Boring Sag

Truly curious what a lot of you think. Martin has now scored 15 in 20 starts (25 games played), a goal every 120 minutes. Meanwhile Clarke-Harris has only 6 goals in 14 starts (24 games played for Peterborough). Do people think that Rovers' huge oopsie moment at the end of the August window might have ended up being very favourable (Martin outperforming JCH and signing for free, wouldn't have happened if JCH had signed and saved iirc £750k), or do you think that it's a lot more complex than that (Martin performing well now but overall play iffy, 35 years old so we might rely on him next season and he might not perform, JCH's poor performances hugely impacted by having to stay and big confidence shot etc.)

20 year old homegrown lad from Bristol drops two great performances in goal, is that really “celebrating having a goalkeeper today who is their own player”?

5 limit in match day squad. We have 6 loans. Max you can have is 8, 4 from one club. We had 5 earlier in the season but the two midfielders went back to respective clubs, one of which has now gone to Exeter on loan. We now have a goalkeeper, two CBs, two midfielders and a LB/LW on loan. Main difference is we now have an extra CB on loan

This is insane, as is the photo. If it is the same person it’s odd because I’m sure he got criticism before, so is he doing this to own the lefties if so?

Why so cranky? No Christmas spirit?

Oh for sure, hell, we looked fairly good the first couple games under Tisdale! I don't think that this is any indication we're going to be in the playoff-race or anything, I mean maybe if we'd have beaten Blackpool away I'd be buying into the hype more.

You don't think that if in the next 3 games City played and beat both Leicester and Ipswich the fans' reaction would be "eh, whatever, who cares?" Of course it wouldn't. It's not a trophy but it's a relatively good achievement for us. As for the 2012-13 season, I do think it matters that Rovers aren't dead-last. Shock horror but I don't believe Rovers fans should be equally happy with beating the top two teams in the league once if that was the only two wins of the entire season and we finished on 6 points. Again I didn't say we were in for a promotion charge, but I don't think it's ridiculous Rovers fans are getting their hopes up given that we seem to have demonstrated we're able to beat the best teams in this league. Frankly, we're too inconsistent to go up. Also it's not a boast, we can look objectively and say if X team did Y thing for the first time in a long time and Y is a good thing than that's fairly impressive. I don't care to boast, I was just replying to people who were saying it wasn't impressive or noteworthy at all I don't judge City and Rovers by the same standard. Nor should you.

Hey listen I comment in here when I read something I disagree with. When we lose we get made fun of and I agree with all that is said! So I tend to reply when we've done something fairly well and it's downplayed or we're told we're completely unreasonable to be happy in any way. As for trophies, it's not like either of us are stacked in that category, minus the Pizza cup. 3 points are 3 points but I don't think it's unreasonable for Rovers to beat the top 2 teams at Christmas in a relatively short-time period and be happy about it. As for Bristol City, some people feel this way; and a lot of you seem to. The reason why I said Championship and not League 1, which would be an equivalent achievement; is that I don't think City and Rovers are on the same level in basically any department. So why would I judge them by the same standards? Should Bournemouth and Newcastle fans have been equally happy to be promoted to the Premier League? Is that an equally impressive achievement? No, of course not. As for the league table, I said nothing of the league table except the fact I said I don't think we'll make playoffs.

And that is impressive, although that is almost 47 years ago, so it's not the same as a relatively successful feat from a week ago.

In the last 4 games Rovers have won 3 times, two of which were against the top 2. I'm not going to be the one to overhype us, I think we'll finish somewhere in the 8th-12th range, but here's a question. If winning a league game each against the top 2 (let's presume Portsmouth and Bolton finish top 2 for now, but right now it's comparative) isn't particularly noteworthy, when was the last time City did it in the Championship (hint: or equivalent before...)

Yeah that’s a weird one. Failed at Middlesbrough and Watford after gets sacked there and gets the same job? Weird appointment. Reminds me of when Dean Smith failed at Norwich then got the Leicester job for some reason. Saw he did an interview with Piers Morgan, but I couldn’t actually tell from the clips where they actually disagreed? They seemed to both be making anti-women commentator nonsense points

Yeah I generally agree. I like certain managers in the lower leagues so when they get better jobs I'm quite happy about it. I liked Ian Evatt when he was at Barrow for instance, and was a long-time fan of Chris Wilder, but he's gone off the deep end it seems. I also liked Russell Martin, and for everything I've said about Manning, he did significantly outperform Martin at MK Dons in his first season.

I’d rather be a bit boring than be so angry and upset about a person on the internet that I insult them unprovoked because they like a different set of 11 men in shorts chasing around a ball with their feet and disagree with them on their opinions, though I guess with no justification as to why :laugh:

I don't know whether you are purposefully or unintentionally misrepresenting me, but I'll presume the latter. I never said I could be proved right. I said the statements I made can neither be proven right nor wrong. Because I'm not talking about how they WILL end up, I'm talking about their CVs. It's not something you can prove wrong by Manning do well. For instance, who looks like the more promising player; Endrick or Alex Scott? The answer to me is definitely Endrick. Now, imagine Endrick in a game tomorrow has a career-ending injury, he never plays football again. Does that mean I was wrong? No, promise doesn't always lead to actualised potential, Ravel Morrison demonstrated that. But Endrick would have still been the more promising player. Similar here, Manning could be the next Howe, I'm purely making statements about their CV. You can disagree with me critiquing Manning's CV, but Manning doing well wouldn't mean I was wrong. Just like Manning doing badly wouldn't prove me right.

You've highlighted the first part, where I'm talking about Manning, and the second part, where I'm referring to Robinson. I didn't say Rovers could have got Manning.

If Barton had gotten sacked last January, before Manning took the Oxford job, Manning could've very easily been Rovers manager. Manning of course has high value cus he did a decent job at Oxford, whereas Taylor's just gotten sacked. But I don't think there is a difference really between the two based on their CVs. Which has nothing to do really with whether X manager would join Y team.

Is he regarded as one of the best young coaches in England? By what metric? I'm not trying to be snarky I'm genuinely asking because idk if he'd make my top 10. Oxford were clearly underperforming pretty massively, probably down to lethargy due to Robinson being there for so long, it happens. I imagine most managers would have kept them up. And yes MK Dons still got relegated, but I don't think that really means anything it could just be that they hired a worse manager than Manning. It's always struck me as silly when a team, I'll give an example, Ole at United, people pointed to the previous bad performances of managers performing as a justification for structural issues. And whilst those structural issues did exist for sure, it's also possible to replace a bad manager with another bad manager, and keeping a bad manager just because you have those structural issues I don't think will solve anything. As for Edwards I think look if he'd absolutely shit the bed at Watford then maybe but he was like 9th. Really not that poor of a performance, so a team like Luton that seemed to be wanting to take a chance on a young manager with potential who in all honesty had been treated poorly by his last club before being sacked even when not underperforming (reminds me of all the times Darren Moore got sacked), seems like a gamble worth taking. Sometimes those don't pay off, Nathan Jones is a weird one for instance he seems to be a good manager, but only for Luton :laugh:. Garner another one I remember when we got him there were a number of coaches and players talking about how much promise he had, he was awful! Sometimes you get Rob Edwards and Michael Beales other times you get Ben Garners and Frank Lampards. To be clear I don't think I'll be proven wrong if Manning does amazingly, we're just talking about CVs here. I imagine with the young players he'll do okay, seems to have a good style too.

"Most of his key players" They sold two players. If you make your own team that reliant on two players that without those two players you go from third to relegation, then to me that's a sign of poor management and not an excuse. In addition, it's not like he was playing with 9 players. They signed replacements. No they didn't splash the cash but Twine wasn't a big buy anyway.

Rob Edwards took over a Forest Green team and in his first and only season there won the league with them. Comfortably too (the points toll doesn't indicate it but they went on a fairly poor run after promotion was secured). He then went to Watford where, let's be honest; it's Watford. Being sacked there is so shockingly common that it borders on cliche and I wonder why managers would even go there. Luton seemed like a sensible move. To be clear one of Manning's distinguished points from Edwards is precisely the fact he was sacked by MK Dons. He has a pretty big blip on his record. If his first and only season he finished 2nd with Oxford he should be rated highly. And the most shocking thing about it for me is Pearson was gotten rid of for him!

It's not dishonest at all, especially given that was his 5th season at the club. Where every season he finished above where he picked the club up from. They had a poor season for sure, Manning's job at MK Dons is arguably worse because he picked them up at a higher point, and got sacked at a lower point. Manning's job at Oxford and Taylor's job at Exeter respectively are very similar for their respective levels. The only difference is that Manning never actually achieved anything because he left less than a third into the league season. And frankly, he was extremely backed at Oxford. Taylor got Exeter back in League 1 for the first time in 10 years and left Exeter in 11th, which just to be clear would've been Exeter's second-highest finish ever. He shouldn't get full credit for that like Manning shouldn't at Oxford though, to be clear.

Robinson took over Oxford when they were in 16th place. He then finished 12th, 4th, 6th, and 8th. So Oxford being in 2nd place only a third into the season wasn't unparalleled territory. Manning probably did a better job than Robinson but given where he picked them up from, it's not that much better.

I'm going to be real, Taylor has some blips on his record. But Manning took over a team that was in 13th place, got them to 3rd, and then the following season left them in the relegation zone. He then took over an underperforming Oxford and was doing a little bit better than Robinson had done, someone who it seems Rovers could have gotten if they'd wanted but opted for Taylor, and left them doing well less than a third of the way into the season. I have no idea how you could possibly look at their CVs and think it highlights some huge difference in quality. Frankly, yes it's better than when you guys were 1-3 odds for Lampard, but realistically Manning's gotten a way better job than I think he deserves based on the very-limited CV.

Apparently it's Matt Taylor. What are people's thoughts?

Seems a bit odd. A manager who gets promotion from League 2, moves clubs gets promoted to Championship and then gets sacked when that club is 22nd wouldn't be a completely unrealistic option for a club in 10th in League 1 looking for playoffs.

Link to whoever said this?