The Journalist

1 hour ago, lenred said:

Get the point but it’s all relative isn’t it? To me ex players and managers matter a lot more than some of the random items that remain on the main page.  Seems plenty agree as well. 

Oh I get that - it’s more some of the abrupt comments, bordering on rude and slightly entitled in a couple of instances, towards people giving up their free time to maintain an internet forum. It’s a bit much, innit?

It’s probably just not how I’d talk to people, but each to their own.

None of it really matters though, does it? Not really?

(Thanks to @phantom and the admin team, though. I used to do it and it’s a somewhat thankless task.)

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

A stream?!? But there were none anywhere, you gatekeeped a stream?!?

Perks of the job. Only dropped that in because I knew it would trigger someone… 

12 hours ago, The Journalist said:

Shades of the team we put out in an FA Cup replay against Middlesbrough when we were in League One and they were in the Premier League. Injuries and suspensions galore, even David Patridge got a game, and we took them to penalties!

So, you just never know…

I wasn’t that far off in the end.

Watched it on a stream and thought we gave it a really good crack.

1 minute ago, Graham76 said:

It’s going to be interesting listening to the penalty shoot out on the radio 

If it goes to penalties I’ll set up a Zoom call and tell you all what’s going on if you like.

We’ve settled really well since going behind - almost like the early goal lured Forest (and most of the forum, to be fair) into thinking it was all going to be very straightforward.

We’re playing pretty well.

Just now, cidercity1987 said:

As for the live text feed 'that didn't take long!' when Forest scored

**** off, very patronising

But factually correct.

Shades of the team we put out in an FA Cup replay against Middlesbrough when we were in League One and they were in the Premier League. Injuries and suspensions galore, even David Patridge got a game, and we took them to penalties!

So, you just never know…

1 hour ago, phantom said:

I hate to say after nearly 40 years of watching City my expectations are so low that I am not sure that I have any expectations anymore

I'm only in my mid-30s so you've endured this club longer than me, but scrolling through this thread I just kept coming back to this view - you can't really expect anything, can you?!

The older I've become the more I've realised how little influence we have over anything and, so, how redundant the concept of any kind of expectation is.

However, I do hope that at some point during my lifetime on the opening Saturday of the season I'm able to put Match of the Day on and see us among the running order. It's kind of remarkable that 50 football clubs have been able to experience that at least once during the course of the past 32 years... but we still haven't.

Post-match will be interesting - it’s really the first time we’ve been embarrassed under Manning. Unacceptable levels of bad, we’ve barely laid a glove.

Being out-passed and out-played is one thing, they’re better than us, but we’ve been completely out-run, out-fought and out-thought too.

Worst 60 minutes we’ve produced in a couple of years.

This is what a top-end team looks like.

Notwithstanding options to buy on the two loanees the club aren’t revealing, this looks the most sensible bit of business this January.

It just makes complete sense, not least because he’s with us from day one of pre-season.

The change in style was always going to require a ripping up of the midfield.

We sign all of Derby’s best players and Bournemouth sign all of our best players.

Not a sentence you’d have expected to be saying 15 years ago when the former was in the Premier League and the latter near the bottom of League Two!

23 minutes ago, mozo said:

Another way to look at it is that competition for places will drive Bell and others to improve? If I was a talented young player like Sam Bell I'd be up for fighting for my place in the side. 

As I said in my first post, having an option to buy very much changes the complexion of it. I really hope that's the case.

I'm really not intending to be doom and gloom - everything will be much clearer in the summer. And I'm certainly not judging Manning by any of this, either.

Just now, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

So, in your opinion, do you feel that we shouldn't have signed this player  and who do you think should have been promoted to the first team from the academy whose pathway is now blocked?

Presumably it'll mean even fewer minutes for people like Sam Bell, who could do with as much exposure as possible with our season going nowhere?

I'm all for loan signings with a purpose - the additions of people like Matt Smith and George Saville were huge when we were promoted - but there's got to be a longer-term vision than just seeing us through to a mid-table finish.

All opinions, though, innit.

12 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Just said the same. Not very “academy first” this window, is it 

It does seem they're absolutely desperate we're not going to finish further down the table than we were when Liam Manning was appointed.

Given we're in mid-table obscurity and signing a 19-year-old on loan, that much-coveted pathway's suddenly not looking quite so clear, is it?

(Unless there's an option to buy, obviously...)

Controversial opinion - I never liked having Milan Djuric because I always felt if you picked your best XI playing the way you wanted he would never be in it. He was only ever an expensive plan B.

He was symptomatic of the clubs-in-a-bag era that got us into such a mess.

11 minutes ago, maxjak said:

It's a question of semantics..............you can call it whatever you like.   But when i played football, if a high cross came over.....I never heard anyone shout "Shoot it " ?   

To be fair, if a low cross came in I never heard anyone shout "shoot it" either.

Curtis Fleming's first 11 days at Charlton consisted of losing three games in a row and seeing the manager get sacked. Talk about making an instant impact!

9 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Overall he was abysmal, very few goals for a lot of wages & injured virtually all of his last season.

Absolutely light years away from the signing of Wilbraham, who was brilliant.

I always had a soft spot for Peter Beadle because I thought he brought the best out in players like Christian Roberts... but looking back his record really was pretty rubbish, wasn't it?!

That said, he played in the 5-4 at Mansfield and I'll always love that team.

Amusingly, the other 'underwhelming' signing that immediately springs to mind is Matt Smith, who was brought in as cover when Wilbraham was injured during that 2014-15 season and also sparked a pretty scathing reaction.

He scored 13 in 20 games for us.

14 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Does it work for fans as well? 

To be fair, GJ only privately called Robbored out (and, for the newer posters among us, Robbored denied being Robbored).

11 minutes ago, Harry said:

100%. 
And that’s always been my stance. And I made it clear from day 1. 
The reasons the board gave for sacking Nige were an incredible amount of bollox. We all know it. 
But that’s not to say that it wasn’t necessarily the correct decision. I’ve said myself that I’d have happily let him see the season out but I didn’t think we’d renew him after the 3 years, so I think they went earlier than I thought they would. But would I say I was angered or disappointed - not really. 
Come the end, I did like Nige, I’d no doubt enjoy a beer or a ramble with him, but ultimately I don’t think he would have taken is to the next level (he’s stabilised us brilliantly but I don’t think was ever gonna be the guy to progress following that stabilisation).

I’ve said all along that the dumbass comments from the board have heaped unnecessary pressure on Manning. 
But I can see beyond that. I am more than happy with Manning so far and I am willing to give him plenty of time. 
Of course, if we don’t finish top 6 then the responsibility for that lies squarely at the doors of Jon & Brian. 

As I always said, I will judge Jon and Brian on whether we make top 6, but I will not be judging Liam by the same expectations - we’re a mid table team under Nige and we’ll be a mid table team under Liam. But I do genuinely feel that Nige wasn’t gonna be the man to take us to the next level and I do genuinely feel that Liam has chance to do so. 
 

I’m not anti Nige nor pro Liam. I was the first person on this forum to proclaim that I didn’t think our playing squad was a good fit for Liam. But I think he can progress us. 
 

My conclusion is the same as it was the day they appointed Liam. The board are bunch of idiots, they dealt with the Nige sacking in an appalling fashion, but I’m happy with Liam’s appointment. 

Not sure this level of common sense is welcome around here.

For what it's worth - and I watch way less of us than many of you, so I'm by no means an authority on this - but the sentence in bold is the key bit to all of this. The results being broadly similar sort of confirm it.

By my eyes, we're now less aggressive in and out of possession but pass the ball more and aim to have more control. Some people will prefer one, some people will prefer the other, but because the players are the same the results are the same.

I posted this just before Pearson was sacked and I think it kind of tallies with what you're saying now...

"There is some sense in moving on at the end of this three-and-a-bit-year period and bringing in some fresh eyes to make the next push. We are trending upwards and that’s arguably a good time to change. And many of us were in favour of this - in principle - three years ago. We predicted it.

"But now we’ve arrived here it just feels wrong, it feels slightly unfair on the manager and at best seems tone deaf to the supporters. That’s the bit (I think) we’re all uncomfortable with."

I feel like, three months on, that's sort of playing out? We're broadly content with Manning and supportive of him, it's just difficult to shake off how the board got us from A to B.

4 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

True, he is. Technically.

But he won't be getting a statue, a stand or some other memorial - which record holders usually do, even at the most tinpot clubs.

Which tells you all you need to know.

Good player was Carey.

But should never be mentioned in the same breath as Atyeo, I'm afraid.

It is weird how it all ended for Carey, given as @GrahamC points out on paper you'd think he should be considered one of the absolute greats of our club... yet just isn't really truly loved by the fanbase.

It makes you wonder if he'd be more highly thought of if he'd played two fewer games (and none of that is his fault, obviously!).