LondonBristolian

I do worry about the message it sends out to the young players. It seems to be a pretty open declaration that nobody - or at least nobody who is not out on loan - is even vaguely in the picture to break through to the first team next season.

Tempted to take my Twine shirt back to the club shop and ask them to put a g between the n and the e…

Easy to spot - you just need to look for the person in the lovingly homemade “Liam Manning’s Red and White Army” t-shirt…

The number of times we have failed to fill our bench this season is rather embarrassing. Manning may well have valid reasons for not promoting youth too quickly but I do feel less than 9 subs makes us look amateur and shambolic.

This is the kind of opposition we struggle with and their form is a little better than their position. I'm optimistic we will scrape a win but don't expect it to be easy or comfortable.

Technically I don't think he was ever named as the suspect in that particular case, although that was strongly reported on social media. Obviously, in reality, players aren't always suspended when accused of sexual or domestic violence. But I unequivocally think they should be.

See my post above yours. Depending on Belgium's legal system, the reports don't necessarily contradict each other.

I'm a bit torn on this. Obviously a player HAS to be suspended if there is an obvious safeguarding risk and a potential danger to others if that player is enabled to remain unsuspended. (So, for example, I think any player accused of sexual violence or any form of domestic violence should be suspended until the outcome of any legal proceeding because maintaining the illusion of them as a person who hasn't been accused of those things puts them in a position to harm others). I'm not sure if I think a player should be suspended before trial based on an accusation of assault and I think it probably comes down to the circumstances and whether letting the player continue to play increases the chances of a repeat incident.

Without knowing the Belgian legal system, I know in some countries you have the verdict passed down and then an opportunity to appeal, after which the guilt is either upheld or overturned but that the prison sentence doesn't take effect until after that process. That's how I'm reading "the legal proceeding has yet to reach its conclusion".

Selfishly, neither. Both are away games I usually go to and are obviously easy for me to get to being London-based. That said, I suspect my knees are desperately hoping for a QPR relegation so they can get some respite from the awful seating.

Isn't an "elephant in the room" usually something people AREN'T talking about rather than a rehash of 3, 957 other threads?

When I first got into football, aged 8 or so, I tended to have clubs and footballers are really liked and followed the progress of for wholly spurious reasons - I think probably because I liked the names. I was excited about Plymouth Argyle and Sheffield Wednesday because they had unusual names and there were multiple players I followed the career of, one of which was Brehme - which is not that surprising given Italia '90 was the first major tournament I remember. Feels really sad and shocking for someone who felt such a part of my initiation into football to have suddenly gone.

QPR fans will be sending Beale their messages of sympathy and support.

This thread is a valuable reminder that I'm eating too much butter!

Hope he recovers soon. Very underrated as a manager.

Come, now. A lot of people are discussed on these forums without directly being given a right to reply so let‘s not pretend that’s suddenly an expectation.

To be honest, you get arseholes who overstate their importance and present themselves as “the voice” of a group of people in every walk of life. Everyone knows that Ian Gay does not in any possible way represent the voice of Bristol City fans and everyone knows he will take every opportunity to pretend that he does. The more publicity he gets, the more he will do it. So the obvious answer is to ignore him.

I'm going to tell you a story. In a previous job, my boss was made redundant. I totally disagreed with the circumstances and was in a position where I knew I had enough crucial knowledge and internal cache to be able to make my feelings clear without worrying too much about reprisals. I made my feelings extremely clear and things were very tense between me and the board for a long time and, even today, I'd totally blank the person who I think was most instrumental in the decision if I saw them in the street. A couple of months later - whilst I was still working there - their replacement was appointed. I never once took it out on them, built a good relationship with them and continued to work well with them until the day that I left. My point is Manning was in no possible way involved in Pearson's sacking and wasn't working for the club when JL or BT made those nonsensical statements. So what possible reason would I have for taking it out on Manning?

It wasn't. But I suspect the vast majority of posters on here are bored shitless of both a) the cohort that ignore every single win but claim Manning is the worst manager ever and about to relegate us each time we lose. b) the cohort that ignore every defeat but claim Manning is the best manager ever and about to promote us each time we win,. At the moment, Manning is doing a steady, unremarkable job. It's not what we were promised when NP was sacked but neither is it terrible. There's been performances that give reasons for optimism and performances that give reasons for pessimism. It's a bit weird and frustrating how some posters are determined to be completely absolutist one way or the other about a manager where there is nothing to be absolutist about.

Indeed. Manning might succeed or fail but he's not LJ. For one thing, Manning is being accused of sticking far too rigidly to a playing philosophy, failing to react to changes and playing dull possession football. Johnson was generally accused (not inaccurately) of not knowing how he wanted to play, changing the line-up every week and resorting to hoofing the ball toward Djuric or Diedhiou. Different manager, different skillset, different strengths and flaws. Literally the only two things he has in common with LJ are that a section of the fanbase don't rate him and that he's quite young.

To play Devil's advocate, Manning took over mid-season and it's not that often an academy product breaks in mid-season having not been around in pre-season. I agree there are concerning signs - Yeboah being back with the under-18s, the bench not always being complete and the reported smaller first team training group - but you could argue that's a difference in philosophy rather than intent. Manning could feel it's a false reward to put players on the bench if they're not ready and want players to feel they have to earn a first-team training place. And you could argue that, whilst there are promising talents, the ones that Pearson saw as first-team ready were already in the squad such as Conway and Bell. I don't agree with the suggestion that buying young players directly means an intent to not use the academy and were tracking Murphy before Manning joined in any case. But I think, as with so many things with Manning, we're not really going to have a clear sense of the situation until the summer. Does Palmer-Houlden get integrated in the first team? Will Duncan or Casa-Grande get closer to being second or third choice? Can one of Knight-Lebel, Araoye or Leeson kick on within the squad? Can Taylor-Clarke get back on track or someone like Backwell get a breakthrough? Once we get to the beginning of next season, it'll be a lot easier to say for sure if young players are getting chances.

I agree - I didn't mean to suggest you were saying it was Manning who was responsible for it. Just that it's not the first time we look like we've finally cracked it and then suddenly put in an abysmal performance.

A lack of consistency has been a problem for the last few seasons. It's certainly not new or unique to Manning that we look like we've made progress and then pull a terrible game out of nowhere, then go on a run of defeats and draws before pulling off a win when we least expect it. Ultimately Manning needs to solve it if he is going to succeed here but it's certainly not a problem of his creation.

What is interesting is that it is where we struggled a bit under Pearson earlier in the season too. I think the problem is that teams who set up for us to attack them need creativity to unlock. We don’t have many creative players and the most obvious ones are either injured or returning from injury.

Not ideal but it is the job. I find it a bit frustrating how some posters seem to write the manager off after every defeat but the reality is that the number of games is what happens when you manage a team at this level. He doesn’t have to like that but he does need to adapt to it.