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RedRock

OTIB Supporter
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Everything posted by RedRock

  1. … and therein lies our problem. Our first team recruitment aside from the very occasional gem is, frankly, abysmal. And if Anis and the Belgium chap were on Manning’s radar before he arrived, I’m afraid I’m joining the ‘outers’. The January window, for me, seemed just bizarre. Would I trust Manning/Tinnion with the transfer pot over the Summer? No way.
  2. RedRock

    Emotion

    We will never win anything playing Pep possession football. To do that you need to be at the top of the food chain in your division. We’re miles off that, and the constant references to not being able to compete with the parachute payment teams should have informed our post-Nige managerial selection. We will only succeed by being emotional, a team greater than the sum of its parts. A team that plays to its maximum and then some, driven on by emotion. The numpties that write the FA training manuals can’t describe or quantify ‘emotion’ so that chapter doesn’t exist. Consequently, if you employ an FA textbook coach you get a load of robots. My fear was we’d appointed LJ in disguise. All I need now is sight of LM measuring the length of the grass to confirm it.
  3. The FA Coaching Manual has a lot to answer for. Without emotion the game is nothing. Artists, not Robots.
  4. Got a good feeling about today. Stung by criticism of playing styles, the January transfer window (again) and performance, the Club will ‘unleash the beast’ today and start Twine, that bloke from Belgium, Anis and Harry, launching a blitzkrieg on the West Brom defence. 4-1 City, with ‘West Brom’ becoming the new ‘Southampton’ in Club speak. Go Reds.
  5. Yep. Agree. For me, the probationary period for the new set up has expired. All have expressed their views. The Club have decided to motor on. Fine, we know our place. The fans have stepped up with amazing home and away attendances considering all that’s gone on. Over to the Club now to deliver on their promises. Come on City, surprise us. You reds.
  6. It’s almost as if it’s a rather unsubtle ‘stuff you’ statement from the Club. Well fine. Let’s now see what these two maestros deliver between now and the end of the Season in order for them to have the headline billing on the Club’s most important promotional poster of the year. No pressure chaps. I will be more than delighted if you deliver, starting Saturday.
  7. For a Club that has a history of players picking up hamstring injuries triggered by unknowns, to actually sign a player who has allegedly had a history of hamstring injuries triggered by unknowns is just so us. At the Fans Forum, didn’t a Club spokesman appear surprised when challenged about the relatively high percentage of muscle injuries and say we might need to investigate the issue. Maybe we just needed a few more examples to help with their data base. Anyhows, enough of the negativity now. Let’s pull together and have an unbeaten run to the end of the Season just to show all the doubters we’re heading in the right direction under the stewardship of our fresh, new management team. Tally Ho!
  8. I fully understand and support the Youth strategy. Many have been calling for the Club to develop player ‘partnerships’ and playing the Under-18s as a unified squad will help achieve that objective. So a good approach, with the added bonus of raising the Club profile. Worth noting that playing partnerships are near-absent from the first team, bar Vyner and Dickie. The only other partnership, Wells and Conway was developed in the Under-21s - a much under-utilised resource for that purpose. As a slight aside, in my view the Under-21s haven’t been used effectively either for nurturing players back to full fitness and integrating new players into our style of play imo. I really struggle though with the fundamentals. Having a Chairman, some sort of shared CEO, a Technical Director, Manager and Coach all pretty inexperienced at managing this level of football/scale of organisation is high risk. The more I hear from these chaps, the greater becomes the concern. IMO we need a good communicator with experience in the football realm, maturity and, frankly, intelligence to get a grip of the situation, and quick.
  9. Two life lessons I’ve learnt relevant to high level positions in big organisations:- 1) work hard, but most importantly, work smart 2) continually challenge yourself and improve, but know your ultimate limitations You’ll always get opportunities in life, be ‘head hunted’ etc but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself, be the judge of your own competence levels. It is hard to turn £££ jobs down and, from my experience, even harder to deliberately **** up interviews, but you live only once. Quality of life is far more important than prestige, mega-bucks and a fancy car. May not apply to all, but just saying like …..
  10. There’s often a chasm between outcomes from working hard and working smart in terms of success. We need more smart workers on and off the pitch.
  11. Yep. Agree. The problem is the Lansdown’s are nice people, really nice. Probably too nice for the cut throat, cheating football world. In business Steve was complemented by some northern ‘grit’ (think I spelt that correctly) and the chemistry worked. Problem has been the Lansdown’s have managed the Club more with their heart rather than head and their management personas haven’t been counter balanced by some ‘grit’. The nearest they got was managers in Cotts and Nige.. but of whom became too uncomfortable for them to manage. Gould was a perfect foil for SL, a rare combination of a decent chap with added steel. Don’t think many could pull the wool over his eyes. His only possible lacking was football expertise. We need someone similar, and if we can’t get the football expertise with the other attributes, any new CEO needs to appoint someone who can add that to the top table… with particular responsibility for first team signings and overseeing the medical side. I really worry with Jon, Tins and Manning we are going to revert to ‘soft, nice, comfortable’ Bristol City, the Club DNA Nige fought so hard to erase.
  12. We seem a Club in turmoil yet again. Frankly, I don’t trust the Board, Technical Director or Coaches to make the right calls. We’ve reverted to go for the easy life. Jon has appointed a non-threatening technical director and coaching staff, rather than people who challenge and push boundaries. We’ve adopted the lame ‘jam tomorrow’, rather than the more difficult to achieve and easier to be judged on ‘here and now’ transfer strategy. Reverted back to passive play on the pitch, lacking adventure, excitement and risk. It’s all very much back to the ‘comfy club’ of days of past. So, given the ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach, I suspect Manning will be here for 2024/25, bar a disastrous end of season set of results - which, admittedly, isn’t beyond him. Question for me is will SL let us drift back to mediocracy, or will he intervene and appoint a CEO overseer with football expertise that will crack rather whip. That could be the most important signing of the next few months, together with a medical expert and chief scout. Time for the Club’s ‘continuous improvement’ mantra to become action rather than just words methinks.
  13. I asked a few weeks back what he brings to the team. I still don’t know. Even more worrying is that under Manning’s tenure it became permanent. I don’t think he fits Manning’s style of play at all and has become less and less effective as the weeks roll by. Yet another expensive punt by our elite transfer department and a further addition to their long list of ‘not good enough’s’ by the looks of things. The 2023 January window was appalling, the 2024 little better. We will never progress with the current first team talent identification set up.
  14. Lummydaze. Did you miss the Pulis era? Can remember a 0-0 sat in the Dolman against Cardiff, hoping Cardiff would score. That’s how bad it got. Some pretty wretched times pre Pearson too, when pass accuracy must have been around 5%. At least we can normally pass to our own player, all be it at present only with a backwards or sideways ball.
  15. Quite a bit of endeavour, very little quality. Hats off to Dickie. The only real positive aside from the 3 points. Oh, and Anis is getting a bit better. .
  16. I do worry about a re-appearance of the grassometer pretty soon. We do lurch from man-managers - Cotts and Nige - to technoheads - SoD, LJ and Manning - with alarming regularity. Warnock next maybes to continue the sequence?
  17. Our Keeper looked decent. Well taken goal from Phillips (?) too. Composed right-sided centre back for us. Generally though, Swindon - despite the result - seemed to have the better quality players/play. On to Man City.
  18. As said many times previously, if you want to get promoted playing fast-paced, front-foot possession football you need a team made up of the division’s best and most skilled players at that style. Man City are successful as they can buy the best. We simply don’t have those players because they cost £££. Pearson adopted an all together different and pragmatic approach of trying to weld a successful team. A ‘band of brothers’ approach. His problem - aside from the off the field issues - was that recruitment was pretty poor. As a consequence, we weren’t improving - at least not at a fast enough pace. With a great deal of luck you might be able to develop a Man City style of play on the cheap and develop your own youngsters, or buy in young players for elsewhere - the strategy we’re, seemingly, now employing but that will take time and possibly, a relegation. No guarantees of eventual success though and the likelihood is if we do develop any decent players they’ll be snaffled up by bigger Clubs - unless by some stroke of good luck they develop all at the same time so we can offer players a realistic vision of them as a collective going on to the Prem. While I can see some logic in ditching Pearson, I struggle massively with flip-flopping to an entirely different approach and reversion back to the failed LJ type model. Think we’re right in a hole now. Stick or twist? Gamble either way. Do I trust our recruitment ‘team’ to deliver quality, physically resilient players in the Summer that can deliver ‘Pep’ football? No. Do I think that Manning can adapt his style of play, get the players on board and become a quality in-game manager in the last ten games? No. Do I think the Lansdown’s will press the button. No, at least not until October at the earliest. The next few months are going to be hard for us supporters. Relegation, I fear, is a distinct possibly.
  19. On the fitness issue, they all looked like pocket dynamos. A number of modest height, but real physical ‘units’, tough and solid. Are they being baulked up by the same fitness coaches Mark Ashton employed here? If so, what the hell was going on up the HPC to produce our team of injury prone lightweights!
  20. Cruel, cruel game. Deserved something from that.
  21. Lummydaze, FBC isn’t supposed to be an Oxbridge Debating Society! It’s a group of passionate and knowledgable football supporters willingly giving their time up and chewing the cud over a match. Even better, it’s free to watch, and has an ‘off’ button if it doesn’t meet your required standards. It seems to appeal to a decent number of us judging by their audience figures. Long may it continue. I’m sure those who seek more regimented, managed, polite debate can satisfy themselves listening to Liam’s Press Conferences. ..and to FBC don’t let the bustard’s grind you down you are doing great.
  22. The philosophy of our Club seems to be to ignore the ‘here and now’ and take the easy option and just plan for ‘jam tomorrow’. So, given Tom’s age plus the added bonus that he talks real sense, I personally think based on his FBC performances that JL should invite him to become trainee Coach/Manager/Director.
  23. Just watched the Cardiff ‘You Tube’ episode which reaffirmed my belief that the chemistry of the FBC ‘team’ is brilliant. Love ‘em all and the format/flow of debate is brilliant. The diversity of characters and views makes it compelling viewing. Absolutely superb, far, far better than Sky’s Soccer Saturday’s et al professional efforts. Struth, if everybody agreed with each other it would as boring as watching 20 backwards and sideways passes of a football team that didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to be doing. More than achieves its objective of providing an opportunity to listen in on a good after-match pub debate. Addictive viewing. Hats off to all those involved. More’s the pity you aren’t the fans representatives on The Board (if we were allowed any!) - much sense spoken.
  24. Erm. Is it just me or are things - unusually for OTIB - getting a little hysterical on here? Had an excellent game against Soton and decent performances against Premier League opposition in the Cup. So we can’t be that far off. Yes, followed by absolute tripe against two teams fighting for their lives, but some perspective maybe? It is indeed frustrating that we have to watch Anis and Harry be given second, third, fourth chances and predictably not taking them. The January transfer window yet again doing nothing to improve us, Tommy’s performance curve flattening out and TGH being anonymous but let’s get to the International Break before we start pressing the panic-manic button. A win today, point at Ipswich and victories against Swansea and West Brom will do nicely. Yours Optimistically.
  25. Colin could’ve done so much with this Club. Hey Ho…. maybe SL could swallow his pride and just let him do our press conferences once in a while.
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