Numero Uno

What are we getting under Lansdown's leadership then? He stands the debts, you can't argue with that, and he builds nice facilities. However we are a FOOTBALL CLUB and I've barely seen a proper, decent game of football at Ashton Gate in three years. People like you might walk out after the win last week and convince yourself we played well and all is rosy in the garden but I walked out knowing I had just watched another 90 minutes of turd, YET AGAIN and that we would get walloped Tuesday and Saturday (we didn't get walloped yesterday but if anything it was even more embarrassing than getting walloped by 11 men). How long do people have to wait before they can walk into Ashton Gate on a semi-regular basis and enjoy a game of football? Another 3 years? We have to be grateful to Steve's leadership for that do we? If he ***** off he ***** off as far as I'm concerned and you can hold me responsible all you like.

Careerists as I understand it.

Ivor, you've been banging on about this for years and been shouted down because "Saint Steve" could do no wrong. Well unfortunately "Saint Steve" has contributed with his billions to a situation where going to Ashton Gate is literally no longer enjoyable and hasn't been for around 3 years. His watch, his money, his running of the football club and what a complete and utter **** up he's made of it for the money he has invested. Bricks and Mortar - tick, progress on the pitch - just give me another 20 years and I'll get there. It does need a football person to come in and run it from the top.........but it's Steve's dosh and the mantra on here is therefore Steve's club, not ours in any way shape or form, so it won't happen. The Owner isn't fit for purpose and until the Owner either ***** off or changes tack dramatically we will continue to be bored to tears by the AG experience. I'm supposed to be grateful that Saint Steve subsidises years on end of absolutely shit football, week after week and now year after year of the bastard stuff. Well forgive me but I'm not grateful one iota that the man has ruined for me something that used to give me so much pleasure. The bloke can stick his "legacy" right up his ******* arse as far as I'm concerned. Because no football club wouldn't be a massive amount worse than the heap of shit we are being subjected to right now.

Ashton Gate, a football ground for 120 years, with a stand named after a rugby player from a club who have been here 7-8 years? Some ******* legacy that will be.

I said it on a different thread earlier, there are a few on here who played to an alright standard in strong dressing rooms with people prepared to have their say and to **** what the Manager thinks and a performance like that today would have been sorted right out after the game. Massengo would have been up pinned up against the dressing room wall by one or two I played with after that winner. Who, in our dressing room, has got that about them? That's what concerns me.

Apparently this sort of attitude is old fashioned now...................why, who knows?

Over a period of time, yes. But TODAY the first goal was a poor decision by Vyner, the second goal was THREE different and basic mistakes from a corner. Nothing related to covering gaps and getting dragged out of position to cover others. That is unforgivable AND inexcusable on the players part. The third goal was simply Massengo falling asleep at the wheel. Nothing anyone can do about that apart from not picking players who fall asleep at the wheel when it matters.

Does Kalas need instruction not to head the ball downwards to the edge of the box when he's under no pressure at all? Does Massengo need to be told that if a player is running off him into a dangerous area and nobody else is covering he needs to get on his bike and cover it? It's easy to say what the Manager should and shouldn't have done but players not doing the absolute basics of football correctly get a free ride. Why? Too many people over complicate football. Yes there are tactics and shape to work on but at the end of the day players have basic tasks they have to carry out in EVERY game they play regardless of the formation, irrespective of the defensive shape, whatever the instructions - too many of ours didn't do it today, it's not rocket science.

Fair enough and, as you correctly state, I've been lucky enough not to have my confidence shattered in the workplace but I'll ask you this: Do you think the mistakes made by Vyner, Kalas, Bentley and Massengo today were just plain individual mistakes or lapses in concentration where the players simply should have done better or down to underlying issues caused by the coaching staff? I cannot fathom how anything Curtis Fleming did or didn't say before the game caused those moments to happen.

You are talking about confidence not motivation. Professional footballers really shouldn't need much in the way of motivation put into them. Too many people make excuses for players and pin everything on Managers. The individual mistakes we saw today are on the players, nobody else. Footballers are a weird species in that many of them take £20K per week out of their Employer and then hide behind the Manager when they fail to do what they have been asked to do.

It's no good "working your socks off" if you don't carry out the instructions you were given and/or lose concentration/switch off when it really matters. Vyner made a bad decision and that's 1-1, Kalas, Bentley and AN Other lose concentration and that's 2-2. Massengo then switches off and they got their winner. Why is he switching off? If he wants to be a top player and play in the Premiership he can't switch off for a second - that is where real "desire" comes in. Working very hard and coming off with 12km on your vest does not mean you have the desire to concentrate fully, to be focused and switched on to both expect and notice the runner so you can make that twenty yard run and avoid that one moment at the end that costs the result. Fleming summed it up "do your jobs" - making sure you do your job properly for 90 minutes is focus and desire, running round like a headless chicken with 12km on your vest but forgetting to do important jobs isn't.

Have you played at any sort of level at all? Seriously, did you rely on the Manager and Coaching Staff to motivate you? Didn't you have any self motivation and enthusiasm for the game? Honestly?

Have I seen Bentley catch a corner? Not that often tbf, he tends to punch and flap at them more often than not. Which is why Barnsley were sticking the ball under his crossbar last week.

If we had a "decent squad of middling Championship players" you would expect us to win games comfortably on occasion. How many games can you recall in the last two years where we have won AND been the better side? You could count them on the fingers of one hand and have fingers to spare. The vast majority of wins we get are dogged performances where we have been battered for the most part, games where either Bentley has turned up or the woodwork has turned up - that doesn't scream middling Championship standard to me. It screams crap.

Damn right he said the right things. Clearly desire was missing today and that isn't acceptable. If players need desire to be put into them they are playing at the wrong level, simple as that. I bet if a 30 year old Curtis Fleming was out there today and Nigel Pearson for that matter we wouldn't have capitulated like that. We have a group that are weak as piss not to mention low on ability, the mentality is shocking.

Making sure you don’t get beat and defending deep are not the same thing. You can play a higher line and do the right things such as keep possession, don’t take silly risks and CONCENTRATE. The reason we are so deep is because we don’t have the nous to keep the ball.

Exactly, sod the circumstances, just make sure you don’t get BEAT, every point counts in our position. Same as the Forest game. We just fold when the going gets tough. The concern for me is this will take 18 months minimum to sort out to add to the 2-3 years when watching City has been a sense of duty with little enjoyment. What sort of crowds will we be looking at by then?

I’m sure many of us have been in dressing rooms where that load of crap today would have resulted in players squaring up to each other. I don’t see that happening with our bunch of softies. Today was about a collective being soft as shit and that has to be a huge concern. You want to believe today will be a watershed moment and we will see a reaction but I wouldn’t bank on that.

And if I was Ryan Lowe looking at our squad I would tell you to **** right off after I’d finished laughing.

I would bet my life savings that the dressing room was like a morgue afterwards. I bet no ****** had the balls to tear into Vyner, Kalas, Bentley and Massengo who all lost us that game because they weren’t switched on. You can talk about coaching, systems and stats but sometimes it’s leadership and bollocks that’s needed and today that was totally lacking. Good players don’t need an old bloke with a tracksuit on to motivate them.

How about lost 3-1 to ten men in 45 minutes. That explains the performance more than adequately.

If only we had leaders on the pitch with ******* bollocks. We can blame the manager all we like but a £20k per week player who heads a ******* free header downwards to the edge of the box, nobody on the edge closing it down and a keeper getting beat by a daisy cutter that took 13 minutes to roll into the net has got **** all to do with coaching. The laughable thing is a team of Toolstation League players would at least know how to see the game out for a point but we’ve got lads like Massengo who has played at this level for what, 3 seasons now and can’t even stay awake to track a runner. Tell me what the **** coaching had to do with that? They’ve been coached that from age 7.

I'll tell you something, I'm not far off the stage where I turn round and knock it in the head until the Guernsey tax exile ***** off. That might get a lot of criticism on here but that's where I am, like it or lump it.

Bollocks. Not being able to pass the ball is lack of ability, **** all to do with coaching.

There are no excuses today. Poor defending at a corner when we have more players than them from Kalas and Bentley have started the slide today and then Massengo isn't in the same postcode as the player he should be tracking. Players are letting us down here. It feels like the club is being run into the ground by an incompetent Owner who got hoodwinked by a ******* charlatan and had the cheek to tell us all we got it wrong whilst he was at it.