Wanderingred

Some of City’s best ever moments have come in replays. Imagine if they never happened. All the things that made the FA cup special have pretty much all gone now. But at least Liverpool have time for their post season friendly in Malaysia.

The team that night:

It was the middle of the night/early morning for me in some northern industrial Chinese city. I bought some red champagne to pop open when we clinched it but for some reason I wasn’t expecting it to be that night, Bradford away was a tough game back then. So promotion bubbles, followed immediately by eight hours of work. Awesome.

No matter what people say, you’ll will be missed. We aren’t a big Premier League club, where a seat will immediately be taken by a person on their season ticket waiting list. Every fan is valuable. I hope the club realises this too because the trend of increasing attendances won’t continue without a better quality of product on the pitch and if we end up going backwards, they’ll need the core fanbase to stick with them more than ever.

I’d renew if I was still living in the UK but only because it’s a chance to spend time with my father, and it’s an age old routine that I couldn’t imagine not doing. It must feel harder and harder to justify it though when two thirds of the games we play produce football like that. People want to see exciting performances as well as results.

Idiot

Thanks, you’ve just put across my thoughts in a much more eloquent way than I’ve been able to ! Ive just tried selecting the form table for random groups of 13 games across the season using that website. I’ve seen Preston, Norwich, Sunderland and Watford appear in that bottom 3, all teams nowhere near relegation. I’m sure I could find a lot more teams if I could be bothered. It’s no way to try and establish an argument.

Again, I wonder how many teams have been bottom 3 in the form table at some point this season, particularly when artificially selecting a group of games?

You’re doing it again, carefully selecting groups of games to try and prove something that’s not there. You’ve picked out a bad spell of form sandwiched between 3 successive wins and our current good run, a time when we also had four cup games against Premier League opposition. You could probably pick out a bad spell from any team outside the top 4 this season and call it relegation form. The only way to judge Manning (although I’d say it’s way too early to really do so ) is by looking at the overall picture. He’s won as many games as he’s lost in all competitions.

Looking at the last decade, 53 points is almost always nowhere near a relegation spot, the only exception being the year when Blackburn went down with 51 points, a freakishly high points total for relegation. I stand by my opinion that we have not been in relegation form under Manning (unless you take a really small sample of games). Some of the football has been so bad though, that it’s probably made things appear worse than in reality.

He’s been in charge for around 25 games. You can’t just select the six games with the lowest points return and claim we’re in relegation form. We’ve collected 12 points of the last eighteen which over a season would see us comfortably promoted, but you’d rightfully laugh if somebody tried to claim we are in promotion form now.

6 wins, 5 draws, 9 defeats in his first 20 league games. That’s the form of lower mid table, the position we’ve finished for the last two seasons under Pearson. Calling for Manning to be sacked was pointless. We all know the real reason we are stagnating as a club and it’s not the manager. Sack him and then what? They’ll only make another appointment that satisfies their agenda. May as well give the guy a proper go at it.

“Stop gloating and just enjoy the win” is something I read a lot on here but it doesn’t really make any sense does it ? Why would one be exclusive of the other? People here post their opinions in a public space, some of which are very partisan. They shouldn’t then be upset when those opinions are scrutinised by others, particularly when in hindsight, they may appear to have been reactionary.

Realistically with Preston and Middlesbrough in good form and Hull and Coventry 4/5 points ahead with a game in hand, the top 10 is probably beyond us. If we can finish above Cardiff in 11th, with a positive goal difference and more wins than losses, that would be a very positive end to the season.

Also Massimo Luongo and Harry Toffolo who played regularly for Swindon that season playing for Ipswich and Forest respectively! That was actually a really good Swindon team, shame they didn’t have the balls to finish the job.