BrizzleRed

If they try to make us commit to a ST to keep our seats, before we even know the terms of the TV deal and the range of KO times, that’ll be really taking the piss. It’s all very well the club wanting to get your money in the bank as early as they can, but with the uncertainty around the TV schedule, the only fair option is delay imposing the seat reservation deadline until we know what we’re committing to.

Totally agree on both counts and you can easily see why they’ve had a really poor season.

Spot on! For all their possession, Swansea were toothless and didn’t look like scoring. I didn’t even feel nervous in added on time! As you say, that was a clear example of what you get with a posession based side and no end product. I can see that being us, if Manning survives here.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot of money to build a team capable of playing the way he wants. Can you see him getting that from Lansdown, because I certainly can’t.

Why, have you got reliable info that Lansdown is selling up? That’s the only thing that would get me excited about the summer, football wise. That was shocking again today, but the result was everything today, so we can breathe easier now. I certainly can’t look forward to watching that shit again next sesson though.

I’ll be there, getting bored shitless yet again most likely

My thoughts exactly and is why I just can’t see how they think Manning will work out here.

All except the most optimistic of us could see we were miles off being a genuine promotion candidate, so what was the point of shelling out a big wedge on KM? The far bigger and more relevant question is, will Lansdown be prepared to shell out what it takes to fund the Manning team rebuild, if he manages to avoid getting his P45???

So reading this discussion, it’s sounding very much like the Club are living in cloud cuckoo land. How on earth do they think we can convert our squad to LM’s playing style and with the quality needed to be competitive at the upper end of the Championship, whilst staying within ffp limits? Questions that immediately spring to my mind. 1). Have the club completely changed their plans, both in terms of finance and so-called sustainability? One minute we’re shopping in the lower leagues for bargains and now it seems we’ll be needing players of top quality and high cost, just to have a chance of making LM’s system work. 2). Over the years, we’ve lurched from one plan to another and never seem to stick at any of them for very long. This would appear to be a particularly fundamental change of direction and would surely need a very big churn of our squad to have any chance of working. When Manning does go, what are the chances this new squad would then suit his eventual successor, or will we need another massive clear out? 3. Is it just me, or do others think this just smacks of an ill thought out punt by JL and BT, with little thought of how it’s actually going to be put into practice, especially within our budget? If by some miracle, it has been thoroughly planned, it makes you wonder what the Club have seen in LM, to think he justifies the massive change in direction, playing staff and associated costs this will involve. You would expect this has all been run past SL, but I just can’t see how he would buy into shelling out major cash on a load of new players to suit the new plan. It strikes me that if we’re moving in this direction, we’re taking a massive gamble. As has been discussed earlier in this thread, it appears the system has to be working to its absolute maximum for success, as if you aren’t right at the top of your game, you fall well short. Working fairly well just won’t cut it. I just can’t see SL cracking open the nest egg to fund this lot and if we try to do it on the cheap, we could fail massively and soon find ourselves trying to find another Nigel Pearson, to get us out of the smelly stuff again. This whole thing just doesn’t show any sign of joined-up thinking to me, or am I missing something?

That’s true, but the most worrying thing is his inability to counter any deep lying and ultimately defensive teams. As we get sucked closer to the relegation places, I’ve got precius little confidence that we’ll beat any of the low lying teams in those six-pointer games coming up. Let’s just hope he finds a solution super quick, or we could be in real trouble, which you wouldn’t have expected after the comfortable position he’d inherited.

It’s certainly looking that way. If the average points per game under Pearson had been as low as under Manning, we’d have been right in the middle of a relegation battle right now, not just a potential one. There’s definitely no way JL or BT can claim they’ve released any additional potential from this squad by the appointment of Manning, which was supposedly their aim.

He did get longer AG, but to be brutally honest, it appears the longer ‘time on the grass’ Liam gets, the worse the players become. It’s a very worrying trend for me and is why I’ve got little optimism that LM is likely to turn it round. Definitely hope I’m wrong and he improves very quickly, or it’ll will be a very uncomfortable end of the season for us.

The team morale, work ethic, fitness levels and various other factors were very different. Far too nuanced to be directly comparing both records.

JJ was certainly the only successful one we had pinched off us for decades. Unbelievably I think Pulis was also nicked, rather than sacked, though City fans were so relieved to see the back of him, it felt like a massive positive. I completely agree with you, it’s a really horrific indictment of our bleedin awful choices of managers and head coaches over many years. It’s happened way too often to be just bad luck and to me, points to the underlying problem at this club and it won’t be cured by just getting rid of Manning.

A recurrent theme at City unfortunately. It amazes me sometimes that we all actually follow the same club. You just know that if we ever did get someone good enough for us to all get behind, they’ll be gone in a flash, as they get head-hunted by by a bigger club!!!

Could be right there, but that’s one theory that sure as hell won’t get put to the test

Yes, totally agree in the divided opinion. Wouldn’t it be great if we actually found something we generally agreed on someday? Never gonna happen though!

I’m sensing some very worrying echo’s of LJ with the discussions we’re having regarding LM. There’s the ‘give him time’ side and the ‘he’s not showing much that makes us think he’ll improve’ on the other side and I’m in the latter category Do we give him hard earned funds for new players in the summer, when he really doesn’t look like the person we hoped we were getting and could well be gone before Christmas, even if he made it through the summer. Do we learn by our previous mistske of keeping LJ for far too long, hoping he would eventually come good, but it never happened. We’ll never get those wasted years back. My only question would be, do we get shot sooner, or give him until the end of the season? I’m massively underwhelmed with him so far, on so many counts.

That’s the depressing thing, just pushing out LM is unlikely to make much, if any difference on its own. They’ll just go appoint another completely unsuitable person. For me, any lingering hope that SL had it in him to run a successful football club has gone after this latest debacle. The best news I can hear is there’s someone in serious talks to buy this club (not invest, but buy out completely). That’s the only way I can see us potentially moving forward, as any trust I had in Lansdown has completely gone. He’s got us in a massive rut and is clearly unwilling, or incapable of getting us out of it. He’s had more than enough time with his toy and proved he doesn’t have a clue what to do with it. We need a new and clear vision at the top and it really can’t come quick enough. I wouldn’t trust SL, the Crayola Kid and Tecknic Sid to run a piss up in a brewery, let alone our club.

Was thinking exactly the same. A perfect wake up to anyone who still manages to consider NP as a failure.

How about they make him our our International Chairman? That would make him feel even more important and mean he can **** off back to Bermuda!

Well, the players were good enough to be in a very comfortable position when Manning arrived! Who else do we blame, other than the plonkers who appointed him?

I agree re the Lansdowns, but I can see plenty of harm in giving LM next season. We weren’t exactly pulling up trees at the point he came in, but without the points already on the board from NP’s time, we’d be be right in the shit with what he’s added since. That points buffer from the start of the season is all that’s currently keeping us out of the relegation spots. We can’t risk our current form continuing into next season imho.

Isn’t that what the Premier League want though? Virtually a closed shop, with just the illusion of free movement between the top two divisions. The parachute payments will ensure that if one of the bigger clubs had an absolute mare of a season and dropped through the trap door to the Championship, they’d be virtually nailed-on to go straight back up the next season.

…… and judging by our current form, he appears to be moving us down towards his natural level.