CodeRed

Being a bit of a ground nerd I'm trying to work out where that pic was taken, it's not AG and he's wearing a City shirt so it must be an away league ground 2nd or 3rd division...Wolves maybe ??

FT 1-1 3 points off safety now

,1-1 still playing, good point though if they hold out.

Unfortunately FGR have conceded a penalty in the 90thminute

Ah, so IG does get something right occasionally!

No I don't, but then I wouldn't have sacked Nigel or appointed Manning so our current predicament would be irrelevant

Right now if you gave me a binary choice of Manning or King for the rest of the season I'd plump for King every time. I know absolutely nothing about King's coaching skills so that tells you everything about how I rate Manning!

Obviously the Lansdowns won't fire Manning and appoint Andy King - but it's not a bad call if things get so bad that a change becomes necessary, as a caretaker as the OP said. To those saying he's got no experience - neither had Tinnion, Millen, Holden, and LJ had done the square root of #### all, but it didn't stop the Lansdowns appointing those 4. So never say never.

RTV just said James not involved today - is he injured?

Garnder-Hickman ? FFS Our media

Only if we can buy him for £2M and pay him 10 grand a week.

Tinnion is already on it and has said he's looking for a striker with the following attributes: *A big strong No 9 who can bully defenders *Quick enough to run in behind *Able to run and press all game *A player with a proven goals and assist record *Under 23 but with 150 - 200 game experience *Available for a modest fee and wage. *Able to improve and further develop sufficiently to be sold to Bournemouth within 2 years for >£15M Should be quite easy to find , Trust Me on Tinnion

Gary Johnson has now left the club. It's on their OS. Somebody on here will be a happy man tonight.

Clarke Osborne - that's him , he was involved with the Gas & instrumental in selling Eastville to IKEA, tried it on at Swindon, and has been trying to buy Plainmoor ( it's council owned) so he can use it to " fund a new stadium" yeah right. Apparently he never attended Torquay games. A parasite who sees a club in need of financial help as a way to acquire cheap real estate.

Interesting watch.............but I think Manningball just shades it.

I'll try, Bristol Live is such a shite website. The background Firstly, to be clear, there are both good things and bad things about (let’s call it) Manning-ball. It has different principles to how City played under Nigel Pearson, but what I see on the pitch isn’t (in my opinion) as hugely different as many suggest it is. What has become a focus under whichever manager/head coach is City’s struggles against certain types of opponents. And in the Championship, you don’t get everyone playing one way. There is a certain snobbery among football fans about how the game should be played, most preferring the aesthetics of a passing game-style. But they’re probably the first to cry for a targetman and going direct as a plan B. I think fans are seeing a trend towards more teams trying to pass their way up the pitch, but without the quality to do it effectively or consistently enough to make a big enough difference on the “monied” teams like Leicester, Leeds United and Southampton. They are the three relegated clubs, and they happen to occupy the top three places in the league. Leeds perhaps the odd-one-out in terms of comparable style to the other two, but still inherently a team who want to pass their way up the pitch, but happier to do it at a quicker pace. What is Manning-ball? It is not easy to give a simple definition other than to pay a bit of lip-service to Manning’s own words (not one direct quote) - I want City to play with intensity, be willing to run, press high, control games through possession and dominate the mini-games. If I take those words as a set of principles, there really isn’t anything to argue about, it’s pretty much what fans want. But through observation I see some gaps/contradictions in the execution on the pitch. That’s not necessarily a criticism either, just reflections on what I’ve seen. Nor is the die cast on how the future will pan out. At this point our season continues to tick over at around the same rate as it did pre-appointment. But I expected the football to be more different than it is has been. The results In the Championship: Played 18, won 6, drawn 5, lost 7, goals 22, conceded 21, points 23. It is mid-table stuff. But what if we look beyond the results and look at game-style. Passing: More passes made per game and more made successfully per game, but perversely possession percentage slightly down. Basically, City are allowing our opponents more passes too. They’ve gone from circa 800 pass games (roughly 400 vs 400) to 1,000 pass games (broadly 480 vs 520). Pressing: This helps answer the above. Although City weren’t heavy pressers under Pearson, we were mid-table (13th) in the pressing metrics. Under Manning we are 21st (using a data measure called PPDA – Passes per Defensive Action). City are too happy to drop into a block rather than press, they allow their opponents to pass it more in their own third than previously. However, credit it where its due, when City do trigger the press, they are very good at executing it. Bearing in mind City are 21st for Pressing, they are seventh for High Turnovers, and eighth for shots from High Turnovers. Which resonates with QPR manager Martin Cifuentes' claim that "Bristol is one of the best teams, if not the best in the league, when it comes to high press and counter press." Attacking: “We are creating more chances and better chances with Manning-ball than before,” is what I hear and read from supporters. They aren’t! They are creating less chances and not as good ones either, but it’s not a significant decrease. If you split number of chances between open play and set-pieces you find it's open play where the bigger regression comes from. Under Manning City have averaged 0.7 expected goals per game in open play, as opposed to 0.81 when Nigel Pearson was in charge; in terms of set-pieces it's now 0.22 compared to 0.35 before the 38-year-old took over. You could split open play further into "build-up" and "transition", and you’d start to see that build-up chances are where we’ve struggled most. Build-up was where I expected the improvement to come, e.g. Manning coaching his pretty patterns and them bearing fruit on the pitch. That hasn’t materialised yet. Defending: Perversely, there has been a slight improvement here, and in particular in set-piece defending, hardly what City fans have come to expect over the years, where it has been a real weakness. Overall, if I was to summarise all four areas above in one overriding theme, I’d be falling on the view that City’s matches have become a bit too structured, both teams dropping into good defensive set-ups, making it hard for either opposition to create in open play. Although I was surprised with how emphatic the victory over Southampton was last week, I wasn’t at all surprised by how it was achieved. Southampton don’t defend transitions/counter-attacks well. Nor did Swansea under Russell Martin (there was my clue Manning and City laid the trap by dropping into a block with the front four (Tommy Conway, Jason Knight, Anis Mehmeti and Sam Bell), putting in a great shift when they lost the ball to not allow Saints to pass through our first line before the block behind was set. And when Southampton lost the ball, City broke quickly. I think most fans came away from Ashton Gate thinking that was one of City’s best and entertaining performances in a good while. Yet it was done off of the back of 33 per cent possession, the antithesis of Manning-ball, or what the perception has been of it, to a large degree. So then, why do we struggle against teams like QPR? The easy answer is they do to us, what we did to Southampton. Of course, it’s not as simple as that. But there is some commonality. The Analyst, by Opta, provide some very interesting data views whereby based on passes per sequence of possession and their speed in which they move the ball QPR, Preston North End, Birmingham City and Millwall are all of a similar(ish) style, while our next opponents Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff in there too. Those six teams occupy 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd in the Championship for average time in possession. In eight matches under Manning and Nigel Pearson against those sides, City have won one, drawn three, lost four, scored twice, conceded seven abd claimed just six points. I really don’t want to remind anyone that those two goals came from Harry Cornick long-throws, and were right at the start of the season. It doesn’t make pleasant reading. Only Preston are a top-half team and are arguably over-performing their underlying numbers. It’s easy to pick isolated incidents in games to prove a point, but I’ve tried to stay honest to the task. I referred to City’s press earlier and in the main it’s what I’d describe as a 4-2-4 block. It doesn’t set out to press the man on the ball particularly aggressively, more to stop balls breaking the lines. Below is from game one of Manning's tenur against QPR at Loftus Road, and it’s been a recurring theme since. It’s been relatively successful in terms of giving a good foundation for the press, which usually comes from three triggers: Less accurate pass to goalkeeper Pass to full-back where City can squeeze that side of the pitch and attack the next pass, whether that be forward into midfield, or back/sideways to defenders/goalkeeper Poor touch by centre-back The first line of Bristol City's press against QPR at Loftus Road in November When the press has been triggered, it’s been executed well, winning ball high-up the pitch and scoring against Sunderland, albeit from the resultant penalty. There have been occasions where City have pressed with a three rather than a four, but most of the time it’s been a four as detailed above. Where it has come slightly undone is against teams like the aforementioned four who are happy to go long as soon as they are pressed. They might not play with an out-and-out “big-man” like Will Keane (Preston) or Lyndon Dykes (QPR), but all of the four teams are good as getting around the loose ball, whether that be willing-runners like Tom Bradshaw (Millwall) or Jay Stansfield (Birmingham) or midfielders closing the space instead. On Saturday versus QPR, the way Ilias Chair and Lucas Andersen got around Dykes meant that whenever Rob Dickie didn’t win clean-ball, the visitors anticipated where the ball was going to drop and immediately put City on the back foot. Bristol City head coach Liam Manning on the touchline at Ashton Gate (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images) If there is one positive to have emerged from Saturday’s defeat to QPR, it’s that enough evidence has been formed to reveal a fundamental flaw in this Bristol City team, but more importantly, Liam Manning and his staff have time on the training pitch to try and remedy it. Just like against Birmingham City, Preston North End and Millwall before them, the Robins simply do not function particularly well when faced with a low possession team, happy to surrender the ball and defend in a medium to low block. Broadly speaking, City’s best performances under Manning have been when they’ve ceded possession to the opposition, but then defended, pressed and counter-attacked with purpose. That becomes difficult against opposition, such as QPR, who don’t want to play any part in that process, an approach we’re likely to see over the next two weeks from Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff City. They are crucial games in the sense that they will tell us about how efficient City’s problem solving is and whether this issue is fixable in the short term, Manning’s work on the training ground, the squad’s ability to adapt and absorb, plus the fact that if positive results can be secured, it keeps the season feeling relevant. 340.3K 'Hojlund looks a top end player!' | Man Utd are in fine form after Luton win | Football Digest For a review of City’s approach so far against low block teams, what’s gone wrong and possible solutions moving forward, we enlisted the help of Bristol City ‘Fanalyst’ Dave Featherstone, who you can find on Twitter at @FevsFootball, who takes over the discussion from this point... RELATED ARTICLES Bristol City have rare and precious commodity as Manning looks to answer million dollar ques The background Firstly, to be clear, there are both good things and bad things about (let’s call it) Manning-ball. It has different principles to how City played under Nigel Pearson, but what I see on the pitch isn’t (in my opinion) as hugely different as many suggest it is. What has become a focus under whichever manager/head coach is City’s struggles against certain types of opponents. And in the Championship, you don’t get everyone playing one way. There is a certain snobbery among football fans about how the game should be played, most preferring the aesthetics of a passing game-style. But they’re probably the first to cry for a targetman and going direct as a plan B. I think fans are seeing a trend towards more teams trying to pass their way up the pitch, but without the quality to do it effectively or consistently enough to make a big enough difference on the “monied” teams like Leicester, Leeds United and Southampton. They are the three relegated clubs, and they happen to occupy the top three places in the league. Leeds perhaps the odd-one-out in terms of comparable style to the other two, but still inherently a team who want to pass their way up the pitch, but happier to do it at a quicker pace. What is Manning-ball? It is not easy to give a simple definition other than to pay a bit of lip-service to Manning’s own words (not one direct quote) - I want City to play with intensity, be willing to run, press high, control games through possession and dominate the mini-games. If I take those words as a set of principles, there really isn’t anything to argue about, it’s pretty much what fans want. But through observation I see some gaps/contradictions in the execution on the pitch. That’s not necessarily a criticism either, just reflections on what I’ve seen. Nor is the die cast on how the future will pan out. At this point our season continues to tick over at around the same rate as it did pre-appointment. But I expected the football to be more different than it is has been. The results In the Championship: Played 18, won 6, drawn 5, lost 7, goals 22, conceded 21, points 23. It is mid-table stuff. But what if we look beyond the results and look at game-style. Passing: More passes made per game and more made successfully per game, but perversely possession percentage slightly down. Basically, City are allowing our opponents more passes too. They’ve gone from circa 800 pass games (roughly 400 vs 400) to 1,000 pass games (broadly 480 vs 520). Pressing: This helps answer the above. Although City weren’t heavy pressers under Pearson, we were mid-table (13th) in the pressing metrics. Under Manning we are 21st (using a data measure called PPDA – Passes per Defensive Action). City are too happy to drop into a block rather than press, they allow their opponents to pass it more in their own third than previously. However, credit it where its due, when City do trigger the press, they are very good at executing it. Bearing in mind City are 21st for Pressing, they are seventh for High Turnovers, and eighth for shots from High Turnovers. Which resonates with QPR manager Martin Cifuentes' claim that "Bristol is one of the best teams, if not the best in the league, when it comes to high press and counter press." Attacking: “We are creating more chances and better chances with Manning-ball than before,” is what I hear and read from supporters. They aren’t! They are creating less chances and not as good ones either, but it’s not a significant decrease. If you split number of chances between open play and set-pieces you find it's open play where the bigger regression comes from. Under Manning City have averaged 0.7 expected goals per game in open play, as opposed to 0.81 when Nigel Pearson was in charge; in terms of set-pieces it's now 0.22 compared to 0.35 before the 38-year-old took over. You could split open play further into "build-up" and "transition", and you’d start to see that build-up chances are where we’ve struggled most. Build-up was where I expected the improvement to come, e.g. Manning coaching his pretty patterns and them bearing fruit on the pitch. That hasn’t materialised yet. Defending: Perversely, there has been a slight improvement here, and in particular in set-piece defending, hardly what City fans have come to expect over the years, where it has been a real weakness. Overall, if I was to summarise all four areas above in one overriding theme, I’d be falling on the view that City’s matches have become a bit too structured, both teams dropping into good defensive set-ups, making it hard for either opposition to create in open play. Although I was surprised with how emphatic the victory over Southampton was last week, I wasn’t at all surprised by how it was achieved. Southampton don’t defend transitions/counter-attacks well. Nor did Swansea under Russell Martin (there was my clue). Jason Knight tries to challenge Southampton midfielder Joe Rothwell (Photo by Matt Watson/Southampton FC via Getty Images) Manning and City laid the trap by dropping into a block with the front four (Tommy Conway, Jason Knight, Anis Mehmeti and Sam Bell), putting in a great shift when they lost the ball to not allow Saints to pass through our first line before the block behind was set. And when Southampton lost the ball, City broke quickly. I think most fans came away from Ashton Gate thinking that was one of City’s best and entertaining performances in a good while. Yet it was done off of the back of 33 per cent possession, the antithesis of Manning-ball, or what the perception has been of it, to a large degree. READ So then, why do we struggle against teams like QPR? The easy answer is they do to us, what we did to Southampton. Of course, it’s not as simple as that. But there is some commonality. The Analyst, by Opta, provide some very interesting data views whereby based on passes per sequence of possession and their speed in which they move the ball QPR, Preston North End, Birmingham City and Millwall are all of a similar(ish) style, while our next opponents Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff in there too. Those six teams occupy 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd in the Championship for average time in possession. In eight matches under Manning and Nigel Pearson against those sides, City have won one, drawn three, lost four, scored twice, conceded seven abd claimed just six points. I really don’t want to remind anyone that those two goals came from Harry Cornick long-throws, and were right at the start of the season. It doesn’t make pleasant reading. Only Preston are a top-half team and are arguably over-performing their underlying numbers. It’s easy to pick isolated incidents in games to prove a point, but I’ve tried to stay honest to the task. I referred to City’s press earlier and in the main it’s what I’d describe as a 4-2-4 block. It doesn’t set out to press the man on the ball particularly aggressively, more to stop balls breaking the lines. Below is from game one of Manning's tenur against QPR at Loftus Road, and it’s been a recurring theme since. It’s been relatively successful in terms of giving a good foundation for the press, which usually comes from three triggers: Less accurate pass to goalkeeper Pass to full-back where City can squeeze that side of the pitch and attack the next pass, whether that be forward into midfield, or back/sideways to defenders/goalkeeper Poor touch by centre-back The first line of Bristol City's press against QPR at Loftus Road in November When the press has been triggered, it’s been executed well, winning ball high-up the pitch and scoring against Sunderland, albeit from the resultant penalty. There have been occasions where City have pressed with a three rather than a four, but most of the time it’s been a four as detailed above. Where it has come slightly undone is against teams like the aforementioned four who are happy to go long as soon as they are pressed. They might not play with an out-and-out “big-man” like Will Keane (Preston) or Lyndon Dykes (QPR), but all of the four teams are good as getting around the loose ball, whether that be willing-runners like Tom Bradshaw (Millwall) or Jay Stansfield (Birmingham) or midfielders closing the space instead. On Saturday versus QPR, the way Ilias Chair and Lucas Andersen got around Dykes meant that whenever Rob Dickie didn’t win clean-ball, the visitors anticipated where the ball was going to drop and immediately put City on the back foot. READ MORE City's shape This is not the time to talk about formations, the game is too fluid to define a team’s chances of success by how you place magnetic blobs on a whiteboard. City have played both back-three and back-four systems under Manning, wide-forwards, inside No10s, etc too. The constant has been two central midfielders (DM/CM to you FIFA players) and Manning voicing over that he really only plays “one-up-top”. We’ve played well in each set-up, poorly in each set-up. I’m becoming more inclined to just look at City’s out-of-possession shape for a guide to formation, although under Manning I see formation being largely irrelevant. So, having overcome that part of the potential debate, how have City built up? Essentially, they try to play up the pitch starting from Max O’Leary, and via the centre-backs. If opponents press O’Leary or block passes to Dickie and Zak Vyner, then he angles long passes to the wings (some do end up out of play). When he can find Vyner and Dickie, what I’ve seen against these four teams is that they very quickly condense the centre of pitch. Bristol City's U-shape in possession against Norwich Early in Manning’s reign we saw how Norwich were happy to sit in an old-fashioned two blocks of four and force us wide. In effect we attacked in a “U-shape”. We’d get as far as 30-yards out in wide areas but couldn’t penetrate infield. Against Millwall I see City further upfield, but no way infield through their low block. It becomes a case of going backwards then out the other side of the pitch, and often, back from where they came. Millwall's low block, as deployed during the 1-0 defeat at Ashton Gate on New Year's Day When City have tried to play infield, into congestion, the intricate patterns haven’t materialised. I thought I’d see this patient approach result in moving opponents around to create gaps to thread passes through, but that isn’t something I’ve observed. If I take a team like Leicester, they might look like they are passing for passing’s sake but inevitably a player becomes free. I don’t see that with City. If we think back to last season, City tended to create or score from players getting to the byline and cutting balls back. City haven’t done that anywhere near enough under Manning. Too much happens in front of the opposition defence and midfield. Quick possession Where City have had success, even if it’s not materialised in goals per se, is being able to attack before the opponent’s defence is set. In the picture below we can see Dickie has threaded a pass between the Millwall midfield, allowing Jason Knight to take the ball on the half-turn and drive at the defence. You can see the Lions midfielders are too far ahead of the ball and not structured to defend. Knight is often the key to finding those pockets, but I think City’s opponents have cottoned-on to this tactic. Jason Knight spins into space after getting beyond Millwall's midfield line A different route this time. Although using the wings, Dickie has found Cam Pring before Millwall’s defence is set. He can stride down the wing and then use options inside or outside. This time Rob Dickie goes wide to Cam Pring whose pace down the side can take him beyond Millwall's midfield On Saturday, Manning called out that although we were forced wide, we didn’t pass the ball quickly enough to take advantage of QPR’s retreating midfield. The other options are from Dickie bringing the ball into midfield himself, or maybe see Haydon Roberts inverting to create numerical advantage in the middle of the pitch. QPR maintain their tight shape out of possession at Ashton Gate on Saturday In summary and possible solutions City increasingly appear almost too structured in and out of possession, not enough “chaos” being created (structured chaos, perhaps) against these types of teams. They need to turn the game into a match where their quality (on paper) should shine through, not be dictated too by how their opponents want them to play. Manning said after the 0-0 draw at QPR in November: “If you force the team to go direct and take the decision away, you get a certain outcome that might hit a level; the same if you force a team to build; but it’s that solution, it’s not about just play off the cuff, it’s real clear structures and rotations and understanding which one do you pick at the right time. “I think the biggest bit is you have to look how QPR set up. Naturally if a team blocks, you’re going to have a lot less touches than if they press, because of where they give you space. “The fact they gave us space in front and down the sides, allowed us to have a lot of the ball in those areas which, again, you’re looking at - you can drop Tommy outside it, but what we had to do a better job was getting into wide areas behind them, so he’s on the end of the finish." On Saturday, what did he learn from the first game and what did he adapt for the return match? Very little it seems! That may sound harsh, but if I’m going to praise the game plan a few days earlier against Southampton, I’m gonna critique QPR. Maybe the positive is that all eight games against QPR, Birmingham, Preston and Millwall are done and dusted for 2023/24. Take the five games against those teams that Manning has presided over and City are: Played 13, won 6, drawn 4, lost 3, points 22 – play-off form! Unfortunately, you can’t pick and choose which results count. However, they now have back-to-back games against Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff which will tell us if time on the training ground has bore fruit and/or City have learned from their mistakes against these type of teams. Somewhat ironically, the very issue Manning is looking for a solution to is something which formed the basis of his Coaches Voices webinar in 2021, in which presented ideas on how to beat a medium block when in charge of Lommel SK in Belgium. "We don't work off patterns, we give the players solutions and then it's on the players to own their decisions and pick the soplution at the correct time," Manning said. "When you're playing against the block, mentality is key. "We've been punished many times this season for the mentality of the players. What can happen against the block is you have time on the ball, you shift it side to side, players tend to become a little bit loose, a little bit careless, slow things down or take too many touches or misplace a pass because they think it's easy, as opposed to maintaining discipline and focus As it stands, we aren't getting the rotations from the two 6s - Williams and James - to create the necessary overloads to make this work. They are great in a block, but not so good when against one. Hence why the decision to leave Taylor Gardner-Hickman out of the starting XI against QPR was a puzzling one. Knight also appears at times to be playing too much against the opposition centre-back, almost as a secondary forward. He could look to drop a few yards deeper and make the defenders ahead of him or defensive midfielder behind him think about tracking him. Either way, it opens up space, and Conway and Nahki Wells then have more chance of being slid in. If Knight's runs are ignored by the opposition then he can receive in the pocket. Finally, either there has to be more bravery or smoother execution in switching the ball, to ensure quicker movement across the pitch, further dragging opposition players out of position. Dickie, Vyner, Williams, James and Gardner-Hickman are all capable of delivering such passes, but we don't seem to try it enough.

The play off final at the Millennium wasn't entertaining - the biggest let down in my 50 years of watching City, deservedly sacked for failing to set us up for a game that even Brighton didn't think they would win. A serial failure who has won virtually nothing since being rightly sacked. A lazy manager who allowed a drinking culture to prevail - how unprofessional to lose your main striker for several games at the start of the season after he injured himself drunkenly falling off a bar stool in Marbella. Fortunately GJ tolerated no such shenanigans and called out anybody not getting on board wether on the pitch......or among the fanbase!

I saw it too

Yes, a bit of humility ...."we got it wrong today, we need to find better solutions etc" ...wouldn't go amiss. I think he pre plans the subs, ie players x,y, and z will get 60 minutes and then we'll freshen it up to keep the intensity with a,b,and c, regardless of how the game's panning out, and won't deviate from "the process".

And a Woodbine ?

Tony Thorpe

Black Tower - only the best

Angel Delight