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RedRock

OTIB Supporter
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Everything posted by RedRock

  1. 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.
  2. 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. .
  3. 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?
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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!
  7. Cruel, cruel game. Deserved something from that.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. The only way we will get promoted out of this Division based, on Lansdown’s approach, is to hit a ‘sweet spot’ with the squad. That will necessitate the existing squad’s decent players all hitting their prime and being consistent, a few Academy starlets breaking through, supplemented by a few ‘first team ready’ incomings who deliver. Can be done. Of our ‘units’, the defence is ok. Midfield some way off and attack is desperately lacking. So, the Midfield we have added a couple with potential following the Jan window. Hopefully, they’re good enough to step up and perform consistently. If not, we may need an experienced addition there. The attack to be addressed in the Summer with several new first team ready incomings. Problem is our ability to acquire first team players has been more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’. Whatever the ‘process’ that is employed in identification of suitable talent, assessment of player durability etc it appears flawed. If we think the same approach, with the same ‘talent spotters’ same ‘process’ is going to deliver, pretty confident we’ll be disappointed as success is going to be luck more than judgement. Personally, just can’t face having to watch any more like Anis, Harry - and becoming increasingly concerned about TGH (who we had on a try before we buy ffs) - with the manager trying and failing to get a performance out of them and attempting justify the talent spotting team’s decisions. Nige sussed them fairly quickly. As ever though with City, new manager comes along and wastes months coming to the same conclusion. So, solutions. Complete overhaul of approach to first team talent spotting. Tell the manager to clear out the not good enough’s (have we not been here before!) and just don’t play them for the sake of the talent spotters credibility. Get the squad blend right, develop PARTNERSHIPS between players. Ditch the Manager textbook, be more observant and react quickly to what is happening on the pitch. Can already see the next batch of our talent moving on because the Club ain’t developed a squad and playing style that is good enough to push on. Bit like snakes and ladders following City isn’t it? More snakes than ladders though.
  14. To be fair, Chapter 2 has never existed in the Bristol Edition.
  15. As ever City, that’s a real classy January window. What the hell are we doing buying crocks and not good enoughs AGAIN. **** ‘we will have a review’ when it’s been patently obvious for years we have major issues with transfers and injuries. Just get people in who know what they’re doing. This Club really tests your patience.
  16. Having lived in South Devon for 35+ years, I think you will find Newton Abbot is very much a Torquay Utd town. Genuinely feel for their supporters as they are amongst the most passionate about their Club as any fans I’ve met. Hope they can find a way back to regain Football League status sooner rather than later.
  17. Yes, a really odd day. Sat in the old grandstand in the seating nearest to the Open End which was a first for me. Bizarrely, a chap a few rows away just stood up early on in the match and nutted a lad full in the face who had criticised a passage of play. The crack of breaking his nose reverberated around the stand. Awful. Rumour I heard was it wasn’t just Millwall who had turned out from London to bolster Charlton’s support for the match. Funny how things stick with you, even though most of the time I have no idea even what day it is
  18. A sad day for SW football. Think Gary Johnson stayed in post because they couldn’t afford to sack him. Clearly, we saw peak GJ. He’s sounded a broken man in recent interviews. Best for him and his health to walk away now. Cheers Gary and thanks for our journey.
  19. Agree, flip-flopping around like we’ve done with our approach will mean ‘luck’ will have a major role in any success. I come back to what I’ve always thought the Club - the old chestnut - we just do not invest sufficiently in a recruitment ‘team’ at first team player level. We should have a comprehensive network of scouts watching matches. For all the analysts sat behind computers, you can’t beat experienced and knowledgable football people in the field who have a proven track record of identifying first team ready talent. I’m sure Cornick and Mehmeti blew a fuse in our analysts computers but …. on the grass… nah.
  20. Seems to me that we’re transitioning from a ‘traditional’ build a squad that has strength through unity with the sum bigger than parts approach with a direct, pragmatic style of play (Pearson), to a ‘modern’ possession/tactically/technically based, robotic approach (Manning). Question is which style is a non-parachute Club such as Bristol City most likely to succeed with? My view is that you need higher quality players to make a success of the possession approach. Looking at last Season, Burnley possession-based had parachute payments and more quality players, Luton and Sheff Utd did not have parachute payments and played a more direct game. Interesting that Tins and Jon, I think, looked at Ipswich at AG and thought we could go down the possession-based route without having the luxury of parachute payments. My gut instinct - partly because I think our ‘hit’ rate on quality first team signings is so poor - Cornick and Annis ffs. - is we’d be best employing a Pearson-style approach. However, I’m not closed to thinking the Manning-style can succeed. It was a massive change in approach, a complete reset and will take time and a lot fewer **** ups on transfers. So, Tins and Manning over to you. Going for yet another ‘reset’ does feed the frustration when things don’t go right. So I understand the anger when we put in a limp-wristed performance like that witnessed against QPR.
  21. ...and it achieves that objective and is bloody great. If it doesn't rock your boat, then fine. Sod off, you don't have to listen to it. Set your own rival project up and see how it fares. I, for one, am appreciative of the time, energy and commiment these lads put in and it seems I'm not alone.
  22. Well, I think the podcast is top drawer myself. Love the mix of personalities and differing opinions. Lummydaze, if they were all the same sort of characters expressing the same views it would be as dull as Match of the Day. It's my must-listen nowadays for post-match analysis. Ian reminds me of Roy Keene. Well-chaired and Tom is a great addition. If only the team could provide such high level entertainment and intelligence on a consistent basis!
  23. Interesting. Admirable he has achieved so much from a troubled start.
  24. Had to visit Exeter City’s Club Shop today to get a Kidderminster Harriers shirt printed up for a mate who has got cancer. Lummydaze. It was like going back in time to the Beryl-era Club Shop! Proper Aladdin’s Cave. Well stocked, good range, quality products and, to top of off, 5-star customer service. Was chatting for some time to a couple of their staff. They are with Adidas, but have their via relationship with the supplier through a secondary Company, Pro-Direct (Newton Abbot). Claim never to have supply or quality issues. A fan-owned Club who seem to have got their merchandising spot-on. Hmmm.
  25. The actual questions were decent. Just a bit of a strong accent which made her difficult to follow. Not seen her, but from the reaction of the players/managers a bit of a looker I suspect. Belly…calm down mate. Reckon if she interviewed him after every match he’d be the league’s top scorer.
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