Lrrr

13 hours ago, Meh said:

That picture been edited.

He was sat opposite LJ & GJ originally with some paperwork and a pen

I thought it was Pisano outside another coffee shop getting leaked again

I'm not sure why you wouldn't put the L1 or L2 play off final with the FA cup

3 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

They do, somewhere between 1/4 and even as much as half at times.

Think most who get relegated do. However the current system still horribly flawed.

Most do, you hear stories of some who don't and think 'they are so ****** if they go down'

1 minute ago, spudski said:

All I want to know is...what's a younger Dinosaur?

Steve Evans? Comparative age to Warnock at least...

He's not the worst choice for Bond, would have preferred Henry Cavill but ah well

3 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

And yet they paid 2.5 million for Josh Bowler and loaned him to Olympiakos a few days later. plus other examples of money wasted needlessly (Lingard / Shelvey).

 

They got Olympiacos to buy Nelson Abbey from Reading as they couldn’t spend anything further in January, odds are on him moving to Forest in the summer. 

I’d rather not have someone who only wants to work 3 days a week 

How many 'new' devices can someone have in the space of 2 1/2 weeks 

14 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

Solanke has been carrying an injury for the last 2-3 weeks

Looked fine when I saw him play a couple of weeks ago 

Feel for Reading, I know someone who works there, apparently they got rid of all the chefs as a cost cutting measure, lots of microwave meals. I've been lucky to go to Bearwood and its an incredible facility, the mocking Charlie Savage got for saying it was as good as Man Utd's training ground, well he's not far off, genuinely could be a PL training ground. I don't really get the Wycombe hate, if they'd said no (heard somewhere they were approached over buying it) then I imagine it probably would have been sold to property developers or something and a waste of a great facility. Bolton sold their training ground to Wigan who sold it to Preston and there wasn't really a fuss. Also, supposedly some serious money behind Wycombe now, new owner not announced yet. 

1 hour ago, prankerd said:

Pretty understandable when you have had nearly a whole year off from football, he will probably peak end of season.

Seen glimpses i guess but i would say its a tad harsh on solanke as none of them will play a minute when the tournament starts.

He’s had nearly a year off through his own fault. ‘Probably’… and if he doesn’t improve his form? This was a good chance to get Solanke some senior experience against good opponents and see how he got on. On form right now I’d be taking Solanke. 

Just realised he’s gone Toney over Solanke, Solanke has been great this season where Toney has barely showed anything since the ban ended 

Surprised Butland didn’t get a look in 

I thought one of the whole things in the creation of the PL was the financial support of the EFL? So can’t see how clubs attempting to pull any deal have a chance. 

1 minute ago, spudski said:

What makes me laugh, is that we've had a policy with recruitment, where we look for intelligent players. Yes there are some exceptions to that rule, but a great majority of our players are well spoken, intelligent and can converse coherently. 

Yet we have a bloke in charge of that, that is none of them. 

I cringe at the thought of him talking with Agents. 

He's meant to represent us at the top...what does that look like to an outsider....

Clearly does well enough making the case for us if those players then still want to come in

26 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

Tinnion has accepted a senior role at the club and put himself forward for press and media appearances as part of that. Ultimately that is going to result in points where he gets the credit (often deserved over recent years in his previous roles) but, if he wants to get his share of the credit, he also needs to accept his share of the flak when things go wrong.

I don't want to get into some of the speculation and comments about his personality and character because I know nothing about those and it would be unfair to comment. In terms of his actual ability in the role, I think there are two areas where I slightly disagree with the consensus:

1) I don't think he's manifestly unqualified for the job - a Technical Director/DoF is NOT a manager and, when you look at who does those roles at major clubs, it's not necessary or relevant to have been a successful coach to do it. Promoting someone with several years backroom experience to the role - in and of itself - makes sense. That said we have a specific issue with the fact that most or all of the key figures at the club lack significant experience elsewhere so I'm not sure who supports someone promoted to a new role to learn.

2) I don't necessarily feel certain he's the wrong person for the long-term, although I think there is a need to get some more experience elsewhere in the structure to make it work, and he also needs to be able to acknowledge and learn from mistakes made in recent months. I think at the moment it is clear his role is not working and will not work unless changes are made. Of course, he might be outright unsuitable for the role but I don't feel certain on that. 

What I do think though is:

1) It is utterly valid to criticise his performance over recent months and he's in a role where it is fair enough that he is subject to fan scrutiny. I'm not personally a big fan of the personal attacks but there may be posters who are more informed than me on some of those and feel more qualified to discuss his character.

2) The club need to accept that he, JL and Manning are all poor at communicating to fans and, if there is nobody in the structure who communicates with fans well, PR disasters are going to be more likely and there will be greater scrutiny of mistakes. 

I think part of it comes from the lack of an experienced CEO/COO alongside him, if Gould or Alexander were still here or a replacement hired there may be less of an issue, its that lack of experience working at first team level in the roles people are doing. Brian's main success has been working in the academy, developing players and working on the pathway, that I don't think any City fan really questions that. I also agree when the club are looking for a Technical Director they're probably either looking externally or the most likely internal candidate is probably Tinnion at that point.

Personally I don't think our recruitment has been bad for 90% of the players we've brought in since Tinnion has had greater first team influence, people can cite the lack of reinvestment but quite frankly that could be a decision made above Tinnion's station and he's left trying to give a plausible reason to the public, I'm sure he'd love to recruit the best players we can afford with reinvestment. Similar with Pearson's sacking, few people will know the genuine things that happened behind the scenes that led up until that point, I think most people on here acknowledge the reasons given publicly are probably a sham, but again perhaps the real reasons were to be kept quiet and Tinnion/JL left to try and make something sound reasonable to the public. what if it was also a case of it being SL/JL's decision to sack Pearson & Tinnion just had to go along with it. I'm completely working off guess work here, but say Pearson's health issues had reached such a point that it was clearly impacting his work in a negative way but he refused to resign, City can't fire him on that basis and performances are likely cover story, the real reason has to stay concealed and a sham reason in public which people then base their opinions off.

A lot of fans don't realise just how much said by managers, CEO's, technical directors etc in interviews is flat out & deliberately untrue, but because its appeared in an interview its taken as gospel at times. This isn't supposed to be a 'Tinnion has been treated too harshly and should be let off' post, but more of a how much has Tinnion had lumped on him from above and had to try and make palatable to the public and therefore he takes the brunt of it. Personally I wasn't really in favour of Pearson going and I'm unsold on Manning thus far but I can factor that not everything can be a matter of cut and dry as it appears. 

5 minutes ago, Carey 6 said:

Sam Curtis was wanted by a lot of good clubs in January, I’d argue he was the best player in Ireland with how many sides seemed to be interested.

Sheffield United ended up getting him, he’s been on their bench a couple of times but not yet managed to make a first team appearance. 

I agree that it is weird that we’re yet to see Murphy even in an U23 game though. 

But Curtis has turned out for their 21’s 

1 hour ago, alexukhc said:

Mickey Bell ain’t it?

Bell is assistant

Lump on Forest Green to do well next season 

5 hours ago, Simon bristol said:

Yes,, after getting decent game time last year he’s disappeared completely.

Probably one of the ones along with Kadji that Tinnion was referring to that had their chance at first team level and didn't take it

50 minutes ago, Markthehorn said:

Is someone after a bit of money here ?

https://www.independent.co.uk/f1/felipe-massa-lewis-hamilton-f1-fia-ecclestone-b2510814.html

Laughable case because if Hamilton was wanted to win they could have manipulated the gap to be so much larger over the course of a season

Just now, Silvio Dante said:

Yep no doubt - my point was more that it was framed as an absolute by BT and if Ephraim can play for Bath on a Tuesday before linking back up to the 18s other squad members could sit on the first team bench even if only for experience (still more likely to get on than Twine!)

Yeboah's last game for Bath before the youth cup was over a week before so plenty of training time, he's probably training with the 18's on days Bath aren't training too. So its a bit different to an 18 on the bench for 1st team. Equally Its hard to chuck them on the bench for the first team if they've been training with the 18's, they need to be in training/analysis meetings with the first team to understand the tactics required should they need to go on even if the intent would be not to use them. It sounds like Manning is understanding of the situation even if he doesn't like it, or he may not have put young players on the bench regardless, who knows, but perhaps we need to judge Manning on young players making the bench once the youth cup run is over. 

10 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Bottom line is if Yeboah can go to Bath on loan and play in the youth cup then Joseph James (for example) can bench for first team and play youth cup.

Just on this, I’ll say Yeboah missed the 2 Bath games before the youth cup game to allow him to be with the 18’s squad. Bath have obviously taken him on the knowledge of the youth cup factor and Jerry Gill was probably privately hoping we got knocked out as he’ll probably miss more in the run up to Man City game. 

Did Brian really just say we couldn’t be compared to Coventry on the basis of what they’ve invested after selling a player…. Semenyo and Scott not comparable then 

If we do get new owners at some point I just hope real due diligence is done on them, the news today that Reading's owner is looking to sell their training ground which was only opened in 19/20 season to fund the running of the club until a takeover can be completed, they don't even have chefs anymore because of how much has been stripped. 777 Linked to Everton have a poor record across the clubs they're involved with. You seem to find a lot more poor to bad owners taking over then good ones. This isn't a pitch of the Lansdowns staying in the long term etc just the worry of how it could go.