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All is well - we're safe!


OneCity

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We’re safe, and after too many dodgy seasons in the last 10 years, I am very damn pleased about it. Apart from our promotion season from  League 1, this is the first time for a while I can relax from March through to May.

Of course I want the play-offs, of course I want us to go up. I was in bloody junior school when last we were there. Many years and grey hairs later, still never seen a single minute of top flight football. (Didn't start watching till early 80's) So I want to see us get there, desperately!

It’s frustrating to slump like this now, but still, I feel tremendous strides have been made.

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can take from this year is lessons learned. Particularly LJ needs to take stock of a few things. He’s been terrific for us this season, but I do hope he adds a little bit of wisdom to his game, from certain errors he has made in important games. Notably a gung-ho tendency, when resolve, consolidation was called for (versus Wolves and Sunderland particularly).

Do we expect him to be perfect, some sort of new special one? I don't see how. He’s a relative rookie at his age, and still developing. I feel the tough lessons of last term progressed him as a manager. Hopefully that happens again, and next season we'll be better for it. For what has gone wrong these last couple of months, I for one am more than happy to give him the slack he deserves.

Yes there are flaws, issues and concerns, like the ropey recent performances, transfer policies, and season tickets etc. But the club still looks strong – looks hungry, like I’ve never seen it before. We’re playing some of the best stuff I’ve seen at the Gate for a long time. I’m excited for our club! If we finish in the top 10, having also reached the semi’s of the League Cup as well, I’ll count this season as a great success.

 

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25 minutes ago, cidercity1987 said:

Not reaching the play offs this season will feel to me probably worse than our last relegation. That was a long time coming but from 2nd on Boxing Day to 7th or lower is an epic failure.

weird logic, but hey   all about opinions

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Losing play off this season it will feel same as our relegation in 2013 too for me....  We were like 9 points above the 7th place, and they lost as hell too... soo, with like that two wins when we had three and two zero, and burton win we could still be in a still spot cause derby are falling, who knows maybe we can have like a good late season like usually we don t, we use to fail our last 6 games every single year.

I am upset and sad about our place now and no way on this planet that I can accept that after I saw the first part of the season.

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1 hour ago, cidercity1987 said:

Not reaching the play offs this season will feel to me probably worse than our last relegation. That was a long time coming but from 2nd on Boxing Day to 7th or lower is an epic failure.

Really?

My memory of 2012/13 was an utter ******* disgrace of a season, deservedly finishing bottom of the Championship about 10 points behind everyone else. 

You think failing to make the Play Offs this season would be worse than that embarrassment?

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It has been a good season, and the Cup run was brilliant. Even if we don't make playoffs, it will have been decent IMO...

...The big caveat though is that Wolves turnaround at AG though. Win that and we pass a big psychological hurdle...as well as pulling Wolves right back in and scuppering a 2 month unbeaten run for them.

That would have been huge for both sides, and the sad thing about that scenario, was that it was right in our hands an hour in, or at about quarter to 7 that evening.

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7 hours ago, South-of-river said:

Are you not a tad disappointed with potentially missing out on the playoffs

yes, but it's been a strange season (good and bad) for many reasons.

There is a history of "lesser" clubs seasons petering out after a good cup run and I was fearful this was going to happen to us (whilst enjoying the sensation of a win over Man U and going toe to toe with Man City). This is unfortunately proving to be the case.

In other ways, I'm not disappointed. The Premier League is finance happy and fan sad. Kick Offs rock up all over the place at the whim of Sky and BT Sport, and you'd find yourself as a "customer" more so than you do now. I was reading a thread on the West Ham forum which debated whether they were better off (as fans) in the Premier League or The Championship. I suspect Saints fans have similar debates

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Isn’t it funny? Seems the same people that slated the optimists like myself(thought we would get around 60 points and 12th in table) for thinking we would finish top half when they thought we would be in a relegation battle. They are now the same people most disappointed we have fallen out of the playoffs. 

We are basically mathematically safe with 9 games to go and still within 3 points of playoffs. You don’t have to be one or the other. You can be both disappointed we have had this dreadful run and lost or grip on the playoffs but slightly surprised we where there for as long as we were. Overall, it has been an above expectaions season and that perspective should be kept. 

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If we fail to make the playoffs from the position that we were in then I can't agree that it has been a good season. 

Our inexplicable capitulation for the second season in succession is a massive concern.

The summer could be very interesting in terms of movers and shakers at Ashton Gate and I reckon there might be a number of meltdowns in the pipeline.

We are safe from the drop, but that is a poor mask for the present problems.

It's such a shame that a season that one promised so much could end up producing so little. 

Hugely disappointing that we can go from champagne football to clueless hoofball within the space of a couple of months.

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11 hours ago, OneCity said:

Particularly LJ needs to take stock of a few things. He’s been terrific for us this season, but I do hope he adds a little bit of wisdom to his game, from certain errors he has made in important games. Notably a gung-ho tendency, when resolve, consolidation was called for (versus Wolves and Sunderland particularly).

Do we expect him to be perfect, some sort of new special one? I don't see how. He’s a relative rookie at his age, and still developing. I feel the tough lessons of last term progressed him as a manager. Hopefully that happens again, and next season we'll be better for it. For what has gone wrong these last couple of months, I for one am more than happy to give him the slack he deserves.

Yes there are flaws, issues and concerns, like the ropey recent performances, transfer policies, and season tickets etc. But the club still looks strong – looks hungry, like I’ve never seen it before. We’re playing some of the best stuff I’ve seen at the Gate for a long time. I’m excited for our club! If we finish in the top 10, having also reached the semi’s of the League Cup as well, I’ll count this season as a great success.

 

I think, for a while back there - September til when we went 1:0 up v Wolves - we did allow ourselves to think he had some sort of magic going on, some thing "special," and then all the plaudits from the Man City games, when we were "media darlings" for a fortnight, we all - if we're honest, I know not all will be - got just a bit carried away and started to dream. We got sucked into a fantasy. We couldn't see how this would end.

Then Frankie had his mad moment, or Marlon chose not to boot it into row Z, whichever you prefer, and the Wolves game went tits up, then Villa, and the dream was no more, and reality, rudely, began to bite.

Johnson is not "special," there is no magic, he duped us! We feel so stupid for allowing us to dream so big. We are ordinary again. Not special. Johnson led us on, teased us, we believed in him. 

Saturday wasn't special, there was no magic up there. We were so ordinary and mundane, and we are disappointed/feel let down/need to lash out (take your pick).

Or it might just be me. I don't know.

 

But we are safe, we'll be in the Championship again next season, which is ok! If not great. We just have to put up with being a bit dull, mundane and not special for nine games. Then we can start dreaming again.

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The thing is, we had a slow start to the season- we forget this, but we got 6 points from the first 5 which included giving away a lead at Birmingham, getting battered at Brentford- yet somehow escaping with a last minute draw and a 0-0 at home to Millwall in which we dominated the ball, but they probably had the best chances. 6 points from 5 games does tell a story though.

The point I'd make is that you can only afford one bad run in a season to be in the top 6- and it can be balanced by our fine Friday night draw v Villa and our superb first half v an admittedly struggling Barnsley. However, what is notable is that in that month of inconsistency, we played roughly the same setup as now. 4-4-2 with Brownhill and Paterson as the wide men who come inside...a return to 4-4-1-1 with Paterson behind Reid, and some other tweaks please (when Baker, Flint and Bryan all back that is). We were at our most cohesive in that spell- of course if O'Dowda returns then it changes again and gives us much more chance to play the way we are.

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I think what people tend to forget is that the league season is 46 games and that each team has to play everyone twice home and away. You win nothing in December (just ask Swindon). Who wouldn't have taken 7th and a League Cup semi-final appearance in Mid March at the start of the season?

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Crazy as it may seem, this ' melt down ' is worrying me for next season .

 I know lots of things can and will change before then but a tailspin is very difficult to get out of .

We are in relegation form, drawing when we should win and losing when a draw was on the cards,

The mindset needs to change now or the stench of failure will pervade our forthcoming campaign.

 

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19 hours ago, cidercity1987 said:

Not reaching the play offs this season will feel to me probably worse than our last relegation. That was a long time coming but from 2nd on Boxing Day to 7th or lower is an epic failure.

And we all laughed at Holloway and the Gas in 1999/2000

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So we all started the season hoping it wasn’t going to be as difficult as last season and a mid table position would be a regarded as an achievement compared to “before” 

Instead we’ve had promotion form for the half a season, followed by virtual relegation form for the second half and we’re looking at a mid table position and it seems that most are happy with City likely to achieve they’re pre season prediction.

It appears to me that after out first half of the season, even those with the most pessimistic outlook would say that a mid table finish would be disappointing. We may be only 3 points outside the play offs,  but that’s only because we did so well before Christmas. 

At the end of the season, if we are mid- table. I for one will look back at a season where we had it for the taking and we didn’t. Most other teams would kick the manager out when that happens, not something I think we should do. But we do need to take a good look a what has gone wrong.

Last season we ended lower mid table, but we at least ended the season with positive momentum. But this season there’s a distinct possibility we’ll do the opposite. 

In conclusion: Looking at the table after 46 games has historically been the the way to judge a season. However this season that’s not the case. It just doesn’t tell the story. 

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13 minutes ago, Lord Northski said:

So we all started the season hoping it wasn’t going to be as difficult as last season and a mid table position would be a regarded as an achievement compared to “before” 

Instead we’ve had promotion form for the half a season, followed by virtual relegation form for the second half and we’re looking at a mid table position and it seems that most are happy with City likely to achieve they’re pre season prediction.

It appears to me that after out first half of the season, even those with the most pessimistic outlook would say that a mid table finish would be disappointing. We may be only 3 points outside the play offs,  but that’s only because we did so well before Christmas. 

At the end of the season, if we are mid- table. I for one will look back at a season where we had it for the taking and we didn’t. Most other teams would kick the manager out when that happens, not something I think we should do. But we do need to take a good look a what has gone wrong.

Last season we ended lower mid table, but we at least ended the season with positive momentum. But this season there’s a distinct possibility we’ll do the opposite. 

In conclusion: Looking at the table after 46 games has historically been the the way to judge a season. However this season that’s not the case. It just doesn’t tell the story. 

Agreed. I'd look at glass half full if we had worked our way up to a mid table finish, but that's not the case. The drop from 2nd to outside of the playoffs is staggering.

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I don’t get a lot of posts on here...I certainly didn’t expect to be up where we are in March, I always thought we’d finish somewhere like 12th to 15th.....but we were 2nd in December....if another club plummeted like we have in a couple of months,  serious questions would be asked, lots of our fans seem to prefer delicately treading on eggshells whilst tiptoeing around the elephant in the room....we should be furious that we have dropped from 2nd to outside the play offs in a short space of time....but no, we just trot out the tired old lines that the players must be ‘tired’ or the cup run ‘has caught up with us’ or ‘we have had too many injuries’ or ‘we have been found out’ etc etc etc....

Other, more passionate, fan bases would be seething, but not Bristolians....we offer excuses when we had an amazing opportunity...it’s a shame...

 

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On 11/03/2018 at 21:50, OneCity said:

We’re safe, and after too many dodgy seasons in the last 10 years, I am very damn pleased about it. Apart from our promotion season from  League 1, this is the first time for a while I can relax from March through to May.

Of course I want the play-offs, of course I want us to go up. I was in bloody junior school when last we were there. Many years and grey hairs later, still never seen a single minute of top flight football. (Didn't start watching till early 80's) So I want to see us get there, desperately!

It’s frustrating to slump like this now, but still, I feel tremendous strides have been made.

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can take from this year is lessons learned. Particularly LJ needs to take stock of a few things. He’s been terrific for us this season, but I do hope he adds a little bit of wisdom to his game, from certain errors he has made in important games. Notably a gung-ho tendency, when resolve, consolidation was called for (versus Wolves and Sunderland particularly).

Do we expect him to be perfect, some sort of new special one? I don't see how. He’s a relative rookie at his age, and still developing. I feel the tough lessons of last term progressed him as a manager. Hopefully that happens again, and next season we'll be better for it. For what has gone wrong these last couple of months, I for one am more than happy to give him the slack he deserves.

Yes there are flaws, issues and concerns, like the ropey recent performances, transfer policies, and season tickets etc. But the club still looks strong – looks hungry, like I’ve never seen it before. We’re playing some of the best stuff I’ve seen at the Gate for a long time. I’m excited for our club! If we finish in the top 10, having also reached the semi’s of the League Cup as well, I’ll count this season as a great success.

 

The best post I've read on here for a while.

Followed by this, one of the worst. 

On 11/03/2018 at 22:25, cidercity1987 said:

Not reaching the play offs this season will feel to me probably worse than our last relegation. That was a long time coming but from 2nd on Boxing Day to 7th or lower is an epic failure.

 

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