Lack of Action Man

So, by playing Haaland Man City games have become less of a snooze-fest? I’d keep playing Haaland then! Agreed. I wrote a few months ago that I suspect the emergence of Haaland into the Premier League limelight will inspire thr footballing media to wax lyrical about the next “great footballing philosophy” from the bald Spanish one - the return of a more direct/incisive play style. However, football is an ultimately cyclical game. The trend for a possession based approach as used by Pep, is derived from the total football approach of Cryuff. Sky, BT and TNT like to make out that the game goes through revolutionary changes every ten years but it doesn’t really. It just recycles previous styles and approaches and adapts them to the players (and the interpretation of the laws of the game) for that era. As a side note I’m going to be sad to see Klopp leave the prem. Give me heavy metal football over tiki taka any day.

Another poster on here made a great point yesterday, along the lines of - if it wasn’t for the emotional attachment to Bristol City, how much would we really be willing to pay for the football on offer? Football is a spectator sport, and there has to be an entertainment value. Negative sideways and backwards passing to achieve the sum of sweet FA is not entertaining. When we signed on Nige, that was a huge motivator for me to get my ST back after a 5 year break under LJ. The longer we stay persist with the delusional duo (Tinnion and JL) with the personality vacuum that is Manning leading the team then the more it’s looking like a membership, rather than an ST, for me next season.

Manning, his coaching team, analysts and most importantly TINNION all must go.

Shame. Tonight would’ve been better.

Don’t think I’ll be renewing my ST. As OP has said, think I’ll pick and choose games next season. The football on offer is so boring, and the leadership at the club inspires nothing in the way of ambition or desire.

He is prone to the occasional dither on the ball. Noted x2 in the first half, subsequently was robbed of possession when there were options available. But I have to admit, he’s definitely looking like the kind of midfield sentinel we have lacked for a long time.

Jonathan Pearce is a bloody legend

Mark - I normally agree with most of your views on FBC pod. But I cannot agree with this. If Max is to come off his line he needs to do it in a much more measured way for me. Yes, Keane has space to run into but Max doesn’t necessarily need to charge out like that. He can advance towards Keane, but stay up and force Keane to either take the ball round him or attempt a shot from distance, possibly a lob. Dickie then should attempt to cover the line in behind Max. If Keane executes this and scores, then no complaints from me - that’s a well taken goal. Alternatively, looking closely at Max’s starting position (which looks to be ahead of the penalty spot) you could argue that if he has made the call that he’s coming to clear it then he really should be getting there. He looks (to me) to hesitate at the moment where contact with Keane may occur. I do accept that there is a risk of conceding a free kick and possible red card but I honestly think if he had made the decision to come for it then he should be winning that ball.

Shame. There must be data on it out there, as I can find this for the prem from last season: https://www.footballcritic.com/premier-league/season-2022-2023/player-stats/goalkeepers/errors/error-lead-to-goal/2/65452 but can’t find anything for this season at our level. Personally I think MOL makes more errors than people recall, and that we can/should upgrade on him - once finds are available.

I would be interested to see stats for Max on errors leading to a goal this season relative to the other championship keepers. I wonder if @Davefevs has this kind of info?

There are some strange attitudes in this thread. A number 9 should be the priority I agree. But to say that we categorically don’t need another keeper, even if just for competition, is a strange view to hold imo. I feel the situation now is akin to when Steve Phillips was totally uncontested as number 1 here. Yes, he had the occasional blinder - but the majority of the time he was not challenged for the number one jersey and was bang average. We brought in Basso and the rest was history. How we could do with a keeper of Basso’s ability, and inspirational mantras, now.

Happy Christmas all from me and the rest of the oddball family. COYR

Modern coaching speak would refer to “triggers” for a press. In the example you’ve described here, the attacker pressing the keeper needs a partner to press the short pass outlet. Force the keeper to play it first time in the championship and mistakes will happen (or at the very least, it’ll become a long kick 50:50 ball).

Absolutely agree - trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results is madness!

Keepers aren’t pressed enough with the ball at their feet anymore. With the advent of keepers like Ederson, there seems to be an unspoken assumption that all keepers are brilliant with their feet and that closing them down is pointless. That really isn’t true, especially in the Championship - there’s definitely a few dodgy ones. For example - Hull had two!

It’s a great tweet, I agree. Like many things, football is cyclical and goes through periods of tactical vogues and tactical rogues! For the moment, possession based tactics are rife. It seems, at least in the Championship, that things are getting close to the point where too many teams are cancelling each other out with this approach. Not saying long ball is going to come back into fashion, but something will change in the next 5 years and that will become the new normal. And so, the cycle goes on…

Totally agree. Bloody silly idea churning that chant out at 1-0 in the first half. Save it for the 89th minute guys!

Surely it has to be: Anis? ANIS? Who the **** is Anis?

Zak did okay. Dickie wasn’t so good. Their #4 was decent at the back.

That was definitely more like it tonight. There was a visceral willingness to run at the opposition with the ball, rather than play a turgid back pass. Encouraging stuff.

That’s more like it!

Got to go for the jugular now city!

I did the same once. I was asked to leave the hippodrome and never come back.

That is such a poor penalty decision. So, so poor.

Nostalgia - it ain’t what it used to be. But in all seriousness, whilst we may as a club have a tendency to fixate on the past (I do agree wishing former players happy birthday on social media is bizarre), we’ve little of note presently to talk about! Seems patently obvious we are more at risk of going down than up under the new regime and the board couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. People long for those tangible, yet fleeting, moments where our club really did shine in the sun. Because for the vast majority of the time, we languish in a monumental mass of manure.