Dastardly and Muttley

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…

13 minutes ago, Out of his pie crust said:

I understand they are Czech, Serb and Macedonian 

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?!

19 hours ago, mattjb said:

Strangely there are still tickets coming up, was a row of 6 just now. Are people that can’t make it now able to sell them back or is there some other reason they are coming up ?

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. 

£4-5m for Twine feels like a panic buy. We missed out on two other targets at a more reasonable fee, so we’re going back to pay Burnley’s high-price because we can’t afford to leave Manning without at least one of his targets this window.

And, as you know, the best way out of a hole is to keep digging…

Stay, but appoint a real CEO.

I just want the audio I’ve paid for with Robins TV. Why can’t they make anything work.

11 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Can you not listen via the BBC football page? I am at the moment but if you`re outside the UK maybe not?

How do you listen on the BBC page? Can’t find any audio

4 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

 

I think you’re both crediting him with more intelligence than he has. 

He sent me a private message on Twitter blaming it on autocorrect

Signed.

1 minute ago, And Its Smith said:

I think one or two will come in.  I actually wonder if he also needs to be a bit smarter against these teams but still 11 behind the ball.  Conway can play wide left or behind Wells if preferred and Knight can drop deeper into the midfield 2. 

He needs a plan B, as there clearly isn’t one at the moment.

Whether that’s down to a lack of tactical nous, or whether we just don’t have the players LM wants yet is hard to say.

The Christmas and NY games are tough. Thick and fast, with little recovery. Few teams play well for all of those games.

It’s a different game if Mehmeti scores an open goal from six yards out.

He played really well, putting in some good crosses and a good goal. But, did he actually go past his man at all? Seemed he’d always run at them, then pass back, or cut inside to shoot round them. Would love to see him really take people on.

Well done City, and Liam.

Much better second half, helped by the changes. Although we shouldn’t be in a position where about six players could have been deservedly subbed off.

Good to see Mehmeti play with confidence and Vyner was outstanding.

Just now, Andy082005 said:

Our ‘Nige’ would have had us on the brink of the play-offs according to the deluded ones…..

Nige did have us on the brink of the playoffs. A win against QPR puts us 2 points away. 

Really poor defensively. But for a great tackle by Vyner and O’Leary’s save, we’d be 4-1 down and probably worth it.

There’s no plan b if passing it around doesn’t work and, apart from a decent 10 minutes, it hasn’t.

This is much better. I can get behind this. Just need to take another chance.

1 minute ago, Jose said:

Tell you what two lads in co coms not holding back. 

Sign of great squad togetherness…

Cheers, Jon Lansdown. 

We’re really boring.

Jon’s got the selection tombola out of storage again, I see.

1 hour ago, Markthehorn said:

 

Funny you say that as certainly the club this summer seemed to take the view it was actually the players who were the problem and got rid of some allowing Ismael a say in who comes in too.

We also sacked the Director of football

The expectation isn't for promotion particularly this season although things can change quickly of course and naturally he still needs to get results.

There were certainly fans calling for a change a few weeks ago (well actually some when were 2-0 down to Norwich a week ago..) but then those types would probably have a new one every time their team didn't win and play well. 

That’s the usual Watford approach, to be fair.