Numero Uno

7 hours ago, Swede said:

Well I never would've thought dirty Leeds would lose 4:0 at QPR. That leaves the second promotion spot firmly in swiss Tony's grasp. I am not sure which is worse but the thought that he could actually get away with all of that out of control spending and now have it masked by the millions gained in the Premier League, something just isn't right.

I suppose it comes down to the fact that the group that own Ipswich don’t **** about and keep a lid on Swiss. “Just do your job, that is all”. Americans, don’t go anywhere near them Americans or Arabs for that matter, be careful what you wish for mind. The same “sages” would probably call you a racist on the politics forum if you said that in a slightly different context ……………

Down here the Bristolian Owner and his offspring trying to introduce what I am informed by a few more sages is a “pure” form of promotion (******* pair of bullshitters) are still floundering after 25 odd years, two or three of which Swiss was handed the keys to the building and told to do what he likes.

29 minutes ago, eardun said:

On point 3, we’re just going on what Gavin Marshall said in the FBC podcast when he says we have 15k season ticket holders currently and (direct quote) “we probably don’t want to have that many more season ticket holders”.

He then goes onto talk about getting POTD seats in the SS by reducing season tickets there (ensures a mix of different fans in the SS like in the other stands) which is your point 2. This is consistent with what they said when they launched season tickets which was this:

“Following feedback at the Fans Forum in November, where there was a collective desire to improve matchday atmosphere, we have made a number of changes to try and increase matchday attendance, particularly in the South Stand by capping the number of Season Tickets to enable more match tickets to be made available here.”

I think someone said there is an EFL cap on percentage of season tickets but I’ve not seen it. However City themselves don’t seem to want to sell many more than 15k (if you take what GM says at face value) which would leave around 8k for POTD (home fans only). Their comms keep stating that there are limited tickets available. Of course they might be tested if people keep buying even after they get to, say, 16k - are they really going to say ‘no thanks’?! Not convinced they will sell that many though. 

 

15k is presumably THIS seasons figure? As it stands we have something over 12k for next season. With people not renewing I can’t see us reaching 14k, in fact nearer 13k would be my guess. Unless we really splash the cash he won’t need to worry about applying an upper limit for sales.

26 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

IMO..

*The start was 1 part poor, 1 part good.

*Then a slump albeit masked by the Cup games.

*The two February wins felt like it could have been a platform but..

*Another slump, 4 losses on the bounce, become 5 in 6.

*The decent run now.

This latter run has got us back to par. Just par.

Position inherited:

P15W6D3L6F16A16Pts21GD0

40% Win Ratio, 1.4 PPG

Currently on a 1.31 PPG and 11 wins from 29, that is 37 93%. Possibly 2-3 points light.

Win this weekend and we are all but up to par. The intent in 3, if not 4 of the last 6 has been a welcome indicator however.

What the recent run and a number of performances has done is allow Liam to be judged with an open mind next season. Start well, he’s in a good place with the fans, start middling there’s still the niggles there but he’ll still get time, start badly and he’s right under the pump. Liams recent record has earned him that now in the eyes of most fans.

What have the hierarchy done to earn a change of mind from many fans who just don’t trust them? What have they improved? I don’t think fans will be as inclined to let them off the hook as easily as Manning tbh. However results are going.

3 hours ago, lenred said:

Any decent employer would’ve given him the time and space to get better if that is what was needed.   We had cover and could’ve got more if needed.   Let’s not pretend City have done him any favours whatsoever here.  

What, like Birmingham have with Tony Mowbray…….can be done.

"Club Legend" my arse...................

1 minute ago, phantom said:

This happens every season 

We lose a %, but a new % come on board 

Yep, if we end up at 13K plus we've done very well in the circumstances.

1 minute ago, Cov 77 said:

If yourself and the seagull don’t renew that’s up to you , good luck to you , but what it does say is that this forum does not necessarily speak for the general fan base, it’s been awful on here for  months yet tickets have gone very well.

I was always wary of predicting a massive decrease in sales because the same thing happens most seasons. People say they won't renew then, when push comes to shove and they realise the alternative, do. It is a fact though that a number have carried out their threat regardless of the current sales. The club do need to sort their comms out next season. Don't take support for granted.

5 minutes ago, sglosbcfc said:

12,000 season tickets sold in mid April, is that a club record? It is a fab effort, well done in all the supporters that have got on board. We haven't challenged for promotion for some time now so to have that many season tickets already is great.

Wonder how many the Gas have sold - 1200?

To reach last years level of season ticket sales we will need NEW supporters (i.e. who have not had a ST before or for years) to sign up. I see us shifting another 1000 or so and end up up somewhere between 13-13.5K.

The devil is always in the detail. If we end up at say 13-13.5K ST holders it will be interesting to know the split. If 250 are kids in the South Stand that were barely attending anyway then half a dozen of the bigger games next season with increased POTD eats that for breakfast. If 500 were paying £700 in the Lansdown then that's £350K they have lost which will take more than half a dozen higher attendance games to recoup. Whilst 12K to date is impressive in the circumstances the club should be disappointed when any STH decides to jack it in particularly when a decent proportion of those will be because of the way the hierarchy of the club communicates. It's never easy to get people back once they take the plunge and do something else on a Saturday.

3 minutes ago, phantom said:

Do we know that this is a new trend? 

It’s not one I would take a chance on if I was running the club. Comms and supporter engagement is a relatively simple thing to improve.

3 minutes ago, phantom said:

Judging by sale being confirmed as over 12k today, it would seem people are happy with parting with their hard earned money 

If the figures are true and it was circa 8k middle of last week that would suggest quite a few sent a message that the club would do well to heed moving forwards. Taking fans money for granted only ends one way.

1 minute ago, George Rs said:

True but if 12000 have already renewed then the “drop” that we end up with will probably be inconsequential to them. 

I can’t remember how many we had last year but guessing it was 14-15k total. 

I can’t see more the a 1-1.5k drop happening from this point. And there’s a lot of reasons not to get a season ticket atm other than unhappiness with the club. Financial reasons, waryness of the new tv schedule etc.

Assume losing 1000 season tickets would just be written off mostly due to those two things and the Lansdowns won’t worry themselves. 

I said it would end up at hundreds rather than thousands not renewing and that’s where we are heading. However the club should consider that fortunate and make an effort to engage with fans and not antagonise or bullshit them in future. Liam found a run of form at just the right time for both him and the hierarchy. We go again next season now.

9 minutes ago, mozo said:

Well done Dave and Ian for getting this done  

Also, fair play to GM for fronting up. We criticise them when they don't answer questions, so hopefully this is a sign of improvement fan comms.

I don't think we learn anything revelatory here, and no doubt there will be criticism, but there were questions relating to a lot of the key topics that we debate on the forum and I think GM answered where he could (he's not exactly going to divulge our transfer budget).

I suppose one controversial comment from GM was that our current position is only slightly below our season expectations. This will ruffle feathers following the narrative around the Pearson sacking. 

What I took from the interview is that the current strategy will remain in place; that we hope to achieve success on the cheap, via canny recruitment, and hoping we get the wind behind our sales.

When you add the context that it was Marshall who said promotion was the aim THIS SEASON it is a strange comment......

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

So, as of last week, over 8,000 STs sold

Quite a few renewed Thursday, Friday and the last couple of days so I would guess around 10K'ish then...................

2 hours ago, Top Robin said:

Neither set the world alight and I think we will need better if we want to push higher next season

All eyes on the Technical Director then……

1 hour ago, MarcusX said:

Wasn't even ex-England, he'd just come back from the World Cup (albeit a disastrous tournament)

I personally was very happy with signing James at the time.

To me, it’s not about whether you were happy with James signing but the fact that the manager seemingly wasn’t. For all anyone knows he might have had a different keeper in mind and it might have prevented him having enough budget to bring in other players he wanted.

29 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

I moaned when Pearson was appointed and i was shouting from the roof-tops for Cooper or Martin by the summer of '21. (Tin-hat on) 

Neither of those managers would have agreed to inherit what Pearson agreed to inherit (in terms of the UPCOMING FFFP problem that everybody inside the club and many on here knew was on the horizon but a section of the fanbase seem to be in total denial about). That's why it took them nearly three years to fire him. The first question a manager of high stock at the time you are looking to appoint will ask is "how much have I got to spend?". When you come back with "very little" it's "thanks for your interest in me now kindly **** off".....

1 minute ago, BrizzleRed said:

Let’s hope so NU, as I’m running out of years left for it to happen!!!

When, not if.

Just now, mozo said:

And likewise, there are a number of OTIB regulars that I could name that have been pretty busy posters after Manning's less convincing games, and yet have seemed to have lost their log ins during and after the indisputably decent performance v Norwich (and other games previously). Was the same under Nige who had his haters on here.

I've been backing Manning simply based on how I've interpreted the football, but I've written here many times that if I turn out to be wrong, I'll come on and say it. I think for some people, it's more important to pick a side and win an argument, than to present a fair assessment.

To be fair there are a few who went missing from January until we beat Southampton. I don't understand a scenario where your opinion is so set in stone that you simply cannot change it and are too embarrassed to come on here if facts are showing it to be an opinion that may turn out to be wrong. I only have one opinion set in stone and that is the position of the TD. If he oversees us winning us the Champions League in five years so be it, I would still rather have someone else in charge!!

19 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

3 points for a win and the play off’s were a couple of other notables that boosted entertainment and increased attendances.

At the moment, there’s loads of TV money sloshing around and clubs seem focussed on that and don’t appear to worry about providing entertainment.  If that TV money dries up, you can bet your bottom dollar that clubs’ attention will turn back to pleasing their fans and getting them through the turnstiles again.

It WILL happen. Football is traditionally reactive rather than proactive, doesn't really think things through and only learns it's lesson the hard way (i.e. no bums on seats and feet on terraces). This has always been the way. The game has really lost balance in terms of being corporate but what the corporates do not seem to understand is when Johnny on the Street has had enough because he/she is spending a hell of a lot of money to watch a product that is dull and stops going (and so do his/her mates) then a day out in a half empty stadium will be a pretty shite experience. The billionaires and corporates then take notice and pull out just as fast as they arrived, spending their dough on the next trendy thing, and it's back to a cheaper financial model and finding a way to get Johnny to come back.

2 minutes ago, mozo said:

Coventry 2-2 springs to mind, and dlfew 2-1s either way. I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary. 

We've won 1-0 seven times this season. Of those, 4 were under Manning, 3 were not.

 

We have one of the best defensive records in the division and a poor goals scored record. That alone tells you it's binary for the major part.

Football attendances are cyclical. Numbers will reduce in time, it's just a case of when not if, and at that point football will have to reinvent itself again based on the negative feedback before numbers go back up to recent/current attendance levels. Not only do you have the issues outlined above you now have managers who think that entertaining fans is for mugs and that their principles are not the most important thing, they are the ONLY important thing. They will get their answer in time because that's what has always happened.

Plenty of people were going to football pre-1980's and took a break (when attendances dropped like a stone) before giving it a go again in the 90's. The last major reset we had was the back pass rule in 1992 because people had a guts full watching teams like Liverpool make going back to their keeper an art form when leading 1-0.

17 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Why does Manning (hopefully) doing well also always seem to mean that Pearson had to be shit? Or if you think Pearson was doing well, then Manning has to be shit?

How about Pearson did a good job for us, progressed us, Manning took over, had a wobble as he found his feet, and now will hopefully go on to do a good job next season and progress us again. That's what we all want isn't it?

It's only a dozen or so posters looking for attention or needing to bask in the glory of coming on here and proclaiming "I was right" or "you were wrong" in reality.

7 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

Can't remember anyone moaning at the time, an ex-England keeper and a manager that won the Championship with a record points total that still stands today, hindsight is a wonderful thing 

I can remember a few moaning re: James as it happens (not me) and they were shouted down. If you go over the head of the manager and buy a Goalkeeper as the focal point of your recruitment and he doesn't win you 8-10 points that season then you get judged in hindsight end of story and you deserve the flak that comes your way too. In terms of hindsight, nobody was moaning when Pearson was appointed blah blah blah..................it was only when Danny Simpson arrived that a few decided he was finished for good. No criticism of the Owner who was happy to pay said player's wages though.

9 hours ago, mozo said:

Of course, under Manning we've won 5-0, 4-1, 3-2 (twice) and 3-1, so it's not likely that we'll become a dull 1-0 team next season.

.........and the rest of the games have been Binary in terms of our goals scored, bar a 3-2 defeat at Ipswich, haven't they?