Dr Balls

Would seem a lot have stayed away and most of us who are here wished we hadn’t bothered!

Other than the obvious (Manning is clueless) why on earth are we playing a 4-4-2 formation with Knight often the most forward player? If we are playing 2 upfront how about playing 2 players who are actual strikers? You never know they might play off each other as a combination like they have successfully in the past… Doing my head in!!

Sounds very similar to our experience with Manning tbh!

Strangely enough their form has taken a significant upturn since Fam joined. Coincidence or association? Has already scored for a team in which he is one of 3 big, powerful centre forwards available, when we have exactly zero of that type of player…

What he was really saying is: “When the opposition manager changes their team and tactics midway through the match, it’s not my fault that I didn’t consider that option. I can’t be expected to respond to that because that’s not what I planned for. So it’s down to the players to take responsibility for dealing with those changes and if they don’t, it’s their fault not mine.” In other words, I have no Plan B. But then that’s been pretty obvious since he took over!

Think you will find it was Huddersfield that he kept up last season. Rotherham was back in 2016 but same result - they stayed up against the odds!

The problem for Manning is that just like Guardiola he needs a Rodri to make his system work and there is only one of those. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68449995 The closest we have is Matty James and he is not being played for whatever reason.

I would appoint very short term to the end if the season. My choice in that situation would be Gary Rowett. Experienced at this level and very pragmatic to get the points we need to survive and in the meantime look for who we might want longer term. But it’s all dependent on improving the structure higher up the club by getting an experienced CEO again, putting Tinnion back to the Academy and adding some knowledgeable outside voices to the board.

Interesting to know what the odds might be on QPR or Sheffield Wednesday finishing above us at the end of the season and the odds on both of them doing it. Probably all less than our own relegation given current form!

This comes back to both ignorance and arrogance that they know more than experts and specialists on the part of JL and BT.

Maybe for the style of play Pearson wanted across a whole season he realised that pushing the players during the international breaks was counter-productive in terms of maintaining their well-being over 9 months? I am sure he wouldn’t have let them just pile on the pounds but neither would he have reamed out anyone for gaining 3lbs like Guardiola did to Kalvin Phillips while he was in England duty…

Mess with our heads and our emotions!!

Keep Manning long enough and I reckon that 0.9 PPG or worse is quite possible this season under his coaching. And we might even avoid relegation with that but it still doesn’t mean it’s acceptable!

I would agree that another change in coach/manager could be disruptive, but that could also be in a positive way, if you brought in someone experienced to play to our strengths rather than exaggerating our weaknesses as a team which is what is happening under Manning. The chances of relegation are slim but not non-existent and the longer the current situation persists the bigger the risk. Plus there is still a real tension between Manning wanting “his players” and what we can afford or Tinnion offers him. Remember his sacking at MK Dons followed a summer of player change and it didn’t go well. Oxford it went better but has tailed off since he left. So it’s no guarantee he would achieve more than he currently is next season.

Don’t disagree @italian dave The problem we have is that we have gone from a “mid table team looking up at the playoffs and hoping” to a “mid table team in a relatively long run of terrible form looking over our shoulder at the relegation zone and worrying as we slip closer towards it”. The current league position gives a very false sense of security and given the games we have coming up the grounds for any optimism are rapidly disappearing if not already gone. Everything will look OK to the owner until he suddenly realises too late that it’s not!

So how do you rationalise that we are currently in a terrible run of form and that overall since Manning arrived our form has at best been bottom 6 rather than the top 6 spouted by Jon Lansdown? Not being vindictive just laying out the facts!

Lose the next 2 games and it’s 1 point per game over half a season (23 matches) for Manning. That’s relegation form!

You have conveniently missed out 2012/13. Peterborough relegated on 54 points, while Wolves came 23rd on 51 points (6th placed Leicester only had 68 points). We had a losing streak of 7 games and of course got relegated too…

Yes but they sacked Beale and are still losing. Shouldn’t have sacked Mowbray.

I take your point @Mr Popodopolous but the Championship is probably the biggest basket case in terms of costs versus returns. Which is why, getting out of this division, preferably up rather than down, can seem so attractive. One of the other ways to minimise losses is developing and selling players at a profit, which you then pocket rather than spend on more players. Sound familiar?!

There is no way to make a profit from rugby as it stands. But it is possible with a Premier League football club. And SL needs to accept that he’s not going to recoup all that he has spent out in the past 20 years. Otherwise he’s not getting a sale. And of course selling a Premier League club guaranteed parachute payments may explain the need for promotion this season, hence the comments from JL when Manning was appointed.

Ironically the rugby club (SL’s preferred sport and team) are actually the biggest problem in terms of a sale. Top level rugby in this country is in a complete mess financially. Plus the rugby club have first dibs over fixtures at Ashton Gate. It’s written into the rules of the Guinness Premiership that any rugby team sharing a ground with another team, even one playing a different sport, must have fixture priority. So it’s a mess. But then this complicated structure with Bristol Sport and the stadium was of course SL’s doing, so he really has no one else to blame if it’s not attractive to potential buyers of the football club, which is the one part that could make money. And the lack of investment in the women’s team, despite some of the biggest crowds in the WSL, says everything you need to know in terms of an owner who doesn’t want to put in any more money.

I can very confidently predict that we will not win 3 out of the 4 games you have mentioned. We might win one but any team wanting to get a result at Ashton Gate just needs to defend deep and either hit us with speed on the break or nick a goal from a set piece. And Manning won’t come good at this level with us. It’s the equivalent of Kompany at Burnley in the Premier League - the wrong tactics for the players considering the level at which they are playing. And the same results - defeat after defeat!

We are already hoping that other teams will do us a favour. That’s worrying in itself. Another worry is that we are sleep walking into relegation and the owners will do nothing to relieve the situation because sacking Manning would prove that they got things very wrong. So the next worry is that they won’t do it. And even if they did pull the trigger, I have no faith that they would get someone decent in even on a short term basis. The worst option would be Tinnion as a caretaker manager, but I wouldn’t even put that past them because they seem to know so little about football, seem in thrall to Tinnion, and are so unaware of the opinions and feelings of supporters. I don’t think Manning will be sacked if we lose on Sunday. But lose that game and the game against West Brom that would be 6 games lost in a row and the PPG would be down to 1 exactly, which is usually quoted as relegation form, achieved over exactly half a season. That really should lead to a parting of the ways, even for the Lansdowns. With an international break after the West Brom game, that would also be the ideal time to get rid of Mannjng and his team so as to bring in someone experienced short term just to keep us in the Championship.

Really beginning to wonder if this contract issue and number of starts/performances is true…