Red-Robbo

This sounds awfully familiar, Derby Boy....

We'll have to differ because I do see progress - and it's measurable. I didn't (and still don't) support the sacking of Nigel Pearson, but I am not going to claim that we'd be definitely challenging for promotion if he was here. It's been a steady improvement since the Holden season. No great leaps forward. IF Manning is learning as he goes along, maybe next season - depending on incomings and outgoings - maybe that'll be the first time for yonks we may genuinely have a chance of Top 6. This season I certainly didn't think we did, nor did most Otib members who were polled at the start of 23/24 and - I suspect - Jon Lansdown didn't think it either. But if you get asked "what's this season's target?" comfortable survival isn't the inspiring answer to give.

I think in one interview in the close season Lansdown Jr said Top 6 was the target. That's what pretty much all chairmen say and most managers too. It doesn't mean "we are guaranteed to be Top 6 and anything else is a failure". Personally, I don't think we have the squad for it nor did we under the last manager. However, it does seem to bend you out of shape that we ARE finishing higher up than before, potentially 4 places, and we had a short but lucrative cup run plus various underperforming players now look better under LM than they did before. We await to see what the summer brings. Steve Evans thinks we're 2 or 3 players away from being contenders. I think he's right.

What's the right end of the table? We're finishing in the top half of the table - best 9th, worse 12th and have beaten a number of the Top 6 sides, not to mention a PL club. He might talk shite for much of what he says, but he's correct in that it's ending "broadly positive", with very good form and more than one player stepping up and playing very well. As to whether anyone would finish higher than 9th with the same squad, that's total guesswork. Pearson had us at 8th at one point, but didn't hold that position. We just don't know where we'd be if he had stayed.

He was at third division Crewe for the first part of his career.

Blige! I was there only a few years ago. Just before Covid. No problems, but there were 4 of us, 2 attractive women, and it was early to mid-afternoon. Were you there on a football-related journey?

Babestation on again?

71% and tbh it looked like more!

It was as straightforward a penalty as you'll see in my opinion.

Roberts has really stepped up after some rather tentative early performances. You'd want him keeping his place next season. Great skill.

You saying he's a fledgeling player?

Dunno what you want from a home game if you think the atmosphere was poor v Blackburn? By modern Ashton Gate standards, that's as good as it gets.

With you on the last line. I want them gone - and let's face it that could happen; the club's for sale. I really can't tell how next season will turn out though. I'd find it very difficult to do a final placing prediction for 24/25. Far too many ifs and uncertainties.

If you haven't watched much in the last 6 weeks then you've missed some decent matches with decent atmospheres. I think the point with Manning, and a major reason of why he was an unnecessary gamble - we weren't going nowhere with NP and Liam wasn't a guaranteed winner - is that he's a relatively young manager, learning his trade at this level. He can and does adapt to circumstances. This isn't me saying everything is great and we'll shoot up the table next season. It's just you turned off watching perhaps at Manning's worst, and we have experienced some tempo-led, going-for-it games. I don't think Manning has yet established a settled "style" at this club.

Sadly, he turned into a bit of stereotypical baby boomer conspiracy theorist in his dotage. "Nothing wrong with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere"; "CRB checks are an invasion of freedom" etc etc. Although he worked on programmes to do with science and maths, he personally knows little about the subjects he presented, as his social media pronouncements show. He's basically an ex-Butlin's Redcoat with two O'Levels. I recall reading that he's now got dementia, so perhaps that explains some of the post-TV career inanity he's come out with.

Well I liked Barcelona and found Madrid unpleasant. In touristy cafes on La Ramblas you get junkie beggars, but TBH I have seen that in my years in London. Try eating outdoors around Soho in the summer. Same rules apply. However, overall Barcelona has a much lower crime rate than London - and many other UK cities. As does most of Spain. Stats show Bilbao (don't let it put you off, it's well worth a visit) and the Canary Islands have the highest rates of property and crimes against the person in Spain.

Whatever happened to him?

TBH - and I can only speak for me - I'd have renewed even if he hadn't. I've renewed after relegation seasons and disasterous managers. You just hope they'll be gone soon and we move on to better things.

Remember Andre Blackman? Signed from Portsmouth academy and did this RB interview where he said he was "fast, strong, with good vision" played one League Cup game looked none of those things, then we had to sack him off for being a wannabe gangster. Had umpteen unsuccessful trials at various clubs - more trials than Joseph Barton - and then played in Scotland before dropping to non-league in his late 20s. Now at Dulwich Hamlet.

Wish he would bloody die.... [I mean Donald, not Judd]

My view as well. It's supposed to be an entertainment option, not being in the fricking Army! If you can't go, you can't go. I missed three home games this season and haven't had any away days - which is very unusual. But work, holidays, family, comes first. I've renewed. I always do. My dad had a season ticket for almost 50 years and I hope I will too.

The Austrian Bundesliga is not a bad standard, Uefa ranks it 10th in Europe, just below the SPL. but Plavotic has only played one game there and seems to have spent most of his career in the Austrian 2nd tier - not a good standard. I think it's as well Tin got canned here.

I stayed in the Gothic Quarter... Seriously, while there visit the Boquaria market off the Rambla. I ate at the famous restaurant El Quim there - because I have a juvenile sense of humour. While there have a paella. The people of Valencia claim they invented paella, but the Catalans dispute this. At any rates, it's tops in Barcelona. From the shoreline, take a 30 minute walk and you can climb Montjuc, a hill that overlooks the city and holds a castle (with a nice military museum in it, if that floats your boat) plus the various installations of the 1992 Olympic games and a motor racing track. Oh and it's got a funicular railway up to it, which sometimes even works. For beaches, I'd say forget Barca's minute, although very walkable, shoreline and take the light railway (it's cheap and easy to work out) out to one of the Costa Blanca beaches just north of the city; we went to Tossa Del Mar. Because I have a juvenile sense of humour. Sitges, to the south, is said to be nice but is also reputedly the gay capital of Spain. Not that that should put anyone off! Oh and visit La Sagria Familia and Nou Camp (if the latter has reopened to tourists), because, although it's sooo touristy, you'll kick yourself if you don't.

I've had the same pair of Monitor Audio speakers since the 80s. They've moved house with me 14 times, survived being dropped down a stone flight of stairs, lived through a party that blew up the amp powering them and worked after Mrs Robbo #1 threw a jug of water in one of the bass cones. I can't recommend them enough. https://www.monitoraudio.com/

Perhaps he just peaked early. Might be nothing to do with attitude, but while the typical "career arc" of a player sees them at their very best in their mid-to-late 20s, some just fade earlier than others. Might be a mental thing, not getting as much enjoyment out if the game?