Clutton Caveman

15 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

I’d rather spend a bit to find out if we should spend a lot

We need strikers, nothing should remove that focus

On 13/04/2024 at 21:43, GrahamC said:

Clearly there will be a “transfer fee” Burnley paid £4m for him, they aren’t giving him away.

I think he’s done ok but certainly wouldn’t pay anything like the amount that’s being quoted.

Let’s see how the summer unfolds, my guess is he’ll start next season as our player, time will tell.

 

Spends too much energy moaning to the ref for my liking

On 13/04/2024 at 18:27, phantom said:

I thought you were leaving? 

Cancel culture at its best

Somebody makes a post that you don't like. Rather than posting a counter opinion or just agreeing to disagree and ignore the post it is necessary to hound said poster out of the forum.

Surely this is against the purpose of a forum. A place where you exchange views. For me rather than trying to force a poster to leave the forum, people who cannot accept a view that is different from theirs should leave.

20 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

Sad to hear. My second favourite platyer after John Galley when I started watching. RIP big man.

a real 100 percenter RIP

On 06/04/2024 at 20:59, Harry said:

“Doing our business early”. 
 

They say that every bloody window and it’s only ever happened once. 
In 2014 when we got Wade Elliot, Mark Little, Korey Smith & Luke Freeman before the end of June, and swiftly followed by Wilbraham and Ayling a week later. 
We were all done and dusted by 8th July!  
It’s never happened since……..and it ain’t gonna happen this summer either, not with tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee doing the deals. 

What a great window that was

11 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Cornick is woeful. I love Nige but he was the worst signing of his era which in fairness on that whole was decent. I would trade Cornick, Mehmeti and Conway this summer and I also wouldn’t go in for Twine. That’s literally what we need, 4 new attacking options with pace, guile, creativity and power. We are such a boring side. 

When we the last time Conway looked a threat. Where has his pace gone? Where has his aggression gone.

Head is probably more with his mate in Bournemouth but he is not in the same league.

On 06/04/2024 at 17:53, HengroveReds said:

Vitally important transfer window for the Manning / Tinnion era, but realistically who can we expect to leave / come in?

My Thoughts:

Outs: 

Matty James (pure fact at 32 will we offer him 2 year deal, which he could get at a lower champ / promotion chasing league 1                                       Bajic - Wants to play, fair enough let go     Andy King - City through and through but limited playing time, maybe coaching staff but seems to of gone quiet on that front since Pearson left. 
Mebude - No words other than Dire.          Harry Cornick - Try’s his best but not cut it unfortunately                                                 Ayman Benouros - LOAN (big injury needs a league 1 loan to prove his worth, huge talent though).                     Nakhi Wells - cash in if any takers, especially if Tinnion states 2 strikers coming in plus Conway and Palmer Houlden 

INCOMINGS - 

Twine if 2.5/3 mil max or new Number 10 

2 strikers 

Max Bird

Josh Stokes 

Joe Williams new contract 

anyone else?

I would keep James. He impacts the team so much with his class and professionalism

1 hour ago, Ian M said:

He's clearly an addict that needs help. Instead our FA will throw the book at him and refuse him access to his colleagues, pushing him further down a hole.

With his salary I think he could afford to go private, poor little lamb

12 hours ago, cityexile said:

Look fairly decent when we go forward, but twice just been done with defensive disaster classes.

It drives me crazy when we are around their box when nobody wants to shoot or cross the ball. Its pass pass pass or try the clever flick that comes off 1 time in 100.  Its so congested in there any decent shot has the chance of a defection. If the shot is blocked we have as much chance to pick up the rebound as they do. If every team continues this obsession with playing on the break I can see after kick off that both teams retreat into their block and everybody forgets the ball all together. 

It is so refreshing when you see a team like Liverpool try to score each time they get possession. They get the ball into the danger zone with the minimum of passes and love the high percentage long ball. It just wears defences down. I fear that with Klopps departure this one ray of hope will also go.

I accept that my advancing years probably makes me cynical but with all this focus on "technical" play the game as an exciting form of entertainment is failing.

58 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm not sure what he's seen in our performances that I/we haven't  

His approach seems to be all over the place. Like you said, he's been going on and on about getting players on the grass and coaching them and then gets them to do physical work! Whilst at the same time saying the players needed a bit of a break. Even more bizarre when you consider that we now play a less intense game as we no longer press from the front. 

Bizarre that we are focusing on fitness work in almost April. 

 

He came to the club as the next Pep. Having read his manual from front to back 5 times, he can see that at this level it just doesn't work. In the absence of a new manual he is screwed, the players know he is screwed and its just a case of how long JL and BT can convince themselves they are right with this choice. Pride before a fall and all that

19 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

Didn't think you dealt in speculation?

I don't think that was a "rumour" as in he knows something, his comment came across as 8 games to save his reputation with the fanbase.

Ian's been very outspoken against anyone suggesting Manning is going anywhere.

 

Since when did our ownership give a sh*t about what we think

23 hours ago, Davefevs said:

These were my notes, similar to Silvio.

For me, and of course I’ve now made my mind up, so some bias - he’s holding these players back.  When they play to his game plan we are dog-shit, when we let them do what they’re good at, we are a reasonable outfit.

I start to hark back to the "what a load of rubbish" chants that were common in the 80's. Can't be far off when the full back faced with 5 miles of space passes inside to Vyner or we win the ball on the edge of their box and end up with Max after keeping possession for 32 passes. It really is time that the fan base really make their dissatisfaction with our direction clear. If we just put up with it and don't get relegated we are in for another season of boring ball.

21 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Technically, but imo not meaningfully.

Pearson was on 16 in 15 this season; 1.14 p/g

Manning on 29 in 23; 1.26 p/g

It's really a very small difference considering you can't actually score part of a goal.

General shots against and shots on target against are basically the same. xG against is actually slightly better under Manning.

Edit: also, it is deteriorating under Manning. Over his first few games it did appear that we'd tightened up a little at the back, but it's gone downhill in recent games.

All very interesting statistics BUT, we are losing and it is very very boring

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Will be interesting to see the effect of this new Sky deal and not just with us.

I would say that on one hand PL scheduling hasn't hurt attendances too much there, on the other hand this doesn't seem like a great reward for Clubs for the potential inconvenience especially at Championship level.

If Clubs were getting say another £5m per Year that would cover the risk. £2-2.5m per Year? Not really.

If the clubs get another £5 million per year, the players will know and demand yet higher wages not remotely tied to performance. The clubs will panic and give in and we will be back to square 1.

For me the only way to fix the wage inflation in Prem and Championship is to create a set of conditions that must be included in every players contract. These conditions would include a certain percentages tied to: to league position and appearances and a compulsory 50% reduction if the club is relegated. This would allow parachute payments to be abolished with this money evenly distributed between all championship clubs, it would prevent players being happy to sit in the reserves for years and refusing to go. I don't think this would lead to an exodus of players as the prem pays better than most leagues. 

On 24/03/2024 at 09:56, exAtyeoMax said:

Cliche alert I’m no expert but for all that possession we never looked like scoring. 

Is he LM in disguise?

On 23/03/2024 at 21:39, Graham76 said:

Quote from BBC online coverage: Southgate plays 'dont lose at all cost' football, but forgets goals win tournaments. 
 

Sounds familiar doesn’t it

Only Southgate could fail at the Euros with this squad. For god sake, take the brakes off man and grow some balls. I think he never got over that penalty miss

23 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Possibly they will sell some if required..

I'm not advocating we double the wage bill fwiw, me of all people but I quite like a lot of what he is going at

We could do a lot more on the fan and encouraging the atmosphere and giving ourselves a better chance at Home.

We could spend a bit more building on a solid base.

We could also have chosen an excellent builder and his team last October.

A new owner or Investor might give us some of this fresh energy, ideas. Cheaper tickets were required as the fans and club had fallen out to a major level.

Why don't we play exciting front foot football to increase attendances. Just a thought 

On 03/02/2023 at 13:17, BCFCinNW6 said:

Yeah but both are football loving cities. Bristol is most definitely not unfortunately.  

Our trendy set have moved to Rugger where they can take their beer to their seat compare tweed caps and Barbour jackets with your mate and feel that you are just a bit better than those football people.

20 hours ago, Red Skin said:

Parachute payments have completely undermined the championship as a competition.  They seemed to be a knee jerk response to clubs like Barnsley that collapsed after relegation from the top flight because they failed to build relegation terms into players contracts.

It's been interesting to hear some of the conversations around Forest's points deduction.  One defence I've heard is that as a club promoted they needed to buy a whole new squad of players if they were to have any chance of competing in the Premiership.  

So why not change the model?

Scrap parachute payments and instead use the money to give promoted clubs a golden hello so that can have a better chance of competing in the top flight? 

What if they go back down that year

On 18/03/2024 at 20:29, JP Hampton said:

Look. You don’t know my reasons for going to football and for renewing, just as I don’t know yours for deciding not to.
 Calling people out for a decision that is completely an individual’s own, isn’t on. I’m not criticising you for your decision, I respect that’s the decision you’ve come to and I’m not going to use sarcastic comments to challenge that decision. 
 I’m not sure why it would bother you enough as to what I’m doing, to comment. 
 Neither you nor I know what we’re going to get next season. 

I think many people only renew because they enjoy the twice per month meet up up with mates, a couple of beers and a pie. I wonder if a large pub chain was able to show all home games with a yearly pass costing say £150 how many season ticket holders would take that option.

27 minutes ago, Gazred said:

If Dykes can keep getting called up, there is surely hope for Tommy. Not exactly blessed with talent in that area of the pitch are they.

Forwards: Che Adams (Southampton), Lyndon Dykes (QPR), Lawrence Shankland (Hearts).

Not on his current form unless with the coaching from LM he can do a job in defence

22 hours ago, BrizzleRed said:

The conundrum is, what are the chances of this shower actually identifying, or even wanting that right manager, let alone convincing them to come here under the current regime?

It feels like we’re in a real catch 22 situation right now and the only way it appears that can be broken is if the man at the top decides to finally sell up.

Can you imagine the job advertisement

Wanted Championship Level Head Coach

No experience or track record needed

Must be prepared to work with almost no budget and to sell any player that can attract a fee over £3 million. Must never disagree with the Director or Sport or the owners son and must take 100% of the flack when things go wrong. 

Must be prepared to accept that what ever squad you get is "play off ready" and must not ask for a decent striker because Arsenal manage without one. 

Must be a master of bulls**t and deflection and must accept that after failing at BCFC you will probably only get a job in League 1 or 2 or Scotland. This should not be a concern because you are probably best at that level anyway.

Must be able to talk about promotion whilst keeping a straight face and most importantly must not give a s**t what the fans think.

1 hour ago, Dredd said:

Let's hypothetically say that the board have seen enough, decided Manning isn't the man for us and want to make a change for next season. Let's also assume in this scenario that we aren't going down. When do they make the change? We've got some key players out of contract next season, and a new guy is going to want to cast an eye over the squad to see who he wants next season and where he thinks the gaps are. So at what point do we think it's going to happen? Would it be the summer with the all knowing recruitment team deciding James/Williams/King aren't getting new deals and the new guy has to accept that? Doesn't seem ideal to me but I've felt for a while there's meddling from above going into the squad. 

The only things that will prompt a change are

Very low gates for remaining games with those that do attend showing their dissatisfaction.

A close brush with relegation 

Very low season ticket sales

Players asking to leave.

Our board are very happy to survive in the Championship and try to get as close to break even as possible.

Nothing good can happen until SL understands that nobody wants to buy his Bristol Sport business and he breaks it up into saleable entities. 

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I still think a manager could perform in spite of what’s above him…and actually influence those above to change / educate them.  But appreciate it might need an ally or at least someone with an open mind in there too.

No decent manager will work under the current set up.

37 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

That has Steve Lansdown's fingerprints all over it.

Wouldn't be the first, or last, time he's stuck his oar in. The man just can't help himself, whatever the sport.

Here's Pat Lam just a few weeks ago:

"Steve Lansdown had a quiet word with me about playing the Bears way, he wanted to be excited about the way we play and I said I'd see what we can do". 

So because the owner was a bit bored at the rugger, he told the Coach to play a different way.

Says it all really. 

Wish he would give the same message to LM