival will be one of football’s great comeback tales, a Robins relegation could be seen as the polar opposite of that.
However, even with their Championship status pretty much secured for 2022/23, this troubling drift towards the nether regions of the table is no good for anyone: the club in terms of pitching season ticket sales, the manager regarding his own KPIs (and since Jon Lansdown’s declaration that City should be higher in the table, they’re now positioned lower) and the players with reference to their own reputation and futures.
It’s easy to form a narrative around any set of fixtures but these next three games in the run-up to the next international break - Blackburn (A), Barnsley (A) and West Brom (H) - may not be particularly important, given City’s mediocre league position, but the optics of further bad performances and/or bad results will create a difficult and challenging atmosphere in the 10-day recess at the end of this month.
We’re not going to go there, as such, but defeat to all three, on the back of four losses in five and, well, you know what sort of conversations are going to be had in the City hive mind, and none of them are particularly pleasant.
But while off-diary meetings display, to an extent, the magnitude of the current situation, or at least how the manager is viewing things, it’s been clear over the last few weeks that Pearson’s horizons lie beyond Ewood Park and Oakwell.
It was slightly lost amid the hullabaloo surrounding Jon Lansdown’s comments and his own retort, but Pearson dropped a sizeable transfer hint/request/indication during that press conference on February 17.
“Players playing without experience of this level on a regular basis is something that I am conscious of, not to make allowances for but I am aware of what the potential pitfalls of that are,” he said.
“I think for the most part our players have dealt very well with what the situation is. What we have not been able to do is secure the number of points we should have done by now.
“We’ve spoken a lot about that throughout the season. It’s a part of it that I as a manager have to factor in, and it will have an influence on the recruitment moving forward.”
When asked if that means a desire for more Championship-ready players being recruited, he added: “Yes, there’s got to be changes this summer. This is going to be an important window for us. It’s the next one that opens so it’s going to be important that we strengthen in the right ways.”
What that is, essentially, is an admission that this season’s experiment of having so many young and/or inexperienced players, relative to the Championship, cannot be repeated because, in the manager’s eyes, they have led to the inconsistencies of this campaign.
If that is what Pearson sees as the root cause of why the Robins have gone now more than an entire year without winning back-to-back fixtures, then it’s something he obviously wants to address and he’s only going to be able to do that in the transfer market.
You don’t have to be Colombo (one for the kids, right there) to recognise his public declarations of what is needed in the squad further tap into that; it’s a reflection of what he thinks, yes, but also a message to the board and also you and I.
On Saturday, in the wake of the defeat to Birmingham, as Sam Bell endured a difficult afternoon as a makeshift right-back/right wing-back and 48 hours before the only genuine fit orthodox right-sided full-back at the club was released in Danny Simpson, Pearson was detailed and open about his summer requirements, noting that there were no real wing-backs at the club or defensive midfielders, while pointing at a “lack of personal drive” among some individuals.
“I’m looking at who’s going to be here next year. I don’t intend on making short term decisions for us at the moment,” he added.
That was said in relation to a question about Simpson but also can be applied to anyone else not in favour at present as the clock ticks towards May 7 and perhaps the growing possibility of more departures than what was first envisaged a few months ago. It surely can’t be in the double figures of last summer but not only are the manager’s character requirements needing to be met, but also Richard Gould’s balance sheet as further savings are needed on the wages.
Which leads into the crux of this debate, Pearson clearly wants some more established individuals of certain character traits who can make a more seamless adaptation to the mental and physical challenges of the Championship.
But that must be countered with the financial restrictions he’s been operating under for the last 15 months and aren’t going to go away, even if the EFL do allow lost transfer revenue add-backs to be included in their Profit & Sustainability submissions for next season.
City need to get their wage bill down and raise some transfer revenue, otherwise those losses for 2021/22 will once again be in worryingly high eight figures and surely equating to a points deduction.
Bringing in Championship-ready players is expensive, whether that be in a transfer fee or in salary expectations, plus they’re going to be competing with a number of their rivals for such players.
When asked by Bristol Live on our social media channels to name a possible right-back target for this summer, City fan George Townsend very wisely identified Blackburn Rovers’ Ryan Nyambe, possessing precisely the sort of profile Pearson would be interested in.
Should Blackburn be unable to convince him to sign a new contract and he is to depart on a free, you’d imagine at least half of the Championship would hold some degree of interest in a 24-year-old with 197 professional appearances approaching his prime. What that does to his wage is very simple, it sends it firmly towards the, ‘we simply cannot afford that’ range.
There is management to be done with the wage bill, of course; should Kasey Palmer and Nahki Wells be moved on, then that undoubtedly frees up enough money for “a Nyambe” plus savings. But this all living in a bit of a transfer utopia and, as the last 12 months should have shown you, moving on Wells and Palmer is a challenge in itself, potentially delaying City’s own activity and discussions.
Also, if your only transfer wish was for a proper, first-team senior right-back, you can probably stomach one significant wage, given the salaries likely to be released on the expiring contracts in the squad. But, as is becoming increasingly clear, Pearson wants more than just a right-back.
There is also the elephant in the room which provides a solution to all of the above, it gives City financial breathing space, bringing them back towards the black and gives the club plenty of room to manoeuvre in the market; that is, the selling of the key assets - Antoine Semenyo, Alex Scott and Han-Noah Massengo.
The fortunes of those three is worthy of its own piece (which will be written at some stage) but it’s fair to say that trio represents, at very rough count, around £40m or so on the open market, providing they continue their upward trends between now and the end of the season.
There is a school of thought that, as painful as it may seem, selling them this summer (and, let’s be honest, Massengo’s future looks increasingly decided) makes not only financial but also a degree of sporting sense, too.
City can fit within P&S plus Pearson would be equipped with far greater resources to further rebuild a squad he increasingly feels let down by. It’d be a tough one to swallow from a PR point of view and the idea that the Robins aren’t a “selling club” (although, in fairness, approaches were rejected last summer for Massengo and Semenyo, and again in January for the latter) but is rooted in common sense.
It would also deny Pearson three of his best and most consistent performers, slightly ironically so given the manager's desire for greater seniority in his squad.
However, to return to the theme of Pearson’s messaging, he’s on the one hand been pragmatic about their futures, “what we can’t do is ignore market forces and that is if players or their representatives are being very stubborn about it, then there becomes a threshold where you have to start thinking about getting the best price that you can for that talent."
But has also dropped these sort of populist nuggets in that appeal to supporters, “we don’t want to necessarily be a ‘selling club’ just to keep afloat, because what that doesn’t do is give our fanbase any encouragement that what we’re trying to do is produce a side which is enjoyable to watch, will be successful and has players come through in our system."
Of course, in a perfect world City could keep Semenyo, Scott and renew Massengo, add 3-4 strong Championship-level free agents, shed the inefficient wages of Wells and Palmer, and, all of a sudden that squad looks pretty fantastic. But this isn’t a perfect world, folks, and the reality is likely to be far less simplistic.
Pearson has also noted about the club apparently not sure of what its culture is; having mocked the previous policy of buying low, selling high and trying to replenish a) he clearly doesn’t to engage in such folly and b) that taps into his ideas about Scott, Semenyo and possibly Massengo.
But what are the real options for the club; can they afford to keep all three? Do all three want to stay knowing the interest that increasingly exists? And how do City sell themselves to free agents as they look to bring collective salaries down?
In November, Gould noted that the George Tanner and Rob Atkinson transfer models of signing players with high upsides is the preference of the board, but three months later and the manager is making comments that run contrary to that.
Maybe there’s a hybrid approach that we witnessed last summer with those two EFL prospects, who were offset by the experienced heads of Andy King, Matty James and Simpson. But, outside of James, how can Pearson sell that vision again to the board given the expenditure on King and Simpson’s wages?
We’re not trying to be troublesome here, nor are we hinting at any rifts as such, but there are signs of a cultural divide appearing and if results continue to underwhelm, it’s only likely to be more accentuated.
Pearson, to his credit, has never complained about transfer budgets, what he can or can’t have, but has ever so subtly began prodding seeds of doubt into the earth that he, at this moment in time, is uncertain over the direction of the club and team. That is, to a large extent, on him as manager and chief problem solver. But the underlying question is, will he be able to get everything that he wants to offer a suitable answer?
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