Dr Balls

2 hours ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

Harsh! He was twice in the Suffolk Premier Cup final for Leiston (wherever that is??) and had the backbone-building experience of losing one of those 8-0 to Ipswich Town Reserves. 

So maybe good enough for Sheffield Wednesday reserves then?!

2 minutes ago, Buster Footman's T shirt said:

Because the club don't give a flying **** what we think. It is deliberately provocative. Does anyone think it was accidental?. Neither of them are going anywhere unfortunately 

And that’s why only Zak of the current players appears on the poster. He’s the only one that they reckon could still be here after the summer. Anyone else with experience will likely be gone as will any player with any ambition!

What also might be making Lansdown Snr even more unhappy at the moment is that his favourite manager, Mark Robins, has just got Coventry to an FA Cup Semi-Final and they are still very much in with a shout of making the playoffs, despite selling their two best players from last season. That just underlines how poor the appointment of Manning has been by comparison.

48 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

I'll order this

SOD

Manning

Pulis

Osman

Smith

Holden

Miller

DmC

That's the worst to the best of a bad bunch for me

Manning is worse than SO’D.

Yes the end of the relegation season was terrible and the losing run at the end was extremely depressing but you could at least accept that the ship was sinking way before that because the recruitment had been poor and defensively we were shocking. At least he had a plan that you could see might work. Plus over the summer his recruitment without a nest egg and playing some of the youth (Bryan in particular) was a significant part of what set us up for the successful Cotterill era.

Manning has taken a relatively good team and set of players and made them play much worse. That is unforgivable in a manager/coach.

Can they both please go and take “Downsy” with them while they are at it?

5 minutes ago, Meh said:

That is odds reflective of an unlikely event and a chance for bookies to make a few quid on hopeful punts.

Not a bet I would get drawn in for even a fiver, however, I would bet decent money on that being closer 50/1 in about 3 games time

Until we beat Swansea last weekend the odds had dropped to 50-1 with a number of bookmakers. The longer we go on a losing streak again (I can’t see us picking up any points in the next 2 games) the more the odds will drop, especially if a large number of punters starting placing bets on it. Its just the way it works!

6 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

Nah we will be fine this year. The last two weekends has seen a hell of a lot go in our favour - there are teams below us who are in even worse shape then us 

I really hope this is the year Birmingham go - would be hilarious 

The Birmingham situation has so many similarities to our own. Well-liked Manager/Head Coach doing pretty well with the team in challenging circumstances sacked by the owners against the wishes of supporters. New coach brought in has something of a media profile but no tangible success and in fact coached a team that was subsequently relegated. Both new coaches struggle massively and results deteriorate as does the league position. One then ditches the out-of-his-depth coach and replaces him with a wise old manager who initially seems to improve things but then needs time away for health issues (part of the reason the other club cited for getting rid of their well-liked manager) in which time results again nosedive.

The risks are similar at pretty much the same at every club in the Championship without parachute payments and not riding the crest of a promotion wave of confidence - get your top footballing position wrong through either naivety or stupidity and things can easily end badly.

As for City we are lucky that 2 out of the 3 promoted clubs this season haven’t been good enough to survive at this level, while other “established Championship clubs” I.e. Stoke, Birmingham, Swansea have been similarly poor for long periods. You can’t just expect that to happen every season because eventually bad decisions will catch up with you.

2 hours ago, bexhill reds said:

Dont feel stupid about posting something, nothing wrong with an opinion.

I don’t doubt for one minute that the current management team are trying hard and clearly Manning’s own ethos is to work hard to try to turn his own fortunes around but sometimes hard work is not enough almost to the point of futility, whatever he’s trying to do is not working.

The cohesiveness and fight that team had under the previous manager has gone, players have regressed, game management is non existent, the ability of change tack is missing (although this was one of my criticisms of NP, he was always about 10-15 mins too late to make changes), and I’d previously thought I’d seen some improvement in our play and had previously defended LM in the start of his City career.

It’s really difficult to identify any positive now under this regime, and certainly nothing where you’d have thought the he deserves or has earned more time, he’s had his chance and been found wanting. Time to go.

But anyone with more than 10 minutes of management training knows that working harder rarely achieves much, it’s working smarter that’s far more effective. And from what we have seen from Manning, thinking and working smart just isn’t happening.

Doing something just because you have a read a book on tactics and seen a top coach with the best players and decidedly dodgy, but massive, funding play that way successfully, does not mean that you can do the same in a lower division, with a set of players that clearly don’t suit that way of playing plus far less cash to splash. That’s definitely not smart. In fact, it’s the complete opposite and it’s also extremely unlikely to be successful, as we have now all seen.

Bit that’s what you get for dispensing  with an experienced manager and replacing him with an inexperienced coach. And the same could be said about sacking an experienced CEO and not replacing him at all, but instead relying on the son of the owner (one of only 2 board members and the other is the company accountant) and the development (academy) manager to cover that role. Nobody in their right mind would run a business big or small like that, so why has Lansdown Snr let it happen? 

Lansdown Snr should be worried. The form table is getting worse not better. Only 2 teams below us in the league table doing worse than us at the moment and one of those is Rotherham…

https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=2

Given the fixtures coming up it’s hard to see where the next points are coming from. Suddenly those games against Blackburn and Huddersfield look huge. Get nothing from those 6-pointers and we are in big trouble. 

1 hour ago, Mendip City said:

Portrays himself as intelligent. I’m increasingly unsure. He’s, no doubt, well read on coaching but where’s the emotional intelligence and where’s the passion, the love of the game for the game…. Not the wretched process. 

Absolutely. It’s clear that Manning has certain personal characteristics / tendencies (another thread suggests OCD) but clearly is not comfortable communicating and dealing with emotion.

He talks about wanting to take the emotion out of the way that the game is played, but the one emotion that has clearly been lost is confidence. Confidence makes a huge difference to performances and results. And the lack of it has adversely affected our players and the results in the past 2 months.

And of course the majority of supporters have now lost confidence in both Manning and the club owners. Just like trust that will be very difficult to win back.

Just cut the “management speak” BS and try some plain English?

I have yet to find anyone on the receiving end of “management speak” who has really appreciated it, and I doubt footballers are much different. Certainly football fans don’t like it but unfortunately it would seem our owners are keener on someone who appears to have swallowed one of those management self help books!

28 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

Learning is a life-long process. Pep's still learning, everyone should be. I'm still learning after doing my job for 23 years. The world changes, you need to change with it. I don't see a problem in this.

I don’t have a problem with “lifelong learning”. I am sure anybody doing any role can and should learn as they go along. The real issue is whether they met an appropriate standard to do the job in the first place, and what experience they had. That defines what they might need to learn. Then we get into “is the person learning and are they applying it?” If there are questions about individuals at the club regarding the minimum requirements, there are certainly concerns about anything being learnt and from whom!

7 hours ago, Harry said:

Yep. 
I had a conversation with Tinnion back in early September and he mentioned this. 

Basically for a number of years now we’ve been playing our kids ‘up a level’. 
The 16’s play in the 18’s, the 18’s play in the 21’s etc. 

It’s designed around a progressive pathway and affording the kids opportunity at higher age groups and thus higher quality levels. You could argue it’s been quite successful. 
It’s also allowed us to loan out players from our 21’s, because we’ll have the 18’s playing for the 21’s instead. 
 

In September, I asked about the reason there weren’t so many 21’s out on loan this year as yet. The answer was because the focus this year was on winning the 18’s Youth Cup. 
Further reasoning was that, and I quote “we’re really proud of the academy and what we’ve done, but we’ve got nothing to actually show for it, so we want some silverware”. 
 

So yes, Kid, we have purposely sabotaged our successful youth model (with knock on effect to the 21’s loan opportunities and 1st team experience opportunity) because we want to win the cup. 
Who was it said that at that level it’s not about winning it’s about the development of the players? We seem to have said “bollox to that this year, we want the cup”. 

From an owner’s perspective it’s not the most ridiculous thing to say. BT has been bigging up the u18s age group for a while, saying how special they are. SL thinks that winning the FA Youth Cup would add some more prestige to the Academy, which to be fair it might. BT goes along with it because if the u18s did win it, it would be a massive ego boost to him. Whether or not it delays their progress is a fair point, but I am sure that the lads themselves would be excited to win something. Who wouldn’t be?

The bigger picture is why should we be thinking our u18s are needed to bolster our first team squad anyway. Why do we have so many first teamers missing that we can’t name a full subs bench?

And having looked back at the results in the FA Youth Cup, Swindon can’t be that bad as they knocked out Man United. Also unlucky to draw Man City in the semifinal as the other one is between Leeds and Millwall.

6 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

Yeah but if you are a striker will you be happy to join the club when you are unlikely to start very often. 

What confuses me is that managers will throw on three attackers in the last twenty minutes if they are losing. I find it frustrating that modern coaches seem to think it makes sense to play negative for most of the game, then go for it when that results in losing.

Just wish the emphasis was more on attacking, scoring goals and creating an entertaining game of football. Rather than a chess game finishing with ten minutes of caution to the wind when you've been out-thought.

Not all managers don’t play 3 attackers. I think you will find one “Mr J Klopp from Liverpool” plays 3 up front all the time, and it seems to be working out alright for him!

5 minutes ago, Superjack said:

Do you mean like playing a 45rpm vinyl record on 33rpm so it sounds like the Chipmunks?

Nope like playing an LP on 45rpm. Must have been a while since you have been near a turntable!

As for BT, busy working so couldn’t listen in and don’t think I will bother trying to catch up on BBC Sounds! 

8 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

But they had no idea what they were doing. You shouldn't be leaving two up when defending a last minute set piece. What the hell is Pat Mountain playing at?

Yep. If in doubt, the club position does appear to be blame poor Pat!

If there was a prize for “Persevering despite a change in the coach and tactics” could go to almost any of the squad but that was part of my reason for nominating Tommy as a runner up!

Dickie is a shoo-in.

Runners up? Jason Knight, Cam Pring and Tommy Conway.

2 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Fans make threats not to renew pretty much every season but somehow it feels different this time. The frustration with Nige’s sacking still resonates amongst many.

it makes the summer wheeling and dealing even more crucial than usual - if Manning has a war chest and signs some marquee players (one would do) that could persuade some to renew.

Who knows?……….

The most incredible part to me was how empty S82 was. Never seen it like that before with huge gaps. Also explains why the volume was down so much. Plus it’s not as if this was a late change like the Cardiff game. We knew for months that this was a Sunday lunchtime kick off

I know that we have such a supine set of fans that even throwing tennis balls on to the pitch would be beyond us as a protest, but could those who are going to renew their season tickets just leave it as late as possible to do so, just to make a point that we aren’t happy with the way the club is being run? If after 3 weeks, no one had signed up that would give the owners a scare and hopefully get the message across.

3 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

I'd have thought the next two against WBA and Leicester, wouldn't we expect them to attack us and have most of the ball?

Not 70% of possession. Both teams look to hit quickly on the break so will be quite happy for us to keep the ball as they know we won’t threaten to score a goal against them. We have had the odd good result at the Hawthorns over the years, plus presumably Weimann won’t be able to play against us, so we might scrap a draw against West Brom but I can’t see us getting anything against Leicester as they will score goals, the same as Ipswich.

3 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Don't forget "Gav" the clown who said we were looking to get promoted this season............................

That really indicates why he should be kept as far away as possible from the footballing side of things!

Yes we were looking to get promotion this season from a financial and selling Bristol Sport point of view, but in no way was that related to anything that was happening on the pitch. A more realistic expectation would have been keeping the Women’s team in the WSL, but a lack of ambition and investment scuppered that as well. But then why treat the women any different to the men?!

16 minutes ago, RedRock said:

We seem a Club in turmoil yet again.

Frankly, I don’t trust the Board, Technical Director or Coaches to make the right calls. We’ve reverted to go for the easy life. Jon has appointed a non-threatening technical director and coaching staff, rather than people who challenge and push boundaries. We’ve adopted the lame ‘jam tomorrow’, rather than the more difficult to achieve and easier to be judged on ‘here and now’ transfer strategy. Reverted back to passive play on the pitch, lacking adventure, excitement and risk. It’s all very much back to the ‘comfy club’ of days of past. 

So, given the ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach, I suspect  Manning will be here for 2024/25, bar a disastrous end of season set of results - which, admittedly, isn’t beyond him. 

Question for me is will SL let us drift back to mediocracy, or will he intervene and appoint a CEO overseer with football expertise that will crack rather whip. That could be the most important signing of the next few months, together with a medical expert and chief scout. Time for the Club’s ‘continuous improvement’ mantra to become action rather than just words methinks. 

Discussed on Saturday that our biggest loss recently in terms of personnel wasn’t even necessarily Nige, it was Richard Gould. The lack of a proper CEO is really what’s killing us, because basically all the footballing decisions at the club are now between just Jon Lansdown and Brian Tinnion. If that doesn’t worry you about the state of the club, nothing will!

3 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

To get to the 59 points from last season we need 4 wins from the last 12 which we should achieve fairly easily. In all the stats quoted on here the 4 cup games against Premier League opposition aren't taken into account, they show what we're now capable of but also they must have had a detrimental effect on our league form through the resulting fixture congestion, so it will be interesting to see if our league form picks up now we haven't got that additional burden.

You do realise that our last 3 wins in 13 games have all been when we have played teams that have had 70% possession? If you can find 4 more teams out of the ones we are due to play in the next 9 games that will have that much possession good luck!

The only home game that I am in anyway confident about is Rotherham because by then they will be relegated anyway. Leicester will need a win to maintain their push to win the league, so will come on strong, while Blackburn and Huddersfield will both be scrapping for a points. I would be amazed if we get more than 10 points from the remaining 9 games based on recent form.

1 minute ago, INCRED said:

The only thing missing is consistency of performance 

This squad can produce moments of excellence countered by moments of mediocrity 

On their day they can beat anyone as well as lose to anyone 

We know we are missing a goal scoring No9 as what we have at the club currently isn’t good enough

We also lack that creativity to unlock low block defences which needs addressing 

Has BT and the board got a solution in place for the summer as they appear to be saying that is the priority?

Is Manning & his assistant able to coach us into a style and winning team that will challenge next season - who knows but throwing him under the bus so soon is not going to happen with this board & owner until Manning has had a pre season with new players and next season to put into practice what they saw in him 

If he fails miserably and we are fighting for our lives near the lower end of the league then someone will open the trap door and wave LM goodbye 

 

I accept we don’t have a traditional centre forward but we don’t lack goal scoring strikers. But as I have said before, playing Manning’s system, any striker would struggle to get more than 10 goals a season. It’s the tactics and set up more than the players and that’s on him.

In simplistic terms, the barest minimum expectation for Manning should be 63 points at the end of the season, on the basis that we we had 21 for 15 when he took over, and a top half finish, as that’s where we were in the league table when he was appointed. Anything else would suggest a regression even if you ignore the shockingly bad and boring way he has the team set up and playing, where the scoring of goals seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the line.

And no I don’t accept the “it’s not his players” argument. Good managers and coaches can use the players they have and amend their tactics accordingly and successfully. Bad ones blame the players!