Dastardly and Muttley

It’s so frustrating, we set up ok and play well in the first half. But we’ve come up against a manager who has a plan B and made impactful subs.

I notice that Ian has now “protected” his tweets on X, following a couple of rows with his followers. Rude, sarcastic and arrogant.

Completely agree with everything in the OP, @Fordy62 It’s not Manning’s fault. He shouldn’t be here and he’s been stitched up. I can understand moving on from Nigel, particularly if his health issues were viewed to be affecting things. However, the way in which it was done and the rhetoric at the time was nonsensical and set Manning up for failure. I wish it had worked out and we’d stumbled on the next big thing, but it hasn’t. Time for SL, JL, BT and LM to pick up their ball and go home.

Exactly. It’s pointless. Just like our team over the last 3. Truth is, though, when you look at our games against teams currently placed 17th or lower, we’ve only beaten Millwall on opening day, Rotherham in October and Sheff Weds in Fleming’s game. We’ve lost to Blackburn, QPR, Millwall, Birmingham, Stoke and Sheff Weds, whilst drawing with the rest. We’re in trouble. Yeah, but I reckon they’ve got enough points to be safe.

If you look across the last 3, we’re 22nd.

7-1 loss against Swansea ought to do it for both of them.

Then we’re sleepwalking through stagnation into relegation.

I make it four defeats out of five games where we’ve had a full week of training.

What?! Huddersfield, Leeds, both QPR, Preston, Birmingham, Sheff Weds, Cardiff, just off the top of my head…

Yes, when Lansdown acts.

It’s time. They’re cooked.

Yep. It’s so sad.

The man is clueless. Get him gone.

But he could have said “we are a club with ambitions of being in the top 6”. That’s very different to “we have a top 6 squad”.

9 points from the last 10 games…

The lowest point, so far.

He’s just not up to this level. Teams are underprepared, unfit and unable to break down a paper bag. Another two years of this before Lansdown wakes up and does something as they won’t admit they’re wrong.

Don’t think we’ll be threatening the playoffs any time soon. Unless it’s next year’s League One playoffs.

Exiled in Berkshire, I took advantage of free tickets to see Slough vs Chippenham yesterday. Amadi-Holloway was up front for Chippenham, bizarrely wearing number 5. Scored the first goal and looked a handful for a Chippenham side that were cruising 2-0 until a well-deserved red card got Slough back in the game which ended 2-2. Looked Amadi-Holloway up and he’s had quite a career since leaving us, with spells in India and Australia. Fair play to the lad, decent life travelling like that and playing football. Jem Hewlett, an 18 year old on loan from Southampton looked decent. Assume he’s Matty’s son, but may be wrong on that one. Aaron’s career stats linked here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Amadi-Holloway

The biggest problem for me, is that all of our problems are foreseeable. I predicted before Millwall that we would lose 1-0 to a late goal. Everyone knew Preston would beat us. I fancied us to beat West Ham and Forest. It’s all down to our lack of plan b and same approach to every game. We’ll look good against teams that come at us and give us space to pass in. Against those that won’t, we’ll struggle. Everyone knows this. We have the players to play a pressing style and force mistakes. Why we don’t do this in the games when we know our passing game isn’t working or won’t work, I don’t know. Suggests some stubbornness somewhere, or a complete lack of ingenuity. Like others have said, I’m yet to see us come out in a second half and be better than we were in the first. That’s a worry too. There are some promising signs about Manning, but equally there are many, many red flags which make me question whether he was the right appointment already.

Watch Derby wear him onto the ground now, playing through every niggle…

Funny. Pearce didn’t mention the Eastern European branch of the City fan club.

Ball doesn’t seem to be rolling properly, as both teams seem to be under hitting their passes. Did Manning measure the grass length pre-game or not?!

They were tickets Andi had booked for his family

I can get behind a deal at c£2.5m. Whilst it’s annoying that NP wasn’t given this money, we knew it was likely to be the case that LM would be allowed to spend, £2.5m on a player he’s worked with before and got good results with isn’t a bad deal.