mozo
-
Posts
15161 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Events
Posts posted by mozo
-
-
17 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:
manning can still deliver this season. when he took over,we were projected to finish on 64 pts. if he could get that then id say results wise,hes done well.
If we clock up another 10 points in the final 5 games, we'd be looking at a helluva 10 match haul!
I would be very surprised. I could see us reaching 60 points though.
-
2
-
-
4 minutes ago, Curr Avon said:
This week's edition...
David Squires on … 4.54 billion years of evolution leading to this
That is brilliant
-
20 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:
There is only one game that springs to mind for me when playing Blackburn. First game back in the old Division 2 after the 1990 promotion. Blackburn seemed a tough ask, packed Ashton Gate, 4-2 win with Bob scoring two. All looked so bright and then bloody Hearts came along.
(Btw for those of you who didn’t see Dave Smith in action check the fourth goal. Try keeping up with that)
I remember that well
-
Whenever I think of Blackburn I think of how good Alex Scott was in the win at their place in 2022.
-
5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:
I’m waiting to see what Tinnion / Recruitment deliver first (and of course who leaves).
We should expect progress, as you say, if he gets the 9 and 10 that are the big gaps according to LM and BT.
Yeah if Nige had been given a forward and a creative midfielder, I'd have upped my expectations for this season to be pushing for playoffs.
Next season the squad could be stronger or weaker depending on retention and recruitment. Ultimately, BT and LM have to take responsibility for that. If they bin off Williams and James, then Bird, Knight, Stokes and TGH struggle, that's poor management. Likewise, if they take that step and it pays off, then it's good succession planning and they deserve credit for it.
-
2
-
1
-
-
2 minutes ago, FNQ said:
Well actually I thought the 4-1 win away to Watford last year was brilliant, outstanding really. I honestly thought we would then kick on and challenge strongly for the rest of the season. We obviously didn’t. Before that Watford away game and since then, apart from Southampton and perhaps Ipswich away it’s been pretty ordinary at best, surely you’d agree? Also felt that both the Southampton and Ipswich games were an abandonment of Manningball. Remember our Manningball game at home to Leeds? He should have gone there and then really.
My view on this...
Pretty ordinary is what I expect, so expectations have been met. They were exceeded in some games and underwhelmed in others.
That was the experience last season too and kind of inevitable in my honest opinion. We've been inconsistent for years, but if we keep making marginal league position improvements year on year, I guess we're heading in the right direction.
That what I expect from Manning next season; league position improvement. One way or another he's managed to finish the job this year, and next year he needs to make enough tweaks to continue that arc.
-
1
-
-
42 minutes ago, Davefevs said:
FWIW, it’s interesting to hear his response to the clean sheets question. He’s an analytical coach, but decided to not give an analytical answer. I have no problems with that either, was just interesting that when we were struggling he did refer to (paraphrased) “the numbers being better than the results”. A manager’s prerogative to spin things a little.
As you know I like my 6-game rolling averages, and the last block of 6 (Ipswich to Sunderland) had 4 clean sheets but our worst amount of xG conceded since he LM took over (8.00 xGC). If you want to take out the Ipswich game, then 5 games had 5.99 xGC which is above his average.
The perverse world of football!
But as FNQ says to escape Leicester and Sunderland with shut-outs was less down to on-the-grass time, more Max’s excellence. Of course a game like Cardiff (h) 0-1, should’ve been a 0-0 really, so a non-analytical “swings and roundabouts” maybe?
What is the slight concern for me is the growing trend of number of both shots conceded and amount of xG conceded. Usually the “results” catch-up the trend.
Or maybe we have a “Lucky General” in charge, one who will outperform the numbers. And I don’t mean he’s lucky, just using the term loosely.
When Napoleon Bonaparte was criticised for winning battles simply because of luck, he famously retorted: “I'd rather have lucky generals than good ones.” More than a hundred years later, Eisenhower reaffirmed this point by saying: “I'd rather have a lucky general than a smart general. They win battles.”
That's an interesting perspective and thanks for sharing the data.
I definitely don't buy that Manning is a self-promoter, or at least no more than your average manager, who of course have to sit there and be publicly quizzed about team performances.
Regards the stats, I'm a little bit wary of xG, and I'm also quite comfortable with Max having good games. Part of being a good team is having a good keeper, and that's what we want to be. On the flipside, Max has certainly made mistakes this season that either did cost us goals or led to xG for the opponent, so it kind of balances out.
The thing is, I'm not of the belief that Manning has 'turned a corner'. My belief always has been that performances have been encouraging enough that eventually results would follow, and they did. The fact that we went on a negative streak, followed by a positive streak for me was just an example of the undulating nature of mid table Championship football. At times you will out-perform the stats, at times you will under-perform against them. So I'm not hailing the current form as anything other than good results. We have a painfully inconsistent team and coaching consistency must be one of the great challenges for all gaffers.
We could absolutely anything tonight by the way!
-
5
-
-
31 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:
Im sorry but the way I see it is he's trying to say "the reason we've had clean sheets is because we've had time on the grass which I didn't have earlier on in the season"
But the reality is Leicester and Sunderland could and should have scored a bucket load past us.
So to try and frame the time on the as a reason for the clean sheets is just taking us all for fools to paint himself in a positive light. This is the Liam Manning show.
Well the journalist asked was silly mistakes that cost us previously and ask what City had done better. The answer was 'we had time to work on it'.
He praises how the players have executed it, says they've done a great job
If that's Manning peacocking in your eyes fair enough.
-
1
-
-
3 minutes ago, FNQ said:
Well worth both entitled to an opinion.. personally I’m fed up with him telling us how he is teaching our players how to play the game, and how they are or are not grasping his behavioural requirements.. it’s nonsense. Let’s see if we can keep another three clean sheets and turn in a couple of decent performances over the next few games. He’s bluffing..
I could see there being goals either side tonight
-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, FNQ said:
Interesting to hear from LM that the recent run of three clean sheets can be attributed to the opportunity for some focussed coaching on the grass over the international break, well done Liam you’re a genius… there was I thinking that if it were not for Max then we could have conceded six or seven over those three games.
Well he did actually say that if it wasn't for Max we wouldn't have drawn in the weekend
You're free to criticise him, but he really doesn't come across as arrogant and is frequently giving the players credit.
-
4
-
-
6 minutes ago, FNQ said:
Ha ha of course it is.. supporters who have not yet renewed their season tickets are the real target..
Well he was only answering Piercy's leading questions, but maybe Piercy is in on it
-
2 hours ago, petehinton said:
Arsenal Bayern has been one of the most breathless opening 35 mins of footy I can remember. Absolutely brilliant.
You've clearly forgotten Birmingham v Bristol City in December
-
2
-
-
Definitely sounds like a powerful foreign striker is the target.
-
On 03/04/2024 at 13:52, Negan said:
Jason Knight POTS
Conway YPOTS
Have zero knowledge or interest in the women’s game so didn’t bother voting, same for the champagne moment. Left that blank as don’t feel there’s genuinely been any. Maybe the West Ham win but it’s just West Ham… hardly exciting. Although expecting Jon and Tins to reveal some wall art with Conway cutting the ribbon to celebrate next January as a 1 year anniversary… Christ what a shite season
I was going to say, Knight seems to have played his way out of contention!
-
After it was clear that Nige wasn't getting a warchest, my predictions were that we'd finish 10-12th, and so if we finish 11th I'd be pretty comfortable with that.
That would be another year of league position improvement and a respectable top half mid table position.
-
18 minutes ago, Davefevs said:
That’s a contradiction (oxymoron?).
(no comment offered on “the truth is”)
It's not an oxymoron, because it's impossible to sustain an attack for a whole game!
Sustained attacks always come in spells!
-
1
-
-
The what if situation that I always think of is... if we'd have held on for wins against Coventry and Ipswich - we were 2-1 up in each game with 10 minutes left, in what would have been brilliantly executed away wins - we would now be 5 points better off, only one position higher, but in with a shout of finishing 7th.
20 minutes (plus stoppage time) of resilience and we'd probably have a different assessment of the Manning era so far.
-
2 hours ago, Davefevs said:
I think what it highlights is a potentially a big disconnect between BT and LM in terms of understand what they truly wanted, what they truly thought they were getting, and what they actually got.
Unless you use bespoke examples of James and King, or Twine for Manning, then recruitment isn’t “Pearson” or “Manning” it’s a process / collective based on what’s needed and when against a profile / strategy. It’s just an easy excuse to say they’re x’s players, or they’re not y’s players.
As for “sustained attacks and pretty patterns”, there’s been very little evidence of such.
All I did was quote Brian Tinnion. So it’s not me you need to accuse of being incorrect.
But if you are seeing those sustained attack and pretty patterns, then it proves he doesn’t need “his players”.
So which is it?
The truth is, we've seen sustained attack and pretty patterns at times in spells but not enough.
-
1 minute ago, downendcity said:
I remember a story about Alan Hansen when he signed for Liverpool.
Shortly after signing he was stood by Bob Paisley watching a full scale practice match. Paisley asked him what he thought and Hansen replied, saying that watching the game he hadn't realised that Liverpool was a long ball team.
"We're not" answered Paisley, " we don't play long ball, we play the right ball".
Our problem is we play the wrong ball too often!
-
1
-
-
31 minutes ago, Back of the Dolman said:
But we haven’t shown that we can consistently break down and beat the poorer sides and in all honesty is that how we want to go on, scraping some poor wins and putting on the odd performance against the so called bigger sides in the league ?
That really won’t get us in the play offs as it’s far too inconsistent.It’s all to risk averse and calculated and that’s why we aren’t breaking teams down.
I remember vividly after the Swansea game which was a dire football match that LM said in his post match interview that he wanted to ensure we were still in the game at half time !
Well with all due respect to them we were playing Swansea not Man City.
To me it feels a very conservative and negative approach and that is a very hard mindset to get out of when you then go one down or it’s goalless with a couple of minutes to go.
I think people forget the context of the Swansea game. We had just lost four games on the trot, and whilst the previous performance at Ipswich had been pretty good, we suffered two crushing late goals to lose the game.
So roll on to a home game, with a crowd ready to turn toxic, and players devoid of confidence...
Manning decided to be pragmatic. Now, personally I'd rather we had engaged higher up the pitch and not stood off the Swansea defence when they had the ball, but it was a tactic that Manning had used successfully in other games; let them have them have the ball in non-threatening areas, then squeeze them as soon as they try play forwards, and hit them on the break.
The reason the game was a tough watch wasn't just the tentative press, it was the fact that our players were playing with fear, having had their confidence drain away. That happens in football. It happened to Liverpool last season and even Klopp with all his personality was struggling to fix it.
So, the fact that we won was enough. It was the turning point which has seen that confidence return, albeit we can still be unsettled.
It was a really hard watch though.
-
The crazy thing about this debate is that if City beat Blackburn (big IF as it'll be a tough game), irrespective of the performance, that would be 13 points from 6 games, which is incredible form. And yet we'll still be talking about whether Manning is out of his depth.
Obviously, if we don't win, then this post redundant, but it's food for thought.
-
1
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Davefevs said:
Is improving on wins a marker, if you have less draws and more defeats this season (rhetorical question)? I guess if you improve on 59 points in the process you can argue so.
As you’ll know I wanted a “winning season”, that was MY expectation last August. Because I thought a winning season would bring an uplift in points to what I saw as an acceptable improvement.
But you can skin that many ways.
I’d take 23 wins 23 defeats / 69 points for example!
Itll be interesting to see what we end up with. I don’t really do “how many points from the next x games”, so i will have to wait to see what actually manifests!
Yeah, all it really shows is how deeply frustrating watching City has been!
38 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:You're looking at Cardiff's goals for I think. We've got 44 so far this season. I guess we'll get another 5 or 6 and end up with about 50. Total Football. Don't worry though, Brain will be securing the services of a top forward or two in the Summer, because luckily, no other teams are after any.
Sorry! Flipping between screens on my phone. I knew I'd get something wrong
-
13 minutes ago, Ashtongreight said:
Most of us would be onboard with Manning if he’d been successful since he’s been here despite the debacle of his appointment.
On that basis the criticism of him is fair, he’s still our manager and is likely to remain so regardless of mine, and others concerns. Therefore it’s in his hands to change our opinion of him. Over to you Liam.
I think some people would have been more patient with him had it not been for the debacle.
-
1
-
-
6 minutes ago, pongo88 said:
I don’t care about the rest of the season as I’ve lost interest. It’s next season that I’m worried about. Currently we have a team that usually scores either 0 or 1 goal per match with the league position boosted by a good defence (only 3 teams in the Championship have conceded less goals). That’s a very imbalanced team / style of play. It doesn’t matter if City sign a new striker in the close season as the style of play doesn’t create many clear chances. I’m sure Tommy Conway would score more playing in a different team. If he feels the same he’ll be gone in the summer.
Look at the teams near the bottom of the league. You can ignore Rotherham as they are the perennial yo-yo team, and Plymouth as they’ve just been promoted. For me, City now are no better than any of the other clubs near the bottom and, unfortunately, that’s where I expect the team to be next season
2021-22: 15 wins, 62 goals, -15 gd
2022-23: 15 wins, 55 goals, -1 gd
2023-24: 15 wins, 46 goals, -1 gd
So we can improve on wins and gd this season, but goals continue to decline.
David Squires cartoon in the Guardian
in Football Chat
Posted
It's a reference to a Man U fan vlogger who is known to be a bit of a clown anyway, but excelled himself on his video of himself enduring Utd losing to Chelsea, and it went a bit viral.