Ron W

I've got a ticket in the upper tier and two in the lower tier for my housemates... So I've got a problem. If anyone's got two upper-tier tickets they'd like to swap, or one lower-tier, please give me a shout. Clear as mud.

Tonight was a test of character and we came through it, just. The mood change is tangible - now it feels like Stoke was a blip and 15 points really should've been 18. Had we lost tonight as we easily could've done, that's three defeats on the spin and a real bottom-half feel to things. Agree above on the defence looking solid but the attack needing a bit more. Perfect time for Conway to return. Get anything at Leeds on Saturday and we can be optimistic. It should be a bit of a free hit with the squad they've got, I think at the end of the next six up to QPR on November 11 we'll have a real idea of how this season is going to pan out.

Agree but often easier said than done, to defend SL on this when you mention what league we're in. There are plenty of examples of clubs at this level and above who don't.

The same irritations Hibs fans mention, especially the Brentisms, easily come to mind at the forefront of memories of LJ's tenure here and do cloud some of the better moments. Even accounting for the amount of money spent at times there were some good times, and as others have said he's been a mixed bag at pretty much every club he was at aside from Oldham (good) and Hibs (bad). I feel like he's always going to be like that, because the trends across his management career are pretty consistent. The buzzwords have been there since day one and there's an interesting video on the Coach's Voice website where LJ runs through some of his video coaching sessions, and it's absolutely full of them. The analysis he does clearly very thought-out and intricate, but you don't need to be a pro footballer to see how easily anyone would be blinded by the science and turned off by it. The other thing is his reaction under pressure, which seems to underpin the streaks he's gone on. We saw it at City that he'd fumble around in the dark when results began to turn, and rip everything up and start from scratch, really undermining his own philosophies in the process. Hearing what others have said from Hibs fans it sounds like nothing has changed on that front, and he can't expect to find more consistency in his teams' results before it does.

Wouldn't disagree with that, but would also say Preston aren't a team you'd choose to play first game of the season. No disrespect to them, they're good at what they do but I don't think their style takes as much time to get up and running as many other teams.

Yeah agreed. But that's not on Pearson's head.

Not denying today sounded bad - but if we're currently playing like a mid-table team, is that not about what you'd expect after you take one of the league's best midfielders and our best striker out of this squad?

Early season probably plays more into a team like Preston’s hands than one trying to play. Being organised and physical is a perfectly valid and valuable resource but if either side were going to need to find their feet today, it was City. It is a bit disappointing it was very different to pre-season but friendlies are friendlies for a reason. Long way to go yet, plenty of time to find our rhythm.

That’s not saying much!

Was he not falling/sliding at the time? Always tough with them. Only caught one look from distance on a stream, mind you.

Not a big believer in miracles but might change that if we keep a clean sheet here. Fair play Rovers, nearly as many as we took for a friendly.

Poor marking but would've been a heck of a goal if it went in, was behind him and on the volley.

It's depressing. Spurs are the perpetrators in this case but money talks - look at all the players being sold to Saudi Arabia. In Tottenham's position could we confidently say City would be any different?

That's really good news if it's another positive attacking performance from him. His distribution was really impressive against Oxford. Doing some prep for the games on Saturday, it was quite eye-opening (for someone who doesn't get to see that much of City) to see Jay DaSilva's attacking output last season. I know he wasn't really flavour of the month with NP but it did seem like a lot of chance creation to lose, so if Roberts continues like this then great. I think Pring will get the nod against Preston because there's no reason to drop him, and he's got the No 3 shirt. But would not be surprised at all to see Roberts get a run and take his chance when he does.

That is right. Easier said than done to get it right though!

I think John Motson wouldn’t be too impressed! Trying to catch up with Newport’s squad numbers for my notes is not the easiest… Good performance though so far - Bell, Wells and Araoye looking good and some bright moments from Williams too imo.

Gotta say, I'm with OP, and hear me out. This is nearly as worrying as when we played the Botswana National Team, Weston-super-Mare and Cheltenham in 2014.

That's a little bit patronising to someone with a different view than you Dave... Frank Lampard put out an interview literally yesterday where he said his primary objective when he went back to Chelsea, and something he admitted he failed in, was to get results. Flint is one example, but it could be one of a few - JET aside it's not like many of that team were looking up to much before SC came in. If he has played a major part in the direction the academy has taken leading to what we're seeing now, then great and he deserves the credit for doing that. But suggesting his spell as head coach was anything other than a failure would be something a tabloid journalist would struggle to spin.

Sorry, too early on a Friday. If he did instigate the change then yeah, he should definitely take some credit for the shape the academy's in now.

@Petehinton I can't find anything online from SO'D talking about the academy but if that's true, good on him. From the majority of roles he's held since leaving us you'd think both he and the clubs employing him think an academy role is far more suited to him, but equally when you're being paid as a first-team head coach, that doesn't make up for the results (and football) he served up.

We have been harsh on some managers in recent history, especially LJ who did have some good times to go alongside the bad, but there's not much about SOD's tenure to make him one of them, imo. Putting it simply, he was paid to get results. Let's not forget, he still had almost half a season in the Champ to save us. We got two points from our final nine games and he didn't win a single away match. In League One we weren't doing a great deal better. Yes there's a lot under the surface which can go unnoticed, and yes some of the players he played did go on to have success later on. How much credit should he take for Flint's progression? He looked like a rabbit in the headlights when he arrived and SOD's style of coaching probably never suited him. SC came in, put him in the middle of a three where he had to win it, head it and kick it and let others bring the ball out from the back. He looked 10x the player. He has to take full credit for JET's performances because he was really let off the leash and was superb, but that kind of summed up where it went wrong. SOD always said he wanted his players to make their own decisions but that only works in the right environment with the right players, and was letting JET's mercurial talent shine worth it for a lot of underperforming, confused team-mates? The academy is difficult to quantify - this may be unfair if he did make a significant push for its progression but it would've required the buy-in of the top brass anyway, so do we really know who was the catalyst behind it? If someone is ITK or something has been said publicly then fair enough.

Joseph Brown isn't even a real account... https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/this-joseph-brown-journalist.1588245/

This is a viewpoint you hear a lot but is pretty lazy because it’s so clearly not true - Ronny Delia and Neil Lennon at Celtic, Gio VB and Pedro Caixhinha at Rangers both left under a cloud in recent years and these are clubs who don’t often change manager. Yes there’s an elevated chance of winning the league but you’re up against a rival in the same position year on year. And Postecoglou didn’t just do that, they won the domestic treble which is still a solid achievement even with Rangers’ up and down season.

Right, I get what you mean - but still think we should judge him from a footballing perspective personally… The pandemic was a factor outside his or BCFC’s control so did he deserve more time because of that? If we hadn’t made a real mess of appointing his replacement, surely we wouldn’t be having this debate either. So was that not the issue rather than whether or not we kept LJ?

It's near enough a fact that he worked - look at where the club was before and where it's gone since compared to what he achieved consistently. The rebuild he had pleaded for included Davinson Sanchez, Giovani Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele... Two of them have left, the other one is so bad he got substituted on and off within 23 minutes in the same game last season. You won't find many reasonable Spurs fans who think he didn't work, they know whose fault it was that things fell apart. I think Spurs may have ended up with a better manager than they would've gone for otherwise because their hands have been forced by the state they're in. Postecoglou was a laughing stock when he was appointed Celtic manager... Look what their fans are saying now. Yes, there's recency bias involved but he's thought of higher than Brendan Rodgers who led them to an unbeaten domestic season. He's been dealt a tough hand working with that mess but he's got the ability to succeed.