firstdivision

We had the chances to win that game comfortably. The defending on the Norwich goal though was appalling, just amateurish. I’d like to know if the Norwich scorer was offside, but how we let them get in so easily was baffling.

It’s the Championship. Mad-as-hell league…

Of course. We should always strive to achieve and be successful. I was merely trying to provide some context. Plus, I remember some serious investment a few seasons back but that landed us in huge financial peril after Covid. It was not such a long ago we were second in the league at Christmas as a result of that investment. It’s not easy getting the balance right.

I think play-offs is out of reach as we stand (ie before summer recruitment - but it will need something significant to make us top six). Success next season (for me) is top ten with some exciting performances. Failure is flirting with relegation/still looking over our shoulder with ten games left. I think this league is brutal and there will be crap games and some poor performances. (I see myself as a realist.) We should kind of accept that , however frustrating it is. I’ve no idea whether LM will ‘succeed’ or not, but I have some patience. I never bought the hierarchy’s supposed suggestion that we were capable of top six this season. They didn’t fund a big/strong enough squad for that. I take a lot of what football people say with a pinch of salt. I can’t stand many of the unequivocal postings on this forum. They lack nuance and context. And I don’t like the personal attacks on LM. But that’s the world we live in: too much social media short-termism and knee-jerk reactions. Thirty years ago we went down the pub after a game, or whatever, and ranted with two or three mates about a performance. Now we come on here and other sites, and everything is amplified. It’s nuts, frankly. Plus, some people take themselves far too seriously. I’ve hardly posted recently because I can’t be bothered with the aggro. Only two Bristol City managers in history have succeeded in getting us into the top division and I don’t even know the name of the first one. Mid-table in the Championship is not the worst place to be. Ten seasons in the Championship have been pretty good compared to many of the other forty-four seasons I’ve witnessed. I’d like to see us in the PL before I die but it’s a damn hard thing to achieve. It needs wisdom, skill, money, patience and luck. I’m not holding my breath. I really hate losing and I want every BC manager to succeed. I don’t mind a sacking (ruthless when necessary) but I think LM deserves more time. I’m surprised you’ve nailed your colours this early in his tenure but that’s your prerogative. I’ve seen good and bad under LM and I expect that will continue under him and every other BC manager I’ll see. Because that’s pretty much football life.

What does success or failure look like under Liam Manning for you, Dave? (I suppose I mean next season for now - let’s start with that.)

A sound, level-headed summary.

I know. Seems daft by modern standards. As late as the 1974-75 season, we played Good Friday and then the following day. The reason I remember it was because it effectively cost us promotion. We won 1-0 at Southampton on Good Friday. Great result. Then the following day we played Norwich at home. They were one of our big promotion rivals. (They went up.) Norwich didn’t play the day before. So unjust by modern standards where the games are generally organised more fairly. Our performance was, unsurprisingly, lethargic. We lost 1-0 and missed out on promotion. Made up for it the following season though.

1955

Yep, it was a damp, miserable Good Friday. Tommy Tynan scored their winner late on when John Shaw, I think it was, misjudged a ball into our box. We had what seemed a good goal disallowed. We were in with a chance of back-to-back promotions. We beat promotion rivals Hull on Easter Monday 2-0, but fell away. Won only four of our last nine to finish 5th, six points behind the third promotion spot. No play-offs in those days.

Good points towards the end of the pod about the bitter, personal and relentless negativity (it’s embarrassing) and ‘learning on the job.’ If you’re not learning on the job, you’re not doing your job.

Yes, it’s amazing what you can achieve despite only having one eighth of the wisdom, tactical nous and man management and media skills of all the wise owls on this forum.

It’s astonishing, isn’t it. He just shoved him over in the box. How is that not a foul?

I only start to relax when we have 53pts. And only relax fully when the arithmetic says we are safe. This season is no different. We still have a bit to do.

For a City 'legend', he used to get hammered by some fans at certain times in his career.

What about our opponents' Xgs? How have they changed or otherwise?

Why are abusive about someone's opinions on a podcast you don't have to listen to/can simply ignore. You have enough opinions - why don't you create your own podcast if you don't like what you hear from Ian G?

No. It had nothing to do with that.

Swansea seem to me to be one of the most boring teams in league. Their 72 per cent possession stat is meaningless. For a team like us, we kind of had to play the way we did today to beat them. Imagine how their fans must have reacted to today. (I’ve seen how some of our fans have .)

I don’t disagree with that but I don’t see it as do or die. Perhaps I just have a little more patience than some, however much I hate it when we lose.

It really isn’t do or die, though, is it? We all hope next season is an improvement on this one, as this season has been a small improvement on the last one. Too many fans at too many clubs want to be angry or become angry about too much. We all hope for better but we’ll be better off if we leave the hyperbole aside. There will be another season after the next one and another season after that.

It was astonishing, wasn't it? A time-wasters' charter. Their tactics broke up any flow or momentum, which was what it was designed to do. (We would have done the same, I'm sure.) To those that say 'we never would have scored', that's certainly possible. But we definitely won't be able to score after the final whistle. We nearly did from that late corner, and we've all seen very late goals in games. At least apply the laws properly.

It was (a diving header, that is). I think the winner was a header as well.

That’s a fair point if we’d had six days to prepare like Boro and not 120 minutes on Wednesday. But we looked shattered in the second half. Rob Dickie was knackered.

I didn’t see it at the ground because I was caught outside in the ticket-distribution fiasco. But it looks a clear and outrageous handball. I thought so the first time I saw it on the highlights. It seems to me, though, that although they had VAR in operation, there were very few cameras, which seems ridiculous. Someone might know more about this. Were there other angles?

Misses a penalty is a generic term as you well know. And it was a poor penalty: no deception in it, nice height, not in the corner. But someone has got to miss. So no blame. He played well.