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The rising star of Lee Johnson


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1 minute ago, ForeverRes said:

For me, I sense there are definitely fans waiting for it to go wrong, so they can jump back on LJ. 

The forums and social networks seem a lot quieter now we're doing well, than when we were doing badly. Which is strange.

Definitely a reluctance to like Johnson from quite a few, because they have been proven wrong. Obviously no one will admit to this, but some of the comments above will back this up. 

There’s only so many points of view when things are going right but many 100’s when things are going badly.  Not many debates to have at the moment so not strange there’s less comment?

Think your talking rowlocks mate :fear:

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4 hours ago, Ska Junkie said:

I was one allyolly so will answer you.

I certainly wanted him gone last season and stand by that, Fulham at home was my breaking point. He was extremely lucky to keep his position IMHO, extremely lucky. What now impresses me is how much he appears to have learnt from his own mistakes. An example, I was mortified when I saw that starting line up last night but the fella knows what he's doing a lot better than I do and had the confidence to do what he thought was right rather than taking the easy option. I'm not sure he would have done that last season. All strength to him but I am not apologising, again, for wanting him out last season because I still think he should have gone, last season, obviously proven wrong now.

Re boycotts, I didn't renew for the first time in eons and only saw 3 of the first 10 games but I can't stay away, 1/2 ST renewed and paid for and I really don't care if I can't get a United ticket either.

Actually I think he's doing very similar things to last season. Johnson has shown himself to be a manager that plays formations and tactics in response to what other teams tend to play, rather than Cotterill's "they react to us" system. 

The difference was, for whatever reason, we weren't up to it last season. Players were still getting used to their roles, loads of new players were coming through the door, certain players were annoyed that other players were getting the spotlight, so chucking in new tactics into each game might have been one step too far.

An interesting comment on the Fulham forum suggested we were a well drilled side of non-spectacular players. I think that's pretty accurate, although it slightly sells short how versatile we are tactically and how good we are on the ball. But, we're hard workers, first and foremost.

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6 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

I don’t think there are, are there?

i still stand by the fact that he should’ve got the boot last season. We were absolutely desperate for the most part.

But I’m not sure anyone could have seen this coming!

”What would Johnson have to do to win you back?”... this. Exactly this. 

I can sort of see your point. Cause most people would of and most clubs would of.

But surely despite that horrendous run, the current situation and turnaround makes that void. 

So for example, at the point of that 23rd game of that horrendous run, if someone turned to you and said "ok you can sack Johnson now, or you keep him and you'll stay up and next season after 15 games you'll be playing well and 4th in the league" what would you of done? 

If your decision was to keep him, then you can't now say you stand by your claim to sack him. Because that is the situation right now, back in reality. Ofcourse no one could foresee this happening, but it has, so you can't sit there and still say he should of been sacked.. Because surely you've been proven wrong? And the decision was right to keep him ? 

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6 minutes ago, Luxo Jr. said:

Actually I think he's doing very similar things to last season. Johnson has shown himself to be a manager that plays formations and tactics in response to what other teams tend to play, rather than Cotterill's "they react to us" system. 

The difference was, for whatever reason, we weren't up to it last season. Players were still getting used to their roles, loads of new players were coming through the door, certain players were annoyed that other players were getting the spotlight, so chucking in new tactics into each game might have been one step too far.

An interesting comment on the Fulham forum suggested we were a well drilled side of non-spectacular players. I think that's pretty accurate, although it slightly sells short how versatile we are tactically and how good we are on the ball. But, we're hard workers, first and foremost.

Bang on. Players let him down last year, for whatever reason. I still stand by that 

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3 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

I’m saying that his sacking would have been wholly justified. He didn’t really have a leg to stand on with regards to keeping his job. We were terrible.

Nothing will ever change my mind that SL should have sacked him, but he didn’t. And  in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. But if I didn’t stand by my thoughts at the time, my opinions would be worth shit. 

 

 

 

To me, this the point though. I absolutely agree that, looking at it from the outside, LJ should have been sacked last season and that would have been wholly justified based on results. However I also think we forget as fans that we do not always have the full picture. I don't necessarily agree SL "should" have sacked him - although I thought it at the time - because obviously SL could see what was going on internally and had enough information to know that LJ was not actually the issue.

The turn around in results has been spectacular. I'm sure part of that has been learning from mistakes but I suspect at the same time that it's not so much that LJ has suddenly improved as a manager but that issues that were preventing him to do the role to his best of his ability have now been resolved.  I certainly don't think you or anyone else is wrong to stand by their view that, based on the evidence available to us as fans, he should have been sacked. But the fact that SL had access to evidence and information we didn't have probably means not sacking him last season was the right decision, baffling though it was at the time. I don't think LJ is a different manager to last season but that he is one working in a different environment. 

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You have to be lucky as well as a good coach, I would love to know whether LJ really saw Bobby was the striker with all the attributes he was searching the market for, or actually just got lucky they couldn't recruit their primary targets, which gave Bobby the chance to show in the pre-season games that he had a knack for goal.

We'll never know (and it doesn't really matter what the truth is) as Lee has now created a narrative that he suddenly saw Bobby had everything he wanted and thank heavens for that, as he has probably been the most important part of the turnaround, I just struggle to believe we really let Tomlin go with no replacement just because LJ suddenly saw Bobby had a gift for goals that was never apparent in all the previous training sessions.

 

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12 minutes ago, RumRed said:

There’s only so many points of view when things are going right but many 100’s when things are going badly.  Not many debates to have at the moment so not strange there’s less comment?

Think your talking rowlocks mate :fear:

Yeh you're right. Less to debate. 

I just personally sense a reluctance from a few. Just the vibe I'm getting. Mainly social networks which I use more often than this to be honest 

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1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Seems like the latest backhand way to slightly detract from LJ's achievements. The thread isn't about the coaching staff, it's about Johnson.

Also, Johnson was the one who appointed them so he lives and dies by those appointments.

Strange that when Macca and Holden cam along things started to improve though. See other thread. Surely he can't take all the plaudits. Unfair if so.

 

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14 minutes ago, robinreliant said:

Strange that when Macca and Holden cam along things started to improve though. See other thread. Surely he can't take all the plaudits. Unfair if so.

 

Obviously though, we'll never know whether the decision to remove their predecessors was SL or LJ driven. If LJ pushed for the replacements, he absolutely deserves plaudits for that. Same for SL, by the way. 

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1 hour ago, Dullmoan Tone said:

You have to be lucky as well as a good coach, I would love to know whether LJ really saw Bobby was the striker with all the attributes he was searching the market for, or actually just got lucky they couldn't recruit their primary targets, which gave Bobby the chance to show in the pre-season games that he had a knack for goal.

We'll never know (and it doesn't really matter what the truth is) as Lee has now created a narrative that he suddenly saw Bobby had everything he wanted and thank heavens for that, as he has probably been the most important part of the turnaround, I just struggle to believe we really let Tomlin go with no replacement just because LJ suddenly saw Bobby had a gift for goals that was never apparent in all the previous training sessions.

 

Well a lot of what you have said there goes against reality.

It had been said numerous times how Bobby scored frequently in training.

LJ also came out and said that rather than him "seeing" something he gave Bobby the chance up front in preseason because of injuries.

With Diedhiou, Djuric, Engvall, Taylor you there's no point signing a striker for the sake of it when the others are injured.

Engvall went back out on loan and we brought in Woodrow as extra cover. Reid did well enough in preseason to warrant testing him as a striker in a competetive game and has been a revelation.

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19 minutes ago, robinreliant said:

Strange that when Macca and Holden cam along things started to improve though. See other thread. Surely he can't take all the plaudits. Unfair if so.

 

Is it? When Holden arrived we went on a terrible losing run. McAllister came along and things improved. We don't really know what goes on day to day and how much positive impact coaches have. We just see a matchday.

I think really, it's a sum of the parts and they all help eachother. Johnson was the one who chose and appointed them though, he gets it in the neck if things go badly and ultimately his job is far more at risk than theirs.

No one is saying Johnson should take all the plaudits. It's a team effort from groundsmen to players to manager to fans. This thread is specifically about Johnson though.

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1 hour ago, Dullmoan Tone said:

You have to be lucky as well as a good coach, I would love to know whether LJ really saw Bobby was the striker with all the attributes he was searching the market for, or actually just got lucky they couldn't recruit their primary targets, which gave Bobby the chance to show in the pre-season games that he had a knack for goal.

We'll never know (and it doesn't really matter what the truth is) as Lee has now created a narrative that he suddenly saw Bobby had everything he wanted and thank heavens for that, as he has probably been the most important part of the turnaround, I just struggle to believe we really let Tomlin go with no replacement just because LJ suddenly saw Bobby had a gift for goals that was never apparent in all the previous training sessions.

 

What an odd and fantastical attempt to try and detract from Johnson - talk about scraping the barrel!

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54 minutes ago, ForeverRes said:

For me, I sense there are definitely fans waiting for it to go wrong, so they can jump back on LJ. 

The forums and social networks seem a lot quieter now we're doing well, than when we were doing badly. Which is strange.

Definitely a reluctance to like Johnson from quite a few, because they have been proven wrong. Obviously no one will admit to this, but some of the comments above will back this up. 

If you find this "strange" or puzzling, you might be finding much of life - and other people in general - equally so.

Social psychology explains why bad is stronger than good. "The psychological effects of bad things outweigh the psychological effects of good ones." There is loads of stuff on this, try Roy Baumeister for starters. Hard to know where to begin but simply, we all have a negativity bias, and there is an evolutionary reason for this. If your ancestors had not been more pre-occupied with threats and potentially negative events, than they were with the good stuff, then you wouldn't be here today, to be delighted with your football club, and perplexed by many of your fellow fans.

Some other thoughts:

- people complain and moan to vent, and to get things off their chest. To cope with feeling like sh1t. Some more than others, mind.

- complaining/ moaning brings (some) people together - "a problem shared is a problem halved" and all that - and some people find solace that others also think "Johnson out!" Connections are made, and moaners do not feel quite so alone with their bereft feelings after the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th defeat in a row. We are a social species.

- in the language of emotions and emotion-related words, there is evidence to show that humans have many more words (about one and a half times more) for negative emotions than positive ones.

- research on affective forecasting shows that people overestimate the enduring impact of negative events much more than they overestimate the effect of positive events. This might explain a lot on here....

I could go on. For example, the American psychologist John Gottman studied married couples and found that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five, or more, positive interactions. If your ratio is 1 negative to 2 positive, look out! That's not enough because bad is stronger than good. Something for a few Otibers to ponder on, there.

And the same applies to football: the bad is stronger than the good and LJ needs something good to counter any more bad, such as last winter's run. A league cup quarter final and 2 defeats in 15 (very good bad/good ratio!) is very good going and building up some faith amongst the "faithful," with all our individual negativity biases and individual responses to the "bad."

Hope this helps?

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26 minutes ago, robinreliant said:

Strange that when Macca and Holden cam along things started to improve though. See other thread. Surely he can't take all the plaudits. Unfair if so.

 

Why is okay for Johnson to take all the blame when things are going badly, but when things are going well then he needs to share the plaudits?

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1 hour ago, Dullmoan Tone said:

You have to be lucky as well as a good coach, I would love to know whether LJ really saw Bobby was the striker with all the attributes he was searching the market for, or actually just got lucky they couldn't recruit their primary targets, which gave Bobby the chance to show in the pre-season games that he had a knack for goal.

We'll never know (and it doesn't really matter what the truth is) as Lee has now created a narrative that he suddenly saw Bobby had everything he wanted and thank heavens for that, as he has probably been the most important part of the turnaround, I just struggle to believe we really let Tomlin go with no replacement just because LJ suddenly saw Bobby had a gift for goals that was never apparent in all the previous training sessions.

 

Was discussing this the other day, wondering whether LJ struck lucky with Taylor being injured pre-season?

Who knows? More to the point, who cares..?!!

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9 minutes ago, Jack Dawe said:

If you find this "strange" or puzzling, you might be finding much of life - and other people in general - equally so.

Social psychology explains why bad is stronger than good. "The psychological effects of bad things outweigh the psychological effects of good ones." There is loads of stuff on this, try Roy Baumeister for starters. Hard to know where to begin but simply, we all have a negativity bias, and there is an evolutionary reason for this. If your ancestors had not been more pre-occupied with threats and potentially negative events, than they were with the good stuff, then you wouldn't be here today, to be delighted with your football club, and perplexed by many of your fellow fans.

Some other thoughts:

- people complain and moan to vent, and to get things off their chest. To cope with feeling like sh1t. Some more than others, mind.

- complaining/ moaning brings (some) people together - "a problem shared is a problem halved" and all that - and some people find solace that others also think "Johnson out!" Connections are made, and moaners do not feel quite so alone with their bereft feelings after the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th defeat in a row. We are a social species.

- in the language of emotions and emotion-related words, there is evidence to show that humans have many more words (about one and a half times more) for negative emotions than positive ones.

- research on affective forecasting shows that people overestimate the enduring impact of negative events much more than they overestimate the effect of positive events. This might explain a lot on here....

I could go on. For example, the American psychologist John Gottman studied married couples and found that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five, or more, positive interactions. If your ratio is 1 negative to 2 positive, look out! That's not enough because bad is stronger than good. Something for a few Otibers to ponder on, there.

And the same applies to football: the bad is stronger than the good and LJ needs something good to counter any more bad, such as last winter's run. A league cup quarter final and 2 defeats in 15 (very good bad/good ratio!) is very good going and building up some faith amongst the "faithful," with all our individual negativity biases and individual responses to the "bad."

Hope this helps?

Nice post to be fair. Quite interesting 

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3 minutes ago, robinreliant said:

Why shouldn't he. I'm sure he would agree. I agree he's doing a good job. I'm not disputing that.

But you seem to object to him getting all the credit for our good form. I assume that last year you weren't arguing that the coaching staff should share the blame for our hideous run of form?

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I could completely understand why fans would want LJ gone when we were in the middle of our poor/dire run last season and I think we all know that at just about every other club the owner would have sacked a manager/coach with those results.

However, for some time prior to LJ's appointment it was clear that SL was trying to fundamentally change the way the club was structured and running and doing so with a long term plan and vision. 

Looking back we have been a typical club, with managers sacked the minute results go the wrong way, only to then have to regroup and restart everything from scratch, working the way the new manager wants things to be done, so getting rid of players, and bringing in replacements and often embarking on a completely different footballing philosophy ( most geared towards losing more than we won!). Underpinning al of this, was SL bankrolling the club because he had the means to do so.

SL seemed to have put togegther a plan where the club was developing a structure and footballing philosophy that would in itself determine the type of player we would sign ( age, potential the right DNA) so that players would fit our style rather than the other way around. This plan also seemed to be such that in future we would bring in a coach/manager who would fit with and continue the club's style and philosophy, rather than the club chopping and changing players, and playing style with every new manager appointment.

The only issue I could see was getting the whole excercise up and running, and carrying it through. Some parts were starting to develop - the academy and player recruitment - but we had not gone far down the road before the results wheels came off last season. The question then was whether Sl was going to risk the whole plan by knee jerking and getting rid of LJ ( who I believe he chose in the first place because he fit with and bought in to the plan) and replacing him with a "traditional" manager, who could turn things around, but only by doing away with SL's "grand plan"

This was the reason I wanted LJ to say, despite the results saying otherwise. This is the first time in my 50 years supporting City that the club has been so organised from top to bottom, and with a something in place that sensibly can see the club progress in a managed way and there is no way I would want a dinosaur, like Warnock, for all his undoubted ability, to come in and upturn in an instant everything that had been put in place. Of course it was a huge leap of faith by SL to keep LJ on in the face of fans opinion, but SL didn't get to be a billionaire by not trusting and backing his judgement, so I am delighted that at the moment that judgement has been vindicated.

It was close run thing as only one or two results going against us could have been curtains , but we are where are and we seem to be profiting as a result. I am sure that one of the reasons we are profiting is because both LJ and some of his inexperienced players learned so much from last seasons struggles, and their performances tis season are the better for it.

 

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From a management/ leadership it’s incredibly difficult to change a culture overnight and, it’s the culture of any organisation that needs to be right before anything can be built on it. SL, I feel, understood this and LJ was very clear about exactly what he wanted and how he planned to achieve it and they would both have known it would take time which was, against usual footballing norms given despite it looking hopeless. You have to engage the energy givers and diffuse the drainers whilst all the time staying positive yourself. I was once told ( in my leadership days) that draining the swamp was relatively easy it’s just fighting off the b***** crocodiles at the same time that makes it hard! Add someone lazy, not prepared to change and downright antagonistic into the mix and you get where we were last year when the dressing room was supposedly lost...I’m convinced LJ stood there tearing his hair along with the rest of us last season, thinking I’ve been really clear about what I want you to do but you’re just not doing it! I once had a run in with an employee who told me a system I’d introduced “ didn’t work”... my response was “How do you know? You never use it!”. How I empathised with LJ last season!!! So well done to everyone for persevering, onwards and upwards!

 

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3 hours ago, ForeverRes said:

The only way he was gunna turn you around was top 6 or promotion? Seems a little extreme. Considering we've never been into the prem before. 

How about cementing ourselves as a solid championship club first? 

I don't go much for this consolidation lark especially when its 3 million in the Champs and 100 million in the Prem...plus parachutes... So there is zero reason to consolidate; its just a very poor business decision.

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18 hours ago, EmersonsRed said:

No surprise. We have a great coach on our hands. Evidently clear from the second he walked through the door.

Ha ha ha, one person with the 'rubbish' reaction... Who could that be??? The gas head himself @Thatch35 muahaha, how terrible it must be for you to see us succeed so brilliantly with a fantastic manager at the helm. Incredible. 

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19 hours ago, reddogkev said:

Plaudits have to be given to Lee for this outstanding start to the season.

When things are going so well, both on and off the pitch, when teams start reaching quarter finals of serious cup competitions, it means the manager is doing a superb job.

Top work Lee, let's hope you can take City onwards and upwards -  firstly to become a feared Championship side, and then push for a spot in the top division.

 

johnson OUT

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1 hour ago, havanatopia said:

I don't go much for this consolidation lark especially when its 3 million in the Champs and 100 million in the Prem...plus parachutes... So there is zero reason to consolidate; its just a very poor business decision.

I agree with where you are coming from. But when we go up, the chances are that unless we are extremely fortunate, we'll come straight back.

The aim therefor must be to get a squad that's good enough to get us up, mature enough to keep the morale going if we do drop, yet young and good enough to takes us back up again within one or two seasons. A la Burnley recently and WBA a few years ago.

So are we yet at that stage? If LJ and Ashton think we are, then we go for it. If not, another year building, it is.

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