red panda

As well as the stadium obviously, and even though it seems like some of the football hasn't been great, it's still Championship standard and we are playing against Championship teams. It's easy to forget that between 1980 and 2015 we were yo-yoing between the second and third tiers (or worse ), spending more time in the third tier than the second. As recently as 2014/15 we were playing league matches against the likes of Colchester, Rochdale, Scunthorpe, Fleetwood, Walsall and Crawley. For potentially wavering supporters, we're still a much more attractive proposition than we were only a few ago

On a similar note, the BBC website report said "Liam Manning is still settling into the hot seat with Bristol City, taking charge in November, but the players appear to be taking well to his change in style". Amazing how many Bristol Sport employees have infiltrated the mainstream media

There were lots of excited small kids in West Ham kit with one or both parents in the Westfield shopping centre before the match. Tickets probably easier to get hold of (as well as cheaper), and probably thought they'd see lots of West Ham goals

Arrived

Sorry to be boring, but broadcast revenues are so high that many PL clubs are profitable. So it's not a myth. This research paper is quite recent but only uses data from the 2021/22 season and the general picture has improved quite a lot since then (I'm sure other posters can elobarate). Fig 4 shows seven clubs with a positive "adjusted EBIT" in that particular year. It doesn't show a similar table for Championship clubs, but you can compare Figs 2 and 3 which show wages as a % of income (or Figs 5 and 6 which also take account of amortisation) and these clearly show Championship club finances in a far worse state than PL clubs. The authors note that "overspending on wages is a prevalent strategy in a league whose successful teams get promoted to the Premier League".

With a big away section completely sold out, it will be chaos if people don't sit in their allocated seats. Groups arriving at the last minute will be looking for empty seats together, or eventually any empty seat at all (probably squeezed between two fat blokes). Some might say it's their fault for not getting there earlier, but I doubt they'll see it that way (and nor should they)

Eh? He's indisputably had a poor first half, aren't we allowed to say that?

Ignore!

I'm not sure what's the point of this thread. As well as Alex Scott, could we have Brownhill, Decordova-Reid, Kelly and Semenyo back? And perhaps Szmodics as well?

MANNING OUT! Data are plural Apart from that I don't see any problem at all

I don’t want to pretend everything is great, and I really feel for those that travelled such a long way yesterday. But it is really as bad as many make out? We’ve had some poor results, but LM is trying to change some things and all of our defeats under him have been by a single goal to reasonably or very decent sides. The Sky report on last night said City “can take heart from a performance that so nearly produced a fightback”, we “created the best chances” early on, we were “the much better side” for the last 30 mins, and we “could easily have come away with a share of the spoils”. And reading the “Gaffer speaks” thread I think there are many people on here waiting to put a negative spin on anything he says or does: he is apparently “broken”, but would you want him to be upbeat after a defeat or in denial that some things weren’t going well? he “got it wrong” as he speculated that some players might be overloaded mentally, but isn’t a bit of self reflection like this far better than pretending that everything you’ve done is great? he has been criticised for not playing the likes of Yeboah, but when he does this he is wrong for bringing off (the perhaps tiring) Sykes or one poster suggested he was just responding to what he read on here! he’s described as “personality vacuum” and similar, but we’ve employed him to coach a football team, not as an entertainer there are also comparisons with LJ which I think are wide of the mark. LJ really was an example of a “not my fault, I’m doing everything right” manager, whereas LM already comes across as much more honest, open and likely to respond in a good way. Other posters have commented on how enthusiastic the players appear under his management. At the end of the day, it might not work out. But I really hope we can give him a fair chance.

Often this is simply due to mean reversion (look it up!) rather than anything to do with the new manager. And when clubs are battling relegation they will often look specifically for a manager who they think can get quick results, even though they might not be the best long term option for the club. In our case there was no burning platform, so no need for instant results. What matters is whether LM is a good long term option for us, and it's far far far too early to tell,

With Neil gone, LM is now the 20th longest serving manager in the Championship! Mark Robins is the only current manager who was appointed before Dec 2021.

If potential managers looked at fans forums before accepting a post, I'm not sure any club anywhere would ever manage to appoint a manager! More seriously, even if LM was aware of the strong feelings of some fans, I would hope that he only accepted the job because he thought he could be a success here (otherwise why move from a job that's going well so early in his career?). If he does reasonably well (and let's not extend the tedious debate about what that means), then that should get most fans on his side (perhaps not all - we can guess some of those who will never be converted). This was probably too good an opportunity for him to turn down - an underperforming club with lots of potential, patient owners, a good base on which to build. Not in any way negligent in my view.

Sorry to pick on this one, I could have picked many of the posts on here, most of which are nonsense on stilts. Yes many fans were disappointed by Nige's departure, but the hyperbole on here is ridiculous and depressing: describing LM as an "untried lower league manager" makes it sound scary - but Oxford were only a handful of places below us, and he was only "untried" as he hadn't yet managed in the Championship (which was surely just a matter of time, whether with Oxford or another club). And "only Bristol City" is so wrong that the error is visible from space, clubs do it all the time. Millwall appointed Joe Edwards to his first real managerial appointment. And think of Leeds taking Dave Hockaday from Forest Green if you want a really bad example of a genuine untested lower league manager! the idea that we are some sort of outlier is equally ridiculous. As I've said on other posts, the stats show that compared to most other clubs we have a good record giving managers time, and that includes Nige. Many feel hurt by his departure, but can you really deny that progress was slow, at least some of the football was pretty tedious, and Nige was talking to the press about internal matters - whether or not you agree with his points, going public was always going to hasten his exit. And who knows whether or not his health problems were part of the story it's barely December, and we've already seen some much more ridiculous sackings by other clubs, Birmingham and Sunderland are the obvious examples. Nine championship clubs have already sacked their managers this season. LM wants to change some things, and that will take time. I really wish we'd have a bit of patience. It's absolutely true that changing managers is part and parcel of modern football. And it actually happens here less often than at many clubs.

Hmm, James backed off him

I hope not. And please leave fairness out of it, this is OTIB FFS

Karma for a keeper playing silly buggers and a pretty pathetic team. Totally his fault for letting go of the ball after throwing himself to the ground. Why were Wycombe time wasting in injury time when the score was still 0-0? Imagine if you travelled all the way up to Barnsley on a freezing midweek evening to watch your team give up trying to win. Is a bore draw at Oakwell really the height of their ambitions?? Deserve everything they got

I'm not sure we played a stand off game - when we didn't have the ball I thought we were pressing. The big difference is what we do when we have the ball - more emphasis on keeping possession rather than hoofing in the general direction of Bell or Sykes. It will take time for us to get better at attacking under this new approach. Hopefully we'll get there, and it's probably a better basis for us to progress long term (it's pretty risky to rely on counterattacking when you're playing against decent teams)

Not sure what you want him to say, thought he was quite sensible

Give it a rest Nige

Agree with this, but not sure what else they could have said. Perhaps a bit naive in not realising that some of things they said would be carved onto tablets of stone, never forgotten and taken absolutely literally by some fans. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been had they sacked NP and then said "progress was too slow, the football wasn't great, so something needed to change. We're kind of hoping that Liam will do a bit better than Nigel and perhaps get us into the top half this season", which may be closer to what they really believe

Indeed, I'm not sure we played any long balls at all in the first half. In the second half it looked as if the players had been given permission to try the occasional long ball, though usually hit with purpose rather than just hope. That did improve things, as there was a bit of variety (and probably gave QPR a bit more to think about). I'm not sure Max ever kicked long (except for the odd clearance and maybe right at the end), so there were far fewer throw-ins than normal

Positives for me were the clean sheet and we no longer simply hoof balls in the general direction of Sam and expect him to work miracles. Work in progress.