LondonBristolian

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.

Flippancy aside, what do we reckon the thinking is here? Still 4th choice next season? Chance for HWR to be released and Duncan and Casa-Grande to get loans?

No idea how true this is but someone - forget who - said on here that HWR had said something to them that indicated he knew his contract wasn't being renewed. Worth bearing in mind that he's only six months younger than Bajic so the odds of him displacing even our second choice goalkeeper seem unlikely. I think Bajic's a bit harder to work out because a no 2. goalkeeper often doesn't get games until they suddenly displace their rival (if at all) so it's hard to gauge how far behind Max he is. But - whilst he provokes a fair bit of debate on here - Max is doing more than enough to keep his place at the moment so it's hard to see him getting a chance. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if Bajic left for more game time elsewhere.

Personally I'm looking forward to seeing a team of: O'Leery McRorie Viner Dicky Kai Naismith Gardiner-Hickman Mattie James Sikes Memeti Mbude Nakki Wells

For me, it comes down to two questions: 1) is the goalkeeper where I’d want us to spend (inevitably finite) resources over the summer? 2) if we did spend money on a goalkeeper, am I confident any player we bring in will be a significant upgrade on Max? I would answer “no” to both questions. I’d rather we focused our resources on the best striker and creative midfielder we could attract and I think we would inevitably bring in either an upcoming keeper from a less high standard of league, a promising player from a premier league u-23 team, or someone not getting games at a championship club. In all cases, I’d not be confident they would be better than Max. You could argue we need greater competition but that very much depends on Manning’s view of Bajic and I have no idea what that view is, or what level Bajic is currently at. Don’t get me wrong - I’d happily take Ederson, Allison or even Pickford if they’re about to come available and ready to move to BS3 on 10% of their wage due to their secret burning ambitions to play for Bristol City but, in the absence of that scenario, I simply don’t see upgrading on Max as a priority.

I agree it is highly unlikely we are going to make the play-offs but I think the way these numbers are presented is a bit of an over-simplification. For example, 28 points is NOT the mathematical minimum we need to get into the play-offs. It is the likely minimum we will need assuming that teams above us continue to perform on the same level. There are 5 teams around the same number of points between us and the play off places so it is likely that at least one of those will continue to perform at the same level or better but it is not a mathematical impossibility that all of them drop to a maximum of, say, 1.375 points a game putting them on 69 points, for example. And an “average”number of points is an average, not a guarantee. Don’t get me wrong - the most logical projection would be that the numbers in the original post are roughly right (although there is a definite possibility that at least one of the five teams above us will perform better than they have to date meaning 72 points would not be enough). However, being pedantic, it frustrates me when people present a logical projection based on previous date as a “mathematical minimum” as the two are not the same thing.

Is Nelson Raekwon? Surprised he's not starting if so. Good to see Atkinson and Naismith on the pitch and want to read more than is there into the fact Sykes and Twine aren't in the U-21 squad...

I stayed in Southampton for a couple of days at the time of the away game. It was alright. Decent historic area. Not somewhere I'd actively recommend visiting but terrible either.

I came away from the away game a bit unsure what to think. On the one hand, we narrowly lost to a quality strike and arguably created decent chances. On the other, I'm not sure I believed we'd score and I'm not wholly sure they got out of second or third gear. As good as a result on Saturday, I think it'll be a tough one assuming Twine and Sykes aren't back as I'm just not sure we'll have the players to create the chances we need. I think it'll tight on paper but I reckon they'll find a way to score and I'm less convinced that we will. Hope I'm wrong but I reckon it'll be 0-2 Saints.

I'd possibly change should to could. I'm not sure I'd say we had the best team at any of those three tournaments and I certainly don't think our 2018 or 2022 squads were better than the French teams of those tournaments. Losing to Croatia in 2018 was frustrating but I think any manager we had would have struggled against France in the final that year or in the Quarter Final in 2022. 2021 was the most frustrating in that we just didn't attack enough in the second half against Italy but, as you say, Southgate was the first manager since Ramsey to get us in a final in the first place. Southgate is frustrating risk-averse in this approach - and I think this year'll be interesting as it'll be the first tournament he's been charge of where you could make a reasonable case that the two best players there will be England players and that we should be considered favourites. I'm not confident we will win it and, if not, I think that'd be the first time Southgate could reasonably be achieved of under-achieving at a tournament. But - whilst there may well be better options out there - most, if not all, are all untested in international football. There's not a single manager I can think of that I'd confidently predict would get better results than Southgate has.

Personally, I think anyone who wants to post a smug anti-Manning post each time we lose or a smug pro-Manning post each time we win needs to take a deep breath and grow the Hell up. The defeat against Leeds didn’t prove anything and a first win in six league games proves nothing either. Manning deserves to be judged on performances across the season - not just one result. He got frankly unfair flack last week for a poor result against a top team with our three most creative players missing but it doesn’t need to be “balanced out” by a bizarrely smug response to us winning our first league game of the year in mid-February. This thread is more than a little embarrassing.

Bloody well hope not or the transfer window went worse than I thought!

For me, beyond Williams' form, the big thing is trying to minimise the non-essential transfer business over the summer so we can focus on getting in an attacking midfielder and key striker, especially if the belief is we'll be losing Conway. Keeping Williams enables us to know our budget and focus it where needed. Even in terms of his wage, paying him a little more might avoid paying a transfer fee for someone else.

It's a tricky one. I'd argue that most of our results since then have not been terrible in isolation but we've got two tough fixtures coming up that could leave us 8 league games without a win. I think there's mitigation - not just the cup games but the fact that there were only one or two games in that period that we'd be seen us heavy favourites for and Millwall home is the only one where we lost at home to a team you'd expect us to at least be drawing against. But a winless run is bound to sap morale. I don't think Manning will be under pressure after the next two unless we're genuinely abysmal but there's run of games against Wednesday, QPR and Cardiff where we'd be expecting 6 or 7 points from 9 and that's where things could look tricky if there's no sign of improvement.

It sounds like a lot of the issue here was disorganisation over who had been searched and who hadn't. The reality is drug use is up at games (and, to be honest, I have been to more than one away game this season where coked up ***** are making it less fun for everyone else - although it must be said Southampton away wasn't all that much fun in the first place!) and I've no issue with being searched or examined by a sniffer dog on entry but there isn't any need for the same person to be sniffed by three different dogs. And I do think people on this thread are being a little unfair - I don't mind being searched but I totally get some other people get a bit intimidated or nervous around dogs so I do get why it makes others uncomfortable.

It'll be interesting to see how we look once Sykes and Twine are back and Mebude is eligible. In theory, we may finally have the options to create chances and stop the striker looking so isolated. Obviously theory and practice are very different things but I think the point those players are available is the point we'll start to get a clear indication of what Liam Manning believes our best formation and line-up to be. My guess is it will be 4-3-3 in the long-run but we will find out...

Cheers - that's useful. FWIW, I honestly don't have any issue with Ipswich at all. What worries me a bit from your perspective is that Ashton's spending approach for us was very high risk (i.e. throw a lot of money at young players in the hope we unearth a gem or get promoted, which worked well at first but then the "gems" dried up and we had a lot of underwhelming players on our books) but obviously he could have learned a lesson.

I'm asking this genuinely rather than having a dig but do you know where it leaves you financially if you don't go up? From the outside, it looks like you've invested quite heavily. Would key players need to leave to stay in line with FFP or would the squad likely be intact to compete again next season?

Sure - but it would have been a bit petty for the club to deny the appearances too (although, if memory serves, he ended up being extended for one more season than I would have probably kept him on for). I think the pragmatic reality for most recent club "legends" - especially the ones from the late 90s and early 200s when we were mostly in League One - is the amount of time they spent with us was partly a sign of loyalty and partly a sign that more successful clubs didn't covet their services.

I think he really captured the imaginations of people of a certain age. I was slightly too young or got into football slightly too late - he left for West Brom not long at all after I became interested in City but I know people a year or two older than me who'd see him as their favourite ever striker.