Ashton Fete

I had serious doubts when Nige called him out as our number 1 but the old and new coaching team see these lads day in day out and what a call it was as he’s just getting better and better

Credit where credit is due, I’ve been critical but right now happy to munch on some humble pie, signs things are all clicking into place 

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

FBC Pod - Lez - (paraphrased) Max was nothing special, the shots weren’t in the corner, were weak, or both. Lordy!

That was very odd, I just took it that he was trying to be intentionally provocative for whatever reason. 

Max has been outstanding recently and BBC sport and Sky Sports certainly are singing his praises today!

Hopefully he gets some minutes and surprises us all but when Cornick’s ahead of you in the pecking order then jeez he must be struggling 

It felt that he dropped the manager manual and played a formation and selection to get out the best of the players we have and all looked far more comfortable doing so

So credit for doing that but this for me is his biggest lesson to learn!

Much improved, moved the ball quicker and some great performances so taking it for what it was and see what happens next as we’ve been here before!

Other takeaways:

- Knight now needs to be played in the midfield alongside James for rest of the season (bar injury)

- if James wants to stay then let’s get the contract sorted

- Fully fit Twine could be a great signing 

- £4.95 for a pint of coke is a disgrace

I’ve not gone to a game in a long time where I’ve been so conflicted about what I actually want to happen

22 hours ago, Davefevs said:

@Fredford89 agree.  I wasn’t following City as closely as I do now, but GJ took us from a team that kept missing promotion from Lg1 to a team that was so, so close to getting to the PL.  He kept us in the top-10 after too.  He might’ve left a poor squad come his departure, but to question how good a manager he was for us is bonkers.  It makes no difference what he did elsewhere - although Yeovil was a pretty impressive achievement - for City he did better than anyone since Dicks.  So what if he lacked a few “attributes”, he got his team’s playing winning football.

Spot on. I couldn’t care less about his man management skills and whether Trundle liked him or not.

Trundle had his moments and the Palace game will live long in the memory but he wasn’t good enough for the Championship and couldn’t really consistently perform against better defenders that jumped on him and didn’t allow him time and space so L1 was his stage and he was brilliant at it. 

GJ got us to the closet we’ve been to the Premier league since I started watching us 27 years ago

We should have done better in the transfer window and put the foot down and I think we’d have gone up automatically. We didn’t and a play off final was a good return for a team just promoted. Ipswich have had an almost identical season so far to us.

Of course second place is the first loser but at least we got somewhere close to success.

So if some of the players didn’t like him then it’s no different to any manager in any organisation, some love and some hate.  Same with players not being liked or having the wrong attitude which Nige was so good at rooting out. I would imagine some of the players he got rid of don’t speak highly of him, that’s life. 

I think with the right signings Nige would have at least equaled play offs (I think promoted) that within 1-2 seasons and it’s why I’m so frustrated where we are now as a club.

Games like Palace seem a loooooooong way away right now so GJ for me did a great job. 

Just now, Superjack said:

Both, I think you will find.

Agreed and this is why the disconnect grows.

Whenever he is asked a beige question about dissatisfaction he replies along the lines of the players and him focus on what they need to do which just riles us up even more.

We’ll see through buzz word bingo corporate lines about fans but at least do that to show a tiny degree of engagement 

The press conferences, media team and communication is laughable. Zero self reflection or recognition of fan unrest

I can’t believe the club don’t know the dissatisfaction from some supporters so talk to us, engage and reflect the current position with some honesty

We all hope we win 4-0 tomorrow but regardless how he/club communicate with us is at best ignorant and at worst with utter disregard 

The club are either not supporting/advising him for press conferences or he/they just don’t care about fan engagement 

Get a voice over artist, edit out the word behaviours and that might just be listenable 

It’s a tough one with Weimann as I’m not sure id be offering him a new contract if he was staying, we saw the best of him but the 12 months prior to leaving he did a lot of running around and pointing but not much return (perhaps position played and role asked). Could never fault his effort and professionalism though. 

If he’s got a trigger in his contract and it was close and no intention to renew then both clubs benefit for different reasons as does he.  Clearly without the trigger you’d have kept him until end of the season. 

Think I’ve bored myself with that waffle to be fair. 

I think it’s game by game at the minute but you’re totally right. It’s a case of when not if.

Which then brings us to whose next…

Having Tinnion front and centre of the marketing is so cringeworthy bad a decision. 

Of all the ex City players thinking he should be on all the media sums up our comms strategy/team and his own arrogance. 

On a par with the pre season meet and greet the players at the ground.

Opening it up to all ST holders asking them to arrive at the same time through the same turnstile without having the common sense to ask people to ‘book’ so they could measure demand/stagger arrival times.

Whatever the ECB are paying Richard Gould we should beg him to come back and triple his wages!

The marketing, commercial, media and fan engagement has fallen apart since he left. 

Get a battering at home to Leicester, the atmosphere will be so toxic they’ll do it that evening. I say they, SL will direct JL but JL will say it’s his decision to look tough

Lose to both Leicester and Plymouth whether close games or not and they will as above

Season ticket sales, fans booing etc will force their hand

We’re not joking Nahki, you signed a 4 year contract not 2 

Yep!

Got a rebuild new stadium, top notch training ground, start hosting concerts, rugby team doing well and Nige getting the football structure on a solid platform after losing a lot of financial discipline….and then JL and BT let their arrogant and complacent thinking play out as if they knew better on a footballing and fan base perspective and look how quickly it’s all unravelled

All this tosh by BT when Manning was appointed “this is the new style we want all our coaches to play” is just pure arrogance 

You can achieve this fast time but it requires heavy initial investment to buy in the new players you think you need whilst trying to offload those you don’t think can so running a large wage bill

LM isn’t the right person but regardless to try and achieve a rebrand and batch it as if the players are already good enough and just need better coaching which is how for me it pretty much came across is naive and incompetent 

Throw in the inept media and communication strategies which if done right ‘may’ have a fighting chance of keeping fans onboard and it’s no wonder the situation we’re in footballing and fan base 

1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

It was a shame that the club lost Adam Baker in the media department - at the very least there should be a fan in there.

Winning "social media club of the year" or whatever it is is seen a real KPI for the club - JL is creative director of "Fever Pitch" which is a Bristol Sport media agency. I believe this means that JL will ultimatlely have sign-off on bigger projects like this.

Lots of very snazzy social media stuff, but I've always felt since Baker left the social media team often fail to read the room - and occasionally can be pretty rude to fans in doing so. In the same way the team's management/board misses having some experience and expertise - having a media agency without enough actual fans of the club is always going to cause issues. 

Agreed and the loss of Richard Gould has been massive.  We might get summer concerts lined up and probably midweek corporate events but as a club which fans are a key component (customers/financial) we’re just getting it badly wrong on the commercial front from kit suppliers to club shop to fan engagement opportunities big or small to how the media team communicate outwardly 

It can’t be not caring so it must be utter incompetence strategically and operationally 

Part of me wonders with our PR department that they’re so inept that they did this months ago and didn’t have the common sense or bothering to sense the mood and just tweak it to just have players/past greats.

Like the team photo in Feb/March. It’s just embarrassing. 

I think SL will listen to notable lack of renewals and if we get a battering by Leicester the toxic atmosphere that happens during the game and the players getting frustrated with each other. 

He’ll have seen and heard the booing in recent games and it’s becoming untenable so I think a bad home loss and he’ll act. 

7 minutes ago, Fuber said:

Speaks volumes about his treatment at City then.

My expectation would be to just not tweet. That he did so speaks enough.

100%. A very overt signal 

8 minutes ago, Dolman Block B said:

Spot on

The club/owners could be in for one big shock. 
 

All my mates ain’t renewing until there is change. 

I think it will be the only thing they’ll listen to or a thumping at home to Leicester and crowd reaction

I look at the players and I feel sorry for them. Have you noticed that no player does any post match media on the club channels when we lose anymore. The club clearly only want the corporate LM lines

I genuinely said to my mate (also ST holder) at the Swansea game that I wondered if there was a collective decision by large numbers of our ST holders to boycott the game to try and force JL to listen to the unrest.

Surely he needs to swallow his pride and admit that Manning just isn’t right or ready for the Championship yet and make a change 

4 points at a guess and being a bit bold with that..

WBA - 0

Leicester - 0

Plymouth - 3

Sunderland - 1

3 minutes ago, Ben1980 said:

Great post. It’s not rocket science - don’t get why he doesn’t at least try to connect with fans. 

Ta. It took about a minute by someone on the sofa with a heavy cold sneezing on average every 10 seconds

You’re right it’s not rocket science so I can’t fathom how he or the PR team don’t encourage or enforce this type of communication