bearded_red

Well I can safely say I have never been so bored watching City and I have never felt so detached from the club. As it stands next season will be the first one in my memory that I won’t be getting a season ticket. No doubt that will lead to people claiming I’m not a true fan and will excite the willy waving contest of who has the greatest support for the club. Just for some context though, I was one of 98 people at Hull on a Friday night watching an already relegated City. I was at Carlisle the other year watching City win their first game in twenty odd, I’ve missed two home games in the last ten seasons (one of them the famous Maynard goal against Palace which I’m still fuming about). So I think I qualify as a ‘true fan’. But as I said, I have never been so bored. I have never felt so detached from the club and I have never enjoyed going to Ashton Gate less. I find myself chatting through the game to keep myself amused, and frankly I don’t think I have ever taken less enjoyment from a City goal than I did today. It would be wrong to say Lee Johnson is the only reason I feel this way, but the football his team serves up, and the type of anaemic atmosphere that leads to, is a large part of the lack of emotion I currently feel towards City.

After a nice three game break where I actually enjoyed watching us, today was back to being mind numbingly boring.

Such an upgrade on what we’ve had over the last few years. Proper goalkeeper.

Have to say I have enjoyed watching us in the last three games. As someone who before then had posted on here how incredibly bored I had been at the vast majority of games this season, there has been a real upturn in performance in the last three games in my opinion. Also as someone who has never been sure about Diedhiou, it’s only fair that I say I think his last two performances have been his best in a City shirt.

2013 must have been an absolute shocker.

I have to say that although I wouldn’t want to get carried away as it was hardly Guardiola’s Barcelona team, I thought yesterday was actually good. You wouldn’t exactly describe it was free flowing, but it’s the most I’ve enjoyed a City performance (with the exception of one half against Stoke I guess) in months. There actually appeared to be some sort of plan and you could see how the team wanted to play. I’ve been highly critical of the standard of football all season, but compared to Birmingham who could do nothing else then knock it up to Jutkiewicz, I thought we tried to play some really good football. Obviously we still barely created many chances and had to rely on set pieces for our goal and the only other shot on target, but I thought that was down to a lack of quality in the final third, rather than what at times this season has just been a complete lack of any sort of plan or idea. I know other people will moan, certainly in homes games, about ‘only having one up front’, but I’m quietly positive about Johnson finally moving to a formation with an extra man in midfield. I thought that change enabled Pack to have his best game for a long time. Still a fair way from his best from last season, but showed some real positive signs at times controlled the game. Obviously it helps he plays much deeper than others and it is his game to get on the ball, but I looked at the stats this morning and he completed 57 passes compared to the other three central midfielders on the pitch (Brownhill, Gardner and Kieftenbeld) who made 17, 22 and 15 respectively. There’s still a long way to go before you could say we’re really playing good football, and our home form has been dire, but in my opinion it was the first performance in months, again with the exception of 45 minutes against Stoke, that had anything to be positive about. And that isn’t just because we nicked a win from a set piece as we’ve won games in that time where the performance has left me cold, and I was happy with how we were playing yesterday long before Diedhiou nicked the goal.

I’ve never understood this accusation that if you believe the manager isn’t the right man for the job then you must want the team to lose and be disappointed when they win (even more so in the current environment in which the manager is nowhere near getting sacked). To make such an accusation would either mean you’ve never believed a manager should be sacked in your entire time supporting the club, which is difficult to believe when supporting a club as unsuccessful as this one, or that when you did feel that way you wanted the team to lose so he would. Probably reveals more about yourself than those you wish to accuse. I have no shame in saying I don’t believe Lee Johnson to be the right man for the job, but I was delighted yesterday, and in actual fact it was the most I’ve enjoyed a game for months. And anyway, even if I was someone that was inclined to want City to lose so the manager would change, I wouldn’t understand feeling like that at the moment as his position isn’t under threat. So the choices are we lose yesterday and Lee Johnson is the manager next weekend or we we win yesterday and Lee Johnson is the manager next weekend. So I struggle to understand why anyone may have wanted us to lose.

Glad this thread exists as I unfollowed the Twitter account weeks ago and whenever I read this thread I remember not to make the mistake of following them again.

Will his summer signing forward Mo Eisa start a game before he signs his January forward? What a transfer policy. Kid in a sweet shop.

He’s had three years. If he was even a good coach rather than a ‘fantstic’ one the team would have a style of play and an ‘identity’ we could all relate to, regardless of the standard of players. May be a stupid comparison, but I remember watching Pochettino’s first game managing Southampton and you could see after barely a week on the training ground how he wanted his team to play and how different that was to Nigel Adkins. Johnson has had three years and nobody can tell me how we will attempt to play at Birmingham. It’s obviously fair to point out that our players don’t have the quality to be getting promotion from this level, but if he was a good coach (or even fantastic!) he would be able to improve them. Their weaknesses would stop being so obvious. As it happens almost all of them are the exact same player they were the day they signed and in fact some of them have regressed. Callum O’Dowda for me sums up the current way the club is run. He is a perfect example of us supposedly signing young talented players to improve them and then sell at a profit. The fact he is looking likely to go in January for a reduced fee or on a free in the summer is one thing, the fact he is the exact same player today that we signed two and a half years ago shows Johnson’s famous coaching to be the same as the vast majority of things about him. Compete bluffer.

Well he’s had three years and his team has no discernible style of play. He’s signed a million players and how many are better now than they were the day they signed? I’d say there was plenty of ******* doubt about whether he is a ‘fantastic coach’.

Absolutely the same as my current feelings. The football is so incredibly boring. The standard has been as bad and worse plenty of times over my life, but I can honestly say I have never been so bored watching City play week after week. That coupled with the fact I have absolutely no faith in the manager, and have to avoid him hearing him speak, and that we have barely any players that I feel any real affinity for means I find myself lacking any desire to watch us play. The beige and bland football we play also contributes to what has in the main been an anaemic atmosphere at home games this season The football is the worst part about going to the football.

Please don’t let Lee Johnson sign any more players. Please.

Enough of all this Johnson In rubbish in my opinion.

Fair enough. He certainly isn’t a football manager.