Capman

I see that the Liberal Democrat’s are putting getting more premier and championship football on free to air TV in their manifesto. While they are unlikely to win it is good to see politicians acknowledging the costs of football on supporters. Hopefully others will follow with dealing with the costs of tickets and TV viewing. 

3 hours ago, mozo said:

It's annoying that because of the board talking bollocks, we're all here bickering about the head coach.

Ultimately, Nige wasn't sacked because of performance or expectations. The problem was the working relationship and the perception of Nige as not what the club wanted long term. So we lose a few games and the board jump at the opportunity. 

Us all quibbling about marginal differences in pppg, xG and points from playoffs is really quite ridiculous.

Despite what the board said, the change wasn't about any of that.

We're fools for being dragged into their Narnia, when actually most City fans agree that the sacking was harsh, that it's not Manning's fault, that the board talk shit, that we all want success next season, and that Manning really needs to deliver season on season improvement from hereon in.

I agree with that. Problem is I don’t see Manning getting the chance to do that. If he has a good first half of the season the board will sell the good players in January, if he has a bad first half of the season, he gets fired. 
The problem is the board. I don’t see it getting better until Jon goes. He is the ultimate problem. He is not up to the job. 

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

Just think, had we of won the winnable games after Southampton - QPR, Sheffield Wed, Cardiff, Huddersfield and Stoke then we'd be +14 and secured ourselves a play off spot with 76 points and finishing 5th. It was in our own hands after all. 

To have dropped all those points against those teams is a huge failure. 

Precisely. But the question is really what we, as a club, have taken from those experiences which will help us in future years? For example what conclusions did the club take from the injury crisis earlier in the season and what that should mean for the size of the squad and the readiness of the youth structure to supply players for the first team? What did we take from our league performances around the cup run and what that should mean in terms of first team focus in years to come (personal view was we put too much emphasis on some cup games and that cost us league points). Looking back is interesting and informative but it is only useful if you actually take action to do something different. I would even look at individual mistakes by individual players and question what we might do differently. They did not mean to make mistakes so how can we help them make fewer. Had they played too many games, were the team instructions not clear. It is not about individual blame but about corporate learning. 

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

 

Expectations and targets can (should) be different things. Plus, as I said, my suspicion is that they have private targets and public spin.

Problem with public spin is that it feeds in to the consciousness of the organisation. What people say in public matters because it sets a tone. The players, their families, staff will all read the press. If they are subjected to meaningless nonsense like targeting ‘upper end’ they will draw conclusions. You would never hear Pep, Klopp or even people like Clive Woodward talk in those ways because they know these things matter. 

This whole thread exemplifies the thing that really mystifies me about BCFC and the Lansdown stewardship of it. That is the seemingly total lack of suitable well documented and articulated targets. The financial services industry is stuffed full of them. No self respecting fund manager does not know their target to the nearest pound. Every element is targeted. Costs, returns. It is not possible to move without someone putting a number to it to measure performance. Yet very little of that rigour seems to have been applied to the football club.
We have vague targets which no one seems to measure and even fewer people seem to understand. We have managers fired, but we, and they, don’t know why and a CEO who seemed to give up and leave because he could not work out what his job was. 
The whole club appears to have a level of professionalism which would not be acceptable in a local charity. Then they wonder why other similar sized clubs deliver outcomes of which we can only dream. 
It’s not complicated Steve, they do it because they have a plan. For them the objective is not about not upsetting Jon, it’s 100 percent about getting into the premier league. Until BCFC understands that, it will not happen. Change comes from the top. 
 

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Merits to both sides of the debate.

We can re-open when we hear the next set of ambiguous expectations ahead of next season!

It’s an interesting point Davefevs. In my experience when organisations do not set clear, concise and transparent objectives they tend not to deliver. I wonder if NASA would ever have got to the moon if the senior staff had spent years saying they wanted to perhaps get somewhere closer to the ‘top end’ of the atmosphere in the hope that if they did that for a while they might get to land somewhere on a rock close by. It might sound flippant but it’s the way I feel about the club. There is a complete lack of focus on delivery. They think if they make vague promises and make endless changes eventually something good will happen. It is the triumph of optimism over reality. 

3 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

 

As above, at kick off of the first match we cannot know precisely how many points we need to get to get 6th in a season. But we do know that in a normal season something in the low 70's gives you damn good chance of it. 

So if in each season we get a few points closer to that target, we are progressing, and are getting closer to where we need to be.

I'm not trying to argue that this season is a runaway success, or that we have progressed to a great degree, but it's wrong, in my opinion, to paint this season's on the pitch results (note. I emphasise that this is on the pitch and results) as a complete failure or regression.

There is a danger of us getting into a discussion which is just arguing for the sake of it. Because in many ways I don’t disagree with what you are saying. But my point is that our ‘target’ was not to achieve points, our target is to get promoted. You cannot even start to think of that until you get to 6th place. So you right to say we don’t know before a ball is kicked how many points are needed to get to 6th. But essentially I do not really care. We need to be at least the sixth best team in the league. I think of it like this, if we scraped 72 points got 6th and then fluked the playoffs and went up, I would consider that more of a successful season than if we got 90 points finished 3rd and then lost the playoff semi final. Would you not agree? 
I also don’t consider this season a massive step backwards. Had Pearson stayed I think we would have been in contention for the playoffs longer but we would have been very lucky to get promotion, the squad is not strong enough. My concern is that I think the club is much weaker now than it was 12 months ago. I had some confidence that a management structure which had delivered promotion out of the championship and the Scott money gave the club a good chance of promotion in the next couple of seasons. I have less faith in the current leadership  as it has delivered nothing but excuses and lies. 

4 hours ago, chinapig said:

Indeed, if you set no explicit target or set a vague one (like 'top end') you can claim success on your own terms, so you can't be easily held to account. They may regard this as clever thinking but it's easily seen through.

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

“Promotion” seems pretty clear, but even that can be taken apart.  It either means, 1st or 2nd, or 3rd to 6th, but winning the play-off final.  So is 3rd but losing out in semi’s or final, acceptable?

Or do they really mean top-6, ie in with a chance?

We don’t know!

Ditto the term “top end”.

Frustrating!

 

It’s more than that for me it’s dishonest. The establishment talk with forked tongue. When they want money from the supporters for season tickets and the rest it’s all about an inexorable rise to the holly land of the premier league. But when we fall short they resort to meaningless platitudes like ‘steady progress’ or ‘top end’. 

Getting out of the championship is one of the most difficult things to do in football. You don’t achieve difficult things by making excuses and backing away from difficult conversations. We have gone backwards this season. I accept sometimes you need to do that if you have made a wrong turn, but that does not seem to me to be what has happened. We went backwards because the terrible two were incapable of dealing with an experienced manager who spoke difficult truth to them. That does not bode well for the future. They need to consider if they really have the experience or skill to deliver for the club in the current structure. My view has been for some time that they do not. We have lost a manager and a chief executive who know how to win promotion and now have a leadership which has delivered nothing in football. Of course we may just get lucky and it might work, but if I were a betting man it is not a scenario which would appeal as a gamble. 

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Definitely think this is a valid argument.

Think there are numerous ways to measure “progress” too.

The fact that we are debating it, probably shows what a poor job the hierarchy have done in positing the expectations…and how they measure.

I absolutely agree with that, and the cynical part of me wonders if that is deliberate. Allowing ambiguity into targets is a great way to cover failure. If no one knows what you are aiming for how do they know if you have been successful or not? 
I am using the boards own judgement of what they believe they have supplied the manager. They claimed they were supplying a ‘top six squad’ so that is what I believe we should judge the club against. 
Fact is the club were significantly away from that so the board did not supply the squad they claimed they did, or the managers failed to utilise it properly (or some combination of the two). The reason I think that’s important is because without being honest about that I have no idea how we can target 6th place next season. 

2 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

But the points target isn't the same every season, so using a moving target to determine whether or not we have improved each season is flawed.

You and @Capman are conflating single-season success with ongoing improvement of our squad and performance. Your defining our own improvement relative to ourselves by performance relative to outside parties who we cannot control. Potentially, using your method, we can say that we have never improved. It's deeply flawed.

Just to be clear, the target of getting into the play offs is not a ‘moving target’. It is fixed, it is getting into the top 6. Therefore the number of points off 6th place is also not a ‘moving target’. It is also fixed.

If next season there are 10 dreadful teams in the league who everyone beats twice we could easily end up with more points but again be further away from the play offs. I doubt many would see that as ‘success’. So to argue points gained is not a moving target could also be seen as flawed. It changes with the standard of the league. 
In the end my view is that you have to measure outcomes against your target. The club said it was targeting promotion. Therefore for me the only legitimate matrix is how far we were away from getting that target. That does not make my view right and everyone else wrong, but it is certainly not an invalid view. It is a perfectly reasonable and logical position to take. 

3 hours ago, mozo said:

I think this logic is totally wrong.

If we keep increasing our points total as we have done, we'll keep getting closer to the playoffs (the points totals of our rivals for 6th will fluctuate season on season). 

How many points the current team in 6th from top or 3rd from bottom, is out of our control, so it's ridiculous judging our performance in comparison to them. 

How anyone cannot see us finishing 11th best team in the league and 62 points as an improvement is baffling.

This isn't me supporting Tinnion's embarrassing Twitter usage, but we HAVE improved incrementally this season.

I am sorry but I just think that logic is fundamentally flawed. If your objective is to reach the play offs as a minimum then the number of points you are off 6th is the only matrix by which success can be judged. The whole point of a league is that it is a comparison process. So if we are not the 6th best side in the league or better the season is a failure. Judging our performance against where we needed to be to hit that objective is the only figure which interests me. 
I understand that means we could end up with more points and a higher league position but still be seen as ‘going backwards’ but that is the reality of life. 
We start the season aiming for promotion. How far we are from hitting that target is my judgement of success. 

27 minutes ago, Kingston_Red said:

Not a bot - his football was crap and he deflected in press conferences, much happier with Manning. That’s my opinion.

And I wonder where you will be come Christmas? Not posting here taking responsibility for that opinion no doubt. The club and the antics of its apologists have become very tedious. 

Agree it’s good to see the back of this season. I hope to be proved wrong but I expect next season to be worse. We have a less experienced management team and I expect them to squander the Scott money in the summer and then, come Christmas, to be pointing fingers at each other about who is ‘responsible’. It is classic, no ambition, no strategy, no plan Bristol City. Now go on Jon and Brian, prove me wrong. I know who I will hold responsible if we are not top six at Christmas. The Ashton Gate two. 

The benchmark for me is simple. We should expect that the club will be top 6 consistently through the whole of next season and finish in the playoffs or better. That is what I would have expected under the previous regime and the board made changes to improve. 
Pearson and Gould spent three years clearing the decks and generating some funds for a promotion push and that is the position the club has inherited. 
Any suggestion that ‘top half’ next season is good enough is simply, for me, not good enough. Personally I would rather that the club had decided to have an experienced manager and CEO who both knew how to get promotion in charge but they have made their bed. That does not change the realistic expectations the supporters should have. 

13 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Ok. I strongly disagree.

What if we finish on more points, but the gap to relegation is smaller? Hell what of the gap to bother promotion and relegation is smaller? Are either of those signs of progression?

Just like the discussion some of us had about form, I don't think it's right to measure progress against an arbitrary and moveable level achieved by another team.

I guess it depends on your objective. For me the club’s objective should be to get into the playoffs (at least). So points from the playoffs is not arbitrary. It is a very specific measure of how far short the club fell from its objective. As for the ‘moveable level achieved by another team’ surely that is exactly what a league is designed to measure.  Clubs will get better as training and fitness improves. If a team wants to get promotion it needs to improve faster than other teams. 
It reminds me of the age old debate about GCSE results. Does the fact that teaching gets better and pupils are better prepared mean the steady upward creep of grades is right? Or should the required attainment move to keep the bell curve the same. When there are two automatic places and four in the play offs it’s just a fact that in football the bell curve moves. 
So I don’t know what the right answer is, but that is because I think the club needs to be more specific about its objective. Once you know what your target is, I would only measure how far over or under it you are. 
 

It’s the relentless predictability of it that really gets to me. 
For the first time in years we should actually have some money to spend this summer. But I wonder if anyone can tell me who they would want to oversea spending it, a manager and CEO who have both gained promotion to the premier league doing those roles or a nice bloke who has never coached at this level and a great guy who once scored against Liverpool in the cup?

If you ran any sensible business like this you would expect to go bust. Of course as a supporter I really hope that they are successful but the sensible part of my brain says we have set ourselves up to fail once again. Let’s put it like this, I might have been tempted to put a few quid on those who have done it before, to do it again. This lot, I will keep my cash in my pocket. 

47 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think the MO will be get results!

Probably and if I am honest I don’t know enough to say if that is right or wrong. The point here though is that the club says it wants premier league football. That should be first, second and third priority. In relation to delivering that objective these matches mean nothing and need to be used to plan the route to deliver promotion in 2025. If winning games and building confidence is the clubs view of how to deliver that then that is what they should aim to do. But actually I might judge the success of these games at the end of September. If we are playing well with a joined up team then we have used the time well. If we look like the players have never seen each other before I will be questioning our processes. 

So the question for the manager should swiftly be moving to, how do I use the remaining games to make sure I am as ready as possible for the first game of the 2024/25 season? Should I be giving youngsters who I may need next season some game time, should I be playing loan players, unless they will become permanent, should I be playing players who will not be with us next season. It should be a good position for any manager to have, it will be interesting to see how (or if) the City establishment takes advantage of it. 

9 hours ago, Topper 123 said:

These moaners , the anti manning mob need to take a look at Luton manager rob Edwards who was manager at FGR then went to Watford they SACKED him after 4 months he then made them look silly by taking a less fancied team to the PREM -LUTON TOWN 

Personally I would be delighted if Manning took City into the premier league. I just don’t plan to spend months ‘believing’ against all the available evidence. Being realistic does not make me a ‘moaner’, just a realist. Getting out of the championship is one of the most difficult footballing jobs there is. Expecting an inexperienced manager with a very lightweight establishment to do it seems to me to be a triumph of optimism over reality. Personally I don’t really blame Manning, he has been set up to fail. 

9 hours ago, Topper 123 said:

And these will be players he wants not inherited 

But he inherited a top 6 squad which just needed to be well coached. Seems to me that the ‘players he wants’ line is just an excuse for a mid table ‘rebuild’ season in which we probably squander the Scott money because we do not have the experience to build a squad capable of promotion. Any sensible evidence to the contrary? 

18 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Changed nothing for me. I don't appreciate being lied to continuously by people I do business with.

2 matches mean nothing. The football has been poor to watch since Manning took over.

I will reasses in the autumn when half season tickets are announced.

That is the key for me too. Dishonesty is a real turn off and I don’t do business with those I don’t trust. The problem is that once a culture is bad it takes real action to change it. 
unfortunately I have no confidence in the board to make sound footballing decisions. Even if Manning makes a fantastic start to next season they will probably react by selling our best performing players at Christmas and then blame the manager as we once again fall short. 
The club has proved time and time again to lack the ambition to progress. It’s a great shame, but that’s the way I see it. 

5 hours ago, Damon lewis said:

So when you have sacked manning and the board, what is the next move?

I must admit I do consider it hugely rude to refuse to answer questions, but insist on asking more. I asked a perfectly simple question which you have blanked, presumably because to answer it undermines your entire argument. But instead have demanded I give answers to you. It is typical of the contempt those in power at the club show for its supporters. 

1 hour ago, Damon lewis said:

New to this site. Don’t go to many games now but have been to many over nearly 50 years. Would love to see city in the top division again but it has to be done without risking the existence of the club. Steve lansdown has given the club a sound footing but why should he spend all his money chasing the premier league. As I say I’m new here, see a lot of negativity to Bristol sport. Why is that?

So when the board said we had a top 6 squad which was underperforming do you think they were telling the truth? If so, why is Manning failing? If they were lying then I would say the club really is rotten to the core, if the directors lie to supporters to cover the real reasons for their decisions. Which is it? 

32 minutes ago, Scrumpylegs said:

What the hell is going on with this forum lately? Some of the replies to this poster are bang out of order. This is not the only thread that I’ve seen this stuff on now and I think some people need to get a grip and chill out a bit! I’ve been on this forum for years and we’ve had some big old debates over the years but always without the ‘nastiness’. And before anyone asks, I don’t, and never have, worked for Bristol Sport.

My position is pretty simple scrumpy, I detest being lied to. Once you discover an organisation is institutionally dishonest it’s difficult to have any respect for it. 
When the board came out and said they had fired Pearson because we had a top 6 squad underperforming under him and they had a plan which would replace him with someone who would correct that I lost all faith in them. Any supporter could surely see that was not true?
I respect people who feel differently, that’s up to them, but I no longer believe what the club says, I no longer trust them not to seek to manipulate supporters in a dishonest way and, most importantly, I think it is hugely unlikely that they have the skill and capability to get the club into the premier league without significant changes in personnel and culture. If that comes across as robust I’m sorry, but it’s the way I feel and I don’t see any reason to hide it. 

1 hour ago, Fredford89 said:

Let the Pearson Obsession die if anything think he’s laid down the foundations as he did when he last left Leicester

Twine was the big January signing he starts we beat Leicester get off Pearsons parsnip and give Manning a chance 

It’s the board which seems fickle to be honest Fred. They are unable to take criticism, and at the first sign of descent have to fire everyone and employ more yes people. 
They keep creating new profiles as well. Surprising that isn’t it. Maybe we need a ‘top 6’ senior team. Can you tell them they are not up to the job for us?

1 hour ago, Curr Avon said:

Despite supposedly losing the dressing room, being out of his depth, and boring I'd say our manager deserves a lot of credit for today's excellent victory against Premier League bound Leicester.

Although I expect several of you to disagree.

 

It actually leaves me more frustrated than before. This squad has constantly proved itself against good teams. But it has consistently not been set up right (under Manning) to beat lower level opposition. Who exactly do you consider is responsible for that?
My personal view remains the same, Pearson was fired because the he challenged the board in a way they didn’t like and they were were worried he was going to guide this squad into the playoffs and that would have made it difficult to sack him.

Manning has never been the issue personally for me, it is the people above him. having said that I think the chances Manning will ever be good enough to guide City to promotion are very low. He has so far looked wooden and lacking in the flair required.