Dr Balls

Enjoyed the fact that we won but hated the way we played. This possession football is duller than dishwater and less exciting than watching paint dry. That’s entertainment? I think not! Good grief, the best bits today were the worst corner in living memory (thanks Swansea - especially from Gardner-Hickman after his kicking straight over the goal line before it even got to the penalty box has been clearly outdone) and the sprinkler not turning off at the start of the second half!

I would hope that Manning watched Swansea play the way he seems to want us to play and might realise how ineffective it can be without the best players in the division. Swansea didn’t have a single shot on target all game and our only effort on target was the goal. If you wanted to see how football dies, this would have been prime evidence!

What was really disappointing was that as soon as Tommy saw Nakhi ready to come on, he knew he was going off. And both of them will be gone in the summer because Manning clearly doesn’t play to suit forwards. Thank god for Rob Dickie and his goalscoring!

Would seem a lot have stayed away and most of us who are here wished we hadn’t bothered!

Other than the obvious (Manning is clueless) why on earth are we playing a 4-4-2 formation with Knight often the most forward player? If we are playing 2 upfront how about playing 2 players who are actual strikers? You never know they might play off each other as a combination like they have successfully in the past… Doing my head in!!

Sounds very similar to our experience with Manning tbh!

Strangely enough their form has taken a significant upturn since Fam joined. Coincidence or association? Has already scored for a team in which he is one of 3 big, powerful centre forwards available, when we have exactly zero of that type of player…

What he was really saying is: “When the opposition manager changes their team and tactics midway through the match, it’s not my fault that I didn’t consider that option. I can’t be expected to respond to that because that’s not what I planned for. So it’s down to the players to take responsibility for dealing with those changes and if they don’t, it’s their fault not mine.” In other words, I have no Plan B. But then that’s been pretty obvious since he took over!

Think you will find it was Huddersfield that he kept up last season. Rotherham was back in 2016 but same result - they stayed up against the odds!

The problem for Manning is that just like Guardiola he needs a Rodri to make his system work and there is only one of those. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68449995 The closest we have is Matty James and he is not being played for whatever reason.

I would appoint very short term to the end if the season. My choice in that situation would be Gary Rowett. Experienced at this level and very pragmatic to get the points we need to survive and in the meantime look for who we might want longer term. But it’s all dependent on improving the structure higher up the club by getting an experienced CEO again, putting Tinnion back to the Academy and adding some knowledgeable outside voices to the board.

Interesting to know what the odds might be on QPR or Sheffield Wednesday finishing above us at the end of the season and the odds on both of them doing it. Probably all less than our own relegation given current form!

This comes back to both ignorance and arrogance that they know more than experts and specialists on the part of JL and BT.

Maybe for the style of play Pearson wanted across a whole season he realised that pushing the players during the international breaks was counter-productive in terms of maintaining their well-being over 9 months? I am sure he wouldn’t have let them just pile on the pounds but neither would he have reamed out anyone for gaining 3lbs like Guardiola did to Kalvin Phillips while he was in England duty…

Mess with our heads and our emotions!!

Keep Manning long enough and I reckon that 0.9 PPG or worse is quite possible this season under his coaching. And we might even avoid relegation with that but it still doesn’t mean it’s acceptable!

I would agree that another change in coach/manager could be disruptive, but that could also be in a positive way, if you brought in someone experienced to play to our strengths rather than exaggerating our weaknesses as a team which is what is happening under Manning. The chances of relegation are slim but not non-existent and the longer the current situation persists the bigger the risk. Plus there is still a real tension between Manning wanting “his players” and what we can afford or Tinnion offers him. Remember his sacking at MK Dons followed a summer of player change and it didn’t go well. Oxford it went better but has tailed off since he left. So it’s no guarantee he would achieve more than he currently is next season.

Don’t disagree @italian dave The problem we have is that we have gone from a “mid table team looking up at the playoffs and hoping” to a “mid table team in a relatively long run of terrible form looking over our shoulder at the relegation zone and worrying as we slip closer towards it”. The current league position gives a very false sense of security and given the games we have coming up the grounds for any optimism are rapidly disappearing if not already gone. Everything will look OK to the owner until he suddenly realises too late that it’s not!

So how do you rationalise that we are currently in a terrible run of form and that overall since Manning arrived our form has at best been bottom 6 rather than the top 6 spouted by Jon Lansdown? Not being vindictive just laying out the facts!

Lose the next 2 games and it’s 1 point per game over half a season (23 matches) for Manning. That’s relegation form!

You have conveniently missed out 2012/13. Peterborough relegated on 54 points, while Wolves came 23rd on 51 points (6th placed Leicester only had 68 points). We had a losing streak of 7 games and of course got relegated too…

Yes but they sacked Beale and are still losing. Shouldn’t have sacked Mowbray.

I take your point @Mr Popodopolous but the Championship is probably the biggest basket case in terms of costs versus returns. Which is why, getting out of this division, preferably up rather than down, can seem so attractive. One of the other ways to minimise losses is developing and selling players at a profit, which you then pocket rather than spend on more players. Sound familiar?!

There is no way to make a profit from rugby as it stands. But it is possible with a Premier League football club. And SL needs to accept that he’s not going to recoup all that he has spent out in the past 20 years. Otherwise he’s not getting a sale. And of course selling a Premier League club guaranteed parachute payments may explain the need for promotion this season, hence the comments from JL when Manning was appointed.

Ironically the rugby club (SL’s preferred sport and team) are actually the biggest problem in terms of a sale. Top level rugby in this country is in a complete mess financially. Plus the rugby club have first dibs over fixtures at Ashton Gate. It’s written into the rules of the Guinness Premiership that any rugby team sharing a ground with another team, even one playing a different sport, must have fixture priority. So it’s a mess. But then this complicated structure with Bristol Sport and the stadium was of course SL’s doing, so he really has no one else to blame if it’s not attractive to potential buyers of the football club, which is the one part that could make money. And the lack of investment in the women’s team, despite some of the biggest crowds in the WSL, says everything you need to know in terms of an owner who doesn’t want to put in any more money.