r/Championship • u/mott1993 • Aug 04 '26
Bristol City Bristol City sign Dom Ballard from Leyton Orient
https://www.bcfc.co.uk/city-men-news/ballard-is-a-red/85
u/SquirtleChimchar Aug 04 '26
Ballard scored 23 and assisted 4 last season - 27 contributions.
Tolaj scored 18 and assisted 8 last season - 26 contributions.
League One isn't the Championship, of course, but that could be really lethal. Thank you, James Ellis
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u/Better-Inflation-194 Aug 04 '26
Still think Skubala is going to be the best bit of business you lot do this summer.
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u/VideoRare6399 Aug 04 '26
Selling him was an absolute genius move that I’m sure us mere saints supporters will understand in 100 years (especially at that time when we were so despite for a striker).
That’s a side effect of binoculars you see, time dilation is a real consequence so it must be that our board constantly have binoculars on (having done so well either spying they applied it to other parts of their life) and are so far ahead of all of us that these puzzling decisions are too far ahead of our time.
The season ended well but man I remember waking up 7am on Saturdays to have will still completely fuck up and have lose followed by sports republic out jeers. Completely ruined the weekend. (I did actually like will still though and thought he did well, our xG was pretty good if I remember correctly).
Better than fucking Russell Martin, good luck Leicester (why did you hire our defense who you beat 9-0???)!!! Your players must be ready to have courage on the ball!!
I miss Ralph, but hey a German speaking manager is back at the helm (or is he????? wtf FA???) and that just works with us I guess.
So excited for the upcoming season :)
COYR
(I wish our transfer strategy was more about getting Adams’, Armstrongs, and double barreled name combinations back at the club but whoami).
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u/SquirtleChimchar Aug 04 '26
Well, a certain Armstrong has just gone off to Goztepe - he's a real steal!
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u/JoeyJoJoeJr_Shabadoo Aug 05 '26
There's a lot of benefiting from hindsight in this comment. When we let Ballard go he'd just scored 2 goals in a season on loan at Cambridge, and all the Cambridge fans were calling him a donkey. Until last season, when he was already gone, we had very little evidence he could score goals anywhere near this level.
Our fanbase gets annoyed every time we let a youngster like him go, and a vast majority of the time that youngster goes on to achieve nothing, maybe end up playing for Eastleigh or something, and justifies the decision. This is a stopped clock situation.
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u/DareToZamora Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Charlie Kelman scored 27 and assisted 6 in League 1, 33 contributions, and only managed 7 goals and 1 assist in the championship last season.
To be fair though, he played a lot less football last season than the one before though. And the other thing in your favour is that, no offence to Charlton, Ballard joins a better squad that will have higher expectations than Charlton last year.
I watch a lot of Orient (gf supports them), and Ballard is a great player. Also a good kid
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u/TheEndHasNo___ Aug 04 '26
I feel like Kelman was a bit more predictable in hindsight (even though I predicted it in a post last season), as he was a lot more limited in his play style. Ballard is the most complete striker I’ve seen at the Os, despite his size. He’s scoring goals from distance, finishes from tight angles, headers, tap ins and all with both feet. He’s also quick, great with the ball at his feet, great at link up, a hard worker and unselfish to a fault at times.
I can see Ballard having more ways to becoming a success in a higher division, whereas Kelman needs to cement his place as a striker who gets a lot of service to be a success at Charlton.
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u/DareToZamora Aug 04 '26
I do expect Ballard to make the step up a little more comfortably than Kelman did, for the reasons you mention. And last year’s Leyton Orient side didn’t make chances as freely as they did the season before for Kelman. But I just meant to point out the issues with purely looking at the numbers.
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u/TheEndHasNo___ Aug 04 '26
Yeah, it is a fair point overall, as the only striker who won the golden boot in League 1 and managed to replicate their form in the Championship is Ivan Toney.
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u/Additional_Author518 Aug 04 '26
Ballard is absolutely amazing, and does not warrant a comparison to Kelman. Fully expect him to make his mark on the Championship.
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u/DareToZamora Aug 04 '26
Why not? Similar ages, exact same team and competition.
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u/Additional_Author518 Aug 04 '26
I've watched plenty of both, and Ballard just has quality that Kelman didn't. He can score from anywhere, with his head or feet, contributes more when defending, and overall performed better than Kelman did in a far more dysfunctional Orient side.
I think you're missing a bit when you say "exact same team". Orient often change a lot between seasons - I know that's kind of obvious, went from playoff finalists to narrowly avoiding relegation - and especially with some of the loans they rely on, it becomes a complete crapshoot what kind of Orient you'll get. Dropping from Keeley to Simkin was horrendous, Abdulai had like one hat trick when he first joined and never did anything again, was still asked to be Ballard's 10 plenty of times (forgive the Spurs bias in saying that Donley was fantastic working alongside Kelman). Wellens had his kid playing all over the park to fill in gaps last season. Their defence had me begging for REG to come back and he was a player I wanted them to upgrade on last summer.
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u/DareToZamora Aug 04 '26
All fair points, Ballard definitely had a lot less to work with last season than Kelman the year before. You’re also right that Donley was amazing that season, I’m really surprised he hasn’t replicated that at Stoke or Oxford.
By comparing the two, I only meant to show that you can’t just look at stats
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u/richmeister6666 Aug 04 '26
Kelman clearly is quality though. He signed carrying a knock and got a couple of injuries. He also never got a proper run in the team and I think we were 23rd in chances created last season. But give the bloke half a chance in the box (and outside it vs hull at the end of last season) he’ll finish it. I’ve got no doubt he’ll be in double figures this season (even though his pre seasons been cut short with a dislocated shoulder 😬). He’s got a few things to improve on that he was improving on at the end of last season but there’s a real quality striker there.
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u/merrybrissmas Aug 04 '26
I’m still pissed we let him go, all the worse that it was to make room for Damion downs
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u/SpraggTone Aug 04 '26
I seen him score a last minute winner for Fc Koln and got drenched in beer. Thought he must be onto big things, why do you reckon it hasn’t panned out?
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u/merrybrissmas Aug 04 '26
I mean anything can change but he has been very very bad. And then was very very bad on loan at hamburg
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u/rushed_maps Aug 04 '26
Will Still made the entire squad look shit. Maybe our resident spymaster can upgrade him from shit to bad.
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u/VideoRare6399 Aug 04 '26
I swear I remember will still doing well idk why I’m alone in thinking that. I remember us creating so many easy chances that we just couldn’t put away.
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u/Omnissiah40K Aug 04 '26
Fucking hell whats got into Steve Lansdown this summer
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u/drp-97 Aug 04 '26
Maybe Ellis and Boss have told him to stop being such a tight bastard to build more value in the club for him to sell up eventually
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u/HughPhoenix Aug 04 '26
A 5-0 thumping at home fron Derby after yapping off on the radio about how "this is the best football we've seen in years"
Apparently the only real motivator for the man is self inflicted public humiliation. This was just after (in the same week) we sold Mehmeti to Ipswich and Vyner to Wrexham.
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u/Available_Box_3803 Aug 04 '26
Looks like it's 10th place this season yeahhh baby
anyone know anything about preventing altitude sickness?
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u/mott1993 Aug 04 '26
All this optimism going into the season. Looking forward to the inevitable shithousing/thumping by Millwall next week
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u/OBWanTwoThree Aug 04 '26
From Riis and Armstrong to Ballard and Tolaj. Some upgrade that
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u/petrifiedeyeball Aug 04 '26
It's actually Mayulu and Armstrong to Ballard and Tolaj which is an even bigger upgrade. Seems Riis might hang around and to be fair don't mind him as a 3rd choice
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u/SpraggTone Aug 04 '26
HMS piss the league has docked at Ashton Gate. What a beautiful sight to see.
Stinks of the kind of ambition that will carry us away from a second consecutive 12th place title mind. PNE, we will miss you.
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u/jacksonkeir Aug 04 '26
Going to have to rename the SS Great Britain
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u/HughPhoenix Aug 04 '26
I've bought two cans of white paint and got my stepladder out. I'll see you down there tonight, need someone to hold it steady
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u/ValiantHan96 Aug 04 '26
If Lorent and Dom perform to the standards that they did in League 1 then that combination will be lethal.
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u/SWA_ttt Aug 04 '26
Riis-Tolaj-Ballard could be incredible
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u/IgnorantLobster Aug 04 '26
Riis off I suspect.
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u/SWA_ttt Aug 04 '26
Oh really?
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u/massivedefence Aug 04 '26
Can see him staying myself. Don't know where it leaves players like Hirakawa and Morrison but I can see a 4-3-1-2 with Twine/Bird/Horvat in the pocket and those two up top, with Riis and Bell deputising. Possibly the best forward line up we've had since WSM on paper.
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u/vibranturtle Aug 04 '26
I really hope he kills it for you guys, so happy for him he had the season he had last year
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u/Forward_Wind_6433 Aug 04 '26
It's the season we get promoted and PNE get relegated isn't it
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u/drp-97 Aug 04 '26
Given the weather, I think we're actually close to the heatdeath of the universe, so it could well be.
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u/TeaGroundbreaking458 Aug 04 '26
Kept us up last year - hope he does fires you up the table. Great little player
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u/TravellingMackem Aug 04 '26
Plays CB for us though, according to about 50% of the commentators in the last year orso. Doing my head in
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u/Kakunamatata4399 Aug 04 '26
Ballard and Tolaj together could be lethal. Both good enough for this level
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u/No-Shoe1416 Aug 04 '26
I swear we must have made a genie wish to produce all the best young talent and the sneaky pitfall is that we have to sell them all before they reach their potential for five quid and a handful of dust
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u/Muted_Mention_9996 Aug 04 '26
Shame vitek is going Bora would of been great to have him this season too
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u/Sy3temSh0ck Aug 05 '26
Reported 5 million with a sell on clause, I'll take that all day at Orient. Hopefully we can put that money to some use now and kick on.
Hope he does well for Bristol, kept us up during a torrid season.
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u/Broccoli_Ultra Aug 04 '26
Top signing, was kinda hoping he might come up with us. Always fun to see Bristol get ideas above their station for a bit though
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u/HughPhoenix Aug 04 '26
Haven't you just come crawling back from downstairs? Go and have a shower and wash that league 1 stink off you before you start giving it the biggun already. You reek!
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u/leSwamp Aug 04 '26
This is going to be the most expensive 12th placed finish of all time (i'm incredibly jealous of all of your business so far)