mozo

I agree, and with the reaction of the fans, who can blame him?! I'd like to see us experiment a bit, but if he does and gets bad results the fan base will get toxic, so it's not worth it. Either way I expect a tough game. I think Blackburn are better than their league position, and just needed to shaken out of their slump. Manning tried Tommy and Nahki together against Leeds and lots of comments on the match day thread were saying 'finally he's figured it out'. Didn't go well

It comes from the results. And we weren't dropping points with glorious performances. We've been inconsitent and error-prone ever since LJ had his final wobble. Even before our injury crisis got ridiculous this season we were pretty up and down.

Can't argue with that. He's saying what we've been saying. I wonder who else I think of that has been bitching a lot since Manning has been in charge Silv....? I don't think it was particularly good a lot of the time, as the results show. There was a lot of direct football to put it politely. I think the belief tlwas that when he had better players, he would adapt to better performances. I used to get frustrated sometimes that we used to bomb forward on the break and play a terrible ball and then have to soak up pressure again. I'm not even criticising Nige here. I think both he and Manning have struggled to get it to click with this squad.

Yeah if we signed two high quality players (and let's imagine they both stay fit for 40 odd games), then sell Conway and replace him too, I still wouldn't be expecting promotion based on what we would have, but I'd definitely expect a notable improvement on this season, and that inevitably would mean we're in the playoff hunt.

That's totally understandable Dave and a fair pov. I would just say though that if Manning gets £4m to buy an attacker and £2.5m to buy a creative midfielder, for example, it would still be credit to LM if he got us close to top 6.

Well, Bell had a good start to the season and then lost his way, and got injured. Conway started injured, and never really found form. Wells has been getting limited minutes and has looked fine, but not lethal. Nige played a lone striker in a 4-3-3 and we often struggled to create many chances. Obviously, we can point to tactical bit and pieces; NP's break away football was often too head down and charge stuff and their brains didn't keep up with their feet a lot of the time. With Manning, I'm sure some would say he's not given players enough license to attack. For me, the main issue is that we've got young inconsistent players, and the likes of Bell and Mehmeti have the ability to do great things, but not week in week out.

Exactly. It's probably to so with a frosty relationship and Nigel's health. The board and Tinnion will be praying that Manning can pull it out the bag to save their blushes. And I think that's why some fans ate automatically hostile to Manning. [Note, I only said some, that not all Manning critics]. What would be amazing is for 2024-25 to finally be the season where we aren't absolutely flooded with injuries, so that we can see Manning have a go with his preferred players most weeks. That way we'll really see what he's got.

If you want to live in the real world, NP was sacked because the board didn't want to work with him and they saw an opportunity. Just saying.

I agree with you that Manning's big challenge is to make us more effective in attack, and ultimately scoring goals. He'll be defined by that to an extent. It's a long time issue.

Yeah Vyner had a couple of dodgy moments but was good otherwise. He even tried to press forward a bit more in the second half.

I don't think it would do any good for Manning to stand there and say, "Our boys were pathetic today. Pring looked like he was already on the beach, Twine's got no chance of a transfer, Jamo I'm going to call Lame-o from now on. You spend all week talking to them about 'shape' and they go out there and look as organised as a nursery nativity play. The worst bit is, on OTIB they'll all be blaming me, not these chancers that I have to choose from week in, week out!!" [Throws mic to the floor and storms off]

Agreed, Max and Jack Clarke were MotM contenders, and from our side, Vyner did well to man mark Jobe, Wells didn't see much ball but was tidy.... those were tye good performers!

In hindsight, I wish Knight-Lebel did play! Roberts was way off his best. Although, so was Pring... and Knight... and Twine... and Mehmeti...

I'm disappointed that we didn't make the most of our chances. James scuffed a shot from inside the box, Twine should have scored, Pring messed up a 4 on 3. City were definitely off it today, but actually could have won.

That's a spot on summary tbf!

It's alright lads, that's 10 points from our last 6 games.

Yawn

The tea leaves aren't being specific We've definitely struggled with Sunderland's effort and energy, which is frustrating. I'll gladly take a point though.

Sunderland commentators have been saying that both teams struggling with the conditions

Pring apologises to James for playing backwards when he had an easy square ball, and next thing you know we're under pressure.

Twine was rubbish. Cornick is gonna score the winner!!!!!!

It has been a much better second half, but Dack and Roberts are scary subs... WE'RE GOING TO WIN THIS!!

Good shout

We don't say this about Knight often but he looks tired. Williams coming on.

Pring again!