Midlands Robin

5 hours ago, Never to the dark side said:

and to mention the class 23 Frigate HMS Bristol is also there

Nope, HMS Bristol was a Type 82 Destroyer whose final role in the Navy after leaving Frontline service in 1991 was as a harbour training vessel in Portsmouth. She is now berthed at the top end of Fareham Creek in Portsmouth harbour with a number of other ships, awaiting disposal by scrapping. 

On Saturday we went to watch Man City Women v Man Utd women which my lad wanted as part of his Christmas present. 

There were 40 thousand fans in the Ethiad for that game. 

The match day experience was pretty good as well. 

We're throwing away something that's now well established and is worth investment. By not putting any effort behind our ladies we're losing a massive opportunity.

If this was the men's team Lauren Smith would have been shown the door months ago. 

I posted when relegation became inevitable last time we went down (and in similar circumstances with whimper) that we were chucking away a real opportunity to grow the name of Bristol City at a time when the women's game was only going to get bigger and this was before the Lionesses winning the Euros. 

I think Fevs put it perfectly above but I'd like to quote a line from Lotus cars founder Colin Chapman, "If you're not winning, you're not trying"

Lansdown out 

2 hours ago, Cowshed said:

Any better?

Very much so. Cheers.

34 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

Building from the back Malmo don't do anything exceptional, its quite structured, its a four two shape with splitting CB's wide FB's. 7-8 players are not specifically played down one side. They play from a back four and a double pivot. The pivot moves with the ball and so do the attacking central midfielders to the forward/forwards creating ladders. The ladders are the overload and this can be either side of the pitch or down the centre. The ball goes right the team flows (tilting) right, and if the ball goes left the team tilts left. 

In the second and final third is where Malmo look different. 

And for those of us who don't have a UEFA coaching badge, I think I can safely say....

Pardon?

"As club captain, I was sent to see the Chairman to tell him you lot thought that yellow shirt with the dead seagull on it was embarrassing and the next thing you know I'm in a taxi on the way to West Brom"

Apart from the goal we've looked OK at the back but I have to say our midfield is all over the place today. They're walking through us when they come forward and it's only the back line and mostly Vyner who have held them at arms length.

We're not pressing them anywhere in the middle.

Really sad news. Definitely thinking of Scott and his family.

I'd swan dive into a barrel of petrol with a lit firework clenched in my teeth just to sniff one of his farts. The bloke is a legend.

Warburton could be the best thing since sliced bread and would arrive oven ready. If he did come in, Tinnion would be toast. The trouble is, our board want someone in that roll who can butter them up which leaves us in a bit of a jam.

Shit, ****, bugger and bollocks

Unbelievable Jeff

So I get to the pub and the bloody match is on the TV here.

I'm off up the pub for a few hands of cards. I will be checking my phone every 5 minutes. Please let us win and end this miserable run. We know we perform better against better teams. Let's prove it, bottle it and do it against every team

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Twine most definitely a case of - “I must have him”…and fair enough.

Mebude more the case of - “young lad out in Belgium where it’s not working out, I know him from City group, let’s see what we can do”.  I don’t believe we were seriously tracking him, before Manning came.  

Referring back to my point, I think I agree with you now Fevs, that Twine was probably a Manning signing, all be it a short term loan.

I assumed we'd been looking at Mebude for a while but am probably wrong on that one then.

Either way, I still think the lack  of strength in the transfer market in January or any sign of a manager stamping his mark on the squad with stronger signings is very strange.

You have to add into the chalice the bizarre January transfer window. 

Manning arrived at the start of November and therefore had between 8 and 10 weeks to run his eye over the squad and request funds to strengthen his team.

What he got seemed to be a continuation of the previously planned January transfer window strategy. It smacks of absolute arrogance that the board felt we wouldn't need to worry about any major signings until the summer.

Most clubs considering a manager change take the timing of transfer windows into account. It was discussed on here at the time NP was sacked that a contributing factor would have been not wanting to give Nige money to spend in January when he wasn't going to take the team into the following season. The fact that they also wouldn't give Nige any money in the summer after Scott left  supports that point.

To sum up then, Manning is brought in to replace a popular manager who had worked hard with very little to develop a hard working squad. The squad kept performing despite the loss of several key players. Manning's managerial style doesn't fit with the agenda set by the board who hired him. Then, he seemingly has no opportunity to inject any of his own signings into the team when he and the club have over two months to adjust the recruitment strategy 

Poison chalice indeed.

Can we sack the manager now or are the ladies just another Bristol Sport portfolio member who the Lansdowns have because it looks good but clearly don't give a **** about?

An elephant in the room here is the Brentmister General over there in Ipswich. When we discuss the philosophy of a club and buzz word bingo, he always comes to mind. Now I know a lot of people will suggest that even a broken clock is right twice a day but there's a bit more to what Ashton has done than that 

I wanted him gone as did most of us. Even SL hinted in his post Ashton interview that it wasn't working well. 

So what did Ashton do? He gets the Ipswich job and repeats almost to the letter everything he did here  He sacks an experienced manager with a strong track record  He appoints a coach with almost no experience. He floods the team with signings apparently regardless of if they're needed or not. He even goes as far as recruiting 90 percent of the staff he worked with here 

What does that get him? Promotion to the Championship and the very real possibility of back to back promotions returning Ipswich to the Premier League.

What's the difference? McKenna is clearly a better manager than LJ and they have a board focused solely on the success of Ipswich Town football club. That's it really.

Whatever our current operating model, we need to stop farting about, get people at the top who are ruthless bastards determined to succeed at all costs and get people below them who know exactly what they're doing within the game. 

Simple really.

Charlton Athletic would be my bet 

If we can't sack him can we at least take a leaf out of our January transfer window play book and loan him back to Oxford for the remainder of the season?

1 hour ago, headhunter said:

Here's one I did last year with Gary

I'll definitely give it a listen 

15 minutes ago, The turtle said:

Are you implying that i am not infact ...... A turtle??? 

Worse, i am not THE turtle.

Outrageous 

 

It could be worse. He could be pushing back the turtle's head.

The "Cider with..." Podcasts that OSIB produced were absolutely superb and are sadly missed. 

As another poster said, when OSIB fizzled out, I haven't really picked up on another. Robins on the wire was good because although it was Gregor and Michelle so very much a mainstream discussion it gave some great analysis. So you had Robins for the more journalistic opinion and OSIB for the irreverent, run review.

Fan led podcasts are great for getting debate going especially as club media is so tightly controlled these days. At the end of the day it's all about choice. You can choose to listen, choose to engage or choose not to. 

We've come a long way since a write up in the post, Phil Tottle,Ceefax and Club Call.

Honorable mention for John Ward who seems to be a bit over looked here.

He took over an average side left by big Joe after a less than brilliant second spell and took it into the play offs and then pushed Watford all the way to get promotion in his second season. Some may argue he was starting to get a tune out of the team in the 98-99 season before he quit because of the Bennie saga.

He should certainly be ahead of Wilson even though Wilsons style of play may have been better. Ward got us promoted.

On 15/02/2024 at 19:08, shahanshahan said:

City Women Fans Forum finally announced. Lauren Smith & Gavin Marshall will be taking questions from supporters.
Monday 4th March, 6:30pm, in the Supporters Club & Trust Bar.

Sadly we can already write the script for this without having to go.

Season not gone as we had hoped

Plenty left to fight for.

Believe the squad is good enough

Right behind the team

We've invested in the squad and made some key signings

The support has been fantastic.

We'll fight until we have nothing left to fight for

If we do go down we are in a better place than last time we were in the championship

Keeping hold of our best players will be important but if big offers come in

We can't compete on the same level in terms of finance with the bigger clubs

If we go back down to the championship the drop in gates will mean home games will have to return to the HPC

You can tick these off as they go through them.

8 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

Agree with the observation but there is an error. We drew 1-1 against Watford at home. Still less than 50% possession though.

Thans and fixed.