Red Exile

Bell and Conway are shadows of the players they were.

Last ten minutes we've fallen apart.

Watching in Rome. Where the weather is glorious - couldn't be more different to Huddersfield. Crikey - I thought we'd got away from being a soft touch! Wasn't that the culture shift NP had worked into them? Got to take your chances.

Bit of a pile on on the OP here - so to offer some tentative support...we have clearly had passing through the club in recent years a raft of Prem quality players, or players in the making. A valid question is surely how we have failed to fashion out of all that talent, even once, a side capable of making a Championship Play-Off place? It's not just been about keeping players who don't want to be at the club - it's been about making the most of their time with us - but I doubt we need another review of the management failures of the LJ/Holden years, or SL and the true extent of his ambition!

I shan't. Been drifting away for a while - other commitments. Was in two minds this season but I was inspired by the Pearson project. As it is I've only made it to a handful of games so far this season and shan't be at many more. Not wanting to be a negative Nelly I shan't repeat the multiple reasons why I've fallen out of love with the Lansdown regime. City will always be my club and I'll be a POTD supporter for the foreseeable.

I have worked in the entertainment business all my life. I don't expect the people I entertain to understand how it's done, or even care how it's done. The point is to entertain. There are clearly lots of folk on OTIB who love tactical and statistical analysis and either are, or would like to be, football coaches. Fine. Personally what I want is to be on the edge of my seat and to be entertained, I don't feel a particular need to understand what goes on on the training ground. I'm not all critical of Liam Manning - he'll need time and he deserves it. I'd be amazed if he immediately can get a bunch of players he's not recruited to play a style of football with which they may be unfamiliar, if indeed that's his challenge. I'm expecting nothing bar mid-table this season. The point I was trying to make was that I find a particular approach to playing football really tedious to watch.

To an extent I agree with your rules! I don't have any beef with Liam Manning, know almost nothing about the bloke, except the style of football his sides have played. Good luck to him but since you mention it Jaap Stam era Reading is precisely what came to mind both yesterday and against Southampton. Regardless of the result that style of football is like watching paint dry. That said it clearly has its fans on this forum, fair play to them but it's not going to get me making many day long round trips to the Gate.

100% - sums it up. And if that is what football IS these days -tippy tappy Russell Martin style - if that's what the new chap wants us to play, well I can't see me bothering in future. It's so dull to watch even when done well. If that was what football had been back in the day I'd never have gone in the first place!

Taken to watching from Italy. Can't see me making many trips back to the Gate despite the ST. It's not the result - this is just so tedious to watch. Tippy tappy possession football played by players who aren't very good at keeping possession. Not what I expect City to be playing. Supposed to be the entertainment business! The club is going nowhere. So mediocre it would be untrue if it weren't so predictable.

Assist for England's third - to put them 3-2 up in added time - initially fluffed his shot - but recovered to pass inside the area.

Applied for 9 matches - got none. Ah well! Got accommodation booked in Cologne - might just go and enjoy the fanzones and the atmosphere. Was there in 2006 - it was great even without tickets.

Excellent post! And this is where I find myself. Down the years I have invested a considerable amount of emotional energy in supporting City, my moods have risen and fallen....and fallen...and fallen...with their fortunes. I ask myself why on earth I'm putting my happiness in the hands of such numpties. Yesterday I was working and didn't remember we were even playing until the match was over. Clearly saved myself a degree of frustration! Pity, because when it's good its great, but for now I'll let the Lansdowns crack on without letting it bother me too much.

Look...he's now our manager. I've seen a huge number come and go. He certainly comes across better than some. I've not followed Liam Manning's career but his CV is interesting, he's worked in tough environments, things haven't always gone well and he's bounced back. Good luck to him! On our his shoulders rest our hopes! COYR etc etc

Great - yet more 'jam tomorrow'. Jeez...they've had 20 years, can't the Lansdowns just crack on a bit. One step forwards, two back...again and again...

I don't have anything against Liam Manning - but in all honesty I know barely anything about him. Didn't we recently thrash Oxford?! Good luck to him if it is him but how that is an upgrade on Pearson? - we'll all need some convincing. I don't look for 'big names' or 'marquee signings' - but I do tend to think that experience of achieving what is required is useful...Manning has a play-off on CV...but it's a big step up. Couldn't remotely be described as an 'exciting' appointment at this point in time.

Congratulations all round!

I'm afraid that 'mediocre' sums the current situation up rather neatly, indeed much of the Lansdown tenure. That besuited chap I'd never previously heard of...I've never seen him before and I doubt I'd recall him if I bumped into him in the street. In other areas of life I don't generally bother to engage with mediocrity. At City I feel I've invested a lot of hope in things that are going nowhere...and as many have said before me - its the hope that kills.

...if we were led by our intellect and not our emotions I doubt many of us would have bothered supporting Bristol City for several decades! With brief flourishes of excitement its been a fairly relentlessly disappointing experience...

...you're on ignore...

No one is winding me up - life is too short for that! I'm merely, as an OTIB supporter of many years standing, noting that a large number of accounts with a tiny volume of posts, many created years ago, have suddenly started posting, all with the same opinions. Seems odd to me, or not really odd...its obvious what is happening. EDIT: One appears immediately above this post!

who exactly is 'they'??? This is a well developed forum for sharing views on Bristol City - supportive or critical. It's developed over years. What's new is a flood of recently activated accounts, all with WUM tendencies.

The number of new or rarely participating posters with 'Board' supportive views is laughable - liking each others posts is an especially entertaining feature of their engagement. Haven't the club's media team got anything better to do? The comms are - and have been for a some time - abysmal.

The whole thing feels to me like the sort of amateur night fiasco we more usually associate with goings on at our traditional rivals. You sack one of the more respected managers in the game, who has delivered - or is in the process of delivering - on a tough brief - and enjoys huge popularity amongst your fan base. But then you can't get your story straight on why you've done it, you have no one credible to front up and take responsibility, you don't have anyone to replace him and can't convincingly explain the process or criteria for finding the replacement. Which you must anticipate will be a problem because you've got form in this area and it's happened many times before. It's pathetic. Now I've often scratched my head on discovering someone perfectly rational and respectable is a Rovers supporter, asking myself how they can possibly want to be associated with such tinpot losers. I have a horrible creeping feeling that anyone looking from the outside at the Lansdown's Bristol City would conclude that we're not much better.

Well I have an affection for Tins....but good grief!...that's all guff. Have we stepped back 20 years?

This 100% - and after all that that was the best they had...