Ron W

Sacking LJ was the right decision at the time with the run we had been on, the rhetoric from him about how we would fly out of the blocks and then what transpired at Blackburn. It wasn't solely based on that one game and the fact he has remained as streaky as ever since leaving us doesn't do anything to suggest we missed a trick. On the black-and-white scale he's probably as grey a manager as we've had. There were highs, real highs, but not GJ-esque enough to paper over the lows at either end of his stint. He wasn't a terrible manager for us by any means but neither was he anywhere near one of our best. But he managed to reach that mediocrity by having some of the best, and the worst, runs of recent times. He's a really curious case and that's been the same at Sunderland and Hibs, watching from a distance.

Geoff is one of those amazing quirks of local radio. Outside of Bristol (and Liverpool, obviously) not too many people will have heard of him, but inside our area he's a household name and could really have gone onto bigger things. That in itself creates bigger pressure - for sport on national stations, there's always an alternative. If you don't like Radio Five, listen to TalkSport (heaven forbid). In Bristol, it's really RB or nothing. So you have to be good or you'll know about it. And the fact City and Rovers are equally as sad to see him go even with his past allegiances says everything.

Sub-editors are a bit of a pipe dream these days at places like Reach, yeah. It's been obvious local papers should charge for content for years, but they've been too scared at the hit to ad revenues. It would have affected page views, but it was easily the least-worst option. Instead they've forced their journalism pool into a death by a thousand cuts instead, leaving them without any journalists, and no-one wanting to advertise anyway. Oh, and now they've started charging for content. The people running these groups are often internal hires who have come up through sales/advertising - make of that what you will.

I remember Jamie Mac getting absolute pelters on here.

Got quite publicly dropped from a position where he'd ruled the roost for years for a player we signed from Woking, and his career dipped so much he ended up playing for Rovers. Can understand him being unhappy about it, even though GJ quite clearly made the right call.

I'm not an SL apologist but if this is his legacy over Premier League football, it's not a bad one to have.

The fact he's rejected interview requests up until now to stay in the background seemed about as un-MA as could possibly be imaginable (especially as we've been playing quite well for much of that time).

Interesting line on still having a couple of "legacy players" from previous regimes, which didn't sound particularly complimentary. The first two that spring to mind are Han-Noah and Taylor Moore, but also possibly Tomas Kalas?

I hope Chappers gets it, he would be fantastic. As for white British men kicking up a stink when their TV channels aren't full of white British men - we all like what we know and feels familiar to us but at least try and accept that not everyone is going to see it like that, and that they're not wrong.

A phased introduction would ease some of the nerves I'd have over SL going. He's far from perfect and made plenty of mistakes over two decades but in the grand scheme of things the way he is allows us to take for granted having someone who will back the club to the hilt financially, always have its bests interest at heart and isn't about to unleash some skeletons from his closet. There's been enough examples of that not happening around the EFL/PL in recent years to be very clear that the grass isn't always greener.

In their defence, it doesn't show the 7,000 fans who got locked out. Always seems to happen to them.

I think he was too busy getting ready for the travel!

Sad to see Yabbo go with the rest - totally unique character. And Geoff is an absolute master of his art. Let me go and shadow him a couple of times as a young impressionable teenager and was always so generous with his time and expertise. Top man.

Great post. You don't score 11 in a season that finished 10 months ago and suddenly lose all talent.

Looking forward to this. Hope we take some good numbers... Nine points off them if we win. Never say never. COYR.

Jeez, far better teams than ours get mentally/physically burnt out at times. It happens. How have you avoided coming to terms with disappointment following City this long?

Yeah in the league, I think that’s 7 for us now on that front. Blades and Burnley were miles ahead but only one now.

After Sheff Utd lost last night, we’re now on the second-longest unbeaten run in the Championship. And if Watford could hold onto a late lead, it’d be the longest.

Well that's all people have to rely on in a lot of industries these days. I completely disagree that it's gone out the window, quite the opposite. You hear of old-school mentors, leading by example and showing you the ropes, that doesn't happen much any more, certainly not in journalism. The profession is much worse for it. Also - I'd be shocked if a manager of a club at this level replied personally to emails from journalists.

All fair comment but on this line, I sort of agree and don't, from experience of getting a clipped ear when starting out. Without watching our pressers regularly I don't know much about those two guys to say whether they'll get better or not, but when you are a trainee journo you really don't have a clue what you're doing. You can train for a lot of things but interviewing experienced managers isn't really one of them. You'd also hope the bar for Nigel snapping back at a fan would be quite a lot higher than for a journalist! For the amount of money junior reporters are on these days, you're not getting a huge number of Pat Murphys through the door.

Journalists are the butt of a lot of jokes and I get it, it's natural, everyone does, including other journalists. Some of the Qs towards the end of that press conference are pretty poor, as well. Especially coming straight after Rich Forrester (I think?) who always asks his questions with a bit of style, and you can tell Nigel has some time for him. Watching it at home on YouTube, it looks like a piece of piss. But it really isn't and never has been. And it's worse in 2023 when young journos have barely any guidance because of more senior cut-backs, are thrust straight in at the deep end in front of managers who have made the best feel like shit at times. My first real shot of manager interviews was on work experience questioning SOD, and Jesus that was a steep learning curve. Very glad there weren't cameras there to record him snapping back at me. This isn't to excuse what is sadly a dying industry at a local level, like I said some of the stuff Nigel and other managers are asked is bland or just not thought through. But I can also guarantee to the people who think they'd be just as confident with a mic in their hand, up against a seasoned manager like Nige, as they are on OTIB - in most cases, you really wouldn't.

Ah yes, true. But in terms of being a factor in the announcement being so late, the lack of football Martin's been getting recently that could've been announced any time.

You'd hope it hasn't taken until the final hour of the transfer window to move on Chris Martin just to free up his number!

Thought Nakhi was his normal busy self - but Blackburn weren’t often cut open so he did a lot of his good work further back.

There are people in plenty of professions stealing a wage too though Dave. Just head over to Westminster!