JBFC II

Intrigued as to how many loans out the door come with a comment from the manager? I rarely read OS reports on this sort of stuff but I can’t imagine it’s a common occurrence?

If we hadn’t sold Scott and Semenyo there is a good chance we’d be in serious financial trouble right now. Szmodics was a serious mistake from Ashton, especially in the same summer as Palmer. Palmer is ‘running the show’ with 1 goal and 2 assists in just over 1000 minutes of championship football. The ‘prem goalie’ at wolves who people were very nonplussed about seeing leave and has played 4 games in 2 seasons there. The likes of Reid and Webster were sold for huge figures and have helped the club stay financially viable, we can’t keep everyone. Marlon Pack’s legs had gone at this level, whatever he’s doing at league one is irrelevant. It’s easy to bash the club for player sales, when in reality only one of the 8 you mention was a poor sale. The others either weren’t good enough, we’re OOC or we made huge profits off of

I think it’s harsh to judge someone based off of 30 minutes in what was a totally rudderless team performance. Yeboah showed a lot of energy and ran around a lot, but that isn’t enough to make him a championship player. Have we seen anything from him on the ball that makes you think he’s at the standard to be making regular appearances at this level? If so fine, I’d be intrigued as to what, if not then surely it’s much better for his development that he’s playing men’s football at Bath rather than playing for the 18s/21s for us?

Intrigued as to what you saw from him in his limited minutes earlier in the season that makes you think he's good enough to be playing championship football right now?

I'd say the story it tells is one of a manager with so few options that his hand was forced in giving a 17 year old minutes. He was trusted and did well, but let's not pretend he was some sort of world beater when he played and provided a level of performance that made us think he was at a championship level. 'Shunted out the door' is a weird expression to describe a teenager going on loan, its not exactly like that's a rare occurrence. He'll be training with us regularly still I'd imagine, but also playing men's football alongside that, that can only be a good thing. Why does any manager loan out an u18 player? Sometimes improvements come more from being exposed to men's football than they do from the training pitch, is guardiola a poor coach for loaning out multiple players a year?

I find it bizarre that Mebude has been written off after 30 minutes of championship football. If yeboah was good enough to be in our squad he'd have a better loan than Bath, he's incredibly young but clearly not up to scratch. Regular minutes in senior football will only be a good thing, would rather that than the odd 5 minute cameo for us where he gets no time to impact the game

Both topped by this in my book!

Probably just become immune to poor performances, can't remember a consistent run of three good ones in this division for many years! I have no doubt he's a decent coach, and may well go on to be a good first team coach at this level. But there's nothing that makes me think he has the ability to be the level of manager he believes he is. Still can't get my head around that top 6 team quote, absolute lunacy of the highest order

To play devil's advocate, if you'd been given 6 points from the last 4 games would you have taken it? I agree that he's yet to prove himself as having the sort of tactical acumen needed at this level, can't see him being relieved now and if he is, I'd fear about what would happen next

Issue is would we trust the board to make a good appointment? They've made 14 appointments in the last 25 years, how many of those have seen us finish in the top half of the championship? 2? Ultimately if Manning gets sacked will anyone better come in? I heavily doubt it

8 years since Wael took over. This is what he said at the time: 'When we purchased the club we knew about the stadium issue but we know a new stadium is a requirement. This club needs a new stadium.' 8 years on and they've built a stand with pillars and a few tents, slow progress I guess!

Hard to include anyone from pre 1960, as so few will remember those times. Since then, I'd say: Dicks, GJ, Cooper, Jordan, Cotterill. Sad thing is we've achieved so little in the last 50 years, so it becomes quite difficult to pick managers

More like Lourdes, they need all the miracles they can get

Huge numbers again from them

That was before Lee Johnson’s small spells of joy, hence why I didn’t mention it. Struggling to remember being this happy after a performance at home, it may well be as far back as the Man United game

He's come under some stick in recent weeks, but that's the best performance I've seen from us since the Lee Johnson days. Brilliant from Manning and co. Played a game plan to perfection, kept our shape and discipline brilliantly, counter attacked with pace and took our chances superbly. Southampton hadn't lost since September and we took them apart, what a performance. Superb from all involved.

Not sure sadly, just got a screenshot on twitter. It's a Facebook comment though, so best bet is a post from Wally or the club on there

Oh I agree, there are more accomplished managers out there who may well have done better with the squad available. But then, Capello, Sven and Hodgson were all more accomplished and achieved way less. He’s not perfect, but I’ve not felt so connected with the national side for many years, he’s done a lot of things right. Genuinely looking forward to the Euros, which hasn’t been the case for many major tournaments over the past 20 years, a lot of that is due to what he’s created

‘Muppet’ is incredibly harsh. Has he achieved all he should have with the squad we have? Of course not, but then neither has any England manager since Ramsey. In reality, a Euros final, World Cup semi final and Quarter final (with a loss to France hardly a major disappointment) and a 3rd place finish in the Nations League is about as good as we’ve had for many years. Is he the best option out there? No. Is the national team in a better place than it has been at any point this century? Yes. Is he a ‘muppet’ who we should get rid of as soon as possible? Of course not

I feel the fact we played 120 minutes midweek invited the pressure. We didn't press anywhere near as well as the 2nd half went on, we looked knackered and off our feet. The changes pushed us deeper, but at that point we were trying to conserve the win, going for anything more would have been ridiculous, they'd have walked through us

That's fair, but I think that was as much to do with Boro really, we were under the cosh for the whole 2nd half, tried to change it to counteract that but failed to. The way I'm seeing it is how we played in the 2nd half isn't how Manning will want us to play in the long run, it was a reaction to being 2 up and tiring rapidly after playing 120 minutes mid week. If we started the match in that vein, I'd be concerned, but we didn't, far from it. Nothing to be disappointed or angry about with it imo

Did we? From where I saw it, Mehmeti was a straight swap for Cornick and McCrorie came on for Bell at around 60 minutes which saw a change in shape. Not always easy to see shape from the angle we were at though!

We attempted to by bringing on McCrorie and moving to 3 at the back and congesting the middle. I don't think we had the options on the bench to properly react to it, we ended up going a bit deeper and losing the midfield battle as players tired. Felt we dealt with their dominance well for the majority of the half really, it wasn't as if they were lining up shot after shot

Perhaps they did, can't fully remember many after unexpected wins like today. My point there was that Manning gets stick when we lose, huge threads complaining about our performances (rightly so in many instances), having another thread complaining about aspects of our performance when we've won just seems unnecessarily harsh, it's the sort of thing I can't remember happening under Pearson. There's stuff to work on from today, of course there is, but it's hardly the sort of performance to be angry about imo