The Swan and Cemetery

5 minutes ago, Cristored said:

It’s paranoia. Embarrassing tbh.

Surprised you’d have that view…

Just now, Fjmcity said:

It’s very much comes across as paranoia 

Maybe to people who are seeking to find an argument against that view, without being able to come up with any logic. OP has stated facts which for lots of people are reasonably compelling, the alternative argument appears to be to call them paranoid, not sure “you’ve a psychological problem” is winning the debate, but if that’s the route, fair enough. 

2 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

The paranoia here is absolutely running rife.

Or just people’s opinions on what they’ve observed? Might be right, might be wrong, nothing to indicate it’s paranoia. 

Passionate for a week and a half… I don’t buy it. 

2 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

I really don’t get the fascination with it all. Logically, even if Bristol Sport employees signed up to the forum, couldn’t it just be they had an opinion on big news in their workplace? 
 

Could be non football fans but found themselves in a job at BS and started following City, Bears and Flyers and has gotten into it. Don’t many of you follow your work place on social media? So they come here to express actual opinions and get bullied off of the forum. Not very fair to fellow city fans. Maybe it was some sort of ploy by hierarchy but surely more likely just normal people wanting to discuss a hobby? 

Why would the timings be what they are if it was just BS employees with a passion for the game? And few employees are as sycophantic as to follow their employers point of view without a hint of challenge. 

37 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

I get the feeling under NP there weren’t any acceptable mistakes. Many seemed so afraid to do the wrong thing that they end up making a mistake anyway thinking about it. That is my opinion anyway. 

Never got this vibe (fear of making mistakes), but can see we’d want more in terms of moving the ball quickly and better off the ball movement (think @Davefevs point re Sam Bell overly hugging the touch line is very well made. In some ways would prefer not to see it, but liked Tommy coming deeper to at least given the Sheff Wed strong/swift centre backs a different decision to make). Hope speed of movement of the ball and movement off the ball can be coached if the core capability is there. Also too many poor first touches, difficult to know what’s ability vs coaching, but definitely headroom for LM to work with. 

Think we still miss Richard Gould and his bridging from hierarchy to the football side, but hopefully JL/BT are prepared to get out of Manning’s way, to at least allow him to succeed/fail on his terms. Liked the press conference, if I was putting 50p on how it will go (based on guesswork/hapless intuition), I’d say coaching may improve a bit, but not so sure about the fire in belly/motivation side of things. Hopefully I’m right on the first and wrong on the second. 

1 minute ago, Tafkarmlf said:

No one is perfect

If every team picked perfect managers then everyone would win every game

Football means that's impossible, so things change.

Even with the best will it can still eff up. 

No guarantees 

Agree, but that doesn’t equate to pick whoever you fancy and expect to be free from all criticism/challenge. Hindsight is wonderful, but without it LM looks a reasonable appointment, some previous appointments didn’t need hindsight to call them as odd at the time. 

1 minute ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Same chair hired Nige and GJ, universally adored.

But a lot of bad appointments as well? Hardly an unbroken record of great recruitment, think fair for people to be sceptical. Still can’t imagine any but the most churlish/stubborn not getting behind LM given he’s leading the team we most want to win. 

Just now, mozo said:

I think one of the obvious positives is that Manning has done a lot of work with young players and so would be able to use those skills with our many academy graduates.

Yep, my worry (albeit no problem with it being him, particularly vs some of the names bandied around), is who does the manager role? Seems to have disappeared in the structure, but can’t see BT doing it. Maybe LM has that as well as the coaching, but thought it was key to what NP brought, with CF and JY leading on the coaching. 

4 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

It's comments like these that prove the point

 

The board suck, down with the lansdowns etc

 

Oh, did they hire Nige in the first place?

 

That's a bit awkward then if they hired a manager some are calling the best ever, but are in the same breadth , useless

 

Would be surprised if anyone thought there was a strong track record of great appointments? And those who weren’t convinced by NP would see it as an even weaker record than those who were convinced by him. Guess the flip back might be those who weren’t NP fans now being convinced they will appoint the right person. 

2 minutes ago, Zuni said:

Good that he seems flexible in formations. I know it's not a popular opinion on here but I like playing with a back 3 as the default with the option to move to a 4 depending on situation/opponent.

Brian, you’ve given yourself away, we’ll know what to look out for now. 

1 minute ago, steviestevieneville said:

You’re taking it way too literally 

In fairness, if some of the things said are meant to be taken figuratively, there’s very little point them saying anything. 

Just now, steviestevieneville said:

Communication has been so poor from the club , it’s no wonder we’re really frustrated with them . Pearson’s sacking was the final straw for some . I was still fuming Saturday & didn’t go to the game because of it. However we have to move on & support the new bloke. If it doesn’t work then it’s all on tinnion & JL . Let’s hope they got this one right. Tinnion reputation has been tarnished a bit the last week . At least though it’s a football man making this decision & not that  of the lansdowns. This is tinnions appointment imo 

Think a potential positive (/negative in terms of how we’ve arrived here) is struggle to see anyone with any hint of a decent reputation (which in fairness to him, LM does) taking the job on without some comfort that there’ll be at least some money to spend. Personally would have preferred NP to have had to access to that in the summer, but we are where we are. 

1 minute ago, Cristored said:

Pearson pulled your pants down, it’s not 2010 anymore, Manning will be an excellent appointment.

He may well be, but would be good to hear from someone close to his career (maybe it’s somewhere in this thread) with views on why he seems to have blown very hot (MK season 1 and Oxford) and very cold (MK season 2). Maybe MK season 2 will turn out to be his career blip, but would still be interesting to understand. If it was a blip, we’re doing very well to get him, just maybe lacking enough history to be confident yet. 

2 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Like Pearson was going to?

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t (given what was at his disposal it seems unlikely), but the key reason for sacking him was so that we can achieve what he was allegedly failing to with the squad, aka promotion, as the management are of the view that he had plenty at his disposal? Don’t see how they can have it both ways:

- great squad, we’re underachieving, so sack Pearson

- same squad… presumably we now expect to achieve. 

None of this is LM’s fault and he’ll be backed by the supporters. 

2 minutes ago, Ian M said:

Manning cannot be appointed until his thread overtakes the Lampard one. Sorry.

Shouldn’t we just cut to the chase and get Eddie Nketiah up to the HPC asap? 

The squad is too good and too bloated, so hoping to offload a few in January, to ensure we’ve the core half dozen we need to take us to the Prem by Easter. 

5 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

He battled gamely but Cornick again looked sharper when replacing him, for me.  

Maybe a bit Robbie Turner/Super Bob old school for 2023, but quite like the idea of Cornick alongside Conway/Wells. Cornick’s not huge, but gives defenders an awkward time and think that’s a massive help to those around him. Chris Martin helping Semenyo thrive as another example. 

1 minute ago, Glen hump said:

Why would gilmartin be at city 

Facilitating conversations between City and Ipswich’s US owners (Jesse Marsch also a go-between) to enable Ashton to return to City with a Kieran McKenna/LJ job share… or so I’ve heard. 

2 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

My point is it can produce better football than we have seen. Flashes today against a bad side. It was refreshing to see players have the confidence to overlap, create overloads and take people on. Didn’t constantly pump balls down the channel hoping for long throws. 

There were overloads but think a lot of that was having 11 vs 10 and them being terrible. Moved the ball too slowly as well. But showed plenty of effort and fight and tried to avoid sitting back. Thought pros and cons of NP era were pretty much all there today. 

1 minute ago, LondonBristolian said:

I can’t believe that Curtis Fleming has had a whole six days and still not managed to heal the damage Pearson did to Rob Atkinson’s cruciate ligament…

Yep, but at least NP and his claw hammer are no longer roaming the corridors of the HPC looking for players to injure. 

Just now, GrahamC said:

That squad available at Cardiff last week & I don’t reckon we’d lose.

Goes to show how shortsighted it was.

But surely the returners are a result of the world class medical team in place since last Sunday…? 

2 minutes ago, Bs4Red said:

What did you see that makes you think he could gain promotion? 
we are the same inconsistent side we have been since he got here.

No chance he’d have got us up for me 

I saw a team on a massively lower budget, bringing youngsters through successfully, doing as well as previous iterations that had vast budgets with vast numbers of players. He also had a team that was organised and working hard, maybe that’s bare minimum, but it’s not common. Allied with the fact that he’d actually achieved promotion from the Championship to the Premier League, gave me confidence that he was a decent chance. Maybe someone else will achieve it, I’ll be surprised if they do it with the same financial constraints. 

7 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

Yes but how you posted is not how my opinion often  gets a response. We disagree. I am fine with that. I do think it is probably closer to 50/50 than this forum represents. You hear lots of different things on the coaches to away games, walking through the ground home or away and in the pubs. 

I been around here a long time, I don’t mind arguments not fair on genuine new people though with some posters borderline having a go at bullying just because they don’t think Pearson was amazing. Think we all want whats best for city in the end. 

Fair that we should all be civil, sometimes folk, inc me, get carried away (on all sides of any given argument) and that probably isn’t a great look for any of us. I’m not convinced that there hasn’t been a decent effort by Bristol Sport to play their story into OTIB, but also get that it’s nonsense to claim that everyone who disagrees with a view is either an NP acolyte or a BS plant, mostly it’s just be the joy of different views. 

1 minute ago, JoeAman08 said:

I saw nothing in NP reign that he could get us promoted so why not change now when everything from 3rd-21st is so fluid? Let someone new assess over the last international break and get some backing in January. We know what we had from Pearson. A practical style for avoiding relegation.

Think the challenge is lots of folk, including me, disagree with this. Given the progress made in difficult circumstances and with sensible backing, I could see him getting us promoted. And not as he’s never done it before, unlike lots of up and coming managers. We’ll never know who was right/wrong as no control group, all about opinions, and that’s fair enough.