Harry

Yep. Agree on both.

Because Conway doesn’t block or press the same way Wells and Knight do. If you lose Knight from that position you basically have to change the whole defensive set up

Maybe. But it was still the correct plan. And it was what he put out there. We’d knock him if he hadn’t played that way so we surely have to credit when he did actually do the right thing.

They scored 10 seconds after the 4 subs. We’d brought Sykes on and he switched off. Not sure how LM could have reacted to the 4 subs when they literally scored immediately after

Plan A wasn’t executed by the substitutes. Agree. Roberts perhaps could / should have come on for Pring Although Pring is quicker than Roberts. So Burns would have had Roberts on toast too

I thought the ‘game plan’ worked well in the first 60 minutes or so. We basically played Wells & Knight as a front 2 and they blocked any passing lanes into Morsy & Luongo. Ipswich couldn’t play anything through midfield and were forced to play wide and long. This was fine by us, as Mehmeti and Cornick were very quickly getting across to the wide players. Cornick in particular gave Davis no space at all down their right. But then; the substitutions happened! Cornick hadn’t given Davis an inch. Within 10 seconds of Sykes coming on, Davis had 30 yards of space to score the first. Then Conway came on. Ok, Sykes attoned for his error on their goal with a great assist for Tommy. But the ‘block’ that Wells & Knight were doing so well, suddenly disappeared when Tommy came on. I highly doubt this was instruction. As it had basically nullified Ipswich all day. Their 3rd goal arose due to Tommy allowing Morsy to receive the ball on half way (hadn’t happened all game when Wells was on), and he then was able to afford Wolfenden some space to ping the ball to Davis. Where Sykes was off of Davis again!! And don’t talk to me about TGH in the 8th minute of injury time taking 4 touches in his own half and getting mugged. Awful 2nd half from Hickman. From Manning’s perspective, I’ll give him credit tonight. His game plan was actually very good and very well executed for 60 minutes. But the substitutions basically ballsed up the game plan by players switching off from their roles

Did he really say that he sends them out there with the perfect game plan? Wow!

See I don’t actually think the model whereby a ‘club’ has an ‘identity’ and an ‘alignment’ is actually the best one. There’s a helluva lot of talk about Brighton, Brentford and Swansea and the models that they put in place to gain promotion. But let’s not forget the other clubs that got promoted. Very few of them had a long term plan/vision. They just employed a bloody good manager or had a boat load of cash. Here’s the list of managers who have been promoted to the premier league since our playoff defeat vs Hull in 2007/8 : Mick McCarthy, Alex MacLeish, Owen Coyle, Chris Hughton (twice), Roberto Di Matteo, Ian Holloway (twice), Neil Warnock (twice), Paul Lambert, Brendan Rogers, Brian McDermott, Nigel Adkins, Sam Allardyce, Malky Mackay, Steve Bruce (twice), Nigel Pearson, Sean Dyche (twice), Harry Redknapp, Eddie Howe, Slavisa Jokanovic (twice), Alex Neil, Aitor Karanka, Rafa Benitez, David Wagner, Nuno, Daniel Farke (twice), Chris Wilder, Dean Smith, Marcelo Bielsa, Slaven Bilic, Scott Parker (twice), Xisco, Thomas Frank, Marco Silva, Steve Cooper, Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom, Rob Edwards. There’s a lot of what you might call ‘old school’ managers in that list. There’s also a lot of guys who were relatively unknown foreigners (but for the most part I understand they either had experience at a good level abroad either as number 1 or number 2). Yes, parachute money played a part in a number of these promotions, but for every club with parachute money that did well, there were others who failed (maybe because of poor managerial appointments?). But aside from Brentford, Brighton and Swansea, I can’t point to any of those teams promoted in the last 15 years as having a standout ‘identity’. They mostly employed an experienced manager or a manager with a background which could be respected, allowed that manager to dictate what he wanted, and threw a bit of money at it. We seem to be the only club who thinks we can get promoted by doing it a completely different way to everyone else. I’m sorry - I wanted it work out, but the appointment of Manning is looking increasingly ridiculous given the above list of managers. Compared to pretty much every name on that list, Manning is an amateur. Our model absolutely feckin stinks.

Superb post. Just one thing to add : Lack of experience in the recruitment team too. It’s basically led by a guy who by all accounts is a decent analyst, and then the rest of the team are mostly interns straight out of Cardiff uni having completed their sports studies.

Yes, the poisoned chalice is definitely a thing. And it’s for that reason that I have been a bit more defensive of Manning than others have been. I just felt that, as he was now in the door, let’s at least give the bloke a chance. The circumstances of his arrival and specifically the words from the hierarchy added huge amounts of pressure to his role. And whilst I was as shocked as all of us at the words that were coming from the bosses, I managed to put that to one side in my mind and just allow Manning time to see what he could do. I wanted to judge him on him, not on the circumstances. That was the main thrust of one of my threads about 3 games in (I think it was entitled separating the truth and the fiction or something like that). In that thread I was attempting to say exactly this - let’s not judge the circumstance, let’s judge him. And as I’ve said elsewhere yesterday, in the first 4-6 weeks I was able to see one or two things which I thought he was trying to adjust and it was looking ok in my mind. The culmination of this was the Watford away match where I thought was as good as I’ve seen us in years. So I was willing to offer a bit more patience than others have done - and some of you did go very early on this. But since the new year it has very much been a backward trend and the slightly good things I’d been seeing early on are now nowhere in sight. I wanted to give him a bit of time, conscious that the circumstances (and unnecessary pressure) were against him from day 1. But I’ve now come to the conclusion that he’s had enough time. I can’t see any positives in the last 4-6 weeks (and the interviews in this last week have been very very telling) and it’s definitely time to move on. For those of you that did go early - all I can say is fair play, you got it right. I was just trying to be a bit more defensive of him as I wanted to afford him the time but without the prejudice (and let’s not hide, there has definitely been some prejudice). But that’s me done now. He arrived unproven and an unlikely ‘fit’ and the last 2 months has told me he’s not going to prove anything here. Time to go.

It was getting close to considering a postponement at FGR on Tuesday v Wrexham. 2nd half it was really coming in and at one point I could only just see the goal mouth at the other end. But it dissipated soon after and was ok. Foggiest game I’ve been to in a long time though

I believe you mate. I do. Which does mean that Tinnion is lying. Because he said it, at 4:38 in that video I shared. He said it. You categorically say it’s not true, based on your own experience and that of people you know that are part of the academy. And I do actually trust you. So my conclusion is that Tinnion has lied. He wasn’t talking about the future. He said it’s what we’ve got now.

If that form table repeats itself over the next 10 games then we will go into the last day of the season like this : 55 - Swansea, Boro & QPR 53 - Watford 52 - City, Plymouth 51 - Wednesday 49 - Millwall 48 - Huddersfield, Birmingham 47 - Stoke, Blackburn 21 - Rotherham

So you’re telling me that Tinnion was lying in that interview then? Because he definitely said it. Am I to believe you or him? to honest, I think I’ll believe you Mr Cowshed. So that’s another thing Tinnion has lied about then. See my post earlier today on the ‘counterparts’ thread.

On point 1, our technical director would disagree with you. He says so on this video at 4:38. Re point 2, De Zerbi has a very different playing style to Potter. De Zerbi plays deep possession football, possession through central areas and then crosses from high in opposition territory. He is also consistent in his approach against all levels of opposition. Potter tried higher territorial possession, more wing play and he frequently altered his block dependent on opposition. Brighton have a clear recruitment strategy, but their managers are able to cultivate their own playing philosophy.

I understand what Nick says does have truth to it. There was meddling. There always is at this club. However, the SC sacking was done to death years ago and this thread wasn’t started as a discussion point for the Cotts sacking. Its about what doesn’t work and what should work going forward.

If you read carefully you’ll see that I said “limited involvement”. Yes, upon arrival Pearson was allowed to bring in a couple of ‘his own’. But thereafter he was restricted by the ‘model’. And I can also assure you, Nige wanted to renew James’ contract but ‘the club’ didn’t. And that’s where the disagreements started

If you read carefully you’ll see that I said he left at the right time.

Not necessarily. Steve doesn’t need to sell. He just needs to get ******* real and drop the idea that he can achieve success HIS way. You can’t. Get a manager who can, allow him to do it, and call off your dogs

Not really. The club were still getting Pearson to adhere to the club’s philosophy. Pearson didn’t have free rein. Name 1 thing or indeed 1 person that changed in the recruitment area during Nigel’s 2.5 years. None. We were still committed to doing the same things. Nige brought his own experience and respect to the playing staff that were presented to him, but the model above him was still majorly flawed.

For the last few years, Bristol City FC has been attempting to create its own ‘model’. Their idea of the optimum way to run a football club to provide it with the best chance of success. The ‘Model’ is supposed to be one where everything at the club is ‘aligned’. It says that all of our teams from the under 8’s through to the first team will play the same way. I’m not sure that’s quite such a good idea but hey ho. But the most crucial element for me is that the model says that the first team will play a certain way and that we have a ‘Technical Director’ to oversee this and ensure it’s on track and everything is aligned. Personally, at this level of football, I don’t think that works. The scene is such that, any manager coming into the club should be of a certain ‘type’ and conform to a certain set of principles. The club have created a philosophy (call it an identity if you like) as to how they want to play football and any manager should align (there’s that word again) with that. The Technical Director runs the recruitment side of the business. He determines what players we sign and what manager and coaches we sign. He will try to conform to the club principles and appoint managers and coaches who will ‘fit’ and sign players who will ‘fit’. We see this sort of model at the top end of the game. Many of the biggest clubs run on a Director of Football type of model, where the manager has only limited say in the player recruitment and is basically just tasked with getting on with it, with the rather expensive tools he is provided. This doesn’t work at our level. We see this in all it’s gory (yes, not glory) with the Tinnion/Manning appointment. We have a club philosophy that desires to play in a certain way and players have been signed to attempt to slot into that style. We now have a manager who has been appointed who clearly likes to adopt a very different philosophy. I don’t blame Manning for this. We approached him. He didn’t apply for this job. He had a clear and evident CV, a body of work behind him, that was obvious to anyone who bothered to look that was at odds with our own club model. Furthermore, this new manager, whilst not having players who can play his way, doesn’t have very much say in how to fix this. His first transfer window and we make 4 permanent signings - 3 of which we wanted before the new manager got here. So the new manager arrives, doesn’t have players he wants and then the ‘club model’ signs 3 players that ‘the club model’ wanted. This is a huge issue for me. We are attempting to recreate models that have had success at places like Brighton, Brentford and even bloody Luton. But whilst those clubs had certain recruitment models, they didn’t dictate a ‘playing philosophy’ throughout the club. They just had very thorough and clever scouting and recruitment modelling. It didn’t dictate the playing style. Whenever there was a manager change the new boss still has his own free reign in terms of how he played and the recruitment model would then have to ‘align’ with the managers philosophy - not the other way round. When Dean Smith took over from Mark Warburton, he did things differently and they recruited accordingly. Likewise when Frank then took over from Smith, he had different philosophies on pressing, defensive positioning, midfield solidity etc. and the club then recruited accordingly. Luton played a certain way under Jones, but when Edwards arrived he harnessed what was already good but brought his own style to it and the club then recruited accordingly. What we have at Bristol City is a dictatorial model, whereby the Technical Director and Recruitment Team have defined a model and anyone that arrives at the club must buy-in to that model. There is no wavering. Yes, a new manager might have a bit of a say in some signings but generally they are targeted based on our defined modelling. Surely it’s obvious to anyone that this just doesn’t work. The talk of ‘everything at this club is aligned, from the under 8’s to the first team’ is just a false platitude. It’s a strapline that they think is clever “hey look at us, we’ve got an identify and model, we’re unique”. That might work well at Barcelona or Man City but it’s pointless in the championship. It’s not what will actually bring success on the pitch. To achieve success on the pitch at this level you need a manager who is allowed to run the first team in his own way. Who won’t be dictated to by inferiors who spout about an identity and an alignment throughout the club. It’s time for Manning to depart, in my opinion, but it’s also time for the club to drop the nonsense and stop acting like a billy big bollox. The club think that they have a clever way of doing things and that it’s the only way of separating themselves from the challenging division we are in. It’s not clever. It’s nonsense. Drop the bullcrap. The way to achieve success was evident to us a few years ago when a man called Steve Cotterill was appointed. I wasn’t his biggest fan when he got here, and I also think the time was right for him to go, but the period he was here, there is no denying that he’s been the only manager in recent years that’s done things his own way and said “balls” to the ownership and ‘model’. Cotterill worked with an experienced Chief Scout and identified the best available players and signed them to fit a way of playing that HE wanted. None of this “we’re all aligned from the u8’s to the tea lady”. Just an experienced manager with an experienced chief scout, putting together a squad that would play to the managers identity, not the clubs identity. It’s time to ditch the bullshit. Get out there and employ a manager with cahuna’s, one with a CV that demands respect from his players, let him bring in the players that HE wants, not players that the ‘club’ have targeted for the last few windows. Let him put his own team together to play the way that HE wants. The current model stinks. There are people in positions of authority that have real negative impact on this club who are not fit for purpose. We need a board of directors who can appoint a respected manager, who in turn will be empowered to bring in his own trusted recruitment team or chief scout, sign his own players and have zero meddling from unqualified nobodies. Our model is shit. And we will get nowhere with it.

Respectfully, I completely disagree. There were absolutely no positives today. None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

Don’t just stop at Jon & Brian. Is our recruitment set up ‘best in class’? Nope. Is Jon the best chairman a championship club could appoint? Nope. Is Tinnion the best DoF a championship club could appoint? Nope. Is Gilhespy the best head of recruitment a championship club could employ? Nope. Is Kalifa Cisse the best coach a championship club could appoint? Nope - he was scouting in France until recently! Is Pat Mountain the best coach a championship club could employ? Nope - had anyone even heard of him before he arrived here? Is Gavin Marshall the best CEO a championship club could employ? Nope. He was a finance manager at computershare before arriving here! Is Downsy the best person to employ as stadium announcer? Nope. Has Steve ever appointed the best available manager? Nope. Yes, I’m at the point where Manning has to go. But that won’t solve any problems at this club.

Nope. Didn’t spot any of those. Kelly was already here before Tinnion returned to the club, Semenyo was recommended by someone at SGS and Scott was due to relationships developed in Guernsey by Steve

Yeah. That wasn’t particularly inspiring was it!