Red Skin

I appreciate your concern and obviously you know your son better than me, but will it really be that wild in the away end? Maybe he won't get as good view as fans will be standing, but won't it be exhilarating for your son to be part of a big away following amongst his own? I have a young son with Down Syndrome and he absolutely loves away games above any home game. We stand in the usual seats, not in a disabled section. There is a sense of danger, but for the most part this isn't in any way real. He loves singing and being part of a minority in the ground supporting his team. By contrast, the atmosphere in the family section of the Lansdown is pretty dire.

That's very sad. Please accept my condolences.

Really pleased with the performance last night and great to be really entertained. Kinda lost my voice this morning, and that only usually happens for the first couple of games of the season so definitely more to shout about. It's still early days, but we are playing well for longer spells in games now so I'm optimistic that things will still improve. It's pretty high stakes at times, but I welcome players trying to beat their man to open things up. High risk, but high gain when it comes off, and I'll take that all day long. I would have loved to see Alex Scott and Semenyo playing in a LM team. Hopefully, we can recruit a couple of gems in January.

Really pleased for the guy. He'd lost all confidence before and now he seems to have got his mojo back.

And so did Man Utd, but it looks like they won't be this season and maybe for a few more if they don't get their act together. It's an unfair meritocracy at present given the finances these clubs enjoy, but at least there is a chance others can break into it.

@Ghost Rider It's the same reason that I put my kids pictures up on the fridge when they were little, rather than chuck them in the bin because they didn't produce a masterpiece. You celebrate and cherish what you have. (I do get some of what you mean though).

Nice idea. 1. Think a ten game rolling average may be more representative to account for run of 5 games that may be either all top or bottom teams, and to cover the batches of game where you may unusually have a lump of away or home games. Happens sometimes. 2. Wonder what this would look like for NP's tenure? For me right now, it's still about performances.

I'm not listening now. You spoilt the ending.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaidstow?

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's nonsense.

Phew, some reason.

Thanks for the fact check. I believe you. The earlier games it was up. The Blackburn game I did notice we had considerably less. I was merely pointed out what Manning was saying his incremental approach was rather than putting a case for it being the reality. There are different approaches to making incremental change, and from his interviews that seems to be his.

People keep saying because of the things you post. If you think it's a reflection of everyone else's mentality, then you have to start questioning that hypothesis. It's like the mother watching her son at the passing out parade from the army. As his company of soldiers all march past their families and assembled dignitaries, all the soldiers are marching in unison except her boy. 'Look at that', she says, 'my Johnny is the only one marching in time!' I'm glad you will still be supporting the team on Saturday.

Maybe so. I think he probably feels he was doing it incrementally judging from his interviews. He's talked about focussing on stopping the opposition initially. Then getting control (and our possession went up). Then imposing ourselves on the opposition in terms of attacking play. Obviously, things are aren't as simple as they look on the tactics board. It'll be interesting when Atkinson comes back. If we do play a back 3 including him and Dickie we have two CBs capable of taking to ball out of defence.

You chose your name well. Every time I post something you fly over and try to shit on it! What's the WSM stand for? Won't Support Manning?

But surely his style can only be judged in terms of the players ability to deliver it? If the players are still learning and unable to implement it, then it isn't gonna look very good. You're an IT man, Dave. Everything is Agile these days. You can't just take an IT dept that's been going waterfall and tell them now they're doing agile without giving them any proper training. Then when the first project using Agile fails, blame the methodology. That would mad wouldn't it?

The difference is that McKenna has been at Ipswich for 2 years embedding his philosophy and methods into his team. LM has had 6 games. I'm sure he isn't telling the players to slow things down to 1.45m/s. They are adapting to a different way of playing and it's taking time.

I must admit I'd had some misgivings about the kind of character Nige was, largely based on the false image that the media portrayed of him. I was pleasantly surprised at what a thoughtful and egoless man he actually was. Maybe that's because of some of the life-changing events he's lives through? Regardless of why he came across as a very genuine, principled, caring man. The club is poorer for not having him around. My anger has faded somewhat, but really saddened that he didn't get to build on all the good things he's done for the club. The only positive is that he can focus on getting his health sorted.

Thanks for the reply. I've seen and heard plenty in my time. This seems to be at another level to me. I really do respect your opinion. I tend to agree with much of what you post. I don't necessarily disagree with much of what you have been posting in terms of observations of the football under LM, but I guess I am more sympathetic to someone seeking to change things and accepting that in the short term things can get worse. It's clear he needed to change things because he believes in a different way to do things. He couldn't just come in and say we'll do the same thing, but I'm just gonna ask the players to do it better.

I am expressing an opinion in response to yours, not denying you your opinion. The football isn't great. Change is painful. Sometimes you go backwards to go forwards. Is LM the answer? I have no idea, but he needs time. Your original post started with an apology to @Harry for playing on the words of his original thread. I think his thread offered something new to what's been said in numerous other threads. Whereas this one is just expressing the same discontent that permeates every other thread on here right now. You haven't addressed the point I made above. If 6 games is enough time to judge LM. How long do we give the next bloke? I think LM can be criticised, but the level of of criticism is quite unprecedented for someone in post for such a short period. I'm not accusing you, but as @Harry post laid out I still think alot of that is down to anger with the decision to sack Pearson. If Pearson had been sacked in response to calls from the fans for his sacking, would LM really be held up to the scrutiny and criticism as is being now? I don't think he would.

I think LM has talked before about not being going more direct to beat a press. It shouldn't be a surprise that the team are effective playing to a style they are familiar with. It may be the way Nige set the team up, but as far as I am aware he hasn't invented it. Indeed the 433 that we ended up playing seemed to be arrived at almost by accident in most peoples' eyes when most fans seemed to want Pearson gone. Like @Harry some would probably see me as some kind of LM zealot. I'm not, but I am not expecting top six and Pep Guardiola levels of coaching, performance and results after 5 weeks. It's a sad situation where fans seem to want LM fail just so they can punish the owners.

5 weeks isn't very long to totally change the way we play. Pearson won't be coming back, and if we sack LM how long do we give the next bloke? 5 weeks? Less, 3 weeks? He will still be just putting the cherry on top of a top 6 team after all won't he? That's the narrative that too many on here seem to be clinging onto. And the next bloke will still be appointed by the current ownership, so he'll have to deal with the same backlash. Or will the collective grief of the fan base finally moved on to acceptance of the reality of where we are?

Yeah, I am perfectly aware of your position. Regardless of that, it's been 5 ******* games. That's 5 occasions when we get to measure how Liam has done. I bet in whatever job you do you weren't expected to justify keeping your job after 5 days of actually doing it.

I think you are completely missing the point of the original post. 1. You can be angry about the board and how they dealt with Pearson and treated the fans, AND, 2. You can see some positives in how Manning is going about his job and changing the way we play. These aren't mutually exclusive positions. The results haven't been great. We haven't seen 90 minutes of scintillating football, but there are signs of progress. I suspect like me @Harryis frustrated by a lot of the noise on here right now. Everything LM does, doesn't do, says, doesn't say is used as stick to beat him with as some sort of way as getting back at the ownership. Just give the bloke a chance. If people are really that dissatisfied with the ownership, then address that separately. Do something constructive to change it.

It's still early and we have lots of players injured so needs must. One answer might be he hasn't got the players available to play how he wants. The other answer may be more nuanced. LM seems flexible in how we set up - to say the least. Looks like he is happy to change how we set up to exploit weaknesses in the opposition. (Whereas I always felt Lee Johnson changed to negate the opposition). The fact we have generally played well in the first half, and then struggled when teams adapt at HT would suggest the game plan is working initially. He's said before it's really hard to influence much from the touchline in game. And that it's an education piece that needs to be done for players to understand what's happening in game, be familiar with the solutions, and pick the right one to counter what they see. This is definitely going to take time and may in part explain why we fail to adapt in the second half. Maybe this is the consistency - the solutions, dynamic formations, as well as the possession, high press, and aggressive front foot - that will be practiced throughout the footballing side of the club rather than a rigid structure for organising the team whether that be 433 532 etc? Quite an undertaking and in terms of recruitment you'll need intelligent players that learn fast as well as possessing the other attributes required at the top level. We as fans seem far more hooked on formations than coaches. I am just as guilty of that as anyone. Anyone that watched how Tottenham's fullbacks played yesterday, how John Stones has been playing for Man City, or how Sheffield United's overlapping centre-half bamboozled teams a few years ago will appreciate how the game is continually being reinvented. I can't always follow it at the time, but I find it quite fascinating when it's explained in the analysis.