mozo

9 hours ago, wendyredredrobin said:

Hard to get too excited about an end of season game with nothing riding on it, but both sets of players will either be playing for contracts or places in their respective starting 11s next year or even perhaps the prospect of a lucrative transfer deal or contract elsewhere.

But it is our last home game for a few months before we settle down to watch boring England fail to achieve yet again in a major competition and our last chance to see a few players who might not be here next season.

Not sure we will be seeing 2 teams really going for it - more likely a bit of experimentation and perhaps the chance for a few who might be on the fringes from the start or from the bench.

Still, it's what we always enjoy on a Saturday afternoon for whatever masochistic reason or another.

Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker?

We will win 5-0.

Mark. My. Words.

Just now, Davefevs said:

Based on Nick’s handiwork here is the capacity:

I’m sure some of the Atyeo is reduced down for whatever reasons.

I ended up with this based on Nick’s rationale (remove if 100% full).

So if you add 2.5k(ish) in SS, that ought to leave a bit number of POTD for SS.

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

1 minute ago, One Team said:

A bit of humility from Lansdown would go a long way, but personally I don’t see any coming back from this for him. 

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. 

Just now, exAtyeoMax said:

I get the sentiment but I think it's too late for that. 

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.

3 hours ago, Colemanballs said:

I totally agree with the bit in bold but it is surely not an unreasonable position to take that Manning's changing of style to one totally unsuited to our squad and persistence with such style even when all the evidence pointed to the fact that it was not working did cause us to drop points unnecessarily.

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)?

31 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Wouldn’t we still be able to get compensation in a year because of his age?

Yes, but closer to free than his true value.

3 minutes ago, Fuber said:

Depends on the viewpoint of whether you're convinced by Manning, surely?
I'm not such myself, neither I assume is WSM; there arent many things to cheer about for LM in the context of the overall season (and not just the context of the last 5) - he's only just recovered to the position we were in the league at the point he came in (having just had an injury crisis), so I myself am undecided on Manning for example. Depends on what context the double standard marker is being applied.

It also depends on by what metric we're rating Liam insofar - i.e. personal view, or by the metric of the (unrealistic) targets set by the hierarchy, including those aside of league position such as player and academy development.

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. 

2 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

You're choosing to use that metric to fit your arguement. 

You will see from my posts I've very deliberately avoided any talk of managers and focused on us. You're the one bringing up managers in an attempt to once again make it a Manning Vs Pearson debate. 

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.

23 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

No, because I think he’ll go this summer

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

23 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Even with that there was still a clear expectation of progress. 

At the very most we've stood still. I'd argue we've slightly regressed. The gap to the play offs has got wider. 

I've listed a number if games this season that we were more than capable of getting more points from than we did previously on here. Even with selling Scott we are more than good enough to have beaten QPR x2 for example. 

What I'm disappointed with is we have not got the best out of ourselves this season. We can argue all day about why we didn't but the fact remains we didn't. We have under achieved and no one will be able to convince me otherwise. 

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.

13 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Kinda with you there Jeez

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

27 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Most “bosses” would support their “staff” through illness, wouldn’t they?

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!)

14 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

This for me is what I'm really annoyed about. Forget about Liam and Nige for a second. 

We have the likes of Tony Wilkins and his followers saying how fantastic it is that we've done as well as last season and could maybe slightly improve upon that (ignoring the fact the gap to the play offs is wider)

Absolutely none of us expected us to do the same as last season. Each and every one of us expected progression. 

We all felt that the ship had been stabled and that we would push on this season. 

We have not pushed on. I'd argue we've slightly regressed. So why do we have an element of our fan base celebrating matching last season? 

This season we have under achieved with what we had available. 

We have under achieved in a number of games this season without a doubt. 

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.

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

The broader question is that if it’s two signings whether that gives us enough to make a dent in the top six. If we assume we retain Williams but not James/King, and also assume we lose Conway, then we’re pretty much at a zero sum game (Bird for James, new 10 for Twine or Twine, new 9 for Conway).

Yes, we then have SPH and Stokes as young players to augment the squad but there aren’t any others obviously coming through.

As Bird for James can be argued as like for like, Twine for Twine is obviously like for like and the new 9 for Conway is going to be like for like broadly, then the question really is - are the current squad (as it’s not going to be markedly improved) good enough to give us what we want, and sub question, how does that play to the “his players” narrative

(For avoidance of doubt if Liam gets success without “his players” but adjusting to the squad he has then it takes away a major concern).

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!

2 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Obviously we don't know how next season is going to pan out on the pitch. 

But let's just say we do about the same. 

I don't think people are quite aware of the impact the new TV deal will have on fixtures and that come next years renewals we will see a drop off because of the TV schedule. 

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

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Announce Twine, Twiney, Scottie, Twinesy and Twiniesta for half of them!

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

2 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

I’d hazard a guess it’s how it’s cached.

Take the sentence “I didn’t explain myself probably as well as I could, I want players to be emotional” and contrast it with what was said of “People don’t listen properly”

The fact is that he did say what @Superjacksays he did in the manner he did. The way he’s cached it - when he could have made the point so much better - is a bit “I was always right and you were wrong”. 
 

I thought it was a decent presser overall, and again, I’ve made the point before when he said emotion that he didn’t really mean that and had explained himself poorly. But a flag that remains is “are we changing to save his job and he’ll revert to type”. Comments of this nature add, understandably, to that concern.

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.

6 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Good to see that he’s learning from OTIB. 

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 

6 minutes ago, Cov 77 said:

If yourself and the seagull don’t renew that’s up to you , good luck to you , but what it does say is that this forum does not necessarily speak for the general fan base, it’s been awful on here for  months yet tickets have gone very well 

 

 

 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.

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Not just results but improved, intent and performances in 3 if not 4..

I don't think the Swansea result e.g. would've had people rushing back, this six game run has had 3 if not 4 positive performances too and that can inspire hope.

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.

1 minute ago, richwwtk said:

If he has one year left on his contract would it not be in his own personal interest to let the contract run down and be a much more attractive proposition for clubs when there is no transfer fee required for him?

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.

6 minutes ago, Gazred said:

“Not at the moment,” Manning said, when asked whether there had been any developments around his contract situation. “We’re really keen to keep him. I think we’ve been quite clear on that. An offer has gone into him so the decision will be with him, ultimately.

“He’s been great, I love working with him. He’s been one, I think we can have a real positive impact on his career. I don’t think he’s someone who has to chase anything too soon. If you look at his journey so far this season, he’s improving and getting much better. For me, he should be targeting 15 goals plus next season, that should be the aim for him. He’s someone, when you look at it, the defensive side is terrific.

“At the weekend, the cross at the near post where he nearly scores, I think he’s now starting to get in better areas and part of it, having Twiney helps that; you see the relationship between them building, the link-up is massive.

“Tommy’s someone who we want to keep and the ball’s in his court now.”

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/tommy-conway-bristol-city-contract-9244274

Sounds like we want to keep Twine then!