Silvio Dante

I’d beg to differ. He had Derby who we know at the time were chugging along looking to cheat FFP and had Mount, Tomori and Harry Wilson as loanees. It’s fair to say he had a very significant good hand squad wise and probably fell below what he should have with the resources at disposal. He then had one of the biggest clubs in the country where minimum expectations are top four and took them to 10th. A higher win percentage than given would be expected. This is the first job where he’s got an underperforming squad and no inbuilt advantage by way of income and squad quality from others. And he’s ballsing it up big style. I posted a few days ago that Lampard was a very unintelligent player. He’s equally an unintelligent manager and isn’t really showing to be tactically astute. I expect this to be his last job in the game.

I’d imagine all this is from City’s perspective is a pre-season friendly for the U23s that Weston have badged as Cashleys testimonial due to his involvement with that club. No more, no less. The “City XI” tends to be used for the U23s pre season, and I’d guess we’ll be starting earlier back this summer in view of the World Cup break. Not begrudging him the day and the money at all, but we might be overthinking it when we talk of righting wrongs, who else will get one next etc

Blimey. I know they’re making up for lost time, but Geoff Merrick seems to get paraded more often than Miss World these days

Nope, because of how Commercial Property is valued the property price increase won’t have applied…and in actuality, it is totally plausible for it to have reduced. Commercial Property tends to have two values - Vacant Possession Value (VPV) - exactly what it says on the tin, nobody in occupation - and a Yield Based Valuation (YBV). Pride Park, although having a relatively unique sector, will have a YBV the same as your local Tescos. The YBV is a function of the rent, the lease term and the tenant quality (and how “good” the property is both in building and location quality but that more underpins VPV). So, if the same property is let to Tesco at £10k or John Smith at £20k, the value may be higher for Tesco even if the rents lower based on the surety of income. Translating this to PP, since that £80m valuation the tenant quality (surety of income) has markedly reduced, meaning even if lease terms etc were unchanged, absent market yield moves (won’t really have happened for Stadia), then the value of the asset has gone down as it’s only income stream is less secure, so the yield increases and value goes down. Generally, commercial valuations are harder to argue (unless outlandish) as they’re subjective. Will be even more difficult with PP as there won’t be local comparable assets. Sorry, boring answer from someone who’s worked in commercial finance!

There is an insane stat a couple of years ago that Van Dijk made about 10 tackles in a season. When coaching, you try and impart that a tackle is a last resort. Your key defence is positioning. If that’s right, you don’t need to tackle. This is evidenced in Maldinis statement

Banton out for the first month of the season with a bust finger.

I was always on the Gerrard side of the Lampard-Gerrard argument. Miles better player. For Chelsea, Lampard played often as the “1” off Drogba and his average position was akin to a second striker. Huge number of shots taken. When asked to play in a midfield 2 for England, he couldn’t do it - instinctively pushed forward and meant our best CM had to sit as opposed to go box to box, detracting from his game. As we also didn’t have the same focal point as Chelsea, Lampard didn’t pick up as many “spares” to shoot in the forward position. I’ll die on this hill, but Lampard was a very overrated footballer who found a system that was a perfect fit but was poor - and unintelligent on the pitch - outside of those confines.

Didn’t Calum O’Dowda go from ineffectual winger to ineffective centre mid to ineffective full back? Proof positive it can be done with no reduction in performance.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Also playing someone in a different position when you think they’ve got the attributes can magnify the poor side of their game that may not have been as obvious elsewhere. By common consensus Vyner did well at CM under Holden (or better than expected), but you misjudge a ball or miss a tackle there it’s lower risk. Pushing him into the back four/three again just highlights limitations.

Being able to play multiple positions is the sign of an intelligent and all round footballer - best exhibit in our squad is Scott, who’s played RB, RWB, DCM, CM and ACM this year. He can do it because he’s got the awareness, without needing the leadership/talking as much. If you take Bell at RWB, yes, he may be able to play there eventually but currently his positional awareness (stemming from an instinct to get further forward) makes him high risk. I agree that you don’t always know the best position at a young age - coaching 10 year olds who all want to be strikers beat that into me - but what you look at in any fundamental different position is the basics - eg as a defender, how’s the positioning, how’s the awareness, how’s the “stance”, do they do force diagonals, do they time the tackles correctly. Unfortunately you cannot typically learn that at the championship level “on the job”. With Bell, again, Pearson would have seen the “physical” attributes of pace and stamina, and technical of crossing, and would have wanted to see could he do the above. And although those aren’t really talent factors, they’re bloody difficult to learn which is why you don’t see wholesale position changes from 18+

That’s strange. I knew the chap who drove the Truro Rovers supporters minibus to away games…

I can’t believe Joe is into a game where an inordinate amount of statistical knowledge to try and work out the best outcomes is desirable….

Ta. Rowan Vines post league career is a thing of beauty. Got a lot of time for this. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Rowan_Vine

I’m going to use one of my touchstones here of Dover Athletic. In financial trouble, had a midweek FA cup game against Yate this season. Floodlights failed meaning 7:45 k/o couldn’t be attained. Fixed up by (I think 8:30), with k/o proposed for 9pm. Dover refused and drove home. Returned the following week and lost. Dover-Yate - 190 miles.

And of course George Tanner back!

Lucas Vine and Joel Mannings - Anyone?

KTFC have called their Toolstation game tonight off, citing cost and reasonableness of journey. Clearly there have to have been discussions prior to today - but at this level of football, who’s right?

?

It was worse getting there as my satnav took me down single tracks! Got out of Vitality at half five and plain sailing after. Took me through Salisbury and home about twenty past seven - 20 minutes to get out of the Vitality car park, but worth it for the convenience and cost

Possible - it’s a bit wrong side again and makes the journey back that bit longer. If I didn’t have two kids who had an aversion to using their legs things’d be do much easier!

Coming from Yate to games, this would be more than awkward. Long Ashton P&R is the wrong side, and you’re then starting to think of the centre of the city from the direction I come in from. The car parks a bit further out but Ashton side like off Malago before they butchered it don’t offer parking for long enough. On a related note, Bournemouth on Saturday was perfect. Parked at the ground for £1.

Renewed mine and the kids (u12 and u19) no issues. I wonder (although don’t think our systems are this smart) if some problems may be linked to ID or otherwise - I remember having to provide passport copies for the kids previously and if we don’t have on file/not updated properly could it be that?

Although I don’t think referees are inherently biased, I think there was an incident yesterday which made the ref less likely to give us a penalty. Early in the second half, he gave a poor decision. A full pint came flying from the city fans onto the pitch. He walked over, looked highly indignant, spoke to the steward and from that point on, we had no decisions. I’m not saying referees aren’t incompetent and I’m not saying they’re corrupt. What I think can happen is when they get shit, they naturally don’t want to aid the people who give them the shit! Easy solution is, obviously, better referees…

To be fair Rob, security was no worse than normal and as anticipated (metal detector, pat down). I came in about half two and it was done in two minutes. The surge in or around kick off, and those who entered at that time, appeared to be in the main people who were tanked and wanted an argument with the stewards. I saw you come in and I think you got the back end of that, but we need to say it for what it was - we had a lot of pissed up latecomers. No issue with that in itself, it’s part of the day for some, but it means the risk of missing the early part of the game for everyone arriving late ish always exists. And pedantry - it was four minutes in

Having just got back…I didn’t think that was bad at all. Although we ceded a lot of possession first half, it wasn’t damaging possession (once we’d sorted out marking post the first two corners). If I recall correctly the goal was the first shot of note Bentley had to save - we defended intently on the edge of the box, and Cundy/Atkinson were excellent today (one particular challenge of Cundys was very very good). Second half, the major disappointment for me was the second goal - not sure if Bentley unsighted, but it seemed soft. However, we created - it looked a penalty in real time, Martin was nearly there and DaSilva had a more than presentable chance. We left some holes, but I thought we competed. Massengo better than he has been recently when came on, and made James better. The maturity of Conway to delay the ball for Weimann also impressive. In the car, we were discussing who played badly. Scott was probably weakest overall (better at WB), but we competed well. Not perfect, but I’m not driving away unhappy today by any stretch.