SydneyCity

There has to be some version of Jingle Bells sung over the Christmas period.

This isn’t you, is it?

Listening to a Scottish football podcast and Lee’s sacking came up. Nothing we couldn’t have guessed - bought a lot of players, no consistency in tactics, formations or results, plus a lot of Brentisms. On the last point, one of them told a story from the Hibs dressing room… Hibs were losing to an Ange Postecoglou Celtic team last season that was filled with Japanese stars. At half-time Lee gave his talk to the players… Lee: If I was you, I’d be asking the Japanese players what they do. Hibs player: If I was you, I’d be asking Ange what he does!

As a long time City fan, I’m slightly bemused and amused that we’re even registering as a profitable proposition for the knock off kit makers. Having never investigated it, how far down the pyramid do you have to go before they don’t bother?

Yes. https://www.otib.co.uk/index.php?/topic/221759-suggestion-robby-mccrorie/#comment-4665885

I think I saw the builders down there today.

There was a bit in Cam Pring’s new contract video where he was alluding to this - that teams are sitting back and disrupting us. The solution are those on-pitch leaders who adapt and organise. I feel Vyner has stepped up into that role defensively but we really need Naismith back in the team IMO to drive that further up the field.

It could all go horribly wrong… but the one thing I do have faith in at the moment is the development of youth and a knack for bringing them in when they’re ready.

Exactly - there’s a place for a younger backup.

I went to the doctor and said: “What can I take for kleptomania?”

I’m not as concerned about the keeper situation. If we accept bringing young talent through in the outfield, we have to accept it in goal as well.

I was going to go off on a long ramble… but this is exactly what I would have attempted to say. The only thing I'd add re: work rate is that a number of our players are described as "doing the things you don't notice". I'd really love a couple of noticeable players.

LJ’s Brentisms are not going unnoticed north of the border.

Not going to lie, in all the media he’s done so far, I thought he was a “just get on with it”, man of few words. I was wrong. Thats was a very in-depth and insightful press conference. Looking forward to hearing more from him.

The more I see of the O’Neills gear, the more I think someone accidentally ticked the pyjamas box when they were ordering.

We’ve won a title early doors!

You’re right. There’s no need to panic. We should see if he floats first.

It’s exactly 35 years of being a Bristol City fan. What’s that definition of madness again?

As with every season, I expect we’re going to get promoted. This expectation will start to diminish from Saturday onwards but will remain quite high until Christmas. From there, it will free fall to thoughts of relegation but will bounce to lower mid table albeit with an uptick in the last few games that resets the expectation cycle for next season.

Definitely insightful:

Re: the collar, a quick glimpse back to last season shows it was huge then as well. It just wasn’t noticed. The big collars seen in pre-season may simply have been old stock combined with “we’ve already got them”, “It’s only pre-season, it doesn’t matter what we wear” and a fan base looking for things to talk about. The kids shirt posted earlier in this thread, the same. An old, rushed batch. Ironically, I think the push to get the shirts out early to increase sales has led to poor quality, which in turn has likely led to reduced sales. Splat robin is just a f@!king stupid decision by someone in the club and has amplified the general dissatisfaction amongst fans.

I don’t think it’s to bury it, I think it’s marketing related. With all due respect to the other players, you want to shoot the advertising campaign with Alex Scott front and centre. If he’s sold the day after shooting, you need to go and reshoot it. You also don’t want to focus on him, sell a tonne of shirts with Scott on the back as a result of the campaign, then have to deal with all those fans (justifiably) complaining that they spent all their hard earned cash on a shirt for a player that isn’t even at the club any more. I’m not a huge fan of O’Neills as a brand, but to be fair to them, they have proved that they can turn kits around extremely quickly - albeit at the expense of quality. They do know what they’re doing and we can see with each iteration that the quality is improving. I’m increasingly thinking that the overall poor design/manufacturing decisions are being driven by the club. There’s no way that O’Neills would purposely release kits that damage their brand like this. If anything, I think they’re probably guilty of saying yes to many times to a “big” customer.

I would have loved it if it had extensively scanned OTIB and, based on all the posts, statistically determined that the answer to every Bristol City conversation was: “I only care if it’s on the official site”.

It will probably be a blue question mark… in Comic Sans.

This is neither. If you look closely you can see that it’s been cut from somewhere else and placed on top. They used the polygon lasso, so you can see the straight edges where they cut it - they didn’t even bother to select it properly. My educated guess is they enlarged it too as the black in their selection is lighter and more pixelated… that and the height of the badge is almost the width of the neck ?