AshtonGreat

6 hours ago, RedLionLad said:

His lack of passion is part of the problem. If he's not fired up, you can hardly expect his team to give that extra effort.

Was Pearson passionate? 

1 hour ago, NickJ said:

Danny Wilson

Good manager, 48% win ratio for us. I personally felt pride watching his team from 2000-2004 which often had 5 Bristolians sometimes 7, playing attractive football.

Castigated for the play off disater, but it was one mistake and he was steadily building and improving each season.

Persuaded by Brian "trust me on Tins" Tinnion that Danny was a wrong un. What might have been.

 

Gary Johnson

Good manager, good apppointment.

Victim of his own nepotism which Lansdown should have stepped in and sorted but didn't, culminating in that incident at Plymouth.

 

Steve Coppell

The coup that never was. Allegedly realised the owner would be a meddler and left with his bags before even unpacking them.

 

Steve Cotterill

What can you say. Don't need to. Except, shafted. Should have been supported but by then nepo boy was on the horizon and Crayon Boy was his mate, and so it came to pass that a managerial imbecile with a win rate of 37% in the 3rd division was showered with gifts in the Championship.

 

Nigel Pearson

Achieved different things in different ways. On paper, given mediocre results, unprecedented support from a fan base that recognised what he was doing and had done. Treated disgraefully, replaced though by a manager who apparently would get the most out of our "top 6 quality" squad.

 

And so now Liam Manning.

Didn't want him, hard to warm to him. And yet. Win rate of 48% at Lommel, MK and Oxford. 29% for us. Why? Is the step up too much? Has Crayon Boy put too much expectation on him? Will he come good?

Is there hope?

 

He wasn't great on the whole but that's a tad harsh considering he got us to a whisker of the play-offs and to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, beating Man United and giving Man City two good games along the way

8 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Keeping us in the Championship when we were going down, sorting out the financial mess, prevented us from breaching ffp, developing young players, building a team and a culture on a shoe string budget, making the clubs tens of millions in transfer fees, getting rid of all the dead wood and then by the time he left we had a stable decent affordable squad that was ready to push on. Achieving all that is a roaring success. 

Had we of gone down we'd have been in an incredible financial mess and would have breached ffp and probably suffered another relegation. Fair enough if you don't consider saving us from all that a roaring success but that's not something I'd agree with. 

Keeping us in the Championship when we were going down is a bit of a stretch

31% win rate - the same as Pearson's first full season in charge

I can't really get excited about these yo-yo teams tbh

14 hours ago, JAWS said:

Just checked and it was 4-1 v Crewe. After that we only won 2 out of the last 7 including that horrible night at Twerton, which was the rearranged game after they threw the original fixture earlier in the year! 

Other fond Bob memories being Swansea & Fulham away

 

I was at that 4-1 game. I was stood in the East End, where he scored that worldie. At the end of the match, it seemed like the whole stadium was chanting his name. A real goosebumps moment

Poor defending

1 minute ago, bearded_red said:

If you wish to call West Ham ‘European Champions’ then good luck to you, I however won’t be joining in.

Haha no, I'm well aware that Man City are THE European Champions, but West Ham are still A European champion. Put it this way, they're still in a much better place than us

1 minute ago, bearded_red said:

‘European champions’. Well it’s a take I’ll give you that.

Well, they are champions of a European competition

6 minutes ago, chinapig said:

What about Birmingham, Millwall, Preston, pretty wretched stuff eh? See, I can cherry pick games to make a spurious point too.

Granted, but it seems an odd time to start berating the bloke after a run of impressive performances and results

I thought we just beat European champions West Ham, drew with Forest and almost beat in-form Coventry away from home...?

4 hours ago, SydneyCity said:

Mehmeti is the only one I agree isn’t Championship standard.

He strikes me as a player who has been the best at every level he’s played and now that he isn’t, he doesn’t know how to act.

Clearly very talented with the ball, but can get worked out far too easily. Hopefully he’s a case of “not Championship quality yet”.

Bell, I think has got worse since Manning came in. I believe he’ll make it at a higher standard than mid-table champ.

Cornick makes things difficult for the opposition. I’d guarantee that defenders at this level hate playing against him. I think about his missed sitter on debut and do wonder if it could have been very different for him here.

Bit harsh - I think Mehmeti played well against the Premier League sides

40 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

You got a twenty dollar bill throw your hand up.

Or not, as the case may be.

Haha was quite a good tune in its day, to be fair

8 hours ago, Club and Country said:

Tickets released today with 6 acts still to be announced ....

Anyone know when the next acts are announced?

Fatman Scoop. This is getting a bit surreal 

11 hours ago, robinforlife2 said:

Headline acts are always announced last, so the fact the DJ sort of acts have been announced first doesn't surprise me. They are often used for Crowd Builders. 

Craig David still sells out Racecourses, so to have Craig David and Neyo at the bottom of the bill bodes well. It'll be like Party In The Park. 

Got a feeling Busted may be on the bill and Blossoms

It's still a neigh from me

I must say, I don't rate that Gallagher and Squire song at all. Heard that riff/melody a thousand times!

55 minutes ago, Dredd said:

Do they though? Do Liverpool play Guardiola ball or do they have their own identity? 
 

The teams that get out of this league without parachute payments have to find their own way of playing because inevitably they don't have the best players in the league, they've been hoovered up. So they find a system that works, either for the players or they recruit to a plan

Liverpool don't win much compared with Man City

7 minutes ago, cidercity1987 said:

We would be much more threatening if Wells came on for Knight to play ahead of Conway. But I'll keep on dreaming. And we'll keep on being very low scorers 

We've scored loads lately :laugh:

2 hours ago, sadlybrokered said:

He’s unreal, genuinely the best young talent I’ve ever seen down the gate. Everything was effortless

Does that include other teams?

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We were missing McCrorie, Vyner, Atkinson and Benarous.

We can hardly say Conway or Weimann would've been fully fit and match fit by this juncture either.

In a squad of 21 outfield players that is quite a big loss..Tanner checking back according to reports went off with an ankle injury v Stoke 10 mins into the 2nd Half which upsets the balance further.

Every manager has to cope with injuries. Manning is missing some of those as well

3 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Remind me but weren't we decimated by injuries, and if memory serves correctly we played the current top 3 and weren't rolled over by any of them, during that run.

Not really - the personnel for the home defeat against Stoke was more or less the same as it is now. We didn't have Vyner but we did have Wells

3 hours ago, firstdivision said:

We live in an instant social-media driven society that really has no basis in reality. The bloke has had SIX games. Of course he needs some time. Anyone would think we were any good before he took over (15th was it?). We’re just not that good.

Everyone needs to calm down a bit. What do you actually want to happen? Would you prefer us to struggle just so you can be right? 

Life is far more nuanced than you suggest. 

NP irritated the hell out of me some of the time but I always wanted us to win and I wanted him to succeed. I think the board got the timing of his sacking hopelessly wrong. But I want Liam Manning to succeed because life is too short not to want to feel happy on a Saturday and Tuesday/Wednesday evening (after a win), not angry and bitter, and harking back to a marriage that’s not going to be revived. 

I’ve seen over fifty years of this club’s football and I can’t remember a more knee-jerk reaction to a new manager. It’s been far from perfect, and deeply frustrating at times. But we’ve been in every game and could have got something from all of them. 
If we lose nine in a row - like a previously successful manager incidentally - you can fill your boots if you want. 

Exactly - we lost five out of seven before LM turned up

5 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

4 points off the playoffs on taking charge and in 10th place is definitely flirting. It’s not full on rubbing your backside against a crotch but it’s definitely giving the eye from across the room. Wouldn’t be a guarantee it would come to anything, but it is 100% flirting.

With less than a third of the season played though...?

1 minute ago, Silvio Dante said:

And therein is your contradiction.

You rightly say these boys aren’t robots, but then also make excuses for Manning trying to directly impose a style immediately (and in his words overloading them) when they may not suit or even understand what he wants them to do.

If he understands they’re not robots, then he should also understand they can’t implement pages 216-274 of the big book of coaching and he might need to adapt his style. Every other coach that has been a success does that, and not all of them had the platform of a side flirting with the playoffs when they took over.

Flirting with the play-offs is a bit of a stretch

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

On paper yes but it was a catastrophic position overall...

*6 losses in the spin in the League, most of them fairly comprehensive.

*Morale had totally collapsed. Barnsley at home was one particular nadir, Watford away another but there were multiple.

True, but NP's first two games in charge yielded two good wins, which should've gone some way to restoring morale/confidence

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

*The Injury list was surely pushing double figures week in week out.

Is the squad really that much better now?

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

*A good chunk of the squad were out of contract in the summer, Ashton interview at Norwich on Sky barely helped.

I'll give you that.

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

*Behind closed doors football in itself, no fans to either rally you or sharply criticise you- it's a soulless experience behind closed doors football.

Same for everyone though...

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I'd say despite some decent players on paper, NP inherited an absolute shambles.

13 minutes ago, nebristolred said:

Who's been doing that? I haven't seen many (if any) posts suggesting that.

Complaining about the board's ineptitude in getting to this situation isn't the same as wanting LM gone, or not wanting him to succeed.

I've seen loads of posts criticising LM, saying he's out of his depth, boring, lacking confidence etc. The forum is rife with them