Spike

Really should have been three there, Sykes missing a good opportunity. Very positive football so far though.

Great calm finish that

I get the frustration but what would be the good of them sitting on the bench if we're not going to use them? I'd rather they played for the U18s or U23's than sit on our bench with no plans to be played.

Defend defend defend, sit deep then try to pass out against superior opposition. Essentially play in a manner that doesn't compliment us but compliments them.

How can he make things happen when we're spending all our time defending, we're sitting so deep that we're inviting them onto us, we're not leaving a single player on the half way line when we're defending. The issue here isn't one player not performing, it's the team failing as a whole meaning everyone is looking for that individual player who "isn't up to it" when the truth is the gameplan is letting the whole team down. It's only a matter of time before we concede like this, far too negative, far too deep, not retaining the ball when we win it back meaning we play it long and it just comes back at us. It's the tactics, the players look worse than usual because they're sticking to what the manager has asked of them and it's clearly not working.

Looks like we're back to being Bristol no pens

You say impacting the majority but it's not any impact at all, we can tell the difference between the teams, someone with deuteranomaly colour blindness would really struggle if we were in red. If anything playing in this set up is allowing everyone to watch the game and that's coming from someone who hates our yellow kit.

Not very impressive at all so far, they look the danger team, we look lost at the moment.

Great win that, another game where the opposition came at us and we could quickly counter them as we used to. I feel like today we set up like a Pearson team, Manning obviously knows we're better playing that way but the real question is can he get us to win games when the opposition sets up to sit back on us? Southampton - played open and came at us, we turned them over, Leicester the same, it's clear to see we can win games when the opposition open up, now we need to be able to beat the teams who set up to defend and counter us.

The Leicester commentators haven't stopped talking about how quiet our fans are, even making comments like "sounds like there are 5 people here" and calling out our fans for leaving their seats on 45 minutes. Really unprofessional.

I don't see it, maybe it's me but having watched him get beaten in situations that Pring shines in I guess if he's that good of a center back then those qualities haven't shown out wide but I feel he looks better going forward than defending. I guess we'll see today

I agree to a degree but both Roberts and Pring do the same thing going forward, only one of them is strong against strikers running at them which is Pring. Roberts could be a liability at LCB, he's not bad but physically he's beaten in a lot of situations. Going forward though Roberts can be just as effective as Pring, not so sure Roberts can be as effective in the LCB role as Pring.

I do think Pring would be better at LCB, he's played there before, bigger, stronger and more suited to the role and Roberts pushes forward more.

I'll do it in this post to save another thread. 1) I have nothing 2) still nothing 3) nope, I'm done.

I think it would be a balance of results and performance. At the very least they'll expect 9-10 points but more than anything they'd need to see a team capable of competing next season and that is where I think he'd lose his job. There is no way we're going to see a competitive team in all of those 8 games. Leicester away - Only chance we have with this game is if Leicester comes looking to thump us and play aggressive opening up the game to suit us. Personally I think having given up a massive points lead at the top of the table they'll be looking to get that top spot back so we'll be getting a very up for it Leicester. Plymouth away - in the relegation battle, most likely going to set up not to concede and make things difficult for us, exactly what we struggle with. I could see this being one of those games where we struggle to create a lot. Sunderland away - probably one of the games we should be hoping to get points from, they're midtable, far enough behind to make a final push unlikely but also safe from relegation so we should be hoping they're not much up for a scrap. Blackburn home - another team who could be in the relegation fight come this game, currently only 3 points of relegation and another team who may set up to frustrate us. Huddersfield home - in the relegation zone, a point could be huge for them at the time we play them, definitely going to be looking to set up defensively against us and frustrate. Norwich away - Currently in the play offs, if they're still in or around them when we play them they're going to need that win, could play in our favour if they look to bring the game to us but whatever their gameplan they will be up for it. Rotherham home - already dead and buried, anything other than a win in this fixture and Manning has to be in trouble. Stoke away - also in the relegation battle, kind of hoping they may get enough points to be out of it by this game meaning it could be a little less cagey but if they're in the battle still then I'd expect them to be looking to take the game to us. It's not an easy run in, on paper you'd look at alot of those games and say we should be getting points but based on what I've seen under Manning I could see it's dropping a lot of points if he doesn't find a way to overcome our struggle to score goals in own play and break down teams who sit back and frustrate.

The amount of people having a go at Andi cracks me up, the bloke was only given one season here in his best role and he smashed it, he was never going to offer us anything how he was being used so now he's happier having moved to a club where he's already had a few chances at a roll he is better suited to. If you move jobs and you prefer your new job of course you'll celebrate it doing well, even if it means your old employer you liked feels the brunt of it. I don't blame him, he's adhering himself to the fans he plays for now.

Tinnion for me, I'll stomach Manning for 6 months to get rid of one of the issues higher up, doesn't mean I rate Manning, just that I'd humour him to get rid of a much deeper rooted problem within the club.

In my lifetime of watching football they've fought relegation, won the FA Cup, had an FA Cup final, they've never lost their place in the top flight meaning they've had many of a game against the best talent in the Premier League and caused many upsets, they've played European football etc We've in turn had a semi finals in the mickey mouse Cup, yo-yoed a bit between leagues and our most exciting thing was winning league one and a paint trophy. I'd still say Everton have been more entertaining to watch overall in my lifetime.

Yeah but a lot of our fans say he's rubbish and only goes side to side. There is a reason we play better with him and it's not what he does with the ball, like most of the best midfielders, it's just as much what they do off of the ball.

I'd take him, bloke is a bell end in many rights but despite his age he still knows football and he still gets results. The only issue would be the board would never hire him, he has far too much self respect to be a yes man, he'd speak his piece to the board, they don't like that and he's also never going to be long term which is what the board seem to be trying to put in place.

It is, my brother supports them but even their battles in my lifetime have been more interesting than our own.

Same players who have played blinding games for us. Are they an incredible squad? No, maybe not, but if the players aren't producing their best then ask yourself why. The answer is the same players were performing way better under Pearson, Conway looked Premier League quality at times as an example and the simple reason is that Pearson played our players in the way that suited them. The reason the players look so poor atm is because they're not being allowed to play to their potential, they're being restricted by rigid instructions from Manning that doesn't allow them to play to their best abilities. Get in a manager who can identify a players best qualities and adapt the team to fit them and you'll see a vast improvement.

We'd be foolish to sack a manager and appoint a new one so quickly. Next appointment needs to be handled well and definitely not be the "up and coming" option. We need someome with experience at this level, someone who has good contacts so they can draw in better quality players and mostly, someone who can adapt to changing situations and isn't steadfast in sticking to one plan.

As much as I don't like Tinnion these days, he was good with the young players. I'd be fine with him going back to that role but he'll never accept a demotion so I'd have him straight out of the door.

We'll still have people who will say "he needs to bring his players in" or "He's shown we can play great football under him in some games", personally, I think those people don't understand football tactics and why we're getting results against some teams and struggling against others. What's frustrating me is a few things: 1) "He needs his own players" - Manning was not brought in with a rebuild in mind, the very declaration from the board who brought him in was that he was brought in to get results from a squad that they deemed to be "top 6". Now I understand that any level-headed fan understands that this was a stupid statement as this squad is simply not one of the top 6 squads in the Championship, however, that is what Manning was brought in for, to get the results to get us in the top 6 positions and the board said the squad were capable of that. With that in mind, Manning is failing at the very job he was brought in to do. Our fans can say "he needs a summer and to bring in some of his players" but that's not what he was hired to do, he was hired to take an already existing squad and make them get into the top 6 and had we had a decent run of results and been even remotely close to that then I could cut him some slack, but that's not the case. Manning can have a summer, he can change the squad, the issue then will be that we've rebuilt around a man who is tactically out of his depth. This leads me to: 2) "How do we beat Southampton and lose to QPR and Sheffield Wednesday?!" - Tactics and gameplan, Manning is as generic a manager as they come. Even under Pearson we struggled to break teams down who sat back and counter-attacked us, the reason being is that we played that very football under Pearson, so when that situation arose we almost cancelled each other out. The difference between under Pearson and manning is that under Pearson we played a very direct attacking pattern with the intention to either create a chance or to lose the ball, keep behind the ball and win it back and hit on the counter instantly. Manning has come in and when we come up against a team who play that same style he's decided to play the possession and work the opportunity game, the issue with that is we do not have the players for that football, that requires players like we saw today in Johnston, creative players who can run at players and cause panic. Our players are far more suited to using pace and space to create opportunities so when this situation arises under Manning we're simply toothless in creating opportunities unless the opposition play to our advantage. Southampton opened up and tried to outplay us and we countered them effectively, not using Mannings style, but instead using the things Pearson taught the players. Our very best results have come from playing the way we played under Pearson and the opposition playing into that, hence we competed with Premier league teams, they are the types of teams who come at us allowing that quick, counter opportunity creations. 3) "Manning is here to stay, we should get behind him!" - This boggles my mind, why should we support a man who has been so quick to blame players but when his tactics let us down he doesn't see that it's his own doing? He's either passing the blame onto the players or he simply doesn't realise that he's the problem, not the players. You only need to look at our players best periods of performance at the club and then look at the style of football we were playing at the time to pick out things such as Bell is a pacey player who likes to get in behind and either bring the ball across the area with a low driven cross or likes to get on an angle to shoot. When Manning came in he was using him like he was a deep winger who cuts inside which is not where Bell was at his best. Conway is another example, he's a menace when you give him a ball to run onto alongside a defender and instead we keep going wide looking for crosses, he's just not that fox in the box style player so again, not playing to his strengths at all. Manning has already shown that his clear intention is to play the one style he likes to play and rather than take the assets he has in players and create a system that gets the best from them he's trying to mould them into the type of player he needs to suit his system and that clearly isn't working. What further frustrates is when he was asked if he'd change his set up/coaching ideals he flat out said no, so essentially he's not capable of adapting as someone like Pearson is. When Pearson was struggling with us he looked at what he had, he looked at where we were weak and where he could get more from our players and built his gameplan and style around that, he found round holes and used his round pegs, Manning has round pegs and he's trying to hit them with a hammer through triangular shaped holes and seems confused as to why he's getting no where and still won't look to try a different peg or hole. I'm convinced that Summer, new players, a pre-season... none of it will help unless we somehow have the transfer window of a lifetime and bring in insanely quality players that are able to play to Mannings style of football but even then it would require not mid-level championship players to pull it off but top end level Championship players and simply put we don't have the finances to make those kinds of luxury transfers. Instead, we'll shop where Manning has managed, in League One and then we'll wonder why the system he employs just doesn't work. I've always been in the mindset of a manager will always need time at a club, but in all my time of supporting Bristol City I've never seen such a gulf in managerial ability as I've seen with replacing Pearson with Manning. Pearson may not have taken us up, but he did improve our league position whilst selling some of the best talent we've had in my lifetime, he also had the fans for the most part on the same page which is the biggest achievement in my personal opinion. I've been supporting City all my life and I think I've only seen our fans all in agreement for the most part on 3 occasions and Pearson was one. Manning has been here for 23 games and has completely polarized the fans, the home games are barely on par with a library at times, the players look frustrated and restricted and the board are not going to sack him because then they'll have to admit their mistake. Next season we're going to go into the season having had a pre-season with new players learning Manning-ball which will more than likely fail as he's so one-dimensional and we'll end up struggling until all of the fans finally turn on him and the board are forced to let him go, at which point we'll probably have lost good talent in Conway, Pring etc and will have a squad who have been trained to play a type of football that we can't live up to in this division and a new manager needed to do a proper rebuild job over multiple years.