mozo

Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker? We will win 5-0. Mark. My. Words.

26.5k was mentioned in the GM interview I think. So that looks right

I think the bittersweet element here is that if we, by some minor miracle, finish top 6 next season, then the board could argue that they were justified in bringing in Manning when they did and managing the budget how they did.

Fair enough. It won't happen anyway The kind of apology you would get from Steve L is "Maybe we could have done things differently but..."

To bring us closer to some sort of closure, I think Steve Lansdown should, and could easily, front up when the season's over, and just apologise for poor messaging around the Pearson sacking. That needs to be followed by a glowing appraisal of the work Pearson did (and best wishes to him). That mea culpa and act of gratitude would make a world of difference to the relationship with the fans. But unfortunately, I don't think many ludicrously wealthy people feel they have to apologise for anything, or accept other people's best interests. At least not this one. Literally all we need is a couple of minutes of grace and selflessness, and then we can draw a line under it.

That's a valid argument, albeit I'm not sure I buy it. But it still comes back to the question, if tactics are the problem, why were we dropping points unnecessarily pre-Manning too (even before the injuries stacked up)?

Yes, but closer to free than his true value.

I've got no issue with people doubting Manning. What I was pointing out to Mr Seagull, was that his assessment that Manning should have won certain "winnable games" is a daft way to assess, because all managers drop points against teams they should beat.

I appreciate no one wants a Nige v Liam debate (sorry guys!!), but it's the easiest way to point out your double standard.

If anyone has seen the brilliant TV comedy series, The Thick Of It, that's kind of how I imagine the sacking of Nige. First of all, the board members, led by Jon, probably passed on the message to Nige in a vague and cowardly way, then scarpered and hid in a store cupboard whilst Nige stomped around the HPC demanding answers. After Nige drives off, they come out to brainstorm how they're going to communicate the sacking without pissing off the fans, which of course spectacularly fails.

Really?! I actually would guess next year. I'm hoping you don't have any intel there!!

The points gap to top 6 is not the barometer that everyone else uses. Everyone else looks at league position and points accrued. This means that we have currently improved on last season. But you conveniently found a metric by which you can criticise. We were good enough to beat Stoke and Birmingham under Nige, but we didn't. Does that make Nige a failure? You and I both know that football is not played on paper.

If you had to guess do you think he'll leave on free next year?

Yeah they bloody should do, and they did through his long covid tbf, but 'feels' like it was part of their thinking (not that I ever know anything!)

At the point that Scott had been sold, and it became clear that we weren't going to splurge any of the profits, I'm pretty sure that the consensus was that we'd be upper mid table, but not on a charge for the playoffs. I do agree when Nige says Liam inherited a good situation, in that we have a young squad, full of potential, all with a great attitude, very hardworking and obedient. Manning doesn't have to cull or overhaul. That's a good footing. But it doesn't therefore mean that the expectation should be playoffs. I don't believe Nige would have got us in the playoffs, but you and I may differ on that? I think this confirms that Nige was sacked for the reasons that we all thought: relationship with owner and NP's health. He rightly appears pissed off about it.

I think these are good points and we'll have loads of threads over the summer about this. I think the overall quality of the squad will only see marginal gains or losses if we only change two players. We will also have the marginal gain, in theory, of our young squad being one year more experienced and mature than this time last year. We will be hoping and praying for the marginal gain of better luck with injuries. So if we are marginally strengthened in each of those areas, we could conceivably be 10 points better off. But the two big caveats are that number one, football isn't an exact science and the wind blows which way it wants. And secondly, it's too early to say because of all the uncertainty around Conway, Williams, James and who the forward will be. An extra 10 points would keep us in the mix for 6th and I think fans would largely be happy. But hey, this is Bristol City, and we know how to balls things up!

Just to check that you are balanced, did you post anything positive about the Norwich performance?

I like 'Twiniesta', might start using that...

I did cringe when Manning said the people not listening thing. Doesn't sound good at all. The only thing I would say in his defense is that he has clarified his position on passion in previous interviews, but the reputation that developed from his not to high, not too low comments, and perceptions of his demeanour still continued.

In all seriousness, I'm interested to know how he knows that there's that preconception of him. Someone obviously told him. I'm sure Nige use to reference things that the fans thought too. How do they know?

I thought it was a decent interview. He makes a point of trying to dispel the OTIB/social media myth that he's a robot and doesn't want emotion to be part of football. He denies that, and said they even covered it in training. He wants us to have fight, and to be on the fine line between emotion and control. Edit: Also lots of 'behaviours' chat. He goes into what they're talking about. Self-explanatory to be fair, but might of interest to the people who get riled by him using the B-word. Finally, I don't think he mentions Southampton

100% agree. Hopefully we will kick off next season with fans positive and up for it. I'd like to see us pick up 4/6 more points from the final two games, bring in a forward that we can all get overly optimistic about, and trounce a couple of team in pre-season to set up a highly anticipated first game of the 2024-25 season, which naturally will be a 0-1 at home to Millwall.

It's also possible that many fans were like me in thinking that City weren't as bad pre-Easter as some were making out. Who knows I'm sure there are lots of factors, but the main one could be that the matchday is a big part of their lives.

Depending on which clubs are knocking on his door this summer, yes. It's so annoying that we find ourselves in such a weak position with a potential star.

Sounds like we want to keep Twine then!