downendcity

I can remember playing double headers at the end of season in the District League, but never hepta headers!

Right there's the definition of " between a rock and a hard place"!

Plenty of occasions were City is concerned, to paraphrase Eric Morecambe, you've got all the right words, but not necessarily in the right order!

No, but we've not picked up a single point in the last 24 hours, so if this is extrapolated over a full season then we are absolute certainties to be relegated next season and therefore can look forward to playing a Bristol derby in 25/26.

Probably not and especially so when you've got umpteen millions in parachute payments to hand.

Sort of reminds me of this interview with Matt Damon - about Tom Cruise.

I liked the Arsenal style with white sleeves - until the suppliers couldn't supply it!

Like you, I'm somewhat in the middle on this as I would have been happy for Pearson to continue ( although I think many view his time in charge, particularly more lately, through rose coloured glasses) and do think Manning has made mistakes, although have seen signs that I think auger well for the future - if he is given the chance! I think Manning's appointment was against a background of growing antipathy towards the owner and senior management at the club, which came to a crescendo with the timing and manner of Pearson's sacking, and think this has affected how he has been viewed by some fans. I don't think any fans really want to see us lose, but do think that some, who have an axe to grind with the running of the club, are happy to "point out" Manning's failures, as it enables them to reinforce the fallacy of the club's decision to sack Pearson. This has led to many things under Manning being compared to Pearson, so that Manning's successes are credited to Pearson ( his players/formation/tactics), whereas poor results and/or performances are put down solely to Manning. Hopefully , if Manning can continue to produce results and performances, as he has recently, and with greater consistency then hopefully he offers less ammunition for those arguments. Then perhaps the forum can get back to a degree of normality and where every other thread does not descend into a Manning v Pearson debate/argument. Having said that, how often in the fairly recent past, and under various managers, do we seem to have had moaners v happy clappers discussions, so perhaps , as @RoystonFoote'snephew says it's down to Bristolian's natural pessimism/negativity!

With 4 gold stars over the crest to commemorate the wins against Blackburn, Leicester, Saints and WHam.

...and solidarity with Everton and their fans for how unfairly they have been treated by football administrators For breaking the same rules that applied to all premier league clubs i.e. they were cheating!

Speculation? You're really going out on a limb there Sam!

I've posted this before, but it does seem to accurately reflect the mood swings on OTIB since Manning's appointment and particularly over the last 3 months.. Fans on my generation will recognise it from Junior Choice, younger fans...... well, just accept that some of us are old and that the world didn't used to be in colour!

If!

That's climate change for you!

Now he's at Leeds he can't be called a smalltown boy.

Gerry Gow. With modern refereeing he'd struggle to stay on the pitch for more than 45 minutes, but he'd still manage to affect a game more in 45 minutes than many of ours do in a month. I know it only said one choice, but cheeky second would be Cheesley - he'd scare the 5h!t out of modern day defenders. Edit: Just read the qualification " still in the game"! In which case it has to be Alex Scott - the best natural talent I've seen at City in over 50 years. Him alongside Gow would be some midfield!

So it's a mathematical certainty that the Pearson v Manning debate will continue into next season!

I remember a story about Alan Hansen when he signed for Liverpool. Shortly after signing he was stood by Bob Paisley watching a full scale practice match. Paisley asked him what he thought and Hansen replied, saying that watching the game he hadn't realised that Liverpool was a long ball team. "We're not" answered Paisley, " we don't play long ball, we play the right ball".

If it's a Bristol City player it's not!

Playing devil's advocate, for some on here it will be whatever we don't have. Good performance then it's the result that's important. Good result then it's the performance that's most important. That's assuming, of course, that we don't have both together!

Caught a Talksport interview the other day with the guy who invented Hawkeye, from which I think VAR was developed. He said that he is disappointed at how VAR was introduced into football as it was not intended to be used in the way it is.(I hope my interpretation is accurate) I'm sure he said that it was intended to be used on a challenge basis, as are reviews in American football. I used to say that Rugby had it right, but the last world cup changed my opinion, as you could sense that the review panel were looking to get involved in the game. That is the problem with football VAR - the VAR involvement is too often a bigger story than the incident in question.

The model for football's financial regulations....

I'm getting Dutch boy with his fingers in the dyke vibes about this ....... in the financial sense of course!

They're ****ed?

A bit disingenuous Natch. SL spent his business life working in the heavily regulated financial services sector, where for the majority of that time, and certainly when HL reached their market leading position, penalties for breaching the rules were severe, so compliance was a huge factor in the management of the business. I am pretty certain that he could not , and cannot now, abandon his attitude towards regulation compliance. I've commented before that, with the benefit of hindsight, I think that when it was first mooted, SL foresaw the impact that ffp would have on clubs and it was this that prompted his strategy to make the club more self sufficient. That was widely derided on here, with many fans seeing it as an excuse for the owner no longer being prepared to put his hand in his pocket - it would probably qualify as hiding behind ffp, as you put it, in fans' eyes. With hindsight perhaps SL has been proven right, and we've been lucky to have such a careful owner, given what we have seen with the likes of Derby and Reading and are now increasingly seeing with even premier league clubs being penalised for breaching financial rules. Interestingly, rather than hiding behind ffp, SL used ffp rules to benefit the club financially in the long term . While ffp limits how much an owner is allowed to put into a club directly for transfers , wages and the like ( not forgetting that SL is putting £20+m a year into BCFC just to keep us going) he recognised areas that ffp does allow an owner to invest without breaching ffp. That is why we have the revamped stadium and the HPC. Having been redeveloped, AG now generates more income, and especially on non matchdays than did the old stadium, and that additional income can be used towards investment in the team, player wages etc. Similarly, the HPC is important in helping the club's academy. Better facilities attract better young players, the success of academy players like Kelly, Semenyo, Scott, Pring, Vyner, Conway, Bell etc, breaking into the first team only reinforces that, and they all cost nothing in transfer fees. Also, and as we well know, the sell on fees when academy players move on add massively to the clubs financial position. All of that because, rather than hiding behind ffp, SL has put his hand in his pocket to invest huge amount as ffp does allow, to generate money for the club that ffp would not have allowed him to invest directly. There are plenty of things and decision we might like to blame SL for, but I don't think hiding behind ffp is one of those.