DaveInSA

On 19/03/2024 at 00:04, 42nite said:

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Post of the day.

£84. People who buy this literally have rocks in their heads. The fabric is cheap, the labour is cheap, the shipping is cheap. Literally they cost about a fiver to make.

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Contractually and FFP wise speaking there is no need to sell anyone any time soon. We did heavy lifting.

We might sell Conway as he is in the last year of his deal but possibly him aside no need.

Whether I see Manning as the right man (I don't) or the hierarchy above him as being up to it (I don't) totally different issue but that is where the club appears to be.

Thanks for the clarity about not needing to sell @Mr Popodopolous, my view is that the players are smart enough to know that they aren’t going to flourish under Mannings style of play. So how many are going to put in transfer requests to leave. I can see Sykes and Pring heading onto pastures new. 

Unless something really, really bad happens between now and the end of the season I can’t see him going. At the same time, I can’t see him getting more than £6million to spend (purely a guesstimate by me) - unless we sell.

Given that Conway is most definitely leaving, I suspect Sykes and Pring we’ll get offers for, I can see us letting Manning have about £12million to spend in the summer.

Which, would be a categorical disaster and put us back five years. We’re Bristol City, it’s what we do.

 

I hope they have a week off “on the grass” should do them the power of good.

I’ll rather have Klopp’s energy and passion any day if the week over Manning’s dour behaviours led garbage.

Hate hate that plastic Man United. But what an extra time.

The speed of decline is startling. How we won against Swansea must have been a miracle

I might go to one more game to witness the slide in person before the end of the season.

Save your money until next year….if manning is still here

4 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

Came into a Lansdown inspired shit-show, as they waxed lyrical about our top 6 squad and results here and now. The most poisonous poisoned chalice. My first real assessment of him will come around November time after he’s had a summer and a few months of 24/25. If we’re looking rubbish, change it then.

Wait what…???

You’d seriously let him spend some few millions or so on players and wait until November to make an opinion.

I’m also looking forward to about 4 of the first team leaving in the summer too. I’ll be amazed if, Conway, Sykes, Pring and Dickie are still here after the window closes. Plus King, James and Williams all OOC.

This isn’t going to end well.

Wouldn’t it be great, if, just for once, a football coach / manager went “you know what lads, hands up, I’m not going to make it work here, I resign”

It’s a complete joke that we’re so bad. It’s relegation performance. In fact, if he’s still here when the new season kicks off, I’m putting money on us going down, and I never bet on anything ever.  Let me clarify that I DO NOT want that to happen. It’s just my reality. Although, I reckon the bookies will have us nailed on so the odds will be shit.

7 minutes ago, RobImps said:

We were rubbish in all honesty.

This seriously can't be allowed to continue, Manning is hopeless, totally out of his depth.

The points return and quality of football since he's come in say's it all.

Wouldn't trust him with a fiver to rebuild this summer, Mebude unused again.. what a waste of a loan fee.

10mins to go, he brings on 2 defenders FFS

well against Cardiff he brought on all the attackers he could, and that was absolutely shambolic.

I think we’ll win this today. As others have said, if we ply on the counter we’ve got every chance.

It would be “so Bristol city” to do that.

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Firstly, I’m not in the camp of Tins being the bad-guy for everything.

My beef is predominantly that Manning isn’t the right man - both ability and football style - imho.  And Tins would’ve played a large part in selecting him, and imho has mis-profiled him against the type of football him and JL said they wanted.

So, it’s not an easy one to answer in your kinda one-dimensional question.  Nor is that a criticism of the question, but that it’s just more nuanced than that.

My evaluation of Tins as the recommender is ultimately judged on how Manning does…against where I think the squad should be.

This season, I expected him to carry on the progress being made, so was looking for a finish circa 10th, staying in the play off hunt deep into the season.  Failing that, I expected any regression to be the result of implementing his football style, ie, I’d cut him some slack.

So far, he’s underperformed on playoff hunt and football style is a mess imho.  For me, I don’t see him changing nor us progressing with how he’s doing things, hence why I’m Manning out.  That is my prerogative, you happen to think people are judging too early.  I think the longer you leave it, the worse it will get.

But…

I accept things can change, three simple scenarios, e.g.

• he does carry on what he’s doing in his way, and we make progress, proving that “time was indeed the healer”, and I’ll hold my hands up
• we throw money at him in the summer to cover his inadequacies - to me that shouldn’t mean credit for anyone, if anything it proves they got it wrong - don’t forget there was no budget in August when Alex was sold, and the owner told us fans via PA on SOTC that he was no longer willing to stump up the sums he had been each year
• he does improve us, but by doing it different / playing differently - then I could turn round and say “told you so”, but I’ll at least give some credit to Manning for at least showing adaptability.  I’m not sure Tins gets any credit in this scenario.

 

I’m not as smart as you @Davefevs when it comes to the football.

Norwich at home. Strangely in that game I felt we had the better of it. Although watching in S82 isn’t ideal, in the left attacking channel it was clear we had no clue what we were doing, although this was where Norwich were weakest. It was, yet again laughable, Bell, Knight and Pring were all getting in each others way. Either all trying to overlap. Or all going inside. It was nonsense football.

My other in person experience was Cardiff at home, which was nothing short of shambolic. First half, we were compact defensively (good) offered nothing in the final third (bad). In the second half, it was much the same until Cardiff scored, it then felt like we threw on all the attackers we had, and it became so incoherent and disjointed it was laughable. E.g. Mebude was left isolated on the left wing partly because nobody would pass him the ball.

In between these two games our head coach has had plenty time on the grass with the lads. Hopefully to teach them his methods, behaviours and attacking patterns. I’ve seen nothing on the pitch to suggest we’re getting better.

I’d LOVE him to turn it around. Really I would. But I don’t think he’s able to.

5 hours ago, spudski said:

Of course he wants the best for our club...he's hardly going to want the opposite. 

Wanting the best for our Club doesn't mean he's the right man for the role of Technical Director.

We have an owner, JL and Gavin Marshall. None of em know **** all about managing or coaching a football team...so they will have to take all their info from BT. 

What experience does BT have at making the right decisions for the first team? Academy and loan progressions yes...but not the first team. He failed massively as a manager...and simply doesn't warrant his position to basically make and inform ( in his opinion ) what is best for our first team. He is the only one in that position to do so. 

Add that he is hopeless when speaking to the media and public, as is JL...then it's a poor appointment. 

Gavin Marshall as CFO is spread thinner by the year. He works on Bristol Sport, HPC, Woman's Rugby, Bristol Bears, both Academy's, Bristol City Holdings, Aston Gate Ltd and the Flyers...it's a crazy situation. 

The owner, JL, BT and the poor CFO.

It really is a crazy situation...backed up with a coach learning on the job and a bunch of analysts out of Uni.

It’s totally batshit @spudski. I’ve got a mate who is the CFO for a few companies. Not as many as Marshall - and he’s super intelligent and methodical, it simply doesn’t make sense to have one person managing all that at Bristol Sport. While at the same time not having any football people in the boardroom at all.

If we continue like this for any period of time, >18 months, we will be relegated. I’ve no doubt about it. And this omnishambles started in September with the departure of Alexander. I will be astounded if we’re not in a relegation battle in a years time. We might avoid it because there could be 3 absolutely dreadful teams below us that keep us out the mire.

And as for Tinnion. I don’t have real problem with him as a person. But, he’s also spread way too thin across all his areas of responsibility. Noting, that at the same time you can’t give away confidential information in a radio interview - for me that’s an instant sackable offence. It’s surely gross misconduct. Or have I totally misread the room there?

Aren’t we?

In the past year.

 -We’ve axed the CEO role and sacked the manager brought in to stabilise the club.

-Sacked all his back room team too.

-Employed a technical director with no qualifications for the job.

-Employed a young coach who isn’t willing to acknowledge that we don’t have the players to fit his style.

-Inso-doing we’ve created the least capable team to oversee the next building phase of the club.

-Also by doing the above introduced massive risk.

-Prioritised the U18 cup over the first team.

-Signed 2 players on loan, at vast expense, who have played between them about 150 minutes.

-Sold our best creative talent and not replaced him.

-Decided that a big number 9 target man would score more goals than Tommy Conway, who (checks notes), has been told to stand around the 18 yard area and wait for the ball to be delivered on a silver platter for him to smack in the net.

-Divulged live on radio Bristol, undisclosed transfer fees - thus tarnishing our reputation as a discreet transfer dealing club.

-Changed our playing style to one which doesn’t suit our players, not realised this, and are playing the dullest brand of football you could ever wish to see.

like I said. Normal club.

Well I listened to that with my brother in the car last night.

Somewhere between a car crash and a train wreck of an interview.

My opinion is that Tinnion is very clearly passionate about BCFC and wants us to do well.

But deary me he’s out of his depth.

He’s disclosed undisclosed transfer fees. Thrown Bajic under the bus as being unhappy and possibly wanting out. Told the fans that the U18 cup is more important than the first team. Said that some of the young players had their chance and didn’t take it. 

I don’t have anything against BT. But if we are a sane football club those comments make his position untenable.

5 hours ago, Jacki said:

I listened back again this morning and it was a worrying interview. He was  indiscreet and seemed angry throughout, and said things (the McKenna stuff and some academy information) that are simply not true. I thought the way he spoke about some of the 21s missing their chance was a hugely disrespectful way to speak publicly about people who don’t know what the future holds for them after 10 plus years in the academy system as well.

The transfer fee stuff also blew my mind. He couldn’t wait to divulge the information and it sounded like he was a doing it because his beans were going and he was out of control - he wanted to sound like his finger is on the pulse. It was bizarre.

He kept talking about how hard people are working and I don’t doubt it for a minute, but there is a difference between blind hard work and long hours and being effective, efficient and doing what’s needed. We’re clearly on the wrong side of that at present. 

Unlike many on here, I quite like Tinnion and have no axe to grind with him. He is clearly passionate and wants to do well. But as I’ve said before, his job is far too big for one person and he is just not suited to the ‘first team department’ part of his job. He just doesn’t have the communication skills, intelligence and gravitas required for it. It’s a real shame but we really have created an unholy mess for ourselves and shot ourselves in both feet. God know how it ends. 

Relegation is how it ends.

The only target I have is to get the idiots running the football side of this club out of it. And pronto.

I wonder if the death of football is:

“I only buy a season ticket now to meet my mates and for the social”

There are literally 5 million things to do that are far less torturous than shelling out ££££’s a season to socialise and watch that drivel.

The trend isn’t good is it. Since Manning’s appointment we have gotten worse.

The only player who he has improved is Mehmeti. And he wasn’t playing before, so that’s the lowest bar you’ll ever seen.

So, for an on the grass coach, who is focused on front foot attacking football, intelligent pressing, with good behaviours and balanced emotions it’s, quite frankly .

As others have said, I want him gone before he causes too much damage. 

Giving him time IMHO is a total fallacy. He’s shown he isn’t adaptable, cannot or will not change his style and doesn’t take any accountability for failure. 

We have an honest, hardworking squad. We are currently in an honest hardworking position in the league. We won’t go down - I can see us scrambling enough points together because some teams will have to go for it against us.

If you don’t have to go for it, all teams need to do is sit back, wait for us to gift them the ball, and score. I’ve never seen a more simple game plan. 

FWIW, I wanted it to work out. Of course I did. But it isn’t. And as I’ve mentioned multiple times before, it won’t work with Manning or any other coach/manager until Steve sorts out the football structure.

The only good thing about this match…is that it’s on Sunday….and we won’t lose on a Saturday!

18 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I might go to that. Not been to their academy stadium so be good. 

I used to watch the Man City first team train at the bottom of Platt Lane when I was in Manchester in the mid 90s.

how things have changed.

Manning is not the cause of the problems at Bristol City. He is one of the symptoms.

It’s actually completely laughable that we’re so poorly run on the footballing side. How Lansdown is a billionaire is beyond me. There’s literally no experience or expertise at the highest level of this football club. 

We have a board that knows nothing about football. A technical director who knows how to run an academy but little else. A recruitment team that’s woefully under-equipped.

In short - it’s a recipe for disaster. And guess what - it’s happening right now. 

I realise I forgot to answer the “whom” question.

I’ve got a three year old out of date blancmange in the fridge. 

2 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

I agree Tinnion out but you’re essentially making the argument Ian Gay made on FBC this morning - because the board are crap, then you don’t replace the manager.

Respectfully, that’s nonsense.

Liam has proven to be not the man. I’m not sure anyone could do be markedly worse now, and the vast majority are likely to be much better as they’ll play to the squads strengths and not a dogmatic ideology.

Losing Tinnion may take time. Losing Lansdown takes longer. But losing Manning has to happen soon.

Indeed it does. Lose against Swansea and they will need to act. Our post NP point performance per game has decreased by 22%. During a time of BETTER squad availability. 

Which makes Tinnion’s current role untenable at the same time.

It all points to; bad decision-making caused by poor governance.

We need; a proper CEO; two additions to the board who have FOOTBALL experience; a stable football management structure (I don’t mid what model, but pick one and stick with it)

Tinnion could still have a role in the academy.

In any other world, when you’re appointed to improve performance and things go backwards so quickly, you’re out on your ear. But not in Bristol City world. Sigh.