the1stknowle

2 hours ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Julian Watts

Correct answer. Heywood also a disaster. 

1 hour ago, Puckle_red said:

Dave Partridge, Matt Heywood. 

As was Partridge. Richard Dryden back in the day was pretty bang average too.

We’ve also had some very good ones though - Taylor, Carey, Bryant, Webster, Caulker, (second season on) Flint, Bikey. 

On 18/03/2022 at 10:00, Ivorguy said:

The news that SL wishes to build a new suburb around Ashton Gate clarifies two things, imo

1.  City are a very small part of SL’s long term plan

2. He is not quite the Great Benefactor some City fans believe him to be, he is an entrepreneur seeking to maximise profit for himself.

 

I don’t have any objection to that as an aim, but I do have an objection that his imperial dream has never been open, and City fans being used as dupes.  First we got BS and now this new plan.  Perhaps we might now be told the ultimate end game? A rebranding of Bristol into Lansdown City perhaps!

Spot on.
Everyone was like ‘oooo he’s spent 5.3m on a striker. He’s bought us a premiership centre back for best part of 8m. Thanks Steve. Ooo he’s lost nearly 200m quid on City and built us a modern stadium and training ground. What a great guy.’

But now his plan is clear. It was all just a distraction to minimise affordable housing in his new suburb, Chipping Lansdown 

Nice plan. But we’re on to you, Steve. 

7 hours ago, sticks 1969 said:

NP must stay and be given time 

 

This. It’s underwhelming. But it still - very slowly - feels like he is building something. I can’t see anything will drastically change by sacking him and bringing in someone else. 
 

in fairness, considering his record, fans are being remarkably patient so I think there is some recognition of the idea that this is the manager we all wanted so now we need to stick with him for a bit. 

1 hour ago, Banjo Red said:

Apart from Bents and Klose the rest are very underwhelming kalas I think could be sold to free up the wages very average. Pring great player question marks over his fitness levels cant last 90 mins before today. Dasilva great as of late but his size worries me that he gets targeted during games would prefer a taller fullback.

Cundy looked very assured as I said earlier can't be any worse than what we have already.

As others have said, Cundy was only real positive for me today. Good if he can get a run now to see if he can earn contract. Kalas out for a few games?

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Keep pushing them.  You pay for 90 mins.

Yeah - only a tenner but Im not gonna let it lie on principle. 

1 hour ago, Super said:

I didn't notice that last night but that's poor from an International Defender.

I know its not a popular opinion but I dont think TK is as good as others seem to think he is. Boro last minute goal on weekend down to him too.

Don't get me wrong, he is by no means a bad defender. But seems to make a lot of positional errors. Sacrilege to say, but I wouldn't be too gutted if he moved on in summer or even if, once definitely safe, we maybe start giving other options a bit more of a go. Would really like to see more of Cundy.  Maybe even Idehen. And have Atkinson and Towler to come back in at some point. 

I paid for match, couldn't log in all game as was getting a technical fault message. Kept trying to login all through first half then gave up as assumed it wasn't going to get fixed and I'd lost half the match anyway. 

Support got back to me last night saying they wouldn't be offering refunds as there was just a 'momentary loss of service' that lasted 'just a few minutes'.

I can just about live with the intermittent will it work or won't it. But them lying about whether it works or not is p1ss poor. 

4 minutes ago, Worthingexile said:

Radio not working at all! Does anyone have an email address to whinge at?

Yep - audio down on listen live. And I paid to watch live and that's not working for me either. Its fine when it works but the service breaks down so often it's a joke. 

15 minutes ago, Portland Bill said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the same LJ Sunderland that were getting spanked by four and six goals whilst he was still their manager ?. The rot had kicked in, that’s why they sacked him. 

Or.. viewed another way, the same LJ Sunderland that were top of league going into that last loss. Pretty hard to make the case that 'rot had sent in' when you're top of the league.

2 hours ago, BTRFTG said:

To those still not getting why Sunderland acted as they did, let's put in terms you may understand.

There are two types in life: those who pay to take their perfectly performing cars in for service and those who think it wiser to save money and act only when the warning lights appear. They're easy to distinguish, the former putting miles very quickly between themselves and the latter who await rescue on the hard shoulder.

There are two positions a light switch can be in. On or off.

This information tells me nothing about when to sack a football manager 

2 hours ago, IAmNick said:

Is it? It's all relative to the clubs stature in the league surely.

Sunderland fired their manager before last when they were in 6th, and he had over a 50% win rate as well.

Yeah, I think it is. You can argue they shouldn't have sacked Jack Ross. Even if you think they did the right thing, at least he had one entire pre-season and season. LJ didn't even get that. 

They went into Saturday top of the league.

They had lost one other league game since November.

The previous month, he was Manager of Month, taking 14pts from 18 and extending an unbeaten league run to nine games.

They have the division's top goalscorer who is a player LJ signed for peanuts. 

I disagree anything is relative to 'stature' of club. To team and squad strength, budget yeah. Maybe you could argue Sunderland have strongest first team squad but I think Wigan, Ipswich and Rotherham would probably have something to say about that. Sunderland's recent history suggests they are exactly in pyramid where they should be. So the measure he might have been doing badly in is 'relative to fan expectations'. But those expectations are insane. 

Relative to the other teams in league; relative to Sunderland's recent history, LJ was doing a good job. A sticky January of 2 losses, including one bad defeat, and he gets the boot. I still think its incredibly harsh. 

7 hours ago, Bouncearoundtheground said:

If cotts is going to be lauded as a ‘double winner’, then Johnson deserves credit for an EFL trophy. 

Some of the replies on this thread are oddly personal. The Lee Johnson years didn’t come close to other, genuine horrors of the past. Yes, he was given time and money, and at our worst we were drab, but at our best we could be scintillating. 

His era had excitement and some of the loftiest heights we experienced in the previous decade. Compare this to other managers of the last 10-20 years who barely even left with a memorable win on their city CV. 
 

The truth is, there is, was, and always will be, some kind of strange personal vendetta against Lee Johnson from sections of our fan base. I don’t understand it, you don’t know the man. He was the manager of your football team, but some of you have such deeply personal character assessments that you can’t possibly be basing solely on that? 
 

Yeah - this is exactly how I feel. What has happened after he left has, by some, been accepted as fact as being down to LJ. Which I've never understood.

For me he took us from perennial relegation to always in and around playoffs and changed the expectations we have in championship. And we got to the semi finals of a cup, where we didn't embarrass ourselves in any way.

It's well past changing anyone's mind on LJ. Opinions are now set. But I will never understand the joy some people here seem to take in things going badly for him ( if by 'badly' I mean a pay off likely to be approaching seven figures. Ouch!)

Over a year at Sunderland, the clear fact is he won more than one out of every two games they play. I know some Sunderland fans think that is 'the bare minimum Sunderland should be doing' ... but they are wrong. A 50% win ratio outside of the massive dominant sides in Europe is very very impressive. It should be evidence that he has something about him as a manager.

29 minutes ago, Taz said:

To be fair, an iffy run and a hammering was never going to end well at somewhere like Sunderland. "Too good to be in league 1" is what they think.

He was extremely lucky here in the respect that Lansdown has never been one to quickly pull the trigger, as well as the fact that the Johnsons and Lansdowns have a very good relationship. He was never going to last there (or anywhere else probably) for as long as he was here, without winning things.

One year in a job, winning over half your games. That is a good job at Sunderland. And he just got manager of the month a few weeks ago. 

I agree that a big chunk of their fans seem entitled like few others outside traditional top 4. 

3 minutes ago, the1stknowle said:

Side point - but there is an enormous difference between the prosecution's evidence not proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt and 'the girl was found to be lying'. And that difference matters a lot.

Sorry - just seen others have already made this point and the poster apologised. Good man. 

2 hours ago, Wiltshire robin said:

I might be missing something here but why should Ched evans struggle to get a contract . The girl was found to be lying and he was released .

Side point - but there is an enormous difference between the prosecution's evidence not proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt and 'the girl was found to be lying'. And that difference matters a lot.

This isn't a record that should get any manager sacked from a League One club given they have been in league one for four years.

1 hour ago, BCFC Richard said:

I have been thinking of posting something like this for  a while, but this comment from the Preston forum stood out and made me finally do it- 

"Bristol City were technically very goal and worked very hard. Surprised on their league position. Expected Pearson would have been fired by now given expectations at the club but looks like he's building something and maybe the club see this."

I think the club definitely do see this and most fans too - for a few everything needs to be instant though. 

We are a club in transition and NP is doing a great job. He is mostly working with what he has, with the odd low budget addition. He has also had to let players go  -(some he may of wanted to keep, but we couldn't afford)  and make the tough decisions on players who maybe do not fit the clubs ethos and plans. That brings us to the next part, plans and identity! Something  LJ went on about, but we now clearly have. It shows on the pitch and it shows in how the fans at the games have reacted - Getting behind the team because we can finally see a plan, a willingness to play football (rather than jsut grind games out) and they trust where we are going. 

Our performances are getting better all the time + players are improving all the time. We have such a young side and they have come on so much since last season - imagine what they might be like next season if they make even half as much progress. The pathway is there, they are clearly being well coached and getting match exposure. We could easily field a team with over half coming from the club: Max, Pring, Vyner, Scott, Conway, Benarous add in club developed players/kind of home grown - Semenyo, HNM, Cundy. 

I think for me it reminds me of when Sean O'Driscoll was here - he had to transition the club and despite things not going well on the pitch I think there are a fair few who appreciate he did a lot of the work to transition us and set things up behind the scenes and with restructuring -  for Cotts to get us flying. That's what NP is doing now - only he is doing it and managing to improve us game on game and develop our own players. Anyone still not able to see that needs to take a step back and see the bigger picture. However I think most do and as we keep progressing more and more will. 

Exactly- Pearson laying the foundations at yet another club. 
(And, per Charlie Wyett,  warnock will be the ranieri this time; coming in and finishing the job.)

33 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

It is too many now. Think it is 12 points lost from 90th min on. That would put is in the playoff. Ok they do happen but think that 12 points is from 6-7 games. That is far too many. 
 

But yes, the spirit of this post is correct. We have built up to be a competitive outfit. I enjoy a lot of the football on display. 

There is no one who isn’t jaw wide open in disbelief about how regularly it happens. Of course it is maddening. But it’s outweighed by the progress - both as a team and with a number of individuals.
 

We are shrinking the squad and concentrating on quality rather than numbers of options.

We have a pattern of play for first time since LJs first two seasons.

We have some real young talent looking like they can actually fulfil some potential rather than flatter to deceive.

We are scoring goals.

And most importantly, its becoming nice to watch - even in defeat - for the first time since cotts. When was the last time watching City was actually enjoyable from a football point of view??

Im positive about things. Very, very annoyed. But positive. 

34 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

What a great player Pring is turning into. Well done Cam keep up the progress. 

When I saw the thread title, I genuinely thought this would be the tone of the thread. Picking up one of our own when he’s down. Rookie mistake. 

3 minutes ago, Magicseason said:

More importantly, it's shutting down the sack Nige crap that destabilises the feeling that we are going in the right direction. It takes time to clear out people who aren't on the bus so to speak and to bring in players who fit our system. Just back the players and Manager we will get there

Surely everyone can see the progress compared to the last few years. As frustrating as the last minute goals are. 

13 minutes ago, Marcus Aurelius said:

But I come away from the game still feeling very positive despite the result. We won’t be going up/down this season so results don’t matter too much. Seeing such an improvement in the past few months has been great to watch wether win/draw/loss.

Exactly. For where we are at moment, performance so much more important than result. We aren’t going down. We aren’t going up. And we needed such a shakeup after last years ever worsening embarrassment. 
 

Getting bossed and stealing a win or absolutely dominating a massive chunk of game and losing to - what will be - a vital learning experience for one of our promising young players. I’d much prefer the latter. 
 

So so annoying and cruel but we were much better than we have been for ages. Results will come. Performance is everything right now. So I am already over how ridiculous the end was. And seeing cundy get a debut was great. 
 

PS i remember earlier this month there was a poster saying Semenyo was def not a championship player and maybe not a League One player. I’m assuming they would like to hold their hands up to that one now. 

7 minutes ago, Sniper said:

What a load of tosh.

If we swap Nige for Widow Twankey I'll nail my bollocks to the shed door.

I would move instantly from team HappyClapClap-Lucky-to-Have-Steve to full on Lansdown-Out-lost-his-marbles-worst-thing-that-ever-happened-to-this-club.

Luckily, I reckon my home in Team HappyClapClap is pretty safe. Eff Charlie Wyett.

12 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Bents distribution and positioning for receiving passes has been awful this season, it’s not just tactics..  It would require a large technical change for him to start passing it out from the back in the manner Max does, regardless of team style changes of late.

Yeah - exactly this. The idea that the change in our pattern of play has just coincidentally happened at same time as Max came in seems unlikely at best.

I also think, just from a goalkeeping point of view, the Max pile on over last 12 hours has been extreme. It's hardly like we were solid as a rock with Bents in goal and none of these 'errors' being attributed to Max are clear and obvious. 

3 minutes ago, collier said:

Just have to take the positives from tonight. We have played well but poor defending and finishing in a game where we have been the much better side. If we can get firing at one end or the other we should be more than comfortable staying in the division.

Yeah. Its another defeat but clear progress and after years of not knowing who best 11 is and changing formation every other game, we have a pretty clear core group, set formation and an emerging style of play. The defending is infuriating. But I actually quite enjoyed that. 

Williams has looked great since coming on. Has made a huge difference.

Nakhi not so much.