DaveInSA

City shouldn’t fear Watford. It’s the type of game we absolutely can win. And lose. And draw. Sticking my neck out. Manning to break the away duck . 1-3 city.

What I love about these players is the commitment and togetherness. This is the foundation that great things are made of. with some canny recruitment and good man management we can definitely push on. but we knew this already TBF. can Manning do it? It seems like he’s a quick learner. So why not?

That bit in bold needs another slash: /proper leadership, vision and management. if we had that over the past 30 years, we would be way better off than where we are now.

as opposed to the Mark Ashton approach of pinning players on a dart board, putting on a bilndfold, and then signing all the players you manage to hit in the temple. In all seriousness, the approach is not rocket science is it? I'd love to know what "our approach is". I bet we have 35 positions based on an ancient Sanskrit text book.

To be honest, I never used to watch rugby much. But after living 15 years in South Africa - it's difficult to not get "bitten". I actually think rugby is a much better watch than football these days. All this tippy tappy nonsense across the pitch then back again then going back to the keeper, rinse and repeat is so dull. At least it's dull when done with no purpose and no pace. Gone are the days of blood and thunder wingers skinning full backs and whipping crosses in for forwards to score.

Lampard, has achieved the square root of FA as a manager. Just saying.

Nobody is allowed to hold Steve and Jon to account. Not through a proper structure of Board and Sub-committees to oversee the work of the CEO. It's laughable. BCFC is being run like a small family business selling pizzas out of a converted Sprinter at festivals. It really is that bad.

Bristol City (aside from the promotion years in Divs 3&4) has been a constant disappointment in my life. The levels of underachievement for a city of this size, with a massive catchment area are utterly astounding. When considering the Lansdown era it's abject failure, brought on by incompetence and.... ...lack of governance throughout their reign. A good leader knows their deficiencies and has trusted advisors who can bring sense and other opinions to the table. In the Lansdowns we have none of this. We have nobody with deep footballing knowledge at the club. We have no-one steering the ship. We have no-one to hold accountable except for the Lansdowns themselves. And we've been told "this is my club". When it isn't, it's our club. The fans club. Bristol's club. Ironically we had some sort of structure in place just one year ago. and we started to turn the corner. When someone disagrees and upsets the apple cart - they're fired. They naively think that Gould and Pearson sorted the mess out. Brought in Alexander (who I was actually quite excited about - in that he knew how to run a football club) when Gould left for his dream job. And then both Pearson and Alexander were gone. The work is not yet done. "Alright Nige, we've now fixed all the footballing issues, we couldn't stomach you disagreeing with us any more and we've decided that you're part of the project is done. Sorry your sick and all but get out the club". The ego there is astounding. They are little boys in a mans body. I don't (yet) have any beef with Manning. But my word in a results business they've been poor. And defending is also poor. We need to ratchet things back up really quickly, because conceding 2 goals a game and scoring 1 means that you lose. Every time.

Ipswich top the league. In case you were wondering.

Well. Don’t. Say. I. Told. You. So

Who has sky sports these days?

Given we are a postive front foot attacking high pressing side who creates loads of chances and is tight as a nuns chuff at the back with no individual or collective stupid defensive errors which cost us a goal a game... I'm going for a conservative 15 points

I'm drawing a line under the BS from Tinnion, Lansdown and all the rest of the Lansdown brigade. It's all a complete fabrication of where we are as a club, ITO the talent we have and what "style" of football we can play. It's all smoke and mirrors. We have a mid table (position 8-15) squad. We have a couple of players who would get into top 6 sides. That's it. If, Manning can do a Luton then god bless him. It will be a massive surprise to me if we are 8th and above. And we'll have done something royally bad to finish lower than 16th.

I was thinking almost this last night. Couple of things came to my mind - the gulf between Premier League and Championship is huge. Totally massive. I don't normally watch premier league footy, but it was on the Amazon yesterday so I had a dabble. Villa have built a really good side over the past 4 seasons. The speed with which they moved the ball and the skill of the players was marvellous. You could argue that their execution at the last hurdle wasn't that great (the shots in the main were tame) but the number of chances they made and the purpose they had was a joy to watch. Man City were all at sea. But it isn't the Gulf per se that's the only issue. The bigger issues is that we don't have any balls. The players over all my years of watching (except in Tier 3) have lacked the balls and belief. Coupled to this the game has changed quickly over the past 3-4 seasons. You have to be intelligent and adaptable too (whereas at our level over the years if you were a good clogger as a CB you did ok - ala Flint). We're miles away from being comfortable with the football. They're scared to play. The Lansdowns don't have any balls either : see below And us fans have no balls or belief either, we're just as bad as the players. What needs to happen, is to build on what Pearson started. And we need to get some balls.

Cyclical Steve and the Nepotists.

my expectation was that he would be fired halfway through the season with us being 8th and 3 points of the playoffs. And that he would be laughing his arse off at the results since he was fired.

you'll know when it's toxic because the bedsheets will come out

I'm not 100% sure, but I think we've been gaslit again. @Harry hits the nail on the head, like he did from the minute Manning was appointed (nostra"Harry"mus). We don't have the players to move the ball quickly with purpose and intent. I saw it with my own eyes yesterday. And at the same time you could see what we were trying to do, even in the second half, which I thought was not boring. It was just all too slow...and a couple of players didn't step up, and deliver the solutions on the pitch, which is what he also wants. We don't have these players. Some of the youngsters might become these players. FWIW, Weimann, Williams, James and King I think are all OOC this coming summer? I doubt any of them will be renewed - maybe James but his legs will go soon. Incoming the new creative midfielder(s).

Cyclical Steve I call him. He's done this for nigh on 20 years. And we as fans are surprised. Well I am not. We have a nepotistic love in at the highest levels of the club. It's pathetic. And I wonder if that is what Manning was getting at yesterday with his culture comment actually.

So here's my opinion. I think it's a clumsy use of language - he's young - he doesn't present himself well - I just wish he was more genuine. I don't think he's meaning culture per se. I think he's talking about mindset and responsibility. Clearly, in that game the players didn't adapt to the way Norwich changed (my opinion) and they didn't step into another way of playing (which is what Manning talked about in previous interviews). He wants the players to take responsibility and find a way to win. I'm actually behind this. You need leaders on the pitch to figure stuff out and shift what we're doing. Playing it slowly across the back 4 to Bell and Knight on the left wing, with Pring then coming to confuse matters isn't what he wants. I think this is what he was referencing. A couple of times in the second half we did what he wants - moved the ball at pace and pulled Norwich around. I think this will take time. Doing it in season, when you've been set up to be compact and hard to beat is tricky. Especially when he says in training they're mainly working on defensive shapes.

Copy and pasted from the impatience thread : I went today, and now realise why I go to about 3-4 games a season. The bad seems to outweigh the good (well at least for me). The Bad I thought that performance was timid and naive. Especially in the second half. We are so frightened with the ball. I understand possession based football, but my word do it with some purpose. We kept trying to shift it out wide to Pring, Bell and Knight (who also loked a bit lost and confused and tended to go backward or get in each others way). It was so ponderous - why take one touch when three will do. There was no intent. When we did get in strong positions there was not one city player in the 6 yard box. It was naive because we kept doing the same thing over and over again against two banks of 4/5. The Good When we DID shift it with purpose (2-3 times in the secondhalf) we were into them. It looked good. And we threatened

I went today, and now realise why I go to about 3-4 games a season. The bad seems to outweigh the good (well at least for me). The Bad I thought that performance was timid and naive. Especially in the second half. We are so frightened with the ball. I understand possession based football, but my word do it with some purpose. We kept trying to shift it out wide to Pring, Bell and Knight (who also loked a bit lost and confused and tended to go backward or get in each others way). It was so ponderous - why take one touch when three will do. There was no intent. When we did get in strong positions there was not one city player in the 6 yard box. It was naive because we kept doing the same thing over and over again against two banks of 4/5. The Good When we DID shift it with purpose (2-3 times in the second half) we were into them. It looked good. And we threatened.

:laugh:. Got me there didn't you.

It doesn't matter if its 2 or 3 up front IMHO. What matters, is you have players with the intellect and awareness to know when to be close together (in a 2) and when to spread the play (as in a 3). You also need to know when to drop off and when/where to run to create space. The past few years the movement from midfield and attack has been abysmal. And i'm expecting a radical improvement in ball retention from our own throw ins.

I’ll be there tomorrow. Looking forward to it. 3-1 city.