Jacki

Absolutely. I haven’t listened to TS for years because of the likes of Durham.

That phone in on Radio Bristol, and the texts and tweets they were reading out, really wound me up last night. Multiple ‘not good enough’ and ‘Pearson out’ type remarks after what was one of our better, and certainly most committed, performances of the season. Some of the contributors have an agenda that they stick to regardless of how the game plays out. Ian Gay’s protestations that the ref only got one decision wrong all night was one of his classics as well. I swear that guy should be a Talksport ‘shock jock’ presenter, saying ludicrous and contrary things for clicks and to attract furious callers. For years and years he used to say we need a manager like Nigel Pearson. About 2 months after Pearson joined, he was calling for his head! Ridiculous.

I really don’t mind a player giving a bit back when they’ve been getting dog’s abuse during a game. That’s part of the game for me. But Austin tonight didn’t get any stick at all prior to him scoring, and there was absolutely no need for him to act like that. I found it bizarre. And if that’s not a booking I don’t know what is. Complete ****.

Not for me. Weimann has his faults but he’s absolutely essential to us. When he was out last season we desperately missed his work rate and commitment. I’m not sure how much we’d get for him either at his age, so I don’t think it would make sense commercially.

I’ve just parked up and it’s the quietest I’ve seen it for street parking for a while. I reckon it’ll be a pretty sparse crowd today

That’s what we figured. Sitting up there, in the fresh air, with pretty much a block to ourselves seems like a pretty safe option to me.

I’ve been coerced into going, against my better judgement, by my kids. We’re going to mask up when queueing to get in, get off the concourse and to our seats as soon as possible and head to the Lansdown upper so we have plenty of empty space around us. Our tickets are in S82 but I don’t fancy being crammed in there with everything that’s going on. Hooefully no stewards will be bothered to stop us moving seats.

It would make sense, without a doubt. The problem would be the volume of fixtures, and also the timelines that need to be worked to with the Qatar World Cup taking place in December I’m pretty relaxed about covid in the main, I’ve been sensible but I’ve been perfectly happy to go to events etc. over the past couple of months. I am really wondering about going on Saturday though. Cases are rocketing, people will be crammed on concourses, and if you catch it this weekend you can forget about Christmas with the family. I’m really not sure it’s worth the risk.

I agree with all of this. I think he’s a good footballer but, for me, he has a mistake in him and makes them far too often. Coventry away was the perfect example of this. He was excellent up there in the first half and looked a real player, then ended up getting the wrong side of his man, bringing him down and giving away the pen. Yesterday I thought he did okay in the main in his defensive work. Yes he dropped off his man a few times but overall he was solid, for me anyway. It was his distribution at times that let him down v Derby, he just kept giving the ball away. And I think that comes down to the lack of confidence you mention. Vyner looks destined to me to be that promising academy player who never quite progresses to the top level because of the confidence and concentration issues he clearly has. But to say he’s not interested, as the OP suggests, is unfair and ridiculous in my opinion.

Looks like a bad one, poor fella

We’re deservedly behind here. The first 15 they were dominant. I thought we played well in the middle 15, forcing our way up the pitch, winning a series of corners and having a few chances. The last 15 have seen them dominate again and it was no surprise when they scored. That piece of defending for their goal was as bad as you’ll ever, ever see. Dreadful.

Get well soon Nige. Rest up and hope to see you back fighting fit soon. Rob

I was just about to post very similar. I’m not ITK at all and wouldn’t pretend to be. But, from the outside looking in, Pearson is the only person we have on the football side of the club with the slightest idea of what is required to be successful in the Championship. We have a load of either inexperienced or youth coaches underneath him, no Director of Football, and a board of directors who gave the keys to the kingdom to an absolute charlatan for about 4 years based on the fact that he was once a goalkeeper for West Brom. Then there was @Harry thread a week or two back about the complete lack of a recruitment department. There is NO footballing expertise at the top end of the club whatsoever. We’re relying on Pearson, from what little I can see, to do it all. Maybe, with his health problems and all, the answer would be for him to move ‘upstairs’ and let a younger coach or manager take the team. I was there yesterday and I totally understand the anger, frustration and fury that everyone felt at the end of the game. I felt exactly the same. I’ll go against the grain here and say that I actually thought we played pretty well I the first half, and when we went 2-1 up I felt genuinely optimistic we’d get it done. What happened afterwards was completely unacceptable and utterly deflating. Make no mistake though, this club is in an absolute mess. We seem to me to be rudderless at first team and U23 level in almost every way. Bringing in someone like Ryan Lowe, who pretty much nobody wanted before he won a few games at the start of this season, would really not be the answer in my opinion unless it’s to report into someone as a DOF who knows the league, agents etc. We need a complete overhaul in terms of recruitment, football expertise on the board, and there appears to be no sign of that happening. And we need to try and survive in this league while we do it. It was always going the be a bumpy ride, but I think it’ll get a whole lot bumpier yet.

For me I’m going Webster Reid Brownhill Ayling Tammy I know I’m cheating a bit with Tammy but I absolutely loved that guy….

I agree but who have we got who can play there? Our squad is paper thin and anyone decent is injured. This has been a pitiful performance.

The atmosphere in the last 10 minutes was fantastic, it felt like a big cup tie or an old fashioned Bristol derby. Was just glorious when the final whistle went… haven’t enjoyed myself that much in ages.

As others have said it was a strange sub to make and he definitely looked a yard off the pace. He did get on the ball a couple of times and looked technically good but he also looked lightweight and too easy to get past. I’m sure he’ll be a great player in time but today wasn’t the day for him and it could have cost us.

I make you absolutely right. I’m all for people enjoying themselves, having a few beers and letting off steam. That’s a big part of what going to football is all about. Yesterday, however, was way past the line of what’s acceptable IMO. The majority of the lads you are on about had no interest in watching the game and all they wanted to do was abuse our own players, make those comical gestures at the opposition fans and make life actually pretty uncomfortable for everyone else around. I was embarrassed to be in that away end yesterday.

I agree with much of what the OP is saying here. Of course people are entitled to their opinions but my god some of the vitriol and blind fury I heard this afternoon was ridiculous. People booing players, singing about how they want Lee Johnson back, chanting you’re getting sacked in the morning, hurling abuse at certain players every time they went near the ball…. It was pretty pathetic at times today. Am I happy with how things are going? Of course not. We’ve had a really poor week. But boil it down and we’ve lost 2 games we would have expected to lose and had a massive kick in the nuts in a game we should have won on Tuesday night. We’ll struggle this season, but that’s hardly a shock. We’re about where we would have expected to be at the start of the season. Getting on the players’ backs like people are starting to do at the moment is only going to make things worse.

What you say about the striker is fair enough. It seems that there was nobody out there within our budget who could improve us, so we didn’t sign anyone. That makes sense to me. Where I would slightly take issue with you there is that I don’t believe that we have been that solid at all. We’re 13 games in and we’ve kept one clean sheet all season. We look reasonably well organised in the main, so I can see what you mean, but in each and every game we either make individual errors or have players out of position that cost us goals. And given that we don’t score that many, those lapses in concentration and our propensity to make often comical errors are always likely to cost us.

We were absolute cruising and have just folded like a pack of cards again. ******* pathetic.

I’d be quite happy to go for some of the later games but just don’t see the point. There’s no way we’ll still be able to attend games in Jan, I reckon we’ll be in full lockdown by then for some time after all the festive nonsense.

Here we go. COYR

Not been great to say the least. We could easily be a couple down here to a really poor side. We just can’t string 3 passes together

Harsh. He’s a v good player when in form and in his right position in the hole. He’s not a winger though and that’s really showed in recent weeks. I’d play Bryan wide left and Kelly at LB for the next few games