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We don't win anything anyway.

Theres a lot of old ground here but just to confirm: - You may think we’ve progressed under Liam, but under the “bottom line” metric of ppg under him vs prior to his appointment we haven’t. Yes he’s had an unbeaten run but he’s also had awful runs and in the round, he currently can’t be seen as an improvement. And as the base he was coming in from was stronger than Pearson inherited then it’s very hard to argue he’s been a success in any way shape or form at the moment. That may change, but getting more out of Mehmeti, when he’s still not great, isn’t a CV headline at all - As for Tinnion. We see a lot of this conflating - and to be clear what he did for this club as a player (whatever your opinion of him) means nothing in his current role. What he did in the academy (noting there is a school of thought that it was Probert, and it undeniably relied on a willing manager) means nothing in his current role. Nada. Zilch. Zip. If you worked in Tesco and were great at shelf stacking and decent at training it doesn’t mean you can then run the company! Hes one of the top three men in the football hierarchy. He’s 56 years old. He shouldn’t need “guidance” - he’s the definition of an old head. Bluntly enough if he can’t do the job he’s in now then he’s never going to be able to, and shitting the bed publicly all the time isn’t a look you want from a man making decisions in a multi million pound company. Too many people conflate their view of Tinnion as a club legend because they liked his left foot and remember Anfield with the competencies needed in his current role. And the sooner that stops the sooner we can progress.

Fair play to you for finding any enjoyment out of Manning-ball. Sadly I find his brand of football to be boring as dogshit.

What amazes me is how fans are happy to put up with this sh*t every season, totally bemused. How the Lansdowns and this ridiculous “Board” have got away with so many bad decisions for so long is just dumbfounding for most. Unbelievable.

Bloody hell. This thread feels like we’re fighting to reach the bottom. Sifting through a haystack to find the only bad news needle hidden there. I’d go as far to say the negativity of the mainstream media my be the culprit here. There are improvements since Liam took over. An unbeaten streak for one. How long was Nigel’s best unbeaten run compared to Liams? Then factor in that one bloke had years in charge and the other has had months. Then factor in the number of transfer windows. If we’d have won on Saturday we’d have finished above Coventry which would have been a huge achievement when you look at the season they’ve had. Nige got the best out of a lot of mediocre players but he couldn’t get as much out of Mehmetti as Liam has. And as for Tins are we really going to let a few mistakes on social media cover over everything he has achieved with the club as a player and in his academy roles. Look at some of the players he’s brought through. Scott, Semenyo and others featuring regularly in the first team. He may need more guidance than he’s getting and needs to learn from his mistakes, I acknowledge that, but I’m not sure cutting ties with him completely would do us any favours when it comes to player development.

This whole thread exemplifies the thing that really mystifies me about BCFC and the Lansdown stewardship of it. That is the seemingly total lack of suitable well documented and articulated targets. The financial services industry is stuffed full of them. No self respecting fund manager does not know their target to the nearest pound. Every element is targeted. Costs, returns. It is not possible to move without someone putting a number to it to measure performance. Yet very little of that rigour seems to have been applied to the football club. We have vague targets which no one seems to measure and even fewer people seem to understand. We have managers fired, but we, and they, don’t know why and a CEO who seemed to give up and leave because he could not work out what his job was. The whole club appears to have a level of professionalism which would not be acceptable in a local charity. Then they wonder why other similar sized clubs deliver outcomes of which we can only dream. It’s not complicated Steve, they do it because they have a plan. For them the objective is not about not upsetting Jon, it’s 100 percent about getting into the premier league. Until BCFC understands that, it will not happen. Change comes from the top.

Never forget.

I haven't watched any of the kids to be honest, but straight off the bat Knight-Lebel. An obvious one at that. He moved around several players, including Sykes to LWB, rather than play him in some dead rubbers in his natural position. Came off the bench at Forest and looked calm and assured - surely should have been given a chance in the final two matches at the very least. The repeatedly understaffed bench rather than bringing some along for the senior match day experience. Again, as well documented elsewhere, he's never been one to give youth a chance in either of his previous EFL jobs. Let me flip it round. Seeing as Tinnion is always banging on about the pathway etc, what signs are you seeing that make you believe that he will utilise the very expensive tool at his disposal...? For my money we might as well release SPH as there's no way he's going to make it here. Manning plays 1 striker and a "number 10", both positions that we are stated to be recruiting in. SPH, no matter how good he may be, won't be getting in the squad ahead of Cornick, Wells and Conway. The Academy has been a minable product that has helped to keep the club from going into administration over the past 10 years. It feels to me though that Manning is doing all he can to ignore it.

Flint was a rare beast amongst Bristol City players - he was a player we signed at a low cost, saw the absolute best of and sold at a considerable profit at exact right moment. I can’t think of many that fit that description. Of course he had strengths and weaknesses but he is a deserved Bristol City cult hero.

At the time I would have given anything to have been there with my then-10 year old. In hindsight, a bullet dodged. We have some absolute morons in our country.

12 games vs 7 games if you want facts! Ended by Manchester City!!! (9 games vs 7 games if you only want league games)

You afford time to managers who need to rebuild. We were told that wasn’t the case here.

A player who fans connected with and remembered fondly due to their personality, playing style or commitment on the pitch. I broadly agree with @Silvio Dante's assessment of Flint. A very decent Championship-level centre-back with some flaws in his game, who we cashed in on at the right time. But he was the mainstay of our defence for five seasons, three of them in the Championship, one where we looked genuinely competitive in the division. He scored a gloriously ridiculous numbers of goals for a centre-back, many of them in a style you just don't expect a centre-back to score in. He connected with the fans to an extent that one interview he gave led to a terrace song that outlasted his time at the club and his uncompromising playing style endeared him to supporters, even at points where we had little to cheer about on the pitch. Flint wouldn't be in my best XI City players and there are other CBs we've had in recent years that I rate higher than him but players like Flint embody the joy of watching football and every team needs two or three players with a bit of character about them that the fans can connect with. For me, Flint is one of the first players that comes to mind when I think about my experiences of watching City over the past ten years and I'd not want to be without players like that.

FWIW I’m a big fan of Roberts, but he came in to the club, sulked at not being a guaranteed starter, sulked at being told to play 21s to keep himself sharp, asked to go out on loan, and then got a bad injury. I don’t think that’s any cause for ‘out of favour/not rated by the old guard’.

"Always Believe" - Always Believe what Brian?, that you are a total incompetant moron?, That we will continue to be the mediocre vanilla club of the championship for the next 10 years?. That the people at the top of the club are clueless and will never bring success?.... If that's what you mean then don't worry brother, i "believe" whole heartedly.

Hope AF does well on his final few seasons. He gave us good service .

A lot of our fans have fallen into that trap of thinking we've improved this season. I don't get it. Surely the aim every season is to win the league? Win every game etc? And then when that's not likely you then adjust your targets. I don't like this whole attitude of being happy of finishing mid table once again. It's not high performance. It's setting a culture that some sort of failure is OK. The organisation did set targets. They were missed. Now they and their apologists are trying to frame this season as a positive to try and save face.

It’s an interesting point Davefevs. In my experience when organisations do not set clear, concise and transparent objectives they tend not to deliver. I wonder if NASA would ever have got to the moon if the senior staff had spent years saying they wanted to perhaps get somewhere closer to the ‘top end’ of the atmosphere in the hope that if they did that for a while they might get to land somewhere on a rock close by. It might sound flippant but it’s the way I feel about the club. There is a complete lack of focus on delivery. They think if they make vague promises and make endless changes eventually something good will happen. It is the triumph of optimism over reality.

I went to the semi final, things were pretty bad with drunkenness on a huge scale, people vomiting and urinating everywhere you looked. This was at 5pm on a work day, so 3 hours before kick off. The final was a disaster waiting to happen, a 2 o’clock kick off time would have been great but was never going to happen. It struck me at the semi final, seeing people completely off their heads, some collapsed, some staggering around being sick, this was going to be one of the biggest sporting events of their lives, something they could remember and talk about until the day they die and they were lucky enough to have tickets, in most cases. Yet they were happy to miss it or have no memory of it and get off their heads all day instead. Weird. I look forward to seeing this documentary.

I think what can be said (and kind of tying it into Tinnions competence), is that under Liam we’ve stood still or worsened slightly in multiple factors: - The ppg is slightly worse - No real movement on the pathway - For those he has improved (and again taking Mehmeti from not completely pointless to just largely so is not a W) there are equal and opposite reactions - and you’d expect that under any manager. Mehmeti/Roberts may have improved but Sykes has gone backwards, as has Conway. At best it’s a zero sum game. - In terms of signings, the two we know have Liams fingerprints have been bizarre (Mebude) or patchy (Twine) The inherent thing here is twofold; if we’ve not improved (and if people think the style is better that is subjective), then the change - at the time it was made - has failed. However, to plough a well worn furrow, what did greater harm is the manner in which it was done - and that we’ve paid out two loads of wages to stand still! The other thing if this - Liam by his own analysis likes time on the grass and bemoaned the lack of that in the season due to the schedule. I’m unconvinced that he’ll get it right in the summer as he’s 50/50 on pre seasons thus far. But everything about appointing him - both in hindsight in the way of the factors above - and in foresight of how he likes to work - says he should have been a summer appointment. And the key thing Tinnion and Lansdown screwed up was not facilitating a smooth transition at a stable club

The bloke played 228 games in the Championship. When you say form, you mean goals don't you. Because he was a good Championship defender.

I can only imagine how illuminated, enlightened, enthused, and stimulated Aden was following the “football chats” with you - especially with your nonsensical critique of his footballing ability. Its a testament to him as a man and a professional that he did not retire immediately based on your view. Deary me.

He's under contract, so yes.

There is a danger of us getting into a discussion which is just arguing for the sake of it. Because in many ways I don’t disagree with what you are saying. But my point is that our ‘target’ was not to achieve points, our target is to get promoted. You cannot even start to think of that until you get to 6th place. So you right to say we don’t know before a ball is kicked how many points are needed to get to 6th. But essentially I do not really care. We need to be at least the sixth best team in the league. I think of it like this, if we scraped 72 points got 6th and then fluked the playoffs and went up, I would consider that more of a successful season than if we got 90 points finished 3rd and then lost the playoff semi final. Would you not agree? I also don’t consider this season a massive step backwards. Had Pearson stayed I think we would have been in contention for the playoffs longer but we would have been very lucky to get promotion, the squad is not strong enough. My concern is that I think the club is much weaker now than it was 12 months ago. I had some confidence that a management structure which had delivered promotion out of the championship and the Scott money gave the club a good chance of promotion in the next couple of seasons. I have less faith in the current leadership as it has delivered nothing but excuses and lies.

Or they’ve got an exceptionally old squad.

It's annoying that because of the board talking bollocks, we're all here bickering about the head coach. Ultimately, Nige wasn't sacked because of performance or expectations. The problem was the working relationship and the perception of Nige as not what the club wanted long term. So we lose a few games and the board jump at the opportunity. Us all quibbling about marginal differences in pppg, xG and points from playoffs is really quite ridiculous. Despite what the board said, the change wasn't about any of that. We're fools for being dragged into their Narnia, when actually most City fans agree that the sacking was harsh, that it's not Manning's fault, that the board talk shit, that we all want success next season, and that Manning really needs to deliver season on season improvement from hereon in.

And making excuses to justify their actions like Boris partying during covid which nobody was yet aware of at the time Its people like that who are partly responsible for why countries like Germany, USA, Mexico have hosted multiple World Cup finals since the one occasion that we did

Except Gavin Marshall on FBC stated, "we finished the season roughly where we expected to." So, was their target promotion or mid table ?

Numbers wise there would have to be more signings made this summer than I’m expecting for that to be the case. If James moves on & Bird is his replacement then we are still King’s usual place on the bench down after a season where we often only named 8 subs. I’m expecting Stokes, Seb P-H & Murphy, alongside the likes of Backwell & Knight-Lebel to be the players we look to for 2 of these spots.

So you DO agree with me.... Pointless and totally unnecessary to sack Pearson....

Mehmeti was not off to Oxford. He was wanted by them, there's a difference. So maybe look at "facts" instead.

This is flawed though. It's all well and good saying you aim for the best possible achievement, eg win your league - but if upon promotion last season, Rob Edwards had gone in day one of pre-seaason and said we're aiming to win the Premier League he'd be laughed out the building. It's one thing to not accept failure and aim high, but that target has to be achievable or you lose people straight away. I think that's where some managers come up with this 10 game block, because every individual outcome can sometimes be out of your control - but over a period you should have some sense of control of form. The organisation set poor targets (at least publically to fans). Fluffy, undefined targets such as "best possible chance of success" and "competing at the right end of the table". Everywhere I've played we've had a target points total, and back on the point about total points being progress but being further from play offs - both measures can be correct. I don't see this year as progress really, especially as it's been highly disrupted, it's about where I expected us to be had we not sacked Pearson (we'll never know if he would have achieved that or not) so to pull the trigger and end up in the same place, whilst fracturing the fanbase's trust and support and as many diabollically poor performances as there have been good - I'm not sure that's "progress" IMO. All that said, clean(ish) slate for Manning now. Next season is all about him and that's where he personally will be judged by most, as many of us can accept that it isn't HIS fault all this has happened. The aim for next season has to be minimum 70 points to be in and around the play off chatter, and generally beating the bottom 6 clubs and at least competing with the top 6.

I'm not sure this is true, I'll defer to @Davefevs on the passing. I'm not impressed with the passing between the back 4. We've conceded 5 less goals than last season. Improvement yes but you have to consider it in context. Last season we didn't have Dickie and for large parts we had a make shift defence. So the question I have is do we look more solid because we've been coached better like you are presumably implying, or do we look more solid because we have purchased a solid player and have had far greater availability in defence? Can you say with absolute certainty that those players wouldn't have improved under Pearson or any other manager? Williams for example, Pearson and his medical team worked extremely hard to get him to a fitness level where he can be a consistent Championship player. Comparing Williams from last season to this season would be unfair because of those fitness issues. Similar for Roberts and Mehmeti. Can you say with absolute certainty that they'd not have improved under Pearson or another manager? Has Manning got the best out of them or have they just followed the expected trend in their development? Let's also not act like these players are world beaters, because they are not. We are in danger here of thinking everything is rosey because we went on a good run. How did the perform during the bad runs? OK thats good that Conway is looking more threatening, what about earlier on in Mannings time here? Again this is a question for Dave but from what I've seen in my own eyes it doesn't appear that xG has improved. I don't think our pressing is anywhere near as good as it was previously and for a large part Manning moved away from pressing so I'm unsure why you have come to that conclusion. Whilst the Southampton and Leicester games were great results let's not forget that we could have played Leeds all night and still not scored for example.

Shit me, that's a good post.

All players affected have been fully aware of their individual position for some weeks now. All players are currently contracted until the summer and beyond so are a resource that will be used accordingly. Players desire to play or not isn’t their decision. It’s a club one depending on availability players.

A complete lack of moral integrity, and some fans seem to think that’s ok and it’s gone now, so let’s all renew our season tickets. Not happening. They’re shithouses and need to go.

You are known as a persistent regurgitator of your own nonsense, but still hard to understand this particular non sensical regurgitation when events over many years have proved your initial assessment of Flint, and doubling down on it numerous times, to be totally wrong.

Has anyone else watched the Netflix documentary about the Euro final against Italy? I knew it was bad what went on in and around Wembley Stadium that day, but blimey what an eye opener it was watching this Fortunately this kind of action was a one off that day

These are not facts! I'm not sure many of us would have selected Mehmeti either. He was in the process of receiving the Atkinson treatment. So you'd have dropped Pring for Roberts? Mehmeti was never on his way to Oxford. Naismith was in and out last season too, Kalas was injured all season. Atkinson whilst a very decent player, wasn't at the level Dickie is and JD was well, JD.

Theres a bit of a difference, Preston finished above us, and Huddersfield were relegated. This is the folly of comparing a game or two rather than PPG, because LM has some excellent results against the top sides of course. I’m still hopeful we can compete next season, but only with significant investment in the squad, something only possible through penny pinching and selling top players during NP’s time,

I think much of it comes down to personal preference and some personal bias too, in particular playing style preference. As I said in the early days of Manning when I was building my opinion, many suggested we were playing better, creating more chances, better chances, etc…when we weren’t! Perceptions!!! Overall Manning has achieved “similar” results in a different way is the easiest way of describing it. I could present lots of numbers to show that, but here’s a simple summary: For me, I’ve not been hugely impressed over 30+ games overall that his “on the grass” approach to producing “front foot, high press, forward thinking, attacking football” has reached much semblance of achievement, but…at least most of the 8 games since the international appear to be more closer to the desired brief from the Hierarchy, but they couldn’t be any worse than a bunch of pre-Easter games, could they? I could write loads more!

He was probably, at peak level, a decent mid table championship defender as that’s where he spent most of his time, and he was disposed of pretty quickly by Middlesbrough who were more looking at top six consistently at that time. Nothing wrong with that. I wasn’t a massive Flint fan, and as has been said, we really played a blinder with him transfer wise - disposed at the top of his value and replaced him with a far cheaper but far better replacement. The reason I wasn’t as big on him as others, as I said at the time, is he was very much a “bubble” player - he’d go and try and win a ball but it often disrupted the overall shape. As long as you win it though, that’s fine! But he was at his best for us playing in the Aden Flint bubble, focussing on his own game and with a weakness of not appreciating as much what was around him. It’s why I didn’t really see him as the leader of that side - but it doesn’t detract that what he was there to do, he did well. However I don’t recall him taking the armband for us which tells its own story. Fast forward to now, and two divisions lower, he can be skipper, and has clearly done excellently. No pace to really lose which helps, but he’s grown into that leadership. Not a player that touches my best City side but anyone that says he didn’t show good form in the Championship is a bit churlish.

Why focus on his limitations? I preferred to look at his strengths which were also clear for all to see. He was a great player for us at that time, the linchpin of that team.

Knees up mother brown knees up mother brown up the table we will go e aye e aye e aye oh when we got promotion this is what we’ll sing we all love him we all love him Galley is the king oi

I am with Robbed to some degree, we certainly saw the best of AF and he is now at his best level. Went from Stoke to Mansfield on a free ! Never made an impression at Stoke. Make of that what you will. Became a cult hero here with the famous Flint said 'No No No'... But we did the right thing and got a good fee for him at £8M (?) to Boro. Never again reproduced the form he showed for us.. in League One.

I know I’m late to the thread and this has probably been replied to but there’s absolutely no way you can compare Pearson’s tenure and Tinnion’s. We were a fairly big fish in League 1 and playoffs minimum expectation. That is in no way comparable to the job Pearson had to do keeping us up whilst reducing the wage budget, losing his best players and competing at a higher level against half a dozen teams with parachute payments

It’s more than that for me it’s dishonest. The establishment talk with forked tongue. When they want money from the supporters for season tickets and the rest it’s all about an inexorable rise to the holly land of the premier league. But when we fall short they resort to meaningless platitudes like ‘steady progress’ or ‘top end’. Getting out of the championship is one of the most difficult things to do in football. You don’t achieve difficult things by making excuses and backing away from difficult conversations. We have gone backwards this season. I accept sometimes you need to do that if you have made a wrong turn, but that does not seem to me to be what has happened. We went backwards because the terrible two were incapable of dealing with an experienced manager who spoke difficult truth to them. That does not bode well for the future. They need to consider if they really have the experience or skill to deliver for the club in the current structure. My view has been for some time that they do not. We have lost a manager and a chief executive who know how to win promotion and now have a leadership which has delivered nothing in football. Of course we may just get lucky and it might work, but if I were a betting man it is not a scenario which would appeal as a gamble.

Well he didn't show us much loyalty so what goes around comes around, a bit harsh though still.

Yep. We hope to make 9th in The Championship by 2325.

Oh yes. 90 minutes of `Sheeeeeehead` followed by a winning header from a corner would be just the ticket. I wonder if Mansfield could `forget` their kit just for the occasion?