Hi Nigel, this is the first chance we’ve had to speak to you since the January transfer window shut, was Monday a quiet day for you?
Yeah, very quiet. I told you it would be.
As predicted, there were reports of interest in Antoine Semenyo, did the club receive any offers?
Well if they did I don’t know about it. I don’t think we had any intention of doing anything. If there were requests or bids put in it’s something I didn’t know about on the day to be fair, but I’m not bothered. We’ve got no intention of him going so it’s okay.
It was a question of how strong was the desire to keep hold of your best players, but moving forward how strong is your desire to keep hold of your best players?
I think we’ve said on many occasions and you are aware of what our owners would like. That is to create a team with as many homegrown players as possible and of course we will have to get the balance right between managing our financial situation that we’re in as well as keeping our best players.
We have no intention of putting them on the market, that’s not our intention at all. We’re trying to reshape the squad in a way which is sustainable and that’s going to take time and it’s going to make compromises from time to time.
I’m not wet behind the ears so I don’t expect everyone to stay here indefinitely, maybe there may be the necessity to sell one of our talented players at some point for us to negotiate a way through this next period of time but the intention is not to sell them.
That’s all I can say categorically, I can’t give you any detail on what it will look like. I don’t think our fans want to hear any more knock backs than we’ve already had.
They’ve already had to come to terms with the fact that we are in a situation where we’re going to have to be very, very careful over the next two or three years and we’re going to have to manage our way and negotiate that in a sensible way.
That doesn’t mean that we won’t do business and it doesn’t mean that there will never be anybody coming in. I tried to brief you, even from the summer, that January wasn’t going to be a window where there was a lot happening. Of course, everybody follows suit, or appears to, in terms of wanting making a big deal out of it. It wasn’t ever our intention to do much business.
I’m very pleased that we got Timm (Klose) in and in terms of players going the other way, it just didn’t materialise.
I can’t speak for how other clubs do their business and how scattergun they are in their approach. There were approaches for some of our players which I actually just shook my head at because one club hadn’t got a clue who they wanted, but they wanted somebody. So it was actually quite reassuring knowing that we have got a plan.
That plan is different to other Championship clubs…
I can’t talk for other clubs, I can only talk from experience of dealing with bizarre requests from other places which didn’t materialise.
Is it possible though to compete with teams like Bournemouth who made five signings on Monday, are you confident that you can compete with clubs that do have money to burn as it would seem?
I don’t know whether they’ve got money to burn or whether their strategy is to try and make sure that they do everything they can to go up within one year. Whether that is a sustainable strategy that they have, parachute payments I suppose, their threshold for putting themselves at risk is a lot bigger than ours.
I’m not really bothered about looking at others clubs though and we have to manage circumstances that we currently have, how we’ve got there is not really for me to debate on a forum like this. It’s about managing in the moment and it’s about trying to negotiate our way out of a situation we find ourselves in.
Can we compete? Hopefully in time our own squad continues to evolve and develop. We’re short on numbers but what I would say about other clubs that have taken four, five or six players in, I don’t know how many have left there, they’ve got an ever increasing squad and there are dangers. I don’t like collecting players, it’s a fruitless pastime in my own opinion.
Has anything changed now that you know this is the squad you’ve got to work with? There’s still 17 games left of the Championship season to go…
In what way?
In terms of which players are staying…
I knew that anyway. I don’t tend to get hungover with having to deal with the occasional curveball so it happens in football.
We’re still talking about it [the transfer window] now aren’t we. It’s shut and you’re still asking questions about it. It shows you that there’s either not a lot of news out there or that people have an interest in it which is disproportionate.
Some good news in the week was that Ayman (Benarous) signed a new contract, a local boy done good, how has he developed from an up-and-coming, promising player to being a member of your first team squad?
He, like most young players, will have ups and downs. He’s on the start of a new journey now, he’s a first team member and he will be judged as a fiest team member now so the expectations sometimes can rise too quickly but I like his temperament, he’s good ability, he’s got a lot of tenacity about him as well.
There’s no doubt that he will have setbacks, he played for the under 23s the other day and didn’t have one of his best games but I’ve got no doubts that if he plays the at the weekend that he’ll be able to go out and there and effect it in a positive way.
That’s what I think about him, he’s a young player with talent and we need to be mindful about how he develops and that the challenges that we present for him are achievable.
That’s one of the potential problems at the moment when we have a lot of players that are in that category, we need to be mindful of that but they’re all good enough and that’s why there’s a reason to be positive about where we go to as a football club.
He has a good future ahead of him if he continues to develop and maximises the opportunities that he gets because we don’t do it for him, he has to do it for himself as well.
That’s where temperament becomes even more important.
It was nice to see so many Preston praise you and also Han-Noah (Massengo) in particular…
I don’t think they would have if they hadn’t gotten the equaliser.
Has he (Massengo) matured in the year that you’ve had him under your stewardship?
I think that’s for you to comment on, not me. What I would say is he’s been able to play his way through a very difficult patch of form that he had.
He’s been really good recently but when he’s not been at his best he knows that and he worked hard at his game.
For a young player to have the opportunity, whether that is circumstances or selection, what he has done is found a way of being game effective and dealing with his own disappointment that he hasn’t being playing as well as he can do and that speaks volumes in itself.
He's another young player who’s forging his own career and he’s doing very well.
In terms of team news how is everyone doing? Any updates on Andy King, Rob Atkinson or Matty James?
They won’t be available. The team will be similar.
That first Blackpool game seems a long time ago…
Yeah it does. I remember their equaliser though.
They got a very good draw at Fulham in midweek and they’re above you in the table, how good a job is Neil Critchley doing?
Obviously a good job. They’re a side who know what they are. They’ve got an identity and generally try to play their own way in their own system. They’ve changed it a little bit recently but fair play, it’s not an easy result to get a positive result at Fulham.
We expect it to be a tough game.
What do you have to say on the Ashton Gate Eight in terms of the importance of it and for educating the young people on the sacrifices that were made to the club on its anniversary?
Having done a bit of background on it myself, I think we need to have a realistic perspective on it and that is that the eight individuals that did a very selfless thing, had to endure a criticism, threat, and being treated badly by the club so 40 years further on it’s good to celebrate it.
The club exists because of their actions but having read some of the personal accounts I think we have to remind ourselves that back in the 80s it was a very different climate and a different perception. Players these days have a lot greater protection in terms of the PFA back then. I don’t know how long the PFA have been going but form what I gather they didn’t get any protection and certainly how the news was delivered too them was pretty shabby.
We are here because the club didn’t go into liquidation and because those eight players decided to, as locals and still in the area and supporters of Bristol City now, I can imagine that back in those days players didn’t earn the types of wages that they do now so to make that sort of decision, tear up your contract and leave yourself in a financially vulnerable position is a big thing to do.
I think it’s important we do recognise that and that the celebration is done in a way which brings to light just what it meant for those people.
We should both as a football club and as a community, recognise their own individual sacrifices that they made so that this club could remain solvent. That’s very important to recognise.
You probably don’t want to speak much more on the transfer window…
Where did you get that idea from!
You did strengthen at the back and then kept hold of the top talent so that has to be considered a success for you?
As I pointed out, if there was interest all I need to know is if a deal is done. Apart from that I’m not really too fussed about it.
I’ve said it on many occasions, so I don’t there’s any point going on about what the January window represents, now that it’s closed we have what we have and whether that turns out to be not enough, we’ll see. Once we get one or two back from injury we’ll have a good mixture.
Players that we may be interested in either weren’t available or weren’t achievable so I don’t want to just get numbers in for the sake of it. The one deal we did do with Timm was a sensible one for us and for him. We are where we are now.
Were you close to bringing in another player at all?
No not really, no.
There was speculation around Nahki Wells and Kasey Palmer too, obviously nothing happened but can they look at what Jay Dasilva has done and take confidence in that he has forced his way back into the team and there’s still more minutes for them in the future if they put their mind to it?
I never really had a question mark over whether Jay could do it or not, I think we all recognise that he’s quite a gifted footballer, he’s continued to train very well, when he’s been asked to do a job in the side he’s gone in there. He’s a bright lad so he’s able to deal with that situation, he’s also a very likable lad so don’t build anything into situations that’s to do with the personal side of it.
He’s a professional footballer and I would expect him to be able to go in and do a job and it’s really quite simple.
The door has never been closed on anybody. I try and be as open as possible with players even if it’s bad news, you’re better off being blunt with people, there’s no point in beating around the bush with bad news, you may as well get straight to the point. I always try to be as fair as I can be. That doesn’t always mean that fairness feels the same way for everyone, it doesn’t.
Jay’s performed pretty well, I thought last week especially in the first half he was very, very good.
We’re going to need everybody on board at the moment and I suppose there’s one benefit of asking about the window, it’s shut now.
Just a bit more on Ayman, is he a player that you’re hoping to give a few more minutes to before the end of the season?
He will get pitch time, there’s no doubt about that. With the size of our squad it’s inevitable. This is one of the positives of a small squad because players are neve too far away from either the bench or starting. We have a position at the moment where we have one or two injured that we would like back a bit quicker but we’ll deal with it.
Jay has found his way back into the team and he’s played well, I think that’s a good message to anybody who’s currently not in the team that actually they need to be ready themselves to take the chance because they’re going to get an opportunity, it’s whether they can take the chance. I’m not spoon feeding anybody.
It must be exciting for you and for the supporters that you have three very promising young midfielders fighting for the spot with Massengo, Benarous and Alex Scott…
They’ll play where they’re put. Alex Scott has played at wing-back, Ayman has played at wing-back, both played at 10s, both Han-Noah and Alex Scott are playing deeper midfield roles at the moment and they’re doing well.
Nobody is talking about Alex Scott playing out of position now he’s playing a bit deeper like they were when he was playing at wingback, is his best the 10? He’s playing where the team needs him to play and they’re doing well.
That’s what it’s about, it’s a part of their football education but it’s also part of our squad’s development because there is a necessity for players to play where the team needs them to as well.
Robbie Cundy finally made his long-awaited debut at the weekend, how much of a boost is that for him to finally get back on the pitch?
Well you’ll have to ask him that when you get a chance. I know that he was very excited to be in the squad for starters, for him to actually get onto the pitch I imagine there would be a mixture of elation and relief too that he had to wait for so long and be patient to get the opportunity.
There was nothing sentimental about putting him on, we thought it was the right thing to do. He’s a good defender.
The under 23 game on Tuesday, Danny and [Simpson] and Nahki both played 90 minutes, was that your decision or did they put their hands up and say they wanted to play?
Why is that important?
Because I’m wondering if you’ve asked them to play for the under 23s if it’s with a mind to get their match fitness up to play for the first-team?
They need pitch time, both of them. If players are coming off the bench in a first team game and they’ve had no pitch it’s in their own interest to play. For Nahki, for Danny, Tommy Conway, Sam Bell, Ayman, they all needed pitch time because they’ve not had a lot recently.
It’s just common sense, they need even though under 23 games aren’t the same as Championship games, there is still a competitiveness and an organisational side of a structured game that is different to training.
Regardless of which way round it was I think they acquitted themselves pretty well and they all recognised that they needed some pitch time.
It was interesting why now, why did those two senior players play?
Because they needed a game. Because they needed pitch time. It’s like a condition. You can do physical conditioning but match conditioning is when you’re getting matches and those players need it.
One of the names you didn’t mention who just came back is James Morton, he was close to leaving in the summer, where does he sit as a player between the first team and the under-23s?
James has had a difficult time. He nearly got his move away in the summer and it didn’t happen. He’s currently not in the first-team squad if you want a straight answer, he’s not there and I have spoken to him at length about his own scenario because he needs to be playing first team football somewhere now.
He’s a decent footballer and a really good lad who’s had a frustrating time with injury. Hopefully he can find himself somewhere at some point because it’s a waste of talent for someone not to be playing first team football at the level that is right for them.
Is there any update on Han-Noah’s contract? Has that developed at all?
No. Not as far as I know. We’re trying to get to an agreement with him but he’s not overly involved in that. He wants to concentrate on his football, we are vert keen to get to some sort of conclusion and when there is an update we’ll let you know.
It’s one of those where we’re trying to secure him for a long time.
And on Andy and Rob, Curtis Fleming said they went for scans last week…
I didn’t watch Curtis’ press conference so I don’t know what he said [smiles].
But you obviously would have known they were going for scans so did they bring back positive news or not so positive news?
Kingy has had surgery and Rob will be out for maybe three more weeks.
Is that his back or the calf?
It’s the calf. Looks a bit daft doesn’t it? Rob on the pitch said it’s his back but he got of the pitch and it was his calf too. There we go!
George Tanner was said to be out for two months in December…
How long ago was that?
End of December.
How many weeks is that?
That’s what we’re trying to find out because it’s in the middle.
It’ll be something like that, he’ll be on track. Hopefully on track. He’s working very hard.
What do you make of Robbie Cundy, given his long way back to fitness?
Robbie’s been training with us for a while now, maybe a couple of months. It’s really difficult to place him because I’ve not seen him play Championship football before and because of the nature of his injury there is always something thinking is he going to be able to manage the return but he’s trained really hard and he knows what he’s good at.
He's played 40-45 minutes, then 70 then a full game. He’s had a build up back into game experience and we needed him on the bench basically, he’s had a bit of an accelerated return but I know he’s a good defender and he knows what he is himself.
What I can say is it’s a bonus and it’s good that we’ve got him back and being in and around the first team will be of benefit for us for the rest of the season.
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