Olé

Absolutely nothing to do with the penalties, one of the best refs I've seen in a long time - was so consistent in how he judged things and always tried to let play go and only bring it back if the advantage wasn't there. Was never too fussy, cards were a last resort, and didn't want to be centre of attention. Looked like a normal bloke too rather than a failed footballer with an ego. More refs with this approach please.

6 hours ago, Elruliri said:

I used to love listening to Nige and wouldn't miss a pre match or post match interview. Win, lose or draw.

Amen. I know we’re all supposed to get over Pearson and move on, but **** me if you want to understand what feeling an engagement with or affinity for the club looks like, it’s being genuinely invested in the thoughts of the manager even when we lose because we knew with NP it came from a place of experience, humility and honesty.

Why this club repeatedly wants us to form an interest in and build affinity for extremely inexperienced coaches who waffle on a lot is beyond me. The Lansdown’s want to be the puppet masters who create some sort of footballing alchemy by getting the whole club pulling in the same direction and hanging on the words of complete bluffers.

It’s not going to happen, just like the last god knows how many times.

18 hours ago, Harry said:

I actually WANT to see my team playing WITH emotion. Not without it. 

I’ve really had enough of this bloke. 

I honestly expected to get a notification by now from a club tweet to say Manning has gone, to be honest I’m a little surprised he hasn’t. The football is absolutely dire, league position is irrelevant, it’s when the product on the pitch is so visibly awful and regressive that the real alarm bells should all be going off and is when SL normally acts, and Steve is not stupid - bad decision maker yes but he knows an irredeemable shitshow when he sees one, it was the same at the fag end of the Holden experiment and SL admitted as much when he pulled the plug.

You’re a sensible and balanced poster and I'd like to hope I try to be too and I am already in the same place as you - not being in the least bit knee jerk but absolutely convinced of the need (with some urgency) for Manning to go and hoping SL is seeing the same things the rest of us can all see - he’s totally out of his depth. It’s actually frightening how fast he has sucked the life out of a promising team and devalued and demotivated so many players. I actually feel a bit sorry for players who are playing within themselves in a laboured and emotionless fashion. 

The emotion piece is an interesting one. Pearson used to talk about something similar but not eradicating emotions but being able to always have control of them. He knew that emotion is a huge force and extra percentage if channeled correctly and a huge problem if not under control. Asking players to own and manage and use their emotions went hand in hand with his repeated mantra of asking the players to take responsibility for finding solutions. Players tasked with developing personality and leadership that contribute to us playing with pace and passion.

Manning, on the other hand, by simply switching off emotion and force feeding the players the same relentless script as ‘process’, has created robots stripped of the instinct and fight to play with a zip and determination and perhaps even to entertain. Which is why the football is so utterly tedious and uninspiring, and which is why in turn you can see visibly so many City fans recently walking out of matches from Hillsborough to the Hawthorns looking like zombies, hollowed out and brain numbed from the suffocating lack of emotion in our football any longer.

The great irony where emotion is concerned is while removing their ability to channel and benefit from positive emotion Manning has left his side totally exposed only to negative emotions, of which there are lots: players with confidence shot to pieces, players sulking, players frustrated, and in the case of Tommy Conway, once a key asset of ours, all three. For SL that is the biggest alarm bell of them all. Pearson had it right, there will be emotion so control it and use it. Manning has got this approach, like many other things, badly wrong and we’re far worse off for it.

Sadly this is par for the course for Monotone Manning and his monotone brand of football - he is out of his depth and I will say it again, I am genuinely surprised he hasn’t gone already today.

Liam Manning's side something something I fell asleep

O'Leary 5

McCrorie 4

Roberts 6

Dickie 6

Vyner 7

King 4

Gardner-Hickman 5

Sykes 4

Mehmeti 4

Knight 5

Conway 5

Twine 7

Wells 6

Cornick 6

Tanner 5

Pring 6

Bonus manager rating 0 never seen a team of half decent players rendered so completely anonymous by one man and his tactical revolution. Crafted a team utterly lacking pace, emotion or instinct and which he insists must do the same utter shite all the way to the very end. Even LJ worked out how to have a go.

20 hours ago, Harry said:

Relatively speaking, if we were 4 points off the playoffs after 15 games, then under the same trends we’d be 8 points off the playoffs after 30 games. 

18 hours ago, Leabrook said:

Being four points off the play offs after 15 games is the same as being 12 off the play offs at the end of the season so let’s not pretend anymore than four is a bad result here 

People rightly pointing out that a 4 point gap will widen with the additional games played (as just extrapolation rather  than anything to do with Liam Manning) missing the point that @Mr Popodopolous specifically posted only the period Liam Manning has been in charge for which shows us 15 points off 6th from 21 games vs 4 points off from 15.

4 points off the playoffs from 15 extrapolated to 21 games is still 5.6 points off the playoffs not 15 points. 15 points off from Manning’s 21 games is a 9.4 point negative swing in less than half a season and almost half a point worse off per match. That is huge regression - stop doing the clubs work for them by defending the return on their decision.

Is the Lansdown’s own private scorecard on Liam Manning

After City wins against Middlesbrough and Southampton right after an impressive cup run, last weeks feeble loss at home to QPR was jarring for Lee Manning and his team. The City boss said he planned to make full use of a first clear week of training with his squad since November, but whatever they worked on backfired spectacularly away at Sheffield Wednesday as a second straight relegation threatened opponent made easy work of three points, the Owls clearly very limited but needing to do little to overcome visitors who were abysmal in every phase.

Manning's side started with 5 changes and supposedly ready to address their surrender against QPR. They started strongly and yet besides a few flashes of interplay in the first half, they would go behind twice and end up well beaten, even unable to turn a one man advantage and a rare 3 striker line up into serious chances at the end. Early on before the break the hopeless pairing of unfit Cam Pring and anonymous Anis Mehmeti on the City left allowed the hosts to twice provide Iké Ugbo opportunities to turn home, either side of Jason Knight's well glanced header. 

Despite throwing on two substitutes at half time at 2-1 down and another 3 all at once just past the hour mark, incredibly City were even worse second half, producing a half of mind numbingly second best football, losing passes, second to every ball and hopeless in attack, even totally unable to open up the Owls after Di'Shon Bernard was sent off for a second offence (he should have gone first half) and with three strikers on the pitch. For Manning not only a setback but alarming to the over one thousand travelling fans who expected more from a week of preparation.

There was little indication of City's hopeless performance in a dominant start. After five minutes Tommy Conway found space in the right channel and teased a defender before dropping his shoulder and getting a shot in from an acute angle that goalkeeper James Beadle had to push away. Slowly the hosts settled and after the quarter hour and with City under no threat they made easy work of Pring, Liam Palmer going clear to cut back for striker Ugbo in the box who had time to shield the ball before turning sharply to fire past Max O'Leary to put Wednesday ahead.

Manning's team were already resorting to punting long aimless channel balls toward the diminutive Mehmeti who looked like he was a bloke crossing a local park trying to briefly impersonate a footballer yet also desperately trying to avoid coming into any contact with the ball. The winger lost out yet again midway through the half, once more City's left flank was exposed for Wednesday  to roar clear and cross, the visitors able to half clear their lines only for Ian Poveda to be easily first onto yet another second ball but slashing his fierce shot wide of goal. 

Down at the other end in front of away fans Mark Sykes exchanged quick passes with Conway to steal in from the right only to see his cross cut out for a corner - which Taylor Gardner-Hickman's flag kick centered and energetic Jason Knight met at the near post to glance backwards brilliantly dipping into the bottom corner. This could have been the kickstart that City desperately needed and before the half hour with Conway offside a cute through ball put Knight clean in but he was clipped down by last man Bernard. The often one sided ref produced only a yellow. 

To be fair, five minutes later Rob Dickie got caught out deep on City's problem left and had to pull down Ugbo for a similar yellow. By now Manning's side were still strong on possession but picking cheap passes which the home side easily intercepted or simply bullied from the second ball. So no surprise before half time as a woeful Mehmeti was slow to react from yet another Wednesday transition across to the right and in behind, their drilled cross half heartedly cleared to Marvin Johnson in miles of space at the far post, whose strike was steered in by Ugbo.

Manning has seen enough of City's failure to control the flanks and at half time hauled off Pring and Sykes for Hayden Roberts and Ross McCrorie. Yet one of their most useless halves of Championship football was still to come - every ball laboured and easily given away or every second ball gobbled up by a faster stronger and hungrier opponent albeit  in the bottom three. Bar Williams forcing a corner after a 1-2 with Knight, it was nearly the hour when Mehmeti's skill wriggled clear on the break as City poured toward working it across for George Tanner's blocked strike.

Tanner, who gave it away cheaply twice in the first half, went from a sighter on goal to a desperate goal saving tackle just past the hour, disrupting Ugbo as Wednesday again found it easy to play into City's box. 

Anthony Musaba and Ugbo wasted chances - often put straight into O'Leary's hands or wildly wide - before Manning made it clear what he thought about the hopeless display from his side, making a triple substitution, as forwards Nahki Wells, Harry Cornick and midfielder Andy King raced on for Mehmeti, Tanner and Gardner-Hickman. It didn't get any better. With just under 20 minutes left Pol Valentin raced through onto a long ball, Roberts slipped as final man but thankfully Dickie got across and forced him wider to make him slash his shot right across goal.

With quarter of an hour left Wells smart flick out on the right touchline allowed Conway to roam - he was cut down by Bernard but the advantage was played and Williams strode forward on goal before slipping it to Cornick whose drilled cross was ripe to be turned in and eventually half cleared to Roberts who curled a shot that was blocked. The referee, who continually waved away fouls on City's players, begrudgingly produced a second yellow for Bernard's earlier foul on Conway, when he could easily have gone for his foul in the first half with Knight clean in on goal.

Home keeper Beadle took the opportunity to milk five minutes off the clock (which the ref was obviously going to forget to add on) as he sought treatment for a sudden injury but by now City looked utterly clueless anyway. Before the 90 McCrorie - who gave it away cheaply twice - cut inside and went off on a run before lashing over. Sure enough the ref only added on five minutes, deep into which Manning still had his side passing sideways until Rob Dickie went roaming forward with players camped forward only to hammer an ambitious 25 yard shot over the lot of them.

In the final seconds Wells won it off an Owls defender out literally at the corner flag and turned inside to allow Conway to slip into the box, sliding it across for King's finish which was desperately turned away for a corner. That set piece was quickly headed behind but as the visitors lined up for the next kick the ref blew up for full time, prompting City's furious players to surround the official, with Williams eventually hauled away though still remonstrating. The flashpoint showed more ambition than Manning's squad exhibited all day, utterly lacking both hunger and quality. 

Prior to the match all the talk was about the first week off since the end of November - a first full week of training under Manning in a rare week without a game. Even allowing for the fact the players were given both Sunday and Monday off after the QPR debacle, they trained for the remainder of the week and in Manning were supposedly adding patterns of play and strategies for low blocks. In the end little of this was in evidence as City got badly shown up by a Sheffield Wednesday side that had struggled all season yet came up against a histocially bad Robins opponent.

O'Leary 6

Tanner 5

Pring 4

Vyner 5

Dickie 6

Gardner-Hickman 5

Williams 5

Knight 6

Mehmeti 3

Sykes 5

Conway 4

Roberts 5

McCrorie 5

Wells 5

Cornick 5

King 5