ashton_fan

Opposing managers always praise us if they've won and do the opposite when they've lost

We have definitely missed him, great to see him back on the pitch

I think we have moved forward in the last few years but off the pitch rather than on, the new stadium and training facilities allow us to focus on the playing side now. Those years with the Ashton Vale planning etc. all the effort was going to off the field projects and the playing side wasn't getting enough attention, that's the main reason why we got relegated and have been trying to recover since, COVID didn't help either due to the collapse of transfer values. We're about back now to the stage we were at the end of the Gary Johnson era only hopefully on the way up rather than down, I'm reasonably optimistic next season will be a significant step forward.

It seems a bit mental over there, club officials seem to think they know better than the refs, his club will probably get a hefty points deduction or worse

Wells won't start today but it would be great to have him available 

Sunderland fans don't seem happy at the moment, too many tickets allocated to Newcastle for their FA Cup game and not inspired with the proposed managerial change so should be a cheery atmosphere today!

Here's that 0-4 win at Brum

1 hour ago, Sir Geoff said:

For a 20 minute period when the players had clearly had enough of the insipid football they had been asked to play. Manning then put a stop to it by taking off our best 2 players.

He was trying to put some fresh legs on the pitch and save those two for Saturday as they've played so many minutes recently

1 hour ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Listening to Naismiths comments, that wasn't intended! 

It seems the players have already lost faith and belief in his style and reverted to what they knew.

Naismith's comments implied he'd not been to the team talk as he said something like "perhaps they were told to play long"

13 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

Unfortunately in football, and particularly the Championship, time isn’t necessarily on your side as a manager. As for Manning’s competence that really depends on whether results start to improve. Stubbornly maintaining a system of play that isn’t working, might suggest strength of character, but also raises questions of competence. Trying to get the tones of a flute out of a tuba would be described as madness. Converting a counter-attacking team, with players who are better out of possession, into a possession-based team, might similarly turn out to be very foolish.

I think Manning has been changing the style of play for each game not "stubbornly maintaining" anything, the style of play in the Blackburn game was quite different from previous matches, not that different from NP's style.

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

GJ won 3 of his first 4 as a base and inherited a total shambles.

What a poor comparison with respect.

So he lost 10 of his first 13 games, why not a fair comparison? I was just making the point it's far too early to judge the new manager.

2 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

Officially the worst start of the last 8 managers isn’t it?

Gary Johnson had a terrible start, lost about 9 in a row after an initial win, yet he turned out to be one of our best of recent times.

12 hours ago, Ivorguy said:

And thereby lies the problem - no experience at this level, and clearly not up to speed about this league 

He's got a bit of learning to do but is obviously very intelligent and I'm sure will be able to adapt quickly.

4 hours ago, JP Hampton said:

Haven’t had time to read everything so sorry if this has been said before. Something that appears to be happening in my opinion,particular to the young players Tanner,Bell and Conway, is they seem to have really lost all confidence. 
 We’ve seen all 3 of these players play some really good/great football under Pearson, but it makes me wonder if it’s a case of information overload. Where’s their spontaneity. There’s a rigid inflexibility in holding their positions. Leaving them a little clueless at times. 
  
I’m not suggesting it’s Manning’s fault, but something has changed and it’s not for the better. 

The loss of form of these players pre-dates Manning's arrival. Bell and Conway have struggled since Nhaki was injured, they both play better when he's alongside. Tanner needs to be rested but can't be due to McRorie being unavailable, he's played too many games and needs a break.

Shaun Goater was a similar player, you always fancied him to score from anywhere around the penalty box. 

Certainly against Norwich they changed tactics after half time pushing more players forward and playing the ball longer over the top of our high defensive line, they had more joy doing that than trying to play through us. Since some of our defenders aren't that quick other teams are likely to do the same once they've sussed us out so we may need to adjust our formation when that happens.

I don't think the change of coach is the reason for our inconsistent form, we've struggled to score goals since Nhaki got injured, once he's back things should get better 

As discussed in another topic, at the q&a recently JL said they were looking for an investor who had expertise that would benefit Bristol Sport and that the Lansdowns aren't going to "walk away" so some of the discussion on here appears to be wide of the mark.

Having watched on Robin's TV we should have taken one of the chances in the first half and 1-1 would have been a fair result. At least the goal we conceded was down to their good play rather than a gift like we've given away in other games. The only disappointment was that we didn't go all out attack in the last ten minutes, we have to be prepared to gamble if we're losing late in the game.

If we beat Norwich then 6 points from those 3 games would be a decent return.

Working now

2 minutes ago, Curr Avon said:

Yes. I've paid for a £25 monthly subscription and got this...

I've got the same. Also get an error looking at "My subscriptions" once logged in. Obviously some fault at their end.

1 hour ago, MarcusX said:

Blue?

New Year’s Eve, or possible the day before maybe if I recall? They’d gone the calendar year unbeaten at home to that point

If you don't think it's blue what would you call it?

14 minutes ago, CliftonCliff said:

Really appreciate you taking the trouble to spell it out, thanks. As it happens it is, in fact, pretty much what I've tried to do myself, but for whatever reason it hasn't worked. That may, however, say more about me than it does about the technology! I'll probably use one of my devices to watch tonight, but will have another go at this on a future occasion to see if I can crack it. (It may, as you say, be a compatibility issue that I can do nothing about.) In the meantime, thanks again for your help, hope it still works for you tonight as it has done on previous occasions, and above all, enjoy the game! Not expecting to get anything out of this one, to be honest, but you never know... 

I have managed to get midweek Robins TV games on our Panasonic TV but it did buffer quite a bit and wasn't as good as watching on our desktop PC.

6 minutes ago, Super said:

Didn't we win 1-0 there a few years after as well?

Yes, December 2011