The Dolman Pragmatist

Have you never tried Heinz Saucy Source then? Does the job for you..l

My son’s team comfortably beat Bristol Rovers Supporters Club in the Avon Yourh League yesterday. A conversation with one of their supporters revealed that he was a City fan, as were several of the players… Their keeper punched the ball clear while a yard outside the area and only got a yellow card. Ah, Sunday referees…

Our House … Madness

Nice shark though…

Steve Lansdown has put millions of pounds into this club over two decades, transforming our stadium in the process and stabilising us in the Championship. Nigel Pearson has been with us for less than three years, and has repaired damage and built his own squad within financial limits that are the same at many clubs. However that squad is presently underperforming and we have had a very disappointing start to the season. I accept that Pearson had being doing a difficult job and has a high level of integrity, but I would expect us to be dong better than we are with the players we’ve got. I like Pearson, but I genuinely can’t see why he would be more popular than Lansdown.

I’m sure this is unpopular view, particularly with the current wave of criticism aimed at Lansdown, but Pearson has had, what, three years now? That’s a long time in football management terms these days. This is his squad, when is he going to get the best out of it? All I see at the moment is decent players underperforming, as individuals and as a unit, and I find it hard to pin that on the owner.

Not everything is solved by bringing in yet more new players. How many players has Pearson brought in since January? Cornick, Mehmeti, Dickie, Roberts, Knight, McCrorie, Gardner-Hickman. Have I missed anyone? The issue for me is that we are under-performing with the players we do have, which is an issue for the manager and coaches, not the owner.

Maybe Our Mutual Friend will sign him for Hibs…

Hard to see that being the case with Weimann tonight…

Good luck in finding an owner who keeps out of the running of his or her business!! ???

An awful lot of assumptions and guesses here. I was highly critical of our performance last Saturday, but for footballing reasons. We’ve got a decent squad: it’s Pearson’s job to get them to deliver.

I’ve read the last six pages with interest, but I’m still not sure if there is any concrete evidence for anything suggested. Interesting, though occasionally far-fetched, stuff though. However, the one thing I do believe, and this is from talking to people who know Pearson better than I do (I’ve only spoken to him once) is that it is unlikely that anyone can pull the wool over his eyes. Pearson is not a man to be taken in. The prospect of Scott departing is something that Pearson accepted a long time ago, and I believe the strategy for using the proceeds would also have been known at the time. I simply do not believe that Pearson expected to be able to spend money which he finds is not now the case. If Pearson is hacked off I think it more likely that he feels he has assembled a decent squad which significantly underperformed last Saturday. He must also be frustrated with the injury situation. And he’s notoriously crabby at press conferences.

Time to move on. No conviction; no proof; the club says they’re sure he didn’t do what he was accused of; the bloke has admitted he is far from perfect and has apologised. What more do people want? There are quite a few people who have been actually found guilty of reprehensible acts but who have been allowed to resume their chosen career (a murderer acting on Eastenders springs to mind). I don’t know what really went on, but then it’s not for me to come to conclusions. Let he who is without sin, etc. etc.

I understood that Gray turned us down.

Deserved win for Spain. By far the better side.

Looked like that to me… Endland very poor approaching half time. Everything going backwards, midfield almost non-existent, Hemp and Russo getting nothing. Very disappointing so far.

What’s really worrying is that that was the second match of the season. It was neither a grim mid-season match for a struggling team hit by an injury crisis; nor an early season match with a young side trying to bed in recent newcomers. That was an experienced team, with the two new names this season having appeared in all games so far. If they can play that badly now, I really fear for the months ahead. Almost every player was below par and almost all the difficulties in the match were of our own making. Birmingham had to do very little to make us look like mugs and frankly I felt embarrassed when the Birmingham fans, quite justifiably, started taking the p*ss. Pearson’s selection and his substitutions were odd, to say the least, and we’ve seen many times before that he appears not to be able to ‘pick up’ a team which is playing badly. I didn’t see anyone playing with real passion today, and that’s what particularly frightens me.

But Pearson buys into it. He made that clear in his post-match interview.

What, even if we receive £25m? Are you saying that the sale of Scott was needed to avoid a massive points deduction? If we sell big, we should at least be able to buy something.

We were awful.

Maybe it’s the players who underachieved then…

Good old-fashioned pro. Always gave 100%. Loved him at City, but he must be fading now.

Isn’t a reformed person the best role model? If you hold your hands up to something and use that experience to discourage others, that can be very powerful. As you say, everyone deserves a second chance.

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? But ultimately forgiveness has a part to play. It is quite possible for, particularly young, people to learn from their mistakes and to change as a result. Almost everyone deserves a second chance, and it appears that the woman involved had given him that. Forgiveness is a much more powerful quality than retribution.

I lost count of the number of foul throws in the Spain/Sweden women’s’ match today.