ExiledAjax

Ng's inclusion surprised me initially but I though back to our games against Cardiff and recalled that he was pretty influential. Then I checked stats and he's basically the highest-rated RB in the division both in terms of attacking and defending, so fairplay to him. Who would you have over Hladky? Hermansen?

Given we've started taking votes for our end of season awards I wondered who out there was thought of as being up for the wider Divisional awards. I don't watch every team forensically but will suggest a few to get the conversation started. Manager of the season - I think there are two stand out candidates: McKenna and Cifuentes. McKenna has a League 1 squad sitting on 87 points with 18 still to play for. Ipswich have been electric and have kept going until the end of the season and through the full 90 in every game. I expected them to collapse in the winter, and fairly they have not done so. But I think there's a better candidate - Cifuentes. Good lord the miracle he's worked with a trainwreck QPR squad is remarkable. When he took charge on Halloween 2023 they were 23rd with 8 points from their first 14 games. They are now 16th with 46 points. The quick-minded will swiftly note that this means that in the 26 matches Cifuentes has managed, they've gained a stonking 38 points - 1.46ppg. Had the season started on 31 October when Cifuentes took charge, QPR would be 9th. Notable mention to Danny Rohl at Sheff Wed who has overseen almost as good a renaissance (36 points from his 29 games in charge 1.24 ppg), but it's not quite the transformation that Cifuentes has managed. Player of the season - The stats show Szmodics as top scorer with 23 and he's been involved in 41% of Blackburn's goals, Summerville tops both FotMob's and Whoscored's overall ratings and has a respectable 17 goals himself, Dewsbury-Hall has been exceptional for Leicester, and Armstrong has been very productive for Southampton. Jack Clarke at Sunderland has been key to their season, and Sara at Norwich has been fantastic. Further down the division or further back in the formations there's players like Coventry's Sheaf, Davis at Ipswich, Whittaker at Plymouth, and even someone like Chair at QPR could be in the conversation. Young Player of the season - Caveat, I am not about to waste time checking who was 21 on July 1 2023, so this is just players who are currently aged 22 or younger. Also, I refuse to allow a player to win both YPOTY and POTY - so Summerville is in the chat for POTY, and if he gets that then as far as I'm concerned he cannot get YPOTY. They're separate categories for a reason. Anyway, it doesn't look like a vintage year for young players (maybe everyone had a good tilt at the U18 FA Youth Cup). However, Summerville's teammate Rutter is a standout candidate as he's had a spectacular season. Philogene is fun to watch, has a swagger, and has delivered with 8 goals and 6 assists this term. Rowe at Norwich is just 20 and has handed in 12 goals in just shy of 2,000 minutes, which is pretty impressive at that age. I don't know, YPOTY would be one where I'd be interested to hear opinions. For what it's worth, here's whoscored's current team of the season. The omission of Szmodics is probably the most interesting item, but the team is caveated by the fact they stick to a pretty rigid 442.

Oh no "we budgeted assuming we'd finish in the top 8, but failed to do so" shouldn't mitigate failure of FFP. Every team should be budgeting for every eventuality really, even the mega-rich teams at the top should have an a) get into the champs league, and b) don't budget.

Ie. "We assumed we'd get into Europe in some form or other". It's the underlying issue of income being so tied to sporting achievement in the previous season. If the football industry distributed at least some of its riches equitably or based on things other than league position, you'd not have clubs making this kind of risky assumption.

Well done to the young guys, sounds like they put on a decent display. Oh well, time to focus on the league now.

I'm quite surprised that this thread isn't getting more engagement. This is the pinnacle of our season. Our appearance in the semi-finals of the U18 FA Youth Cup is the apotheosis of 20+ years of investment and planning from the Lansdowns. This is what everyone at the club has sacrificed everything for this season. This showdown, this festival of football, it's what it's all about. Win this and we're in with a chance of hosting the final and capturing the attention of literally three football journalists. I simply cannot wait to be vaguely aware of what's possibly happening on Pitch 14 of the Etihad Campus and will absolutely have this on in the background when I do the boy's bedtime tonight, and when I'm washing up after supper, and when I'm out for a run.

24. He was 23 at the start of the season. The "young squad" that Brian thinks we have is really not as young as you might think.

Very good piece. It's really hard. I am, right now as I type, editing suggested amendments to the Bill that will (hopefully) bolster "the regulator’s most important power...to impose an agreement between the Premier League and the EFL on revenue distribution in the event of a negotiating deadlock." I've got meetings this week where we are trying to give the IFR proactive powers, and also trying to make sure that anything plan the EFL puts forward or agrees to benefits L1 and L2 as well as just Leeds, Southampton, and the other big teams in the Champ. But it's bloody tough, and there's behemoths in front of us.

POTY is Dickie and it's not even close. YPOTY is Conway by default. Champagne? Well I went with "The introduction of the Football Governance Bill in March 2024, and it's intended objective requiring club officials to satisfy a test of their "competency". The champagne is on ice for the moment but this will hopefully, in time, lead to competent directors being in charge of Bristol City." Fingers crossed.

Not only did they spend millions on private law firms and barristers, but they have an in-house legal team - ie full time club employees - of about 15 people. That's a small law firm in itself. The next biggest in-house legal team that I know is Man Utd who have 8 I think it is. Honestly most clubs have one or two, many (including Bristol City) have 0.

It's mad that one team is going to get >90 points and not go up automatically.

Yes, I omitted the xG from my post as tbh I didn't fancy having the "xG is nonsense" conversation. But, as you've brought it up. He's doing exactly as well as can be expected given the specific amount of work he's being asked to do. This is largely why I say the defence is helping him be good. That defence is what means he has faced the second lowest post shot xG. That defence is keeping his workload light and low. In my opinion that is allowing him the room to breath. He's facing shots that are easy to save - and he's saving quite a lot of them (74.2% of them in fact). It's a fair criticism that he's not over-achieving but I think it is harsh to complain that he's doing what he needs to do. He's not doing anything remarkable - but he's not being asked to do anything remarkable. Essentially, if the keeper is as good as his defence is, and that defence is itself quite good, and he isn't notably letting it down - which the numbers show he isn't - then he's a good enough keeper for that team. Right? I think we're both just saying the same thing and nodding agreement at each other aren't we!? It does a get a bit mind-bending quite quickly but ultimately I'm happy with him being No.1 this season and next, and I don't think we need a new No.1 goalkeeper...the No.2 goalkeeper is a different conversation of course.

It depends a little on how you define "one of the best". For me I'd say it means he's in the top 6 in enough stats/areas to be in that conversation. I'd say as well that I say he looks like one of the best, because the defence in front of him improves him. I don't necessarily mean that he is, objectively, one of the top keepers in this division. Anyway, Max is: 3rd best save% this season. 4th for overall number of saves. 6th best for goals conceded. 7th best for stopping crosses. Top 10 for most stats relevant to being a sweeper. Top 6 for one or two. He's not up there for every stat, and not all stats indicate whether a goalkeeper in isolation is good/bad, but yeh he's putting in top 6/top 10 numbers in multiple categories. https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/keepersadv/Championship-Stats

He's always been good enough. This season a decent screen in front of him is allowing him the space to breath and demonstrate his ability. That helping him post the kind of numbers that make him look like one of the best in the league. It's nuanced but my reading of it is that he's good, but the defence helps him to be really good. Almost as though football is a team game. My opinion is also that having CBs who are confident on the ball - Dickie in particular - help him with the recycle and the out. I've always said we don't need to upgrade the goalkeeper to finish in the top 6 and it's great that he's currently demonstrating that.

They're ok. They've got a little bit better in recent times. We still get the odd slip up like Forest away, but they're better.

I'm glad to hear that we did ok. The stats certainly bear out that we played pretty well, although Plymouth don't look as though they provided the toughest test. If progress is being made then I'm delighted. Ps. If you struggled with the colours today https://enchroma.co.uk/pages/colour-blind-test?enchrdrdct=hrd&multisite-redirected=1#multisite-redirected

Well well well, Rotherham cling on to the very slimmest of hopes. Need to win every game and move the dial on GD from -49 to about -15 if they're to stand a chance though. And even then it's not in their hands. So they need maybe six 6-0 wins plus the perfect set of results in other games. Yeh I mean it's possible...

White is also an excellent choice. I'd love us to just have a standing set of red/white home, white/black away, and purple/lime third kits. That would work, would be unique to us, and says "City" to me.

Yeh. I absolutely detest the piss-yellow Norwich kit we have...but it's one redeeming feature is that it's very high-contrast and so is very useful when we play against a team that use a block kit of a dark colour - Plymouth, Middlesbrough, Forest etc. Anyway, I only caught the last 15 minutes of today but it looked like we played pretty well against a Plymouth team who could at times threaten, but didn't quite have the ability to make that last pass or shot and actually threaten out goal. Great to get back to back wins, and we're actually back up to 1.5ppg over the last ten games

No worries. I try and stay civil on here at all times, but your comment angered me to the point of swearing. If you'd ever like to understand how being colourblind can affect life, or football, then feel free to ask.

Well you stated, in response to me, that a normal and minor change - a football team playing away from home in its away or third kit is very normal - made in part to accommodate a real issue that affects many people, was "moving heaven and earth" and was also somehow the same as some other apparently unjust societal changes. You didn't specify those though so I can only imagine what they might be. Anyway, I didn't want to derail the match day thread whilst the game was on by explaining exactly why your statement was rude and wrong, but I did not want it to go united and I did want to express my disagreement with it. I therefore chose the route of brevity, and I told you to "**** off". ps. Great win today, well done to all involved.

****. Off.

Because Green v Red makes the game basically unwatchable for about 12% of the population. It's a clash.

Unchanged initially feels like an odd choice given how different the opposition are. Feels reactive rather than proactive, but I guess the other view is that Friday was a slightly different set up to our "normal" one, so maybe that was when we saw the shift and this is now the new normal...not sure about that though.

Top banter.