Supersonic Robin

Agree, Twine is clearly a good player, but doesn't seem a great fit for us in some ways. In terms of pressing and defending, he leaves a a lot to be desired. That's okay if you're getting a goal or assist every other game, but Twine isn't. In general, Twine hasn't quite been the huge outlet of threat and creativity that I'd hoped. A good player? Yes. A player I'd spend £4m on? No. Are these views based on what we expected of him, or his actual performances for us? Don't get me wrong, he's a decent player, but I wonder if the fact "it's Twine" is making people see his performances through rose-tinted glasses.

Robins TV cuts to a clip of Section 82 celebrating at about 30% capacity

I agree that 53 points would be incredibly unlikely to get you relegated. No doubt we've been in relegation form at times though, as per Silvio below. 13 games is a reasonable sample too - more than a quarter of a season. Glad that we're improving now though.

That's 23 points from 20 games, so 52.9 points if you extrapolate to a full season. Last season, that would have produced an 18th place finish, so it's in the bottom third. I think we're splitting hairs a bit about whether you call it "lower midtable" or "near relegation zone". By the time we had 5 losses from 6, I think fans' frustrations were very much justified. No need to compare to Pearson, but if you do want to, then most metrics (including points per game) were showing that we were worse under Manning than Pearson (especially if you consider the relative injury situations). I'm glad we've looked better in recent weeks, but it really wasn't that unreasonable for people to be questioning Manning's job. I very much agree with your last point though. I don't trust the board to make appointments in any part of the club, manager included. The ownership is undoubtedly the reason we're stagnating.

Is it that shocking? Across Manning's first 20 games or so our form was near relegation standard. Results were poor, performances were poor, underlying numbers were poor, eye test was poor. I never got quite as far as calling for Manning to be sacked, but you can absolutely understand why some people did.

Good performance and good result. Think everyone played well. We look much better when we press more aggressively. Really feel we need to caveat the game with the fact that Blackburn were SO bad. Very rare that you get gifted 3 or 4 goals for free.

Personally think we need a few more before we can say that with confidence

Back turned, clearly not deliberate. Defender knew nothing about it. More that if there was any uncertainty, the referee could have easily not given it and it wouldn't have been a particularly controversial decision in the context of the game. FWIW, I can absolutely see why it was given. I'd just feel very unfortunate if I were the Blackburn defender. I always hate the penalties where it just hits someone's hand accidentally, rather than them deliberately moving their hand towards the path of the ball. As someone who also played at CB for a while, I also tend to side with the defenders in these situations

We've been good, but have to massively caveat our performance with the fact that Blackburn have been utterly dreadful. I can't remember us ever being gifted so many goals in a game.

Think that's slightly harsh. Not a deliberate handball, didn't really deny a goal, and Blackburn already 3-0 down.

Good goal from Mehmeti.

Poor effort from Sykes

Blackburn look absolutely awful defensively. 2 gifts of goals.

Not only was it a great start, we were also "dominating possession"

That's fair. Our current record against teams in the bottom half under Manning - P13: W2, D4, L7 The recent wins against Swansea and Plymouth, and the draw against Sunderland, have made that record look a bit better than it did a few weeks ago. Granted, the general sentiment seems to be that the Swansea and Sunderland results flattered us. These games against "inferior" opposition are the ones where I really want to see Manning improve. With games against Blackburn, Huddersfield, Rotherham, and Stoke remaining, he very much has an opportunity to do so.

And how crap those "great moments" are compared to many of our peers. Let's be honest, beating Swindon in League 1 and our CB saying something funny after the match is pretty pathetic as great footballing moments go

A couple of the more common lies presented (perhaps accidentally) by many football fans in terms of performances appear present on this thread: 1) "I don't really care about results or where we finish in the table. I just want to be entertained and watch us play attacking football." No you don't. You'd be jubilent if we were 1st in the league and winning 1-0 every week. You'd be livid if we were 24th and losing 4-3 every week. 2) "We need to play fast, exciting, attacking football because that's our club's true identity!" No it isn't. The identity of any team is dictated by how the manager chooses to set that team up. Besides, every single fanbase in world football seems to think that this is their team's identity. I'm yet to meet a fanbase who describe their club's true identity as "slow, defensive, long ball football". If every club claims to have the same identity, it's not really an identity, is it? Exactly this. Good performances aren't about how many players you throw forward or how dramatic the match is. It's about executing a plan to influence the match, such that you increase your chance of generating a positive result.

Results will always ultimately be what's most important - football is a results driven industry. However, performances are the best indicator of results to follow. As @ExiledAjax excellently put it - "Look after the performances and the results will look after themselves." Good results generated through poor performances are generally unsustainable. So the question really becomes - What's more important right now? Current results, or an indication that we can consistently generate good results next season (i.e. performances)? As a team with nothing to play for right now, I think the answer is definitely the latter.

And this is exactly the mindset that has kept us there whilst every other club of our size has achieved far more

Thanks for the heads up re Naismith. I think he's a decent player, but not sure where he'd fit in. We seem to have good numbers in CM, and he's not quite the right profile of CB for my liking (I'd prefer another strong aerially dominant CB a-la Dickie/Atkinson). Still, if he's under contract then I'm happy with him as an option at CB. In terms of who starts and who's cover, that's not too important to me right now. I'm really just trying to get the "first 22" down. That being said: Agree Bird has likely come here to start, but also can't see James or Knight being dropped if they're available. Maybe a gradual phasing from James to Bird through the season? Sykes vs Mehmeti is a tough one for me. I'm a much bigger Mehmeti fan than many on this forum. I think Mehmeti has performed well recently and is a slightly more natural fit for the creative AM role, but I think Sykes is a more consistent and reliable option. I'd be happy to start either. For me, Sykes and Mehmeti are both miles ahead of Benarous. Given how little professional football Benarous has played and how long he's been injured for, I'd be slightly hesistant about even having Benarous as cover. Absolutely no idea what level he's at right now. Unfortunately, such major injury issues can really derail a player's progress. In terms of cover in general, I like 2 players per position. Though we have a few players capable of covering multiple positions (e.g. Pring, Sykes, Tanner, etc), that starts looking very precarious once you pick up just a couple of injuries.

Is there a meltdown? Or are fans just expressing their concerns and frustrations about us looking poor against a team no higher than us in the table (again)? That's true, but in fairness it depends where you are in the season. Big difference between prioritising performances over results in the middle of the season, and prioritising performances at the end of the season with nothing to play for.

Assuming we plan to continue with the 3-4-2-1, this is how I currently see the squad for next season. Players that I've omitted are either those who I feel don't really have a role to play in the system (e.g. Bell), those who are out of contract and looking unlikely to be extended (e.g. Naismith), or those who I don't think are ready to be relied upon as a regular starter (e.g. Murphy). I'm wanting 2 players we can rely upon per position. A "?" essentially means "We're lacking someone to fill this role". IMO, there are 2 big holes to fill in the starting 11: An attacking/creative midfielder A new striker, assuming Conway will leave I'd like to see us spend the vast majority of our budget for the summer on getting these 2 signings right. Outside of that, I think there are a number of positions in which we need to add depth (i.e. a "second choice"). I'm happy for us to be shrewd with this, relying on young players we already have at the club (if they're ready), players who are out of contract, or lower league players who we feel can make a step up. Those positions are: Another attacking midfielder (is Stokes/Benarous ready to fill this role?) A RWB A LWB A CB A GK Obviously, this assumes no one (bar Conway) in the above squad is sold. Naturally, if other players were to be sold then they would need replacing too.

Dickie has been a long way ahead of O'Leary this season. O'Leary has improved as of late and is currently performing well, but I think that's leading to some revisionist thinking about his less impressive performances earlier in the season.

True, though by the same logic Sunderland probably could have scored about 4. On balance of chances, I don't think we can feel hard done by today.

Decent result, but poor performance. We're fortunate not to have lost that one.