Silvio Dante

There goes my fiver on the next boss.

I did read what you wrote. You appear to have a “background” as you stated earlier in the thread as a reason as to why you think you’re right - which again, Mr Rider, on a public forum, is again bizarre. Your somewhat uppity response here suggests you don’t like people questioning you as you have that unknown “background”. Tough that in a public forum. So I’ll make it really simple for you. I don’t look at the Sky Sports stats (but thanks). You can love how Liam has us more patient in possession, and I’ll never knock anyone for preferring style A to style B, but that doesn’t mean we’re more patient and thoughtful - we’re actually more slow and ponderous. Our speed of movement, our speed of thought, is less. When we are more instinctive we’re better (and that based on results is a stone cold fact), such as in the Soton game. Take the Cornick goal - that isn’t patient and thoughtful possession. Thats incisive, quick play. Where you are correct is in your fun fact. Sometimes opponents are happy to let you have the ball. And that’s why we are more “patient and thoughtful”. Opponents are letting us have it, because they know when we do play that way, we have been evidenced not to get results. And it’s perfectly fine for you to love that. But it is bizarre.

If it’s pissing it down. Biblical, like. Spot of drizzle - lodge road. Mild shower - out with wife. Noah’s ark - sofa and robins tv and depression.

To be fair, picking Lampard would have been insane - but that doesn’t mean picking Liam was sensible. I think what we have to acknowledge that we didn’t get what was on the proverbial tin with Liam. He’s not a front foot attacking coach, he’s not a coach who historically has trusted youth. He is a very analytical coach who has big question marks and the appointment smacks of a lack of due diligence - mainly because they needed to get rid of Pearson at an opportune time. Again, it’s Tinnions and Lansdowns mess. It would have been better to let Fleming take charge for a few weeks while they did a proper job in assessing who they needed which aligned with their statements. And Tbf there wasn’t an outstanding candidate out there - possibly Eustace pick of a bad bunch - but to appoint a coach who had a glaring weakness of inadaptability hiding in plain sight and was actually the opposite of a progressive head coach was madness. Hes great technically - but he’s not progressive and needs players to fit what he wants to do. And even that won’t cover his game management issue. It might still work. But we are where we are because of how poor the management handled things. Sorry, not aimed at you Dave, just not keen to go down to “at least he’s not Lampard” rabbit hole.

Well, barring an extremely unlikely set of events I won’t be watching Saturday. The season is done and dusted and we’re not out of February so my motivation is minimal to fire up VPN airlines when Yate are at home and I could earn Husband points as two alternatives. I have no doubt that if it’s pissing it down I will change my mind and hand over my tenner, but it’s thoroughly depressing to feel this way and be in this position at this stage of the season, and it’s not even as if we can fall back on entertaining football as a reason to tune in. Hopefully we win and I can watch the game on delay in that knowledge. But I’m not holding my breath.

Of course, let’s ignore the fact that when we’ve won games we’ve done it with less possession which makes points 2 and 3 frankly bizarre Edit - I think Fevs may also have analysis that shows Liams producing less xG!

When asked why Medube hadn’t played much in Belgium, both Tinnion and Manning said it was work permit issues - Liam said that DM hadn’t played for three months because of it. Anyway, turns out that was a straight out lie. The only permit issue was where Dire was one day late for a Turkish training camp due to it. He was able to play, not injured for his whole time at Westerlo - just wasn’t selected as he wasn’t deemed to be the best choice.

Not wrong. We are the definition of a big fish at league one, and subject to finances, would be very high on the list for players at that level who were available. Ignoring current positions, if we were at that level I’d say it’s probably only Derby who are unquestionably a bigger draw (yes I know we just signed Bird but it’s hypothetical). And it is worth bringing in here that despite the sales in the prior year, Liam did have a top six budget at Dons to build his side the year he got sacked. So, we’re probably at the point here where we’re a middling championship side - far from the most attractive in either size or wages. I don’t think the recruitment policy has broadly been wrong in view of that but, again, I have doubts that there are enough signs that Liam will push us on to the top six and outperform his budget - it feels more like the Liverpool season than the Forest one to me!

See I both agree and disagree with this. I think undoubtedly we are in a worse position than we needed to be because Jon and Brian are morons. However, the point above is made frequently - and I think it’s made to insulate Liam from criticism. He’s now had half a season. We can see what he’s good at, what he’s bad at - crucially, as discussed elsewhere whether he “deserves” the opportunity to lead a rebuild. My absolute main ire is at Jon and Brian. But there has to come a point where Liam can be criticised if appropriate - and personally, I think that keeping powder dry on that until a pre season etc may be counter productive

And here it is:

And such devastating repartee as well. Truly, I’m in the presence of Oscar Wilde. Again, just please sod off. It’s tiresome. I can do that. I don’t get banned and have to reactivate my account every other week.

And unrelentingly shite each episode. Strange, sad little man

You asked to see the Bristol Sport employees signing up. There it was. Now, in the nicest possible way, please sod off.

You know this already. In the words of Keano - this is literally your job. But here you go:

See below - piece on him going out on SSN tonight…think Rons on here?

No problem, you know the drill, if you say something be prepared to justify it! I’ve said elsewhere that I quite liked our January window. I had a problem with the Twine signing as it was just expensive vanity to get us a couple of places higher. It appears from limited evidence that Medube may not be up to it so no harm done. Bird I think looks good business and he’s been on radar (at least with @Mr Popodopolous!) long term as has Murphy. Stokes I agree Manning is the deciding factor - Tommy Widdrington confirmed in an interview this week that LM coached him previously. But the fact is that two of those are looking at an enormous step up and are punts at best, so we’ve only got one real first team signing confirmed in Bird. That means to shape LMs side the way he wants, we will have to spend money so we’re back to the question of how good an idea that is. Id have to disagree on the management of games, and even a lot of “pro” LM posters have noted it could be better. You’ve missed from your list a load where IMO it’s been sub par (takes breath) including Millwall, Boro (H), QPR (A), Preston, Soton (A), Birmingham….we can agree to disagree but it’s been pretty glaring so far I’d say and it is an issue for him. It’s the thing that’ll do him in more than anything else and as long as the concern remains I’d be reticent to give him significant funds.

Ok - what was the irrational decision making from senior staff that led to the hole Pearson had to pull us out of? Because the answer genuinely is that we spent too much money and kept faith with a manager too long. I’m not saying Manning should be sacked. What would lead us exactly down the same hole though is spending loads of money on “his players” if the club are in any doubt as to whether he’s the man long term. And as this thread displays, there is significant doubt over that amongst a lot of the fanbase currently. The very worst case scenario is supporting him in the summer and then having to fire him by Christmas. Unless he improves his game management markedly, then that is a very plausible one though - and puts us down that hole.

For a happy ending…?

Ummm… Without saying he should go, we were in such a big hole that Pearson had to pull us out of precisely because we held onto a manager for too long and let him spend too much money, therefore ending up with a bloated and overpaid squad. The root cause was not making a quicker decision on Lee Johnson and ending up with too many players. Holden was then a continuation of that - we sacked him correctly quickly but the reason for the mess was entirely the opposite of what your post suggests.

Yep there is a lot of whataboutery creeping in here. The fact is taking over Sheffield Weds who were up shit creek is a different proposition from taking over Bristol City who were in a decent position with a motivated squad. On a similar basis, taking over City this season is a different challenge to taking over City post Holden where we were genuinely abysmal. The basic fact is that managers typically take over a side in one of two circumstances - a sacking due to poor performance or the old manager being poached. It’s really unusual to take over a mid table side with aspirations of the playoffs mid season with nothing majorly wrong. And once again, that is why comparing Liams first x games to Niges first x games or to Sheffield Weds (worse position on takeover) is futile and really just muddies things. Why people want to do that, who knows? It again comes down to the basic question: With what people have seen from Liam to date - and not comparing him with Nige - what confidence do they have that he’ll get it right bearing in mind what we’ve seen here and what he’s done elsewhere? And getting it right cannot be not progressing from the base and spending money to do so - you wouldn’t do that in any business. It has to be improvement. Everything else is just noise.

Unlikely as we can’t recall him from Newport Trained today, don’t know if back for the weekend yet, expected to train tomorrow per LM interview

Well they’ve put an 11 minute interview with Liam up today - it doesn’t really say anything but it’s unusual for them to do so particularly as there will be the presser tomorrow. Lots of questions about the schedule - it feels a bit defensive PR.

Phants. You have no idea how disappointed I am at you for missing the gag.

Confirmed out for season!

What’s this all about?