LondonBristolian

Cardiff was utterly ridiculous. But we were missing 5 or 6 players for much of the first part of the season and we've been missing Atkinson, Naismith, Sykes, Twine*, Pring and Bell at various points in recent weeks whilst McCrorie and Wells only came back part the way into Manning's tenure. * a new signing but we've lost Weimann, who would be counted amongst Pearson's injuries. Pearson had it worse with injuries for sure but - Ipswich and Cardiff aside - I'm not sure the difference was that dramatic and it'd certainly be an inaccurate picture to pretend Manning has generally had a fully fit squad to choose from.

Is it? When Pearson went, we had 18 points from 14 (which I make around 1.28 per game) We now have 44 from 34 (which I make around 1.29 per game)

I think the main lesson we can learn this season - as several clubs have learned before - is that sacking the manager isn't the surefire way to improve results that we think it is. I'm therefore personally not jumping towards "Sack the manager" as the answer. Whilst I didn't want Pearson to go, I don't actually think our points total would be all that different if he was still in post. We're mid-table because that's where our team is. We might win a couple and talk about promotion, then lose a couple and then talk about relegation and so on ad nauseam but mid-table is about right. And I'm no more about to accept losing two in a row as evidence that we're dramatically declining as I was prepared to accept winning two in a row before that as evidence we were hurtling towards promotion.

I genuinely don’t know. We may well not. But, even if not, I’m not sure if being that blatantly open about it is helpful. I suppose you could see it as being brutally honest and laying out a direct challenge to the players to prove him wrong but I suspect that is a motivational technique that works on some but not others…

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.