Alessandro

I kind of hope we don’t see him till next season, even if he’s fit/getting fitter.

Given his problems and our recent run on returning players, absolutely no need to rush him back and he may well benefit from an extended return over the spring/summer. 

Glad he’s on the score sheet already - hope to see him back with us all the better for the loan

7 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

I see a lot of argument about what BT/JL stated when firing NP and employing LM. 

What clips and press cuttings are out there? 

Plenty been posted many times:

“We all wanted Nigel to achieve our ambition to be promoted but, with our recent results, feel that now is the time to make a change to give the club the best possible chance of success.” - JL

‘We want to get promoted this year' - Bristol City board on decision to sack Nigel Pearson - from Gavin Marshall

https://www.bcfc.co.uk/video/interviews/jon-lansdown-talks-about-coaching-change/ 

Takes JL 30 seconds to mention premier league and best squad we’ve had here in my time - to name a few quick quotes.

22 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

I do "get it". I just don't agree with the suppositions that are involved in what appears to be a bit of a witch hunt.

Admirable defence of Tinnion, somewhat against the tide, which might tell you something…

Personally I’ve always liked him, but does that mean I appoint him CEO? Absolutely not.

The manner in which he has found himself in this position, absolutely stinks - jobs for the boys of the highest order. 

Does that matter? Well, no, not if he is a brilliant communicator, experienced leader, top negotiator, experienced in business or accountancy, or a former top level player or manager - he is none of these. Not one.

What he’s shown himself good at is working with young talent - that’s where he should be IMO, i’d very gladly have him fronting the academy, scouting players and fighting their cause.

But he can’t do that anymore because he’s buying players that block the pathway (Twine anybody) to save his own bacon.

When I watch him talk in his role, I cringe. It’s awful. The poor guy is out of his depth again (dejavu) and again this will end in failure - will the Lansdown’s ever learn?

I’m sorry “nice guy” isn’t the one fronting the club, negotiating our transfers and building the blue print for promotion. The reality is he is a strawman for the Lansdowns who’ve proved themselves incapable over 20 years of getting it right.

I might going early on this, but there we go - I said when we appointed Holden it will set us back years - Tinnion in this role will set us back more - he will be fired or demoted long before we ever see the premier league and any replacement will need sometime to put it right. And that’s on the Lansdowns more so than it is on Tinnion.

3 hours ago, Harry said:

I’m not sure on that to be honest. 
Have another look at Dave’s injury data on page 1. 
 

Let’s take out the Cardiff game as it’s absolutely acknowledged that we were screwed in that game. 
If we take NP’s other 13 games he’s had :

Midfield : 11 of 13 games where he had James, Williams, Knight, TGH & King all available. 
 

Front 3 : 11 of 13 games where he had Wells, Cornick, Bell, Sykes, Mehmeti, plus Yeboah (who he was using). Add Weimann too for 7 of those 13 games. 
 

Left back : He had Pring & Roberts available for all games. 
 

Centre backs : Yes this was a problem area. He only had Vyner, Dickie & Naismith for 4 of those 13 games. 
So we were down to 2 fit CB’s for the majority of NP’s games. 
However - LM has only had 2 fit CB’s for every single one of his games. 
 

Right back : the only area where we technically didn’t have proper cover, however, TGH has played there plenty so there was always an option. 
 

The rotation options were definitely there for every position expect CB. Which is the same for LM. 
 

I think we’re getting a bit carried away by the ‘availability and rotation’ argument. Yes, the Cardiff game was horrendous for us, but in the other 13 games NP presided over there were rotation options in every position. 
 

You’re conviently missing out the squad depth though with this like for like argument.

At a quick glance NP fielded 6, 6 and 7 academy players in his last 3 games

vs

Manning 1,2 and 2 in his last 3.

The squad depth Manning has had at his disposal has been greater than that which Pearson had in the run up to the dip which saw us drop from 8th and him getting the sack, hence last 3 being appropriate sample. 

Manning has had injuries to contend with yes - but the rate at which he’s been able to rotate the first 11 and the depth of his bench has been on another level to that which Pearson could have (he couldn’t)

2 minutes ago, Sheltons Army said:

Wow

 

 

La Di la Di la Di la 

Pay peanuts....get

16 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

To quote Liam “That’s the biggest bit isn’t it”?

What @Cowshed accurately describes is the process of a rebuild. (And for gods sake nobody respond with “top six squad” etc etc). 
 

In the process of a rebuild - if utopia is your only aim - then things can go wrong. Often. And in a lot of ways this is just another angle on what’s already been said about Liam - can he adapt his approach to stop those things going wrong until he reaches somewhere near utopia in all the sectors you identify.

Eg you replace Williams with Bird - you move a touch more towards ball retention, but it’s not the model Cowshed suggests. How do you play then?

You then replace Conway with a different type of front man - more physical - but it’s still not utopia. How do you play then?

You replace Mehmeti with someone with more nouse and game awareness - it’s another step. How do you play then?

(NB at any point this is not a mass change, but a tweak - going from A-B as opposed to the whole alphabet)

From the way Liam wants to play we are probably 2-3 seasons as I said from seeing results. What he has to do is not rip up the base and he has to be able to play at each stage. So if he thinks he has 40% of what he needs now - that’s fine. Play as close as you can to your principles in a way that utilises that 40% in the best way. If the summer gets you to 60% - great, tweak again. But you’re never getting to 100% so you always need to compromise.

In a nutshell, I think that’s what we saw with Nige. The annoyance is that I think we’d tipped over the 50% mark in the way he wanted us to play and from there it’s generally an upswing. We’ve reset though - we are where we are.

I’d repeat - there is a bit of a misconception over people’s misgivings around Liam. They are around adaptability, in game management etc - in short what happens when the plan doesn’t work or you can’t implement it as opposed to anything else. And getting from where he is to his utopia is pretty much just another strand to that - but if he can’t manage those transition periods - irrespective of what we can see the intent is, he won’t be here long.

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Thanks @Cowshed for kicking this off.

The question (not expecting an answer) is how quickly do you transition the changes required.  And when you can’t do a quick AND perfect transition, how do you implement your compromises?

And from my convo with Rennie this was exactly how Nige approached it.  What’s the objective…how do we achieve (the strategy).  Recognising he couldn’t go “big bang day one” nor “linear” over a period, identify those obstacles to that and build a plan for how to get there?

• fitness
• culture
• recruitment profiling
• player development (not just academy)

I won’t go into detail, but we never got to playing Nige’s ideal way.  It was a set of compromises.  But it was evolving.

For some, that just took too long.  Fine.

For some, it never even got going.  Fine.

We now watch someone else’s take on delivering (JL, BT and LM).  They’ve been given a very solid foundation.

 

For me you've both kind of touched on something here which isn't spoken about enough - that it's fine having an objective and a plan, but for success (in this case promotion) this has to be balanced with a target/limit/aim time wise IMO. I have no sense the club have a realistic time target that they're willing to stick to, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years whatever, pick based on academy prospects and budgets then stick to it. 

It's always have a go for 2 years then try something else for 2 years....

Especially when it comes to recruitment - fine recruit to a type but it needs to 'culminate'...i.e plan seasons ahead to a point where your best youngsters are blooming around the same few seasons, you do everything to keep hold of them, then recruit to fill in the blanks - under Gould and Pearson, I got more of a sense and faith that they understood that and could push for it. 

Under BT it's all recruiting to 'type' but what for? At the moment the club seems to care more about and talk much more about the cycle of producing and selling individual players rather than developing a successful squad. SL was so happy to talk about the great deal of selling Scott but forgot we needed to replace him...

There has to be an 'end point' - even if it adjusts slightly or is missed - or we're stuck going round in circles. 

EDIT-below

2 hours ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

It's the only thing on the menu at the moment- I never said I'm "happy" these are your made up words to support your agenda. I said "I'm relatively ok". 

As for saying I'm uncomfortable being challenged- I think we both know that's your bs. I never hide, go missing  or back down if I believe something unlike some- it's the best bit of otib. This is an anonymous forum so there's no walk of shame although clearly some see it as a alternative reality popularity contest. For me it's fun.

 

Please explain in as much detail as possible how City get promotion this season or next or the one after? Because this is something I can't clearly see but you obviously can otherwise you wouldn't be making the statements you do. And it's not about what City shouldn't be doing - it's about what they should. Explain.

 

My BS? OK well you're the one who has immediately looked to deflect me asking you opinion as a point scoring exercise and you keep talking about forum popularity - you come across in your posts as rather sensitive to being challenged. All I did was ask you a question. It's OK to be wrong. That's the point of the forum, right.

Last para - Ah that old chestnut,"if it's so easy why don't you do it"...I'm not paid £100k's plus a year to provide anyone with answers, if you want answers to that ask Jon Lansdown and Tinnion etc, that's what they are paid to do.

So no, i'm not going to give you some detailed plan on promotion, because I don't have to - BUT despite that, what I do know is, it exists, and many many many clubs overtaking us have shown that - it's just that 20 years show Lansdown still doesn't and can never learn from his mistakes. Every year is another team he says we should emulate...Brentford, Brighton, Luton, Ipswich...the list goes on, the record stuck.

So as long as they want our money and talk about promotion, that is reason enough for me to question the club and it's operations (without having to tell them what to do) until we are the club people look to emulate.

1 hour ago, luke_bristol said:

The right wing didn’t start the culture war, but absolutely agree. This is a global issue that goes well beyond football.

I’m no scholar on the history of the culture wars so bow to your better judgement - but I’d certainly argue it’s the right’s favourite political tool…

4 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

This is it.

Tribal, partisan...passionate. That is football, there are teams and within that there are sides of debates- pick one, defend, analyse. Doesn't even have to be that rational too.

 Out of reactions

3 hours ago, headhunter said:

I picked this from James Piercy's excellent piece on the game in Bristol Live and highlighted the part that sums up so many things in our normal day to day lives:

The narrative is being allowed to grow that this City team is defined by QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston, Leeds and Millwall rather than Southampton, Middlesbrough, Watford, West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Hull City. In this binary world we live in, where you have to pick a side, and a point of conflict, it’s one or the other, not where it really sits, somewhere in the middle. That’s just boring.

Ian Gay's narrative is what it is and I invite anyone to come on the pod and challenge him and no doubt create a point of conflict. I will call him out whilst recognising that I myself flip flop with my views and in so doing rightly labelled for being a knee jerker! 

He may be right about this binary world - however it has ALWAYS been this way in football - long before the right wing started their culture war.

Football is and always has been tribal - fans generally either like or dislike a manager, or should I say rate or not rate - often for some intangible emotional reason and will focus on the negatives (defeats and sometimes even wins!) rather than the positives (wins and good performances) or excuse the negatives and focus on the positives.

Has been that way with teams and managers for as long as I can remember. Nothing new. 

27 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

I suppose you may wish to see it as apathy. You clearly are on a points mission from your original post. With my views I'm easy game for a few 'likes' etc 

I said some time ago on numerous posts/threads that after Jet left- I'd no longer get 'attached' to a footballer at BCFC. The same goes for managers- after Cotts.

It seems you have a problem if someone doesnt get posessed with incadescent rage if e lose or euphoria if we in. Maybe you don't go to matches or aren't a Bristolian?

Im Southmead born,  Knowle bread and have lived in Bristol pretty much all of my life. I've supported BCFC post Dicks so never witnessed top flight. I started back in Div 4 Terry Cooper when Marina Dolman took me to my first ever game at BS3 so at least half of my support is lower league. I don't have great expectations of Premiership football although I believed it for one season under Gary and one under Lee. Since then anyone expecting promotion with what we have is dreaming.

I'm relatively ok about where we are as a club and really hope and dream of better but not as a matter of entitlement.

If I order a burger and expect a fillet then I'm the delusional one not the person serving me.

I’m not on a points scoring mission, I don’t need the likes - strange you think that…and strange you seem rather sensitive at someone challenging you - given your earlier posts and wish to give it the old I told you so quite prematurely about Manning to several others - all rather stones in glass houses. As you said yourself, it’s OK to be wrong.

No incandescent rage needed - you are incorrect there.

Difference between you and I is you’re happy with the basic burger and I’m not.

Then don’t be surprised when people challenge you when you suggest that the burger is as good as it can get.

7 minutes ago, petehinton said:

I’ve never ever been able to shake the feeling that the powers that be want our promotion to the PL to be perfect and pure, in the sense that it’s everyone’s ’first time’. 
 

I’ve absolutely no evidence on that, but shrugging off the likes of Hughton & Pearson who’ve had greater success than our current position for much more inexperienced ‘up and comers’ (even Cotts to LJ) to me has always had an air of purity around it, in that we want everyone to celebrate it for the first time together. Not explaining that well but hopefully makes a smidge of sense. 
 

I remember being at Leicester and seeing the incredible reception for Pearson, King & James and having a nagging feeling at the time that Tinnion, JL et al must’ve been looking on ******* hating it. “well why haven’t they done that for us??”

The behaviour of the Lansdowns and their historical appointments suggest you might not be wrong.

I also get the sense they really, really want to ‘prove people wrong’ who have criticised them. “See you in the premier league” Tinnion is an extremely telling quote.

11 minutes ago, italian dave said:

I’m probably going to get battered even more so than @RedM for this, but for me this thread pretty much sums up the negativity and the determination to find fault with anything Manning that’s so prevalent on here at the moment.

There are ups and downs, pros and cons, black and white and various shades of grey in any club and any season and especially when managers change.

Yet reading through the posts so far what stands out is the determination to attribute every single negative to Manning and every single positive to something or someone else.

Thats not being critical of your question, @Dredd. It’s a reasonable one. It’s more about what follows.

And, as a slight aside but another example of the negativity, @Merrick's Marvels - apart from the generic aspiration that any club in the Championship would have promotion as an ambition, who has ever said that promotion this season is or was our objective?? 

“We all wanted Nigel to achieve our ambition to be promoted but, with our recent results, feel that now is the time to make a change to give the club the best possible chance of success.” - JL

‘We want to get promoted this year' - Bristol City board on decision to sack Nigel Pearson - from Gavin Marshall

15 hours ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

Manning: I like him , disappointed that he seems to have stuttered when it matters but I wasn't expecting promotion whosoever was in charge. I don't see this current squad a  Premiership team in waiting but certainly capable of better as some results have indicated. I think Liam will do better as he learns on the job, develops his way of playing and squad  and if he doesn't then we'll find another manager.

Club's decision making? Broadly pretty solid- I'm a big fan of Steve Lansdown and pretty happy where we are in terms of stability, financial and facilities. We are a pretty solid Championship team. Hope for better but there isn't a team in the Championship whose fans don't dream of of promotion at the start of every season- it's why we support.

Chances of promotion "as set by the club". Every single season someone within BCFC will state that the aim is promotion and it always makes me smile but it will be a cold day in hell when someone comes out and says " we're hoping for a good mid-table finish".

Your posting comes across as someone who the club would absolutely love - come pay your money and don’t complain. I ordered the £50 steak rare and it came well done, but the setting was nice and they tried their best so…I didn’t say anything.

Perhaps maybe you don’t go to games or have a season ticket, follow from a far, hence the apathy?

A post which completely lacks passion and ambition. 

I personally hope, wish and want so much more - and do you know what, it’s possible. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s not about entitlement, it’s about ambition and application.

3 hours ago, M.D said:

Bristol born but have lived in Brighton for a long time, so I know a lot about my club and Brighton.

Tony Bloom took over Brighton at a time you could say City was ahead of them in the football pecking order.

The difference between Tony Bloom and Steve Lansdown is very simple.

Bloom, a rich man and good business man took over his club and knew he was not experienced in running a football club, so what did he do?

He employed the best people he could get to run the football side of Brighton while he took care of the business side of the club.

He got the best people in he could and listened to them in an area he was lacking in to help his club progress.

Look at the stark reality of where City and Brighton are now, both similar sized clubs and history, one a Prem established club in Europe and the other repeating the same mistakes and what I think will end again in relegation to league one.

Manning is not for me but the issues are so much wider, it's breaking my heart, again.

People confuse SL’s success as a businessman in a completely unrelated field as a foundation to run a football club.

Even with finances he’s not managed it properly, has he?! FFP anyone? And the biggest elephant in the room, he wants to sell, but he’s built something he can’t sell! That wasn’t very good planning was it Steve….it’s like the old man who spends £250k over the market value doing up their bungalow and want it back when they sell, sorry it’s still a bungalow.

SL continues to run the club like it’s a small business, he wants to be over every decision, every invoice, every meeting - he now does it through his son and lackey “see you in the prem” Tinnion - with no doubt weekly if not daily phone calls.

20 years counting and it hasn’t worked, will it ever change? Doesn’t look like it.

As time goes on you get more of this concerning dictator feeling/behaviour setting in too - an ever smaller group of people in “power”, a delusional sense of entitlement “this is my club” and the world (City fans) are against them.

In fact the appointment of Tinnion is perfect because he was always likely to ‘fail’ as he’s completely unqualified and inexperienced - so now he gets flack from us and the Lansdowns can put their arm over his shoulder and say look how mean those horrible city fans are - and they can all continue living in their detached from reality world to excuse their continued lack of progress…everyone else’s fault but theirs.

OK artistic license on last paragraph - but the rest stands - until they relinquish control of the day to day to 2 or 3 top top talented directors and coaches, we’re treading water at best and the losses will continue to mount.

Sack or don’t sack - we need to invest in the squad - so I don’t like any option involving that. 

As we’ve seen and the Lansdowns are finding out…holding back funds from a manager you ultimately cut your nose off to spite your face.

Review at end of season for me.

If he does go, Tinnion also has to IMO or the charade will continue. Let’s ******* have some people in positions of power at the club that actually inspire excellence. 

“We all wanted Nigel to achieve our ambition to be promoted but, with our recent results, feel that now is the time to make a change to give the club the best possible chance of success.” - JL

We want to get promoted this year' - Bristol City board on decision to sack Nigel Pearson - from Gavin Marshall

.

1 hour ago, Charlie BCFC said:

Manning has us in the top half with 12 games remaining, I maybe wrong of course but I can’t remember Pearson having us this high at this stage. I like Pearson for the record and think he left us in a better state when he took over but it’s time to move on and for me Manning has done more than enough to be backed going forward

People can talk about feelings and memories - but here it is in cold hard fact, easier to understand when seen - we’re trending downwards and worryingly so. 

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

He’d have been saying MANAGER OUT in the past after that and last week.

Hamburger Hill springs to mind 

Last week he publicly questioned their mentality.

This week he’s publicly questioned their ability.

With results the way they are, it won’t end well for Manning.

We’ve got 3 HUGE games against Cardiff, Ipswich and Swansea up next - 3 games with heightened emotional attachment. 

He needs results soon or it will get very toxic.