Dr Balls

It would help Conway’s valuation if the team actually played a way that even slightly suited Conway, given that he’s our best striker and the object of football is to score more goals than the opposition. That’s not a process it’s an outcome that appears to have been completely overlooked by a Head Coach who appears increasingly clueless the longer he stays in post.

Article about how Haaland is a potential problem for Guardiola because he has potentially disrupted “their processes” I.e. boring opposition teams to death with their midfield possession play and wanting to walk the ball into the net. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/mar/02/erling-haaland-remains-both-solution-and-problem-for-manchester-city But of course Haaland is the ultimate centre forward of modern times and gets goals that others wouldn’t just because of how he plays. What he really likes is balls played through in front of him that he can run into as per most of the 5 he scored against Luton. Helps that he has De Bruyne to play those passes. Supposedly playing Haaland and playing to Haaland’s strengths as a centre forward has made Man City more open at the back against balls behind the defence, so conceding more goals. Yet going back to how they played with “their processes” potentially strangles the flow to Haaland and negates having such a prolific goalscorer upfront. It’s no coincidence that the form of Tommy Conway and his goal scoring from open play has fallen off a cliff since Manning arrived. The tactics, formation and “processes” are meaning he has few if any opportunities on goal. We all remember the goal against West Ham away because it was brilliantly taken and absolutely what he is capable of, but also because it’s such an outlier since Manning arrived. When since that game has he been given a through ball like that to run onto? I am struggling to think of a single occasion in the last 8 weeks. So it should be no surprise that Tommy might be stalling on signing a new contract. Why stay at a club that’s not only going nowhere but completely ignores your strengths and makes you look far worse as a striker? Especially when there will be clubs willing to offer you far more to play in a team that plays to your strengths and values your goal-scoring ability. He only has to look how much his mate Alex Scott is making at Bournemouth to realise his own potential earnings, plus the opportunity to play at the highest level. So in summary, given how he has been treated by Manning and his tactics, do I expect Tommy Conway to be a Bristol City player next season? In a word “no”.

Get well soon Chris. And don’t worry that you’re missing anything because you’re not. Just utter frustration at the stupidity of the club appointing someone who is way out of his depth and ruining what we had.

Paddy Power have us at 150/1, Watford at 33/1 and Swansea at 30/1. You tell me which one looks like the outlier there because there’s no way that Watford are at greater risk of relegation than us. And certainly not nearly 5 times more likely!

What I also know about bookies is that they pitch their odds to get punters to flutter. Until now few people would have betted on us finishing in the bottom three at the end of the season. However if there is a rush of people tomorrow betting on City getting relegated those odds would rapidly start to fall even though the situation might not be any different. Bookies hate losing money and if they see that sentiment is going a particular way they will quickly follow. I would expect those odds to be significantly lower by the time we face Leicester at the end of the month. And if any of them had actually watched us play or looked deeper into our issues then they might be pitching the odds a lot lower than 66/1.

There is a common theme going on in the Championship with the vogue being for young head coaches being brought in to achieve success, based on what Rob Edwards did with Luton and McKenna had been achieving with Ipswich. The difference is as that both of those had actually achieved promotions at a lower level, unlike most of the other young coaches brought in who have achieved nothing tangible in most cases, just maybe a run of good results. It’s bombed at Birmingham with Rooney. It’s bombed at Sunderland with Beale. And it’s bombing with Manning here. Yet some owners seem to think it’s some guarantee of success to go for the next “bright young coach” rather than stick with an experienced manager who was doing ok in the circumstances.

I don’t know how you come to that figure of 99%. Remember today’s opponents have been promoted to the Premier League twice in less time than SL has owned us. With an owner from Malaysia. Leicester got promoted and won the Premier League under Thai ownership, while pretty much all of the top Premier League teams are now owned by foreigners. But down ‘ere in the sleepy West Country, ooh arr ohh arr, fans are instead happy with the local billionaire proving that despite being a financial whizz, he knows nothing much about football and how to get success because at least he’s a local who understands how us bumpkins might not be able to cope with the excitement and expectations of actually being successful as a club. I would say that last sentence is a complete and utter fantasy, born out by the frustration shown at the end of today’s game, but that’s what you seem to be suggesting!.

It would seem a lot of ST holders in the South Stand already agree with you as they don’t even bother to come at all any more!

False equivalence. The owner could be a purple alien but if they got us promotion to the Premier League then where they came from would be a complete irrelevance. And the reality is that most football fans will also look past the morals or origin of their wealth, if the owners make them successful. You and I might not like that but I think we might be in a small minority.

Watching paint dry is more exciting than Manning-ball. Entertainment not included at AG, not even as an optional extra!

Just goes to show that the bookies know less about Championship football than you might think. Those are incredibly long odds for a team that is 6 points above the relegation zone and only taken 8 points from the last 10 games. Continue that forward and we get to 52 points, which hasn’t always been enough to guarantee survival, especially as a number of the clubs below us are in significantly better form or have made changes that might improve their form.

I’m not sure about this. Would that actually suit Nige and his skill set? My impression was that he was a manager who wanted to work with coaches, but still pick the team and tactics himself. What he needed was to work with an experienced CEO and be given some funds to replace Scott. A Director of Football would probably be too removed from the frontline for Nige.

I’m not that pessimistic but I do fear relegation to League 1 because I think that getting out of it is particularly hard and usually takes a number of years. If’s not like the relegated clubs from the Premier League hogging the promotion spots in the Championship.

At the end you could just feel how negative and angry it was in the stadium, and it wasn’t just about losing a derby against Cardiff. If JL and BT didn’t pick up on that they would have to be deaf, blind and dumb. But then given some of their decisions, that description of them could be completely correct!

Please don’t joke. We all know that given a chance SL would reappoint him in a flash…

I’m afraid not. We will likely lose by a few goals to Ipswich but that won’t make any difference to the Lansdowns. I’m not even sure a loss to Swansea and a 5 game losing streak would get them to see sense and sack Manning. Plus my other worry is even if they did sack him who would they bring in to replace Manning anyway? As we know their record does not inspire confidence!

Since Manning arrived both Tommy Conway and Nakhi Wells are surely the ones for “Blankety Blank”. And if we broaden out from quizzes, Tinnion must be a shoe-in for “Shameless”

Not for next year they won’t be. Not seen that level of anger at the end of today’s match for a long time at AG, even when we have got rid of previous managers. It’s not just that we are losing at home regularly, it’s the way we are losing. The football is boring, turgid bilge. Less front foot football as shot ourselves in the foot football!

Hard to find positives in this: https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=2&tab=tab-last10 So that’s 2 wins, 2 draws and 6 defeats in the past 10 games. The only upside is that our goal difference is only -4 in those games. However we have only scored 9 goals and 7 of those came in 3 games against Coventry, Middlesbrough and Southampton. Hard to suggest that what Manning is doing is working based on that!

Being serious for a moment, Gary Rowett to the end of the season anyone? At least he knows this division and can’t possibly be any worse than an out of his depth Manning.

I think that really depends on what happens in the next 11 games. Even the Lansdown regime couldn’t keep on a manager who oversaw a relegation after 2/3 of the season in charge. There might actually be a reaction from the fans more than just the usual griping on here were that to happen.

We conceded from a corner, when we should have known that was Cardiff’s biggest threat. we create nothing for our forwards, and we don’t score from open play. They didn’t need to outplay us to beat us at home. I could go on…

Unfortunatelly I don’t think that Manning will do as I suggest. It will be all about the process, irrespective of the fact that his process isn’t working.

That we need to defend well, not look to have too much possession, and play quickly on the counter attack. Oh and if we are losing not be scared to play 2 proper strikers upfront so that they can play off each other. In other words play like we did under Nige, especially away from home.

TBF and to give him his due Joe Williams got it as he held his hands up to Section 82. A lot of supporters just left, but there was a lot of hostility from those of us left. And unfortunately deserved as well, because that was an awful display.