George Rs

At least nobody can say everyone at the club isn’t on the same wave length! 

A disjointed and defensive interview to match a disjointed and defensive performance on sunday.

Just now, Phileas Fogg said:

It’s a terrible answer because it answers neither of the questions 

To clarify, that isn’t the whole response. Only the first half including the 30 years but which WSM asked about. 

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

Did he actually say he thinks he's earned the right to be in the position he is in? Please tell me he didnt? 

 

His exact words: 

“A lot of fans are asking, quite possibly to your face, how much involvement you had in the appointment of LM and… is there as much pressure on you as him to succeed?” 

“I’ve been in this football club for 30 years, i’m a supporter of the club, i want the club to be successful and i’m working very very hard at it. I’ve earned the right to be where I am, I worked 12 years in the academy making it as successful as it’s ever been and i’m working as hard in the first team department to do the same. I work really close with the recruitment department who have been fantastic… I work to supplement and help the HC… I work the exact same with Liam as I did with Nigel” 

A response charged by emotion and probably shows his inexperience in a role as public as this but not as bad as some describe imo. 

The comments on TC signing a new deal followed by mentioning having 3 strikers for a coach who plays 1 next season was worse imo. As was the comments about Bajic and some of the U21s. 

1 minute ago, Alessandro said:

15 seconds in - "it's a squad that should be at the top end of the division" 

This interview's not aged well at all:  

"we're clear now in how we want to play and be, a front foot team. We want to be aggressive, we want to play forward, we've got pace in the team" 

"The next head coach has to develop this team into the way we want to play as a football club...it's going to be a long term thing for the football club" 

"You'll see a lot of young players coming through the academy into the team" 

"we've got a squad that's built to play the way we want to play" 

R.E ironic injury quotes - "you have to make sure players a trained a certain way to play the way we want to play...'we've' fall short a little bit on that" - "when they're ready we want them back fit and to stay fit" 

 

 

Well then, fair enough  

Didn’t watch that video, glad i didn’t based off those. 

16 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Me too.  We couldn’t replace Alex Scott, who looked on fire preseason, adding goals to his undoubted PL ability.

But we could add a bit of quality and increase depth…and actually get us to a 22 man fit squad.

For me, two signings of the ilk / profile of Knight or Dickie, would’ve been enough.  Didn’t have to spend much, maybe £3m (total not each) and £12k p.w wages each over 3/4 year contract, would’ve been £2m on this year’s budget.  They’d just brought in £20m and the summer signings probably used circa £4m of that, not forgetting the wage bill had lost Kalas, Massengo, Dasilva, Moore.

Would've added a bit of a rotation / rest option too.

But they bullshitted us.  I’m sure Alexander was fighting for his job on SOTC.  That wasn’t his words.

They set Nigel up to fail.  Unnecessary and unforgivable imho.

Would really love to hear what Phil Alexander has to say about the board/senior employees. Would be very revealing me thinks. 

Thought the same all season RE a couple of additions. For me, a couple £1-2m signings in the key areas we lost with championship experience could’ve made a huge difference. Only lost three games all season by more than a 1 goal margin. Some composure and championship know how could’ve changed quite a few results I feel. (There’s a reason our midfield looks best when matty james is playing in it!) 

And there were some top talents ooc in the summer as well, still feel if we went if for Ogbene sooner we could’ve got him in. 

Felt like such a good opportunity to push on with a manager that had galvanised virtually every stakeholder at the club. 

Feeling angry now even talking about it, like you said unnecessary and completely unforgivable!

20 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

The Lansdown’s tried to lie to us in October. We pressed them for reasons on Pearson’s dismissal and got what we wanted - a lie so glaring that we could throw it back at them. ‘Pearson was fired for underachieving with a top 6 squad’. We got them. Tonight was as good as a concession - he wasn’t fired for footballing reasons. 
 

For me - SL and JL are the root of the problem. But they don’t just run the show - they own it. There is very little we can do.

On Tinnion - he’s a club legend and his work with the academy has been outstanding. The technical director role… a rocky start. But I DO believe he loves the club, wants what’s best for it, and can (hopefully) turn it around. 

On Manning - he was offered a job to lead our great club. A massive promotion from Oxford United, let’s be honest. So he took it. He seems to me to be a football obsessive who will sink all his time and energy into trying to deliver what we all want. The lie the Lansdown’s told meant he was on a hiding to nothing. His start has had problems, but he’s clearly not going anywhere nor is he culpable for the nonsense of last October. I hope we can all come together a bit, the fans, the squad, Manning and his team and go into next season with a bit of renewed vigour. 
 

The owners effed up no end in October. But the squad and LM are here fighting for us now. 

Well put - and totally agree. 

Was always going to be an interview that received backlash no matter what Tinnion said. Personally I quite like that he was a bit defensive, he’s passionate about our football club. Not some corporate robot that doesn’t understand football the way we do. 

Also don’t think he meant don’t compare us to coventry they’ve sold two players for tens of millions. Think he meant comparing us to them this season is futile, whereas maybe we will be spending the money we got for our two players this summer so a better comparison can be made off the back of that. 

I could be very wrong so i apologise but i don’t think at any point Tinnion said we had a top 6 squad? The only person who said that was JL. Tinnion obviously has a better grasp on our current squad/championship in general and henceforth didn’t say that. 

10 points better off would give us a season average that would get us playoffs in 2/4 of the last championship seasons. So essentially he wants to be either in or right on the brink of play offs 37 games into next season? Think that’s a perfectly acceptable goal imo. 

The only things I thought were glaringly wrong with the interview were his comments on TC and Bajic. Maybe showing his inexperience in the role there, but talking about their future live on air probably not a brilliant idea. Saying we want to keep TC but have three strikers next year for a manager who plays one was just a silly thing to say. 

The root of our problems lie right at the top and they are infecting everything else on the way down. JL might still be passionate about the club but his father certainly isn’t. And quite frankly they’ve had their chances. 

Condensed opinions: 

Lansdowns - Out 

Tinnion - needs people with experience around him, experts at running a football operation, but still think he was better suited as academy director. 

Manning - Very unsure, off of what we have seen don’t think he is currently the man for the job, would need to finish the season with a better points tally then the last one for that opinion to change. 

They’ve nullified all of our threats without getting out of first gear. Manning well and truly out of his depth. 

Such an unneeded and unnecessary change which has sucked the life out of the club. 

looks a lot more empty then i expected, wouldn’t surprise me if this is our lowest league attendance of the season. 

Just finished both this interview and Tinnions, anyone else get a feeling there is a huge amount of arrogance between them? 

They sound like everything’s hunky dory, although we are outsiders we are at the edge of a relegation battle and will certainly be in one if we lose on sunday. Hearing them speak you would think we are challenging at the opposite end of the table. 

Have been defending him recently, so thanks Manning for making me look like a mug. “i can’t affect the game once it’s started” 

Are you taking this piss? 

What the **** are you doing then? 

Laughably stupid thing to say, gives me LJ flashbacks but at least his were somewhat amusing. 

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

He's had half a season almost. Other clubs have got rid of other managers for less time. 

This is directly comparable to the Rooney situation because both the decision to sack Pearson and then to hire Manning was completely wrong as Manning was never the right fit. It's just that our regression has been over a longer period of time. 

There isn't any big downsides to sacking Manning either. Can't think of one tbh. 

The squad lacks confidence as it is. I'd suggest that even putting King in charge on a temporary basis would give the squad that confidence boost. 

I'd rather take the alternative of getting rid than keeping him as based on what we've seen I have no confidence that things are going to improve. Lets not forget we've lost 4 in a row. 

Manning should not be in charge past the summer so there is no point in keeping him now and just blindly hoping he can turn it around. 

 

 

Why do you blindly think Andy King can do a better job though? 

That’s my point, whilst things have been undoubtedly poor as a whole under manning we have still picked up points. If we take his average we’d get 9 more points by the end of the season which would make us safe from relegation. And then reevaluate. 

Im not saying keep him indefinitely, just don’t think anyone can do a better job is such a short space of time. 

10 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The good at their best have been very decent, but the bad have been wretched.

Even some that haven't been so bad technically have been sleep inducing. Some okay too of course.

Negatives very much outweigh positives so far for me.

Yes that i do agree with. 

I just think that we are already to into Mannings tenure to get rid of him without serious consequences. It isn’t a Rooney situation for example where it was just a completely wrong decision but there wasn’t any big downsides with sacking him. 

Manning most likely won’t get sacked, and if he does i think we’d have to lose the next two before it happens. Where does that leave us? 8 games left with a confidence shot squad with a HC position to fill. I don’t know the free agent management market but who would take that position? And more importantly who would succeed? 

Maybe it would come back to bite me but i’d rather take my chances with Manning than the alternative unknown until the end of the season and then reevaluate. 

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

My thoughts are it's a big roll of the dice to keep him for the 10 games. Our immediate future is hanging on this. 

 

So what your saying is, our current appointment is so poor you don’t have faith in him to pick up 4 or so points from our last 10 which would probably see us safe. 

And your solution is to fire him and let the same people who hired the man you have so little faith in hire someone new who will have to waste time getting to know his best players, style he wants to play to come into a relatively toxic environment with only 10 games left? 

I think Manning could’ve worked with us if he was hired at the correct time in the correct way. I quite like him tbh but his tenure was tainted from the start with the cloud he arrived under. 

If Lansdown/Tinnion were no longer willing to fund Pearson to improve the team they should’ve gone their seperate ways then and there. Would’ve given Manning a full pre-season and potentially some of his own signings. 

Hiring him for his first championship stint mid season, after controversially sacking his predecessor and claiming our squad was “top 6” material was absolute lunacy imo. Put a significant and unnecessary amount of pressure on LMs shoulders, the blame will always lie on their shoulders for me. 

I think claiming Manning has shown “nothing“ so far is just false and incredibly unfair. Although they have been surrounded by poor results the performance against southampton was the most complete city performance i’ve seen in years. And whilst the cup is of secondary importance to the league his admirable performance their shouldn’t be discounted. 

Also can we please stop bringing up Pearson in every debate about LM? He’s gone and he won’t come back, comparing the two is completely pointless at this stage and serves no purpose but to deviate from the subject and divide people into petty arguments and “point-scoring”.

For now i’m Manning in but that view is precarious at best. 

What really annoys me is if we played like that against any of the last 3 we probably would’ve won them all, or at least got points. 

And it happens over and over. Why on earth can we only play better than average against the better teams? 

1 minute ago, marcofisher said:

2-1 up and makes no changes.

2-2 from a goal down our left, no changes.

Ipswich all over us and miss a penalty won down our left, no changes.

Ipswich score to go 3-2 and still no changes, no change of shape even with no subs, nothing at all. 

Manning is as much if not more responsible for the loss than the players. 

The only change that would’ve made a difference would’ve been Pring -> Roberts imo. Don’t think Mebude would’ve made any impact and King would’ve been ineffective with the speed of the game i think. 

He set up almost perfectly first half, got the first goal, then brought on the 2 subs that combined for our second. At some point it has to be on the players, i didn’t think it was for our last couple but tonight they had it in their grasp and let it slip away imo.

Dickie looked tired as well tonight, one of the downfalls of playing the exact same centre back pairing since november. Only change i would’ve made was bringing on roberts after we scored our second. 

trying to chase a game we look ******* clueless. To be fair to manning he isn’t wrong and he’s set up well today. Lack of leadership on the pitch, lack of composure as well. 

NAKHI FFS

Clearly missing the controlled, reliable presence of matty james in the middle at times. But besides a few stray passes a very disciplined and structured defensive performance first half. 
 

Thought both Harry and Anis did good to drive when they got the ball whilst tracking well to hold up Davies and Hutchinson. Still need someone with some composure in the final third to unlock something though! 

2 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Do you want to hear from an inspirational leader, second to only the likes of Mandela, Churchill and MLK?

Of course you do.

 

is it just me or has his hairline receded a foot and a half since he joined us? 

1 minute ago, EstoniaTallinnRed said:

That's probably why NP didn't want loan players, he knew they would get injured after a couple of games and then out for God knows how long.

Nigel ‘The Prophet’ Pearson. 

How Nakhi gets the nod i have no clue, we only looked half decent on the weekend when tommy came on! 

Getting ready for another 70 minutes of those constant stupid no need fouls he loves to commit. 

Would be wonderfully ironic that we sacked Pearson after the cardiff game to bring in a “young, attacking, front footed” manager who will take our “top 6 squad” to where it should be just for him to get sacked after the next cardiff game

Just to brighten everyone’s afternoons, stoke are winning against middlesborough and qpr are winning away at leicester. can quite easily see us fall into a relegation battle here.