grifty

Osman might because he's ex-Prem so armchair fans might have at least heard of him. Bloke at work asked me about the pundits today especially who "Jobby" was, why was he on there and why didn't they get any ex-Bristol City or West Ham players to do it (despite Jobi playing for West Ham...)

Yes I agree with you, especially Pring. Every pass to him seems to be to his right foot meaning he has to stop and either pass backwards or he is under pressure, we never seem to put the ball ahead of him to run onto and allow him to cross first time. The same does go for Tanner but I expect less from an attacking sense from him, but also contributes to the % he passes backwards to Vyner. Another annoying thing I’ve noticed is headers in the central area of the pitch, if our player is unchallenged they will just head it vaguely in the air back to where it came, not in the direction of another player or even bring the ball down for possession. I can’t tell if that’s a lack of football awareness or poor communication in the team?

Well I guess it was used well in the game yesterday then if some people were unaware it was in use! Obviously a lack of contentious incidents would have helped.

Well that's what Manning will be assessing now. The ones that he can get to carry out his principles will stay, the ones he can mould/coach into it will get time to and the ones that refuse or simply can't/are really not able to will be sold and replaced with players from the first two categories.

I think he’s a victim of Tanner’s lack of attacking prowess. On the other side Pring gets forward which gives Mehmeti/Bell more space or another option as the full back needs to be aware of the overlap. Sykes is generally 1-on-1 with the full back and he isn’t blessed with blistering speed or skill. On the occasions that Knight gives him that option is when Sykes looks dangerous.

His crosses are perfect for Wells and Conway too, the sort of clipped curlers - not sure how to describe them! But the ones where all it needs is the striker to get the run in front of the defender and flick the ball. They are hitting the first man at the moment, but once he gets them right I can see us profiting from them.

People were saying that before the Sunderland game too…

Well yeah and we were better for periods of it too? But we got the win and Hull didn’t. Thats the same with pretty much every game of football unless you’re one of the worlds best. If you’re expecting us to dominate the possession and chances for the full 90 mins, it ain’t gonna happen!

I enjoy your posts mate, keep up with the links and random info

There is a weird obsession from some posters on here trying to dictate what people should discuss on here mainly if they don’t agree or don’t have an interest in that topic. Very odd behaviour.

Open the medicine packet at the end which has the best before date stamped on it

Palace away is in your top 3 home games?

According one of them made the club enough money to fund the academy for 10 years, seems very good value for money!

I didn’t ignore it, I ignored the sarcastic use of spacing to mimic the question and looked at the word you used - Tombola. Also if something said in jest needs explaining, it probably wasn’t very funny or didn’t make sense. I do agree with your general point of why was TGH seemingly dropped or left out when he’s probably our best midfielder, but there are ways to explain your reasoning/opinions and I don’t believe stating tombola is a good way to do it.

Ah but is that actually what you did? Or did you write T O M B O L A? You suggesting LM picks his teams using a tombola machine is not the same as asking a reasoned debate as to why TGH has not started for a couple of games. You didn’t suggest some reasons as to why it could have been (injury, poor training performance, trying other players) you literally wrote the word T O M B O L A. That is why people did not engage positively or agree with you.

We keep trying to play Cornick as a Target man and/or a Pressing forward neither of which he is. I think the season where we had Semenyo and Martin up front and Weimann in behind (when he scored 20+ goals), Cornick would have been perfect for that Weimann role.

I hate it when players who take kick offs purposefully block players closing down, it seems to happen every kick off! Surely it's obstruction?

I've never lived remotely near Bristol so any Bristol City random encounters have been rare, but one was the night after the Man U League Cup game I had my work Xmas Party in central London where we had a bar rented out. I was stood nearish the door and a guy came in wearing a Bristol City scarf. I had never seen him before in my life and it turns out he was one of the field team from up North, had been to the game the night before and then come to the Xmas do. We got smashed singing about Korey Smith.

The thing that confuses me with VAR is a ref gives a decision, VAR gets him to review it on the monitor for whatever reason, he looks at a few replays then walks back onto the pitch does the square motion, blows his whistle and then signals whatever decision he has made. None of the players or fans are any the wiser. Why doesn’t he call the managers and captains over, explain why he gave original decision and why VAR told him to review and over rule. Advise the managers/captains the decision is final and any back chat from player will result in a booking. They can’t argue with that surely? Before VAR if a ref would have come to an interview after the game and said “in real time and the angle I was stood at it looked like the defender caught the attackers legs tripping him inside the penalty area resulting a penalty” Im pretty sure 98% of people would go OK fair enough!

I agree, I was more referring to Swansea who to me always passed it about but didn’t really have any cutting edge or quality up to. Piroe could put the ball in the back of the net but never seemed to be involved in the build up play too much.

Christ on a bike, 90 mins of two teams passing around endlessly and aimlessly in their own halves, waiting for the opportunity. There are few comments about the endless passing, could be a bit boring maybe ? I'd settle for 0-0 personally. I’m thinking we’ll still have enough of our counter attacking play in the tank that we’ll be a threat on the break against them. We always did pretty well against Martins Swansea as we were able to sit back and allow them to pass aimlessly and then attack quickly when we get the ball.

Thanks, my original post was certainly not a dig at Ross, the club, or anyone. More that we have outlaid a decent chunk of money and not been able to get anything out of that so far which is frustrating. Don’t think it called for personal abuse, not that it was overly offensive and I think only 2 have pointed out I worded it poorly which is fair but that’s this forum now!

I actually think that could be a positive. He’s not one of the coaching team, and could be seen as one of the lads with jokes, etc but he was also an excellent pro with a long career. He’ll be able to give players little bits of advice and help that maybe a player wouldn’t feel confident speaking to the actual coaching/managing about. Maybe not tactically but more training advice, etc.

I do't know if it's his running style or what, but he does look like he's on his last legs! He had a couple of mazy dribbles down on the right wing towards the end which were excellent.

Nothing or no-one to criticise! I’ve said it’s unfortunate. If you can show where I’ve criticised the club on this please? You are the only poster who has at least entered a conversation about it rather than resorting to insults or anger so thank you! One of the higher transfer fees we’ve paid for a player in the last few seasons in a position we arguably have been light in and he hasn’t played a minute for us. There isn’t anything anyone could have preempted? But have have had 0 return on our money (so far!). if he’s just getting back on the grass with the physios now I guess it won’t be until the new year where he may be in contention for a subs appearance? Hopefully a few appearances towards the end of the season and a good pre-season and he’ll be first choice next year!