LondonBristolian

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.

1 minute ago, ExiledAjax said:

He's averaged a game every 4.5 days. Build in travel and recovery days and I guess it's an average of about 3 days between matches.

I don't really know what you can get done in that kind of time? When you think about doing classroom tactics sessions, on grass sessions, gym, recovery, and other sessions. Not sure, guess it's not ideal.

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?

22 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

This feels like foreboding news for Harvey Wiles-Richards and potentially Bajic. 
 

Joe Duncan is very highly rated and is the next batch below Casa-Grande. I’d be thinking that there may be some engagement with the first team (even as third choice) in the next year or two for both and with that being the case, it’d seem to me that HWR would need to have a huge uptick to remain at his place in the pecking order. Bajic doesn’t seem close to displacing Max (and nor should he currently) and if he has a couple of further contenders coming up behind him he may look to move on as opposed to sitting as number two for a season before potentially being displaced.

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.

Just now, Davefevs said:

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. 

17 hours ago, JBFC II said:

‘Muppet’ is incredibly harsh.

Has he achieved all he should have with the squad we have? Of course not, but then neither has any England manager since Ramsey. In reality, a Euros final, World Cup semi final and Quarter final (with a loss to France hardly a major disappointment) and a 3rd place finish in the Nations League is about as good as we’ve had for many years.

Is he the best option out there? No. Is the national team in a better place than it has been at any point this century? Yes. Is he a ‘muppet’ who we should get rid of as soon as possible? Of course not

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. 

2 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

He may be in the Boro squad.

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. 

1 hour ago, Beni71 said:

No league win since Dec 26th, two massive games ahead and need a result in at least one of them.

If we go into QPR needing a win, think the board will need to come out and back him.

 

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...

5 minutes ago, Dan11 said:

I think Leif Davis would inevitably go. He's a Premier League full back in style and quality and will command a big fee. How we got him in L1 I have no idea. The biggest worry of course would be a PL club wanting McKenna which is inevitable at some point.

Financially we've really not invested that heavily at all. We built a squad in L1 under SCMP rules that could compete pretty well in the Championship. Highest fee we've paid under our new owners is £1.5m (Broadhead, Hirst, Taylor) - on 3/4 year contracts for FFP and players that have future resale value. I don't expect Moore is coming cheap in terms of loan fee/wages but that's a signing we had to make in our position. If he makes the kind of impact he did on Saturday then he will be worth every penny!

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. 

2 minutes ago, Dan11 said:

I'm sorry but that is drivel. We had as many errors playing out from the back in that game as we have all season. We are very good at it generally and we've scored far more goals than we've conceded by playing that way.

It was one of those halves on Saturday. We were sloppy and nothing went for us.

I know you guys don't like Ashton but I find the dislike for us a bit odd to be honest. Clubs that aren't in receipt of parachute payments should be united and happy to see another club defying the odds to compete! I certainly would be if the boot was on the other foot.

We've really missed Hirst since Boxing Day (and Morsy has been suspended for 3 games too). Moore is in and up and running now though. After West Brom on Saturday, we have a run of 9 games where you are the best team we play. So that's where we need to make hay. I back us to go close to the top 2. But if we finish in the top 6 it is an amazing season for us regardless. 

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? 

43 minutes ago, Randy Marsh II said:

Even a City XI on ability from the start of his career to now wouldn't see him in there. Shaun Taylor, Caulker, Webster and Flint would probably be ahead of him in the pecking order.

Committed as he was (ignoring the time he went off to Cov and then had to back), I do think it's a bit sad that he was allowed to become the clubs record appearance maker ahead of the clubs number one legend.

Edit - he might have a better chance of being picked in his younger RB role tbf.

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. 

2 minutes ago, Super said:

Taylor surely wouldn't be in anyone's either? Good player but lots were better.

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. 

No disrespect to Carey but nobody makes a case for him being one of our best ever players, do they? He's rightly acknowledged as our record appearance holder and someone who was a fixture of our side for a long, long time but I don't think many people, if anyone, would have him in their all-time Bristol City XI. 

10 minutes ago, mozo said:

Probably a lot of revenue actually

Bit confused of the relevance here. Nobody has criticised Manning or anyone else for failing to bring revenue into the club. 

11 hours ago, Ryan said:

We are back to being a poor quality relegation threatened team, with a ridiculously inexperienced head coach who no doubt is working tirelessly and doing his best - as did LJ and Holden. We are also back to the policy of collecting players again. This was how it was before Pearson, and is clearly how the owner, his son amd BT want it. It didnt work then, and it won't work now, but for some reason they either cant see it or dont care. 

I think this post needs a little bit of context. We've used (by my count) 19 players this season and have between 23 and 25 senior first team players, depending on if you count HRW and Benarous. Even though we added 6 players in the transfer window, 1 was a permanent signing of someone who was already here, 2 are loaned back out and 1 isn't first team ready. In practice we've gained 2 players and lost 1 player from a squad that has frequently lacked enough fit players to fill the bench. It is true that 3 more signings will come into the squad by the summer but 4 players are out of contract at that point so it remains to be seen whether the new signings add to the number of players in the squad or simply replace those who are going to be leaving. 

There's plenty of utterly valid criticisms to aim at JL, Tinnion and Manning but "collecting players" strikes me as massively inaccurate based on the evidence.

8 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

As it stands and we can debate the theory….LM is devaluing Conway to the external market and devaluing his use to Bristol City.

The true definition of a shit sandwich.

My theory - which of course be utter nonsense - is there are people in the world who excel through "conscious learning" (i.e. they study how to do things and they then work out how to apply a theory and get better) and there are people who excel through "unconscious learning", and who learn and improve by absorbing information around them and applying it without noticing they are doing so. I think that trying to get someone who learns unconsciously to learn consciously can learn to them over-thinking things and losing the instinct that made them stand out in the first place. My major question with Manning is whether he can adapt to different players learning in different ways, and, with Conway, I feel he's trying to improve someone but ultimately stifling their instinct.