Dr Balls

Just hope we have a decent sell-on clause. And agree that there are likely to be some big bids from some of the top PL clubs this summer.

Agree with you and other posters on this. If Dave Brailsford was here rather than Man United, I can assure you we would be practising throw ins and how to play out of tight spaces so as to keep possession. It’s not even a “marginal gain”, at the moment it’s a huge weakness, because 9 times out of 10 if the ball goes out when we are attacking we completely lose any momentum and the ball gets thrown back to a defender for another round of “play it along the back line”. Really frustrating, and although a lack of decent options doesn’t help him, Tanner is the worst offender.

The newspaper section used to be in the basement of the Central Library. That went years ago when the Cathedral School needed somewhere for its junior school. Probably almost all of the old copies will have been digitised by now (assuming that they weren’t just binned) while God knows what you would keep from the click bait that is now Bristol Live. The internet has been the death of local journalism but the reality is that very few people now know what is going on in their local area whether it’s sport, politics or other things that affect their lives. And that’s a sad reflection of how some things have not improved in the past 20-30 years.

The tactic of the goalkeeper going long and kicking it over the head of the full back / wing back didn’t start with Max. It goes way back. Frank Fielding did it regularly towards Joe Bryan and it was just as frustrating then! Max is a decent goalkeeper at this level and I would say is still improving. He’s no longer “young” as such but for both Pearson and Mannimg he offers something that Bentley couldn’t do, which is use his feet. It is akin to Joe Hart versus Ederson. What Max does well is anticipate danger and come out, whether it’s with his feet, his head or his hands. He can kick off both his left and right foot which not many keepers can manage and he’s a more than decent shot stopper. Yes he still needs to practice his distribution and not play players into trouble at the back, but those mistakes happen with almost all teams playing that way, given that playing out from the back is now the only way to play at higher levels for many coaches and managers it seems. Max is a decent Championship keeper, who has grown into the role under Pearson, and anyone who thinks that’s where we most need an upgrade right now is kidding themselves, as it wouldn’t be cheap and any improvement marginal. The bigger concern remains what happens if Max got injured as Bajic as his understudy really is an unknown quantity at this level.

Any formation that requires Vyner to play out from the back is bound to fail. He can’t pick a pass and when he does try invariably gives it away. In a back 3 with Atkinson and Dickie, I would play Vyner in the middle, just their to defend with pace and allow the other 2 to bring the ball out. This also means no place for Tanner, who is a reasonable defender but risks a nose bleed if he passes the halfway line as it’s too far up the pitch for him. He also can’t take a throw in that goes forward. When he’s on the ball and we are attacking, a guy behind me shouts “goalie’s open” and more often than not that’s where it ends up no more than 2 passes after Tanner has turned and gone backwards with the ball. So frustrating!

Are you really suggesting City’s owners would really withhold funds from a manager then make them suddenly available for a new one? I can’t imagine that happening… Oh hang on, that does sound familiar!!!

Yep, Scrooge McDuck might throw a few more pennies at the women’s team than the Lansdowns. I just don’t understand the logic of the only top flight football team in the whole organisation, with massively bigger crowds this season, in a competition that is growing, with a relatively high media profile, and not at least investing enough to ensure survival at that level. It’s just a fraction of the men’s team. Crazy but then bonkers decisions at Ashton Gate is hardly new!

Good job there’s no VAR in League 2. Basically cleared out the opposition player after the ball had gone. At least a yellow, even at that level, for a really poor challenge. Is that what the naming and shaming was hoping for?!

I thought that today exposed some weaknesses without us being punished for them. Case in point - Vyner and Tanner are both decent defensively at this level, but they offer nothing other than that. Poor passing, no forward commitment, and certainly not players who are going to get us to the playoffs or beyond. Championship is the highest level that they are going to achieve. And they have are fine if survival at this level is all that the owners are willing to finance but they aren’t going to take us any further than Championship mid table mediocrity. We have had better in the recent past but those players cost more in both fees and wages.

Would be good to see a back three that included Atkinson and Dickie. Vyner and Tanner on the right of defence is definitely a weakness coming out from the back. As for Twine, good debut but needs to know when to play the simple ball rather than the speculative one and also understand his defensive role in the team. The one good thing with him in the team is that it should stop us wasting corners by playing them short. Great delivery and with him and TGH on the pitch we have 2 players who can really make the most of dead ball opportunities.

It’s because buying young players is cheap as are their wages. But as they improve, they leave for better options and success elsewhere, while Bristol City remain at best also-rans. The similarities with the men’s team is perhaps bigger than we think!

You have to love fickle football fans, even those from the PL! Under Moyes, West Ham are now a consistent Top 10 team and he has just won them their first trophy in 43 years and their second European Trophy 58 years after their first, which by comparison was won with 3 players who subsequently won the World Cup the next year. But he’s underachieving! The other thing Moyes has done is stopped West Ham’s tendency to splash ridiculous fees on overseas players who don’t suit the PL. Losing Rice was a blow, but predictable; buying Ward-Prowse was canny, and amazing that no other PL club seemed to be after him. Moyes has also helped to develop Bowen into a top notch striker who has got international recognition from Southgate. So no West Ham may not be challenging for the PL title against clubs with even deeper pockets, but they are still in the Europa League, which given where they have been in the past 20 years has to be seen as significant progress.

Did you have to mention him?! The only footballer ever to have had the on-field position of “pointer”. Because that’s all he ever did! As you can tell I wasn’t a fan… As for Seb, seems another good prospect from the Academy and will hopefully have benefitted from playing proper league football rather than more u21s.

Fulham made it to a UEFA Cup final as well under Hodgson. Also frustrating when you realise that other clubs at our level and below have won cups e.g. Cardiff, Swansea, even Swindon. Some a long time ago admittedly but can never be taken away from them…

Maybe we have just been included on the back of last night’s result, but interesting that ahead of Saturday’s game against Watford, the two clubs are the only non-Premier League ones amongst those highlighted. And strangely no mention of Bournemouth! https://sportsunlimitednews.com/united-states-global/sport/who-are-the-biggest-english-clubs-not-to-win-a-major-trophy/

It was more of a disappointing result rather than a bad performance. On lots of the stats the Vixens outplayed Liverpool but the lack of goals remains a major concern (similar to the men’s team). And the bigger position of relegation remains worrying, considering the recruitment by other clubs, especially West Ham.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Not part of Bristol Sport? So does that mean that the Women’s team are expected to be purely financially self-sufficient, whereas other WSL clubs can bundle their funding in with all of the other football club spend including sponsorships etc? That includes all of those major men’s Premier League clubs who now have successful Women’s teams, in large part financed through their men’s teams. If so, poor Lauren Smith is even worse off than Nige was compared to the other clubs in the division.

Rapid progress that will all be for nought if the team are relegated at the end of the season. I appreciate that the finances for Bristol Sport might be a bit tight as the Lansdowns want to stem the overall losses and need to consider FFP, but the rules are different in the WSL and the fact remains that staying in the top tier has to be an absolute priority. No investment in new players would signal that the owners don’t really consider Women’s football as a growing product, which again suggests that they have little or no understanding of sport in general, and the expansion in women’s professional sport more widely.

And yet again that’s where we are at. Hoping that there are 3 clubs/teams worse than us. Looking over our shoulders down the table. And yes a cup run would be great financially and for fans to see us play against Premier League trans, but in reality it’s just a distraction from real success, which remains promotion out of this league. That still seems a very long way off!

The only upside of that run is that these are not teams that are likely to “park the bus” like Birmingham and Millwall, so there may be more opportunities to play to our strengths I.e. not have the majority of possession and counter attack quickly. Two problems - these teams are also more likely to score against us and Manning doesn’t se to want us to play to our strengths!

But Fam cost millions in fees and his wages weren’t small either. That’s not what the Lansdowns want either. After wanting to be Southampton, with the Academy etc, the latest model is Luton/Ipswich I.e. young coach and cheap players mostly from League 1. If anything rather than a well thought strategy, it smacks of jealousy that other clubs have managed something that we haven’t I.e. promotion to the Premier League.

The reality is that we are a mid-table Championship club that has sacked a very experienced manager rather than backing him and replaced him with a relatively inexperienced young head coach. That was always going to be a significant risk, particularly mid-season. And so far the benefits of the change appear minimal/non-existent, while the risks remain considerable. That the football has also been dire in the past 3 games hasn’t helped, nor has the lack of goals and yet more recent losses at home to injury time goals. We all know that the stuff said by Lansdown and Tinnion at the time if Pearson’s departure was a load of rubbish but now comes the much harder part for them, in that they now need to back their new man. And a couple of teenagers and a returning young loanee is not going to cut it. We clearly need a different approach from an attacking perspective, so what is Manning going to do. More of the same and focussing on “processes” doesn’t work when you are actually judged on results. I also worry that for all that Pearson did a great job on bringing through youngsters from the Academy and trusting them to play, Manning for all his “youth team experience at West Ham” won’t do the same and will be more like Johnson and Ashton. And that completely negates the stated club policy of “growing our own”. Like it or not, but 5 of our starters yesterday came through the age groups at the club. That is highly unusual at this level any more but should remain the template if at all possible as that is a more viable financially than splashing millions on players with little or no resale value.

The analogy I would give is chess, which is ironic considering that some of our games under Manning have been less exciting than watching chess. The point is that it’s a game of strategy but not just what is immediately in front of you on the board and thinking just one move ahead. It’s working through what your opponent might do in a particular situation and working through their moves as well as considering your own moves. You don’t want a manager or coach to completely overthink it but you do need them to have a firm understanding of tactics. In football, it’s understanding that the opposition may make substitutions that change how they play and that you may need to react to that. It’s called having a plan B that is practised and rehearsed, because unless you are Manchester City, you can’t expect every other team to bend to your way of playing, and even then some teams have found them out, and they have been unable to adapt (e.g. Villa earlier this season). “Going more direct” is the simplest plan B there is, and I would say for teams that have the personnel to play that way effectively it’s the easiest change to make. Not only do we no longer have that option it would seem given our current players, we also have a coach who doesn’t seem to know how to counteract it. This comes back again to my concerns about Manning and “concrete thinking”. He has a way he wants his teams to play but when it’s not working can he change it effectively? The answer would appear to be no, which is a major concern and perhaps explains in part the very unsuccessful second season at MK Dons, when he was sacked.

We look like a team with at best average Championship level players that due to its limitations was set up to play counter-attacking football, pressurising the opposition into making mistakes in possession that allow us a sight on goal or the chance for a quick break. Unfortunately our new coach wants the players to maximise possession but given their limitations, in that process the team has become one of those that is slow, ponderous and makes mistakes in possession when pressured, paying for it by conceding goals. And that’s exactly what he have seen against teams that have sat back and defended, while our better performances and results of late have been against teams who themselves want possession. Continue with the possession obsession without any incision in midfield or upfront and things will not get better soon…

This goes back to my concern about Manning as a coach. He has one way of playing and believes in that process, even when it’s clear it’s no longer working. And he can’t seem to adapt to changes made by other managers/coaches with tweaks to formation, substitutions etc. He just carries on with the same and then seems surprised when it no longer works. That’s really worrying and far more concerning than the players not being able to figure out for themselves what changes are needed.