Tinmans Love Child

25 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

They have been quite busy discussing it over on Gaschat.

Seems to be a lot of apathy towards the location of the Fruit Market based on it not being quite as convenient as it could be.

My favourite complaint is that the bus service to that location is shit. It is entirely lost on at least one of them that NEW BUS SERVICES AND ROUTES COULD BE INTRODUCED.

Thick as mince.

I like the poster who preferred Lyde Green for the stadium because it was quite close to Parkway!  Only a 1hr 31 stomp according to Google Maps! 

1 hour ago, mattjb said:

And 50p a pint fridays at spirals in yate !

The glory years!  

1 hour ago, supercidered said:

Which is a bit ironic as the Mauretania should have been called OMG. Oh the days. All inclusive Thursdays.

Used to go to Ritzy’s (as it was then) in Baldwin Street mid 90’s, Thursday night was 80’s night, 80p to get in, 80’s music and drinks were 80p!  Can’t go wrong

24 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Genuine question - is the Fruit Market in Marvin's clean-air zone?

Is that a euphemism?

16 hours ago, maxjak said:

That was one of the most pathetic inept performances i have seen from an Arsenal team in a long time...........they had quite a few players missing, but even so?  Nlketia is a poser and a waste of space, he is one of those strikers who will somehow make a living drifting from club to club, and never really cutting it.  He reminds me so much of Bendtner, who always thought he was much better, than he actually was??   Arsenal should bin him ASAP.  

As for The Diva ......Tavares throwing down his Gloves?? and storming off.........yet another Arsenal poser, who should be left on the bench.

Arsenal have always been my second team, ever since i lived in North London during the days of Henry and  Viera.............but these days they lack character  and consistency and have become a very frustrating team to watch...considering some of the great players they have like Smith Rowe and Saka?

I agree in the most part, although this season Arsenal have improved a lot and have some great young players coming through, I can see them being close to 4th along with Spurs, West Ham and Man U.  Arsenal are my 2nd team I guess, my first football shirt was an Arsenal one for some reason, have a picture of me in it when I’m about 8 circa 86 when they weren’t even very good!

1 hour ago, myol'man said:

Build it and they will come...........

 

Name that Film

On 08/01/2022 at 05:09, The Constant Rabbit said:

Being a bit of a grinch - I'd be more impressed if their mega-earning players (and Idris) chucked in some cash to fund another 25 community youth workers for a year or 3.

That might actually help.

Does anyone NOT know that knife-crime (along with most violent crime) is out of control in some suburbs of London.

White shirts won't help anyone.

How do you know they don’t?  But even if they don’t, why should some footballers and an actor pay for it, lots of rich people in London could foot the bill if that’s how you want it to work.

7 hours ago, City_USA said:

I'm proud to say I got to play on the Bierkeller stage legitimately for a couple of gigs back in the late 80's. Wild times indeed. None crazier than when the Macc Lads were in town!

My band did a big gig at the Bierkeller around 2005. great to play on the same stage as the likes of Nirvana graced, watched some great gigs there too, a sweaty place!

9 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Exactly.

I missed your sarcasm, though you were being serious!

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

People must be so annoyed at such an under strength first XI. Imagine paying £23 for that.

Fulham have selected a reasonable team as well. Bryan and Reid both start, as does wonderful Carvalho.

I’m confused, how is that team under strength?

Found this vid of an Ipswich Town fan who attends games as a neutral and does a blog.  Anyway he did the Millwall game, looked like he had a good time! 

12 minutes ago, David Brent said:

Doubt she was singing “you’re shit ahh” down the concourse. I’ve seen blokes in Liverpool shirts in the concourse too. I didn’t wet the bed. 

That would have been brilliant if she was giving it the big one, chanting Cov songs and flicking the V’s at the City fans, brilliant

23 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

At a time when the club are posting £38m losses I doubt they are too keen to turn a Coventry City neutral away for wearing their shirt (which was probably covered at the point of entry anyway). I must admit that when I've been away from home and fancied taking in a match as a neutral I've never worn a City shirt to the game but it isn't something to get overly worked up about imo.

I’m sure that extra £30 will boost the coffers

45 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Why does it have to be Bristolians?

So Max O’Leary wouldn’t be eligible because he was born a whole 11 miles away? Did we see Rob Newman (Bradford-on-Avon) or Atyeo (Dilton Marsh) as not “home grown”?

I prefer the Athletic Bilbao definition myself, which is not only birth but school & area that you see as local to your club (for us that’s Glos & Somerset) so where did you grow up.

If you add Lloyd Kelly, Joe Bryan, Alfie Jones, Jordan Storey, Herbie Kane, Bobby Reid to our current Academy crop then it would certainly compete.

You know it’s just for fun right?

1 hour ago, Red Billy said:

Just downloaded the sample on Kindle and read the first chapter.

I didn’t realise another team in Red came in for him before Utd!  #nospoilers Enjoy!

5 minutes ago, Red Billy said:

Thanks - think I’ll give it a go

Alex: The Man Behind The Legend https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739855205/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_FAVHHSTZQJPYCRH6PW6C

4 minutes ago, Red Billy said:

Not meaning to cause any offence but are you a Man United fan or is the book a good read in general? Looking for something to read so may take a look.

No not a Man U fan at all, my wife got it for me for Xmas!  It’s a good read, interesting stuff on pre Man Utd era as well

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Thanks for that….interesting that in a David Moyes interview when at Everton he showed his whiteboard with exactly that “notion”, (names blurred out) and where recruitment was focussed.  Obviously learned from his time with Ferguson.

Heres our squad shaded into those tiers…with league minutes shown.

You can see our problems, we are light of good players in the prime 23-28 age, and have too many under 23 players

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Thanks for that….interesting that in a David Moyes interview when at Everton he showed his whiteboard with exactly that “notion”, (names blurred out) and where recruitment was focussed.  Obviously learned from his time with Ferguson.

Heres our squad shaded into those tiers…with league minutes shown.

Great work!!  Actually in the book Fergie said he chose Moyes to takeover as he knew he would continue this process, and has gone on record as saying Moyes was the only person he trusted to continue the long term thinking, so was gutted when Utd sacked him, after that it was all about short term thinking 

8 minutes ago, The Batman said:

Well he had the benefit of being the manager for such a long time, he could mould the under 23s in to what he wanted and would reap the benefits of them as they got older in to the other age brackets and then the cycle would start again with the new youth players. 

The class of 92 teenagers he brought in to the team in the mid 90's alongside Keane, Cole, Schmeichel etc for the treble success in 1999 when they were in their mid 20's.

The same applied for the 2000's team where Rooney & Ronaldo were signed as teenagers in the early 2000's but they were at their very best in the later stage of the decade when they were in their mid 20's and United won 3 leagues, a champions league and got to the final of 2 others in the space of 4 years (losing both to Barca's Messi, Iniesta, Puyol side). 

Would love City to have success with academy players. 

Bare in mind when he first joined Utd in 87 the squad was ageing and they had next to no academy to speak of so this system would have highlighted the gaps.  
 

He put more scouts in place at Utd in his first week, and knew it was a 5 year plan really to get into a position where they could not only win the league, but keep winning it, which they obviously did with multiple squads.  In the book he mentions that the likes of Jose and Kloop never took/take a long term view of the squad, and this means after the 3/4 glory years the squad is aged and it takes too long or too much £££ to replace what you’ve lost, and that’s when those managers move on.

9 hours ago, Never to the dark side said:

Bit confused what is the 300?

Is it another version of cricket?

1 hour ago, Red Billy said:

Is experience over rated? We have a young side but if you are good enough then is that all that matters. Zak Vyner still gets branded as inexperienced yet he’s made nearly a hundred appearances in the Championship? Not a criticism of him in the slightest but at what number of games do people perceive someone to be experienced?

I’m reading the Alex Ferguson biography called ‘Alex’ at the moment, and apparently he would split his squad into 3 age categories:

- under 23’s;

- 23-28; and

- over 28.  

His aim was to have 3 players for each outfield position, and those 3 would be from each age category, the under 23 to keep the older player on his toes, the player in their prime aged 23-28 to be the main man, and then the old head in the over 28 category for experience.

The next important part to ensure longevity of success and keep the squad rolling forward with consistency was to ensure the contracts of players in the 3 age categories, or equally 1 position are not elapsing at the same time, I.e. you don’t want all your 23-28 players ending contracts at the same time, or you don’t want your 3 left back contracts running out at the same time for example.

This relatively simple process ensures that you know exactly where you are in terms of squad experience, what gaps might be coming up, helps to identify what types of players you might need and when you might need them.  If another club snaps up your under 23 left back then you know you want to bring in another under 23 left back, not one whose over 28.

I don’t know what City do or if we follow anything like this process, but it would be quite a good way of measuring where our current squad sits on the ‘Alex Ferguson experience scale’.  Anyone got the time to do this?

3 minutes ago, Bouncearoundtheground said:

They won’t put another one in Ashton Gate. As far as boy Jon is concerned it’s been an unmitigated disaster as far as I’m aware. 

Really?  I’ve not seen much about it to be honest, I guess the bottle throwing incidents arnt going to help 

I see Chelsea had 12,000 safe standing spaces being trialled v Liverpool, great to see.  Any news on how many potential standing areas we could have if trial successful?  
 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/59848850.amp

2 hours ago, Fuber said:

I do wonder if he was making a point with regards higher ups re reliance on the academy, as well as to us as fans.

Either way. Onwards and upwards.

Surely if he was making a point then it didn’t work as we won!