The Swan and Cemetery

For me it’s not really a Pearson vs Manning debate, it’s the structure of the club, which was always ropey and has got worse:

From:

Owner - SL (well intentioned/generous over many years, but limited on the football side inc appointing football people?)

Chair - JL (not convinced)

Board - too small, limited challenge and oversight? 

CEO - Gould (best for a long time?)/Alexander (Less visible but well regarded?)

DoF - BT (has strengths, but no track record in such a critical role?)

Manager - NP (imperfect, but has operated at headier heights than ours and appeared to have motivational skills needed)

Coaches - CF/JY (promising but no significant track record?)

To:

Owner: unchanged

Chair: unchanged 

Board: unchanged (?)

CEO: role disappeared (broadly, maybe federated to a few people)

DoF: unchanged 

Manager: role disappeared 

Coaches: LM/CH (no particularly strong track record, but signs of having great potential)

Probably over simplified, but point is we’ve effectively lost two key layers of the structure, which had been filled with experienced people, but still have the remaining under qualified layers that lack strategy/oversight skills. Ie, in summary, the problem isn’t LM and nor was it NP. LM with a strong structure above would, in my view, be flying, as would NP (structure above and below).

Apologies, long post to say what lots of us have said over a long time. 

28 minutes ago, Cole Not Gas said:

BUT for some people to criticize an individual for expressing an opinion when about a dozen people on OTIB post so regularly they must mistakenly think that others want to constantly hear their opinions, is quite weird.

28 minutes ago, Cole Not Gas said:

but knocking fellow social media fans like you are better than them is really childish.

Zero irony. 

5 minutes ago, JAWS said:

Is he a player a club should look to sign if they want to push for the Premier league? 

Given we need a squad and won’t be awash with £10m players, I’ve no problem with a £300k signing. Is he likely to be the player that gets us over the line to the PL, no, but don’t think that equates to it’s awful he’s here. 

1 minute ago, Bedminster said:

Has he shown anything in those 18 games to suggest he’s good enough? Not for me. 

Think he’s shown some good stuff at times, helping take pressure off other front players with a style that causes typical Championship centre backs different problems. And not sure either NP or LM have quite worked out how to use him (don’t think his Luton record was a fluke). But overall sure he and management would say it hasn’t quite worked out, albeit for £300k hardly our worst signing over the years. 

1 hour ago, Bedminster said:

How did he do yesterday? It was his 4th goal contribution in 46 appearances. 

46 appearances that are the equivalent of less than 18 full games.

2 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Rob Dickie foot perfect.

Again.

What an absolute steal he is.

In a world of maybe, just maybe… availability of Dickie and Vyner (and Max to be fair) is what worries me most. 

6 minutes ago, stephenkibby. said:

I know that you keep saying Dave that you like Manning and will give him time, but quite frankly that's not how it comes across.

Great win today, brilliant first half,dug in 2nd and got a proper result.

For most of us what's not to like?

 

Very happy to confirm I didn’t like that second half performance. Also happy to confirm loads of terrible performances under pretty much every manager I can remember, plus some good ones! Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a great result, but folk getting criticised for criticising that performance is odd, in my view. 

2 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

The best way is how we done it because it bloody worked 

Okay. Personally not convinced that performance must equal result (in any direction). 

Just now, joe jordans teeth said:

You have to win in a certain way cmon you must no that,setting up to to protect a 2-0 nil lead is unthinkable to some 

If giving up territory and possession was the best way to defend a lead… no one is suggesting going gung ho, but think we could have protected the lead in a way that left us less exposed. 

6 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

whos to say that King would buy into tinnions philosophies anyway, he might not enjoy being around anymore

That’s a very fair point, albeit not convinced the tone of voice from the club is “we want King to stay”. 

18 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think he’s missing a huge trick in not keeping King around.

Couldn’t agree more. Fine to argue about whether or not Pearson/Rennie/James/King were getting the job done, but having some folk around with PL experience seems likely to be helpful! And King isn’t a fancy dan, his unique record of L1/Championship/PL winning with the same club says to me that giving up that unique experience is foolhardy, particularly given he’s a City fan as well. Also agree he’s going, but think it’s a poor decision.  

2 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

I think it's interesting that the posters who are most annoyed at that are the ones who were expecting nothing from the game beforehand.

Err, we’ve just seen the first mistake by a Championship keeper this season (maybe this decade?), posters have every right to be livid. Max out, entirely faultless (but cheap) keeper in. 

Think Max is a very decent Championship keeper. Therefore he makes mistakes and produces blinding saves. My concern remains competition and cover for him. At least having experienced cover, even if a journeyman not particularly challenging Max, would be helpful. Feels high risk having Bajic as cover, however good he is/isnt, he definitely isn’t experienced in the Championship. Don’t think a late career journeyman needs to be particularly expensive either. 

The club would be much better having a more authentic/less spin approach to communications. Desperate attempts to imply everything is obvious and binary, when clearly it’s not, look silly. “NP was untenable, LM does need time and windows” etc might result in short term egg on faces given comms to date, but keeping the spin going will be more damaging in the medium term. For those of us who thought NP was doing a good job and didn’t deserve to go, we can disagree with that decision, but also accept it might turn out to be the right one and we’ll get behind LM anyway as he’s managing/coaching City. But pretending that we’re already seeing revolution is daft and unnecessary, when we’re not (and no reason to expect it from LM yet, it’s the rampant confirmation bias from the club comms that is annoying people, or at least me). 

12 hours ago, Puckle_red said:

I'm not sure what that is so it's gone over my head! 

Paterson was underrated here, a clever player, technically gifted, could use both feet, score goals, create goals. Often labelled with going missing but I just didnt see that at all. 

Twine was ok today, but hopefully can prove to be as useful as Paterson was. 

One other thing, LM said playing on the left doesn't get the best out of him, and ok, he wasn't hugging the touchline, but he was definitely left of centre.

Thanks @Puckle_red, fair points. For better/worse I’m in the “JP went missing” and was way too hot/cold camp, hence hoping Twine isn’t like JP. Accept that maybe me missing what JP brought, just hope we don’t get into “Twine is making passes his teammates aren’t good enough to understand” etc territory. Not saying you’re saying this, but sometimes players who have greater technical ability get an easy ride in my view - it’s a team sport, if your teammates aren’t up to your level, adjust. Overall, whilst I wouldn’t quite give Twine the review @Harry did, thought there was plenty shown to be very optimistic (and still be a bit disappointed it’s not perm/definitively with an option to buy). 

13 minutes ago, Puckle_red said:

I was hoping for a young version of Jamie Paterson, upon first viewing he's not as good or clever as Paterson in open play.

Think if I listed things I was hoping for from Twine, I’d get to “quite good at macramé” before a young Jamie Paterson. 

2 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

As an aside, I worked out quite quickly that both arms in the air meant outswinger landing just the other side of the penalty spot. Probably needs to be less pronounced

Or it means “random” and he’s not very accurate, or is very accurate but on a long statistical run of ‘tails’ landing in the same place… or more likely… what you said. 

1 minute ago, mozo said:

So those 15 shots and several headers on goal came from passing back to O'Leary?

Yep, tempted to start a poll: Football involves playing against an opponent and they’re less than keen that you win. True or False? 

1 minute ago, RedorDead BCFC said:

Robins TV just put team news up and listed Nige as manager 

Things haven’t gone perfectly for LM, but surely we need to give him a chance. 

Not inclined to be optimistic with JL/BT at the helm, as signs of planning strategically tend to be few and far between, but…

- LM’s worked with him before, during each of their’s most successful spell (admittedly League One)

- could be the unlock for Tommy. Twine’s a very different player to Scott, but I’m still of the view that all Tommy needs is decent chances, and Twine could be the person to deliver them

- not ideal having no option to buy, but maybe the house view is Murphy just needs fitness and then he’ll be ready to go, so Twine bridges the gap

- there maybe lots of teams between us and 6th, but 4 points means a decent run will get us there, so don’t think going for it (at least a bit) is a terrible idea (not excusing the decision making that’s led us here)

None of the above unpicks poor decision making over many years, or offers any guarantees, but for me means it’s not a ludicrous/terrible deal (or one to cartwheel about, 7/10-ish). 

14 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

The only teams capable of playing the same way over and over are the elite teams who have the best players.

That's not us, at this level. Never will be. Maybe in Division 3 but we don't want to be going back there.

The argument will be that if we’re pragmatic game to game, we won’t instil the style etc consistently that will eventually make us successful. Think LM’s MK stint may turn out to be instructive, with players who were better (Twine + some decent loans) they succeeded, when Twine left and loans returned, they were hopeless the following season. As you point out, this is problematic:

Building the quality required at Championship level to have ‘one way’ is vastly different (/more expensive) than in League 1. If we knew promotion was guaranteed next season, we’d probably all take 18th this season… but all will have happened is finishing 18th, which is a difficult sell “honest guv, we’re teetering on the brink of Prem glory” -  how do you give supporters confidence that we are on the right track, when in the moment it doesn’t feel like that?

All indicates that for LM to succeed we need very different (and more expensive) players, Not clear that the Lansdowns/Tinnion have clocked that success requires a number of things to come together in a planned way, vs constant flip-flopping/whack-a-mole and crossing of fingers. What happens before the end of January may contradict this view (but will also contradict everything they’ve previously said). Was ECB definitively Gould’s dream job vs he realised success was unlikely at City?

49 minutes ago, downendcity said:

Liverpool could be the first club to make their car park all ticket for locked out away fans.

Merseyside Police seeking an emergency meeting with Everton apparently. If Everton can accelerate Bramley Moore, between there, Goodison and Anfield most should get a ticket, with the remainder kettled on the runway at John Lennon Airport. 

Thought maybe his starting position for their goal was a little bit too far back given where the ball was when passed - could have been a yard further forward without a long range shot being plausible? But probably nit picking. My only problem with Max isn’t with Max - would he develop more quickly with more competition for his place and would that also protect us against Max getting injured? Don’t think it would have to break the bank either. Both NP and LM seem fine with Bajic and maybe he’ll be fine, but a tad more experience would be nice. 

58 minutes ago, italian dave said:

The same Kasey Palmer who starred as Coventry reached the play offs last season, and is scoring 25 yarders for them today!

Starred is a bit optimistic? Played 1,720 minutes and didn’t play in their last 13 games, and in his last game they were 11th. Think in some cases it’s both the management and the player. 

We’ve all got our favourite eras (usually teenage years going with mates?), but for me it’s difficult for other eras to beat the first division team, given how rare those heady heights have been. Mixing it with the very best for 4 seasons, with Tom Ritchie crucial throughout. One small example of those heady days (realising plenty on here will remember it well), in 78/79 the Liverpool team of Dalglish, Hansen, Clemence, Souness et al won the league, conceding 16 goals all season and losing 4 times. One of those losses was to City (Joe Royle scored the winner). Unless we’re going back to the Harry Thickett era of the 1900’s, no City team has come close to operating at the level we did for those 4 seasons - Tom and the rest of that squad: legends one and all. As mentioned by others, Tom then cemented his legend status further with his fine work during the Terry Cooper era (inc his double act with Martyn Hirst).