LondonBristolian

Conway has a year on his contract and is playing for a manager who lacks the tactical flexibility and adaptability to get the best out of him. The club aren’t the ones making the choice here.

Is this the real reason for the Zak Vyner range?

As we discovered under Lee Johnson, “Detailed work on the opposition” is always a nuanced thing. It can be great for bespoke plans to stop a top of the table side but strip you of identity and make you reactive when you do it each week, against everyone. And it gets a bit farcical when you’re so busy reacting to the tactical nuances of the bottom of the table side that you cannot beat them at home. The actual dilemma for Liam and the club at the moment is why the plan is for James not to be renewed and whether it should be re-evaluated in light of his value to the team.

It is a good result and one that should put to bed any lingering worries about relegation. However what it doesn’t do is answer the overriding questions which are: 1) can we win consistently? 2) can we play well consistently? 3) can we produce our results and performances against the top teams in the division and Premier league teams in the cup against so-called “weaker” teams? 4) how do we square the desire to play possession football with the fact we get better results with less possession? 5) was this a genuine new dawn or simply another good performance on TV? I’m happy to credit Manning for the win but, if it fair to give him credit when we do well then it is fair to give him criticism when we play badly. Today’s result makes it very likely Manning will be here next season but he now has seven games to try to get the fans to feel confident with him at the helm. For me, he still has a long way to go.

I agree with your general point but I think it's easy to forget how ubiquitous Moby and Travis were at the time of their headline slots. Travis were all over pretty much every radio station from commercial to alternative and songs from Moby's Play appeared in loads of films, TV shows, adverts etc. I reckon pretty much everyone would have recognised Moby's songs - even if they'd not known who the artist was. Your point about fragmented music is totally bang on. Now that we're in an era where no radio station, music TV show or publication reaches mass audiences in the way they used to, there simply aren't acts who are known to 70% of the population. Even the biggest acts - Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish or Adele for example - are incredibly easy to never hear songs by if you don't go out of your way to listen to them.

I'm relatively indifferent to the actual clothing range - it's a bit surreal but I'm not upset or angry about it. What I find frustrating is how the tone of our comms and social media totally misunderstands where fans are. There's always a bit of a feel good factor after a win and a bit of frustration after a defeat. We've just had one win in six the mood from the fans is pretty toxic. If you want to launch a clothing range based on a player, fine, but it seems pretty damned obvious that you hold off on launching the clothing range until after a win and at a point when the mood has lifted a little. Far too often, our comms team simply don't seem utterly disconnected from the mood of the fans. The timing of this is totally off tonally but that feels a regular occurrence.

Worth flagging that those places are for over-18s only...

My impressions from the game: 1. I'd never watched Toney in the flesh and his off the ball work and pressing was much better than I'd realised. I think he's put himself in pole position to act as second striker 2. I really can't work out what I think of Jarrod Bowen. In some ways, he was the liveliest player first half but I'm not sure he's got the quality ultimately. 3. At times it reminded me of watching Bristol City, albeit with a much faster tempo. Lots of passing but occasionally over-passing leading to a defensive mistake or attacking position squanded. 4. None of the back 4 made a great case for themselves and the lack of depth there is a bit of a worry. 5. Mainoo is being slightly over-talked up as it was his debut but he certainly looked decent.

Great news on Benarous. As an aside, I don't massively follow the U-21s but how are Thomas and Leeson getting on? It feels like both of them have had slightly tricky seasons after getting a bit closer to the first team over the summer but is that a fair assessment?

Do you happen to know where I could find a definition of a search engine?

Not convinced by the slogan. Pretty certain that if my Mum, brother, Aunts and Uncles played against Manchester City, my family would not come out on top...

Seems a pretty fair and thorough summary.

The George Cross hasn't suddenly ceased to exist though. It's not banned, it's not no longer going to be displayed in any way at other matches or anything else. And it's not as if literally every England kit ever has prominently featured a George Cross and this one does not. The sudden existence of a cross in a new colour doesn't suddenly invalidate very George Cross in existence. And people will still take it to Wembley. As you'll see from my post, I've not branded anyone a right wing idiot so that's a little bit of an odd projection on your part. What I would say is that England is a nation of 55 million and I object to a tiny minority of those people claiming they are somehow the authority of what is or is not "English" and that their sense of what it means to be English is somehow more valid or relevant than anyone else's. If someone doesn't like the new kit, that's fine. If someone demands the kit be redesigned because they don't like it, that's a rather entitled view to take.

To be honest, I'm fed up of the usual easily-offended outrage-seekers constantly trying to find things to whinge about and spoil things for everyone else. It's a tiny cross in a relatively hidden area the kit in a slightly different colour FFS and it's not even the first time someone's played around a bit with a national flag. (Team GB in 2012, for example). It's a minor design choice. And frankly, if someone is so insecure in their sense of national identity that a slightly different flag sends them into a panic then that says far more about them than anything else. I suspect the vast majority of us are secure enough in our sense of Englishness to not need to treat a minor change in the colour of one small cross as an issue. I feel pretty confident that - on Saturday, Tuesday and any other England game - there will be more than enough St George Crosses to compensate. As ever, it's a tiny number of people constantly trying to undermine our sense of national cohesion and pretending they own the concept of Englishness in the way the rest of us somehow do not. I'm frankly sick of the neediness, attention-seeking and attempts to divide England as a nation.

Personally, I think we might have expected to see evidence of him pushing on a little more than he has as he's a year older with a bit more experience. Having got 12 in all competitions last year, I'd imagine he would have been targeting at least that in the league and maybe 15 or 16 overall. That said - whilst I think Manning has struggled to get the best out of him - I don't think it is all on Manning. The early season injury likely unsettled his rhythm and there were signs he was struggling a little for confidence before Manning started. Plus, new manager or not, he's not by any means the first young player to find his second season harder than the first. He needs to learn from it and push on next year, although the big question is whether or not that is with us.

Not for me usually either - a mate emailed me last week with a spare ticket. I'm mostly going for the social bit of catching up with him rather than the football!

For once, Manning has a ready made excuse if the team don't show up...

Ah - with you. They look great in the photo so imagine you must be delighted with them!

I’m going to be at the Belgium friendly next week. I’m not anticipating a classic but could be surprised!

I know he has his detractors but I for one think England would be very lucky to have Jon Lansdown as a kit designer. In fact, I would go far as to implore the FA to act in the national interest by securing him to the role on a long term full time contract. Not only that but I would urge them to ensure his dedication by including a non-compete clause that prevents him from having any club level roles.

I like this a lot. It's very classic looking.

Absolutely but I think it also lacks a leadership structure. As @Barrs Court Redsays, it's "petty fiefdoms". The CEO role has been essentially replaced by a handful of people in charge of different bits but nobody in charge on an executive level. And that can only result in different areas competing with each other for power and a lack of overall decision making.

I just don't get the sense anyone has enough control to rectify anything or rein in anyone. Maybe I'm wrong but the situation looks to me from the outside like there are three or four people who've sort of got control of various bits of the club but nobody is fully sure who is in charge of what. And hence nobody knows if they've got the authority to act in a crisis. And so nobody acts and the crisis escalates.

I find this plausible. I just don't think there is reason to believe the club will be anywhere near as patient as they were with Lee Johnson, who was so obviously a protege of the owner. It's obvious from the panicked media conferences after Pearson went that that the Lansdowns had realised they had utterly misread the fans' mood and were concerned with how negatively they were being perceived. They were always going to try to dig in and prove Manning was the right appointment but they are also going to be very aware the evidence is looking very different and they've nothing to gain from persisting with a manager who devalues key assets or risks relegating the club.

It all adds to a sense of a situation running out of control and nobody having a handle on it. I'm sure whoever decided to use Ian Gay as a conduit for leaks has underestimated his complete lack of filter but it feels like the club are misreading and misjudging everything at the moment.