Red Exile

Thing is...if you don't believe that Nigel Pearson has a sense of what needs to be done to get the club into a fit state to have a stab at the play-offs and perhaps promotion, and you don't trust him to work out how to do that within the financial constraints set by the owner, then you have to have faith in the latter - Steve Lansdown - to have a better plan. One of these men has achieved precisely what we purportedly want to achieve. Steve Lansdown has had 15 years since we last got to Wembley to set us on the road back there - he's not made it. I happen to rather like Nigel. Like Cotts and GJ he a man who speaks his mind, takes the supporters on the journey, seems to know what he's doing. It's not necessary to believe that he is the 'messiah' to question the alternative - the alternative being that Steve Lansdown knows what to do next. After all these years I'm afraid I have no faith in the Lansdowns.

...mind you replacing Danny Wilson with Brian Tinnion, and Steve Coppell with Keith Millen were decisions that set the bar quite high!

I'd have said that was right - and if the first game is a 9pm KO then it might be fair to assume that that is the TX slot for the top match each day - so look at the top seeds and assume they will be playing at 9?

Not announced yet - good luck with the tickets. We're in the draw. Been lucky at some tournaments, not at others.

Good question. My answer would be that if they don't want to support him he will, presumably, go. If I was offered a choice I'd rather the owners left the stage...but I've thought that for a while. The elder seems to have become disenchanted, his few comments seems to indicate his focus is elsewhere - Guernsey...Botswana - what I recall of his limited City related stuff is uninspiring or suggests resentment at the neediness and presumption of the fanbase. As for the younger - words fail me. Football is an entertainment business. I have sufficient geographical distance from Ashton Gate to make the journey seem a long one...a very long one if there's nothing entertaining at the end of it. You need hope. The Lansdowns offer none these days - by contrast Pearson has the qualities that a football fan of my ilk respects, and offers some hope.

I don't think I voted in the poll but after the WBA game I'd lost patience...but not necessarily with Pearson. What's changed is the Scott sale and what I perceive as a failure on the part of the club's owners to invest in a way that a) supports the manager and b) indicates ambition. Look at the bench yesterday - I think Pearson is being asked to make bricks with straw. Now when it comes to 'fickle' I've done my time, 50 years, watched us at Carlisle and York etc, and right now if Pearson left the little hope I had of progress would walk out the door with him. If Lansdown is the 'big bad wolf' its because he's donned the costume...there was never any need to, he's rapidly squandering whatever goodwill he had left.

A Pearson departure any time soon would be the final straw for me...or at least a temporary break. He's currently making bricks with straw - and for us to be what are we - the 28th best placed side in English football? - with the support the Lansdowns have given him is close to miraculous.

Well well well! Dogged second half defensive performance. The sort of match we’d usually lose. Credit all round.

Really struggling to put two passes together here. Defending with gusto though.

Jason Knight making a difference. Tenacious.

Looking much better

Incredible! Great though! Haha.

Lucky to still be in this - but we are.

This is terrible. Laughably poor.

Watching from Italy. Blimey. Being outclassed by a club that hadn’t a pot but a handful of seasons ago. Nice one SL.

Better side and for once took our half chances. Plymouth are by no means a bad side. Good to see less of the panic in possession that has afflicted our performances in recent times. Impressive win. Encouraging!

One of the more entertaining goalless draws. Fine Championship contest.

First match I can get to this season. Looking forward to it.

Give me 'the benefit of the doubt'? ? You've been on this forum for years - you don't recall people calling for LJ to go and others defending him? Don't be daft. It went on for what seemed like an age until he finally got the boot. I'm not 'fixated' own whether I was right - although I was as it happens, right in that he was never going to get us promoted, he's never got anyone promoted. Expectations? - managed by the club's owner - personally, I was at Charlton when he appeared sat next to SL. My heart sank. EDIT: ...anyhow, we are all City fans, and the LJ years are behind us. No need to rake over the embers of discontent! Or at least not with Lee Johnson. Pearson is a manager much more to my liking.

I was a critic for more than a season before he left. Never mentioned his height, but perhaps balked at his Brent-isms. Nothing against him personally in truth, just not up to the job. Poor appointment. I got dogs abuse from folk determined that he would succeed. They were wrong, and were wrong month after month. All arguing he should stay...until he left. Did I keep a list of names? - one or two come to mind! I'm sad that I and others were right. What a waste of time and money the Johnson years proved. It wasn't necessary to 'hate' LJ or any of his characteristics to call him out as not up to the job of leading a side out of the Championship. LJ doesn't particularly interest me these days but I object to the rewriting of OTIB history.

double post

Noggers I recall you defending me against the LJ glee club when I was calling him out on the occasion of one of his more incompetent late stage losses - against Barnsley as I recall. I was very grateful. I think we have to acknowledge that reason went out the window when judging Lee Johnson. He had a clutch of devotees who simply couldn't believe he wasn't up to the job...the job being getting us to the play-offs. Those of us who called him out were clearly motivated by hate - rather than the evidence of the league table. But hey.

Great thread. Strikes me - looking back to the early 70s - that all the great City line ups had a consistency and the teams that 'more than the sum of the parts' feel. I can't disagree with the 76-77 side as the greatest, not least because even after all these years - and I was in my early teens then - I could still name each player and their position. But the same would be true of the GJ side that got to the play-offs, or the Cotts side from 2014-15. I mean Flint & Wilbs are unlikely to feature in lists of the greatest ever City players - but they were vital cogs in well oiled machines - and it was a pleasure to watch a team playing so effectively as a collective.

It was a depressing listen. 'Hoping for the best' - I thought. As for Lansdown - I'm not sure why anyone would invest in football if it wasn't for the glory. The idea of a financially sustainable Championship football club is almost laughable. We don't have to speculate on the health of a 71 year old billionaire to appreciate that 20 years of investment - the best years of his billionaire life - have delivered precious little glory....a cup win in the lesser cup (followed by a defeat), some lower league promotions (to compensate for relegations) a solitary play-off 15 years ago (which we lost). His media recognition is at best the occasional local radio interview...the promotion of a golf venture in Guernsey is hardly 'hold the front page'. If he's known for anything its stupendous investment in one of the most mediocre under-achieving British football clubs...but with a nice ground. Other than as a legacy project for his unimpressive son I'm not sure why he bothers - from that interview you'd have to assume that he appears to be thinking the same.

Excellent post, and I'm certainly not a 'disciple'. The missing bit for me is communication. If that is the strategy let's hear someone at the top shout about it...very happy for them to take the credit when it pays dividends. All along in the Lansdown years the missing piece has seemed to me to be taking the fan base on the journey. With very rare exceptions - think Cotts and the recruitment in the summer of 2014 - when there has been a tale spun - think '5 pillars' or Mark Ashton's offerings - there have been too many gaps in the narrative, gaps that can easily be filled by speculation and conspiracy theory. I know that OTIB can descend into daftness at times but the people I know in the real world who post on here are all thoughtful, intelligent and well respected in their professional lives. Having worked in the media all my life I don't think any of this is all that hard to deliver, but it requires engagement with supporters beyond amusing social media posts and post match interviews, engagement which treats them like intelligent stakeholders with a contribution to make.