Football City looking to build squad that can reach top flight, says Gould
BRISTOL City are stepping up their plans for building a squad to compete in the 2020/21 Championship, as confirmed by new CEO Richard Gould yesterday.
The Robins are looking to tie up several deals ahead of a full return to Failand and training camp at Loughborough at the beginning of next month.
The Post’s understands that the Robins are closing on deals to sign midfielders Andy King and Matty James, while talks with Oxford United have begun on a deal for central defender Rob Atkinson.
Nigel Pearson is looking for five recruits in this window that Gould believes is realistic, though it remains tough to complete business early given the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic for Championship sides.
“We’ve got to make sure our recruitment puts together a squad to reach the Premier League, because that’s where we want to be. But it’s not easy now when you look at the financial elements,” said Gould to the club’s Robins TV channel.
“And effectively in most years you’re competing for one slot. Because often the other two are taken by previous Premier League teams who have got huge financial advantage, and we need to overcome that with yes, the good resource that we’ve got but also by doing things better and working harder and having a really cohesive unit on and off the pitch.
“That’s what we’ll be working towards,” he explained.
City are looking for two centrebacks, two central midfielders and a striker.
The squad is a little short on experience currently, though Pearson has already stated that he is happy to work with a smaller number in 2021/22, after using 39 different players in the league last season, with 11 since released, two returning to parent clubs from loan and Chris Brunt’s contract ending early last January.
“A lot of players have moved on since last season. We’ve got some big gaps to fill, a lot of business to do and we know how we need to reshape things,” said Gould.
“It’s been really important for me to work alongside Nigel and our chairman and to understand the priorities and get to work.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. It’s quite a strange market out there due to the impact of coronavirus as people try to understand what financial issues will be at hand, but we’ve been extremely active and it’s good that we’ve got one or two across the line and we’ll be hoping for that to continue in the next week or two.”
Former Leicester City midfielder King has been training with the club and his capture could be announced soon. Danny Simpson is also close to committing his future in BS3. The club is hoping to move forward on other acquisitions soon too.
“There’s good progress and certainly we’re expecting some good news this week. And there on, in terms of timings we want to get good early business done. But as I said the market is quite strange out there,” said Mark Ashton’s replacement. “There’s a hesitancy in terms of getting people to commit or for us understanding where the market value sits takes a little bit of time. We’ve got some good early business - it’s a good start.”
Is what Pearson wants realistic? And can City do their business at the right price point? Cash is king in the Championship when there are no Premier League parachute payments to help you spend more.
“That’s a very realistic target (to bring in five recruits). It depends at what cost they come in at,” said Gould. “We’ve got our budgets that we want to hold to because that makes sure we’ve got the apporpriate level of resource going in and we’re very fortunate with the support from the chairman and the owner - and we just want to make sure that every pound is really well spent and gets on the pitch and has a positive impact in winning games. And that’s where the juggling goes on.
“We’re on track and we’ll want to assemble the very best squad that we can. That takes a lot of work and a lot of recruitment effort, a lot of analysis, a lot of subjective thought.”
Gould officially began work for the Robins last week after replacing Mark Ashton who left Bristol City on May 31 after five years in charge.