The Swan and Cemetery

Never got this vibe (fear of making mistakes), but can see we’d want more in terms of moving the ball quickly and better off the ball movement (think @Davefevs point re Sam Bell overly hugging the touch line is very well made. In some ways would prefer not to see it, but liked Tommy coming deeper to at least given the Sheff Wed strong/swift centre backs a different decision to make). Hope speed of movement of the ball and movement off the ball can be coached if the core capability is there. Also too many poor first touches, difficult to know what’s ability vs coaching, but definitely headroom for LM to work with. Think we still miss Richard Gould and his bridging from hierarchy to the football side, but hopefully JL/BT are prepared to get out of Manning’s way, to at least allow him to succeed/fail on his terms. Liked the press conference, if I was putting 50p on how it will go (based on guesswork/hapless intuition), I’d say coaching may improve a bit, but not so sure about the fire in belly/motivation side of things. Hopefully I’m right on the first and wrong on the second.

Agree, but that doesn’t equate to pick whoever you fancy and expect to be free from all criticism/challenge. Hindsight is wonderful, but without it LM looks a reasonable appointment, some previous appointments didn’t need hindsight to call them as odd at the time.

But a lot of bad appointments as well? Hardly an unbroken record of great recruitment, think fair for people to be sceptical. Still can’t imagine any but the most churlish/stubborn not getting behind LM given he’s leading the team we most want to win.

Yep, my worry (albeit no problem with it being him, particularly vs some of the names bandied around), is who does the manager role? Seems to have disappeared in the structure, but can’t see BT doing it. Maybe LM has that as well as the coaching, but thought it was key to what NP brought, with CF and JY leading on the coaching.

Would be surprised if anyone thought there was a strong track record of great appointments? And those who weren’t convinced by NP would see it as an even weaker record than those who were convinced by him. Guess the flip back might be those who weren’t NP fans now being convinced they will appoint the right person.

Brian, you’ve given yourself away, we’ll know what to look out for now.

In fairness, if some of the things said are meant to be taken figuratively, there’s very little point them saying anything.

Think a potential positive (/negative in terms of how we’ve arrived here) is struggle to see anyone with any hint of a decent reputation (which in fairness to him, LM does) taking the job on without some comfort that there’ll be at least some money to spend. Personally would have preferred NP to have had to access to that in the summer, but we are where we are.

He may well be, but would be good to hear from someone close to his career (maybe it’s somewhere in this thread) with views on why he seems to have blown very hot (MK season 1 and Oxford) and very cold (MK season 2). Maybe MK season 2 will turn out to be his career blip, but would still be interesting to understand. If it was a blip, we’re doing very well to get him, just maybe lacking enough history to be confident yet.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t (given what was at his disposal it seems unlikely), but the key reason for sacking him was so that we can achieve what he was allegedly failing to with the squad, aka promotion, as the management are of the view that he had plenty at his disposal? Don’t see how they can have it both ways: - great squad, we’re underachieving, so sack Pearson - same squad… presumably we now expect to achieve. None of this is LM’s fault and he’ll be backed by the supporters.

Shouldn’t we just cut to the chase and get Eddie Nketiah up to the HPC asap?

The squad is too good and too bloated, so hoping to offload a few in January, to ensure we’ve the core half dozen we need to take us to the Prem by Easter.

Maybe a bit Robbie Turner/Super Bob old school for 2023, but quite like the idea of Cornick alongside Conway/Wells. Cornick’s not huge, but gives defenders an awkward time and think that’s a massive help to those around him. Chris Martin helping Semenyo thrive as another example.

Facilitating conversations between City and Ipswich’s US owners (Jesse Marsch also a go-between) to enable Ashton to return to City with a Kieran McKenna/LJ job share… or so I’ve heard.

There were overloads but think a lot of that was having 11 vs 10 and them being terrible. Moved the ball too slowly as well. But showed plenty of effort and fight and tried to avoid sitting back. Thought pros and cons of NP era were pretty much all there today.

Yep, but at least NP and his claw hammer are no longer roaming the corridors of the HPC looking for players to injure.

But surely the returners are a result of the world class medical team in place since last Sunday…?

I saw a team on a massively lower budget, bringing youngsters through successfully, doing as well as previous iterations that had vast budgets with vast numbers of players. He also had a team that was organised and working hard, maybe that’s bare minimum, but it’s not common. Allied with the fact that he’d actually achieved promotion from the Championship to the Premier League, gave me confidence that he was a decent chance. Maybe someone else will achieve it, I’ll be surprised if they do it with the same financial constraints.

Fair that we should all be civil, sometimes folk, inc me, get carried away (on all sides of any given argument) and that probably isn’t a great look for any of us. I’m not convinced that there hasn’t been a decent effort by Bristol Sport to play their story into OTIB, but also get that it’s nonsense to claim that everyone who disagrees with a view is either an NP acolyte or a BS plant, mostly it’s just be the joy of different views.

Think the challenge is lots of folk, including me, disagree with this. Given the progress made in difficult circumstances and with sensible backing, I could see him getting us promoted. And not as he’s never done it before, unlike lots of up and coming managers. We’ll never know who was right/wrong as no control group, all about opinions, and that’s fair enough.

No idea where you’re getting “you’re with us or we hate you” from? It’s perfectly feasible to have a strong view, but a) accept you might be wrong and b) respect that others can other views. I’ve a view that everything adds up to the leadership having wanted NP out and achieved that in a reasonably underhand way. I think it’s okay for me to have that view without needing SL to go on TV and saying “we wanted NP out and achieved that in a reasonably underhand way”. Doesn’t mean I know I’m right, it means that’s my opinion. I don’t hate people with other opinions.

That’s your view, it’s not the view. The nuance can be different views rather than people aren’t able to assimilate the same information and reach different conclusions. The idea that strong opinions lack nuance, lacks nuance.

That’s one perspective, another is if looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…

I get that for those who wanted this, they won’t be angry, but the idea that the fans are the circus, blimey.

Find it odd, or maybe just sad, that we’ve all seen plenty of times that NP has been called out for his periods of managerial under performance, or at least underwhelming performance. But he at least has had plenty of actual, real success. Now we’re asked to buy into the vision of a group of people with zero history of success. We’re expected to believe that Tinnion is the person to have the skills to see what’s needed to get to the Prem… ahead of someone who actually has achieved getting to the Prem. We’re expected to believe JL’s/SL’s strategy of “I want to be in the Prem because I burned a lot of money 5 years ago” in some way resembles an actual strategy, when not prepared to spend money vs what’s plausibly required?!? Whilst the Bristol Sport bots have been successfully called out on here, we need to avoid being collectively gaslighted by various snakes in the grass, the whole thing is ludicrous and no amount of spineless spin changes that.