mozo

52 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Bird is your favourite player, don’t go doubting him now!

Seriously though, he’s played 101 times at this level.  His first full season (19-20) he was playing week-in, week-out in a team that was knocking on the door of the playoffs.  He can play at this level, that’s for sure.  Will he fit is the only doubt anyone should really have.

Stokes isn’t joining to step up from day one.  That’s why we are signing a main no10 (Twine or whoever).

So a guaranteed mystery injury to keep Bird out of the first half of the season...

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Because that was the reason for changing.  It was expected LM would give us something akin to “hitting the ground running”, because he was the difference maker.
 

Had Nige had 2 or 3 more points, they’d wouldn’t have sacked him, they’d have had to tolerate him.

That's living in fantasy fairyland Dave. You're too smart for that. 

There was absolutely no reason for any of us to expect anything other than a hard-working, studious, ambitious young coach to have a go at implementing his philosophy. We had no right to expect top 6 or even top 10. We have to live in the real world. 

49 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

And at the risk of going over old ground, this is why they probably won’t ever be forgiven. I’ve used the phrase “wilful sabotage” a few times and it was - Nige had his legs cut off in the summer recruitment.

Even if he’d been able to replace Scott with who we eventually did (short term) with Twine, then we wouldn’t be miles off. A side of O’Leary-Tanner-Vyner-Dickie-Pring-James-Knight-Sykes-Bell-Twine-Conway may not be top six but it would be competitive top ten. The lack of the playmaker killed us. 
 

Liam coming in, irrespective of what the board said, was never going to be able to improve on how Nige was doing as he didn’t have the squad (note - not his players but the squad). It was a shit comms.

What I don’t think the board expected was the regression we’ve seen from Liam misusing the resources he had - certainly up until Easter, which has been alarming. And that’s where the doubts lay, not in not getting top six.

But, make no mistake. Had they replaced Scott, even ponying up 1/5 of the fee, we’d likely be higher up the table.

But that would also have meant Nige still being in a job. And getting rid of him was more important than the clubs success this season.

Bottom Line.

Totally agree with this!

7 minutes ago, TDarwall said:

I think Saturday could be the proverbial punch on the nose. You'd think Sunderland will be desperate to atone for the Blackburn game 

I think we should be prepared for a tough game and not expect to run wings round them!

6 minutes ago, Dastardly and Muttley said:

I’m 100% with @W-S-M Seagull on this, and am probably Manning’s harshest critic even with Seagull included.

The decision to shift from NP to LM was definitely done with the aim of improving this season.

Also, with the return of players from injury, you’d have expected any half-competent manager and coaching staff to have improved us.

That’s not what we’ve seen, though. We’ve seen inconsistency and the most boring football served up since Pulis. Next season can’t come quick enough, if we could jump to his sacking in October right now, I would. Just hope he’s not given the nest egg to blow in the summer.

Obvs I disagree with lots of that, but you talk about improvement being the target, well that's still in our gift this season. I don't think we can catch up with 10th but if we did, that's a decent season.

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

We should. Ideally we’d be sat here with 6 games to go still think there’s a chance, if the stars aligned, etc

But, playoffs as @mozo was a “stretch-target” at the point LM took over.

Had Nige been backed in August, who knows…would’ve given us a better chance I’m sure, but even then I think it would’ve been a push.

It is important LM uses these 6 matches to build momentum for the summer recruitment /  next season.  Selfishly I’d like him to remove my “doubts” too, but I’m not his concern.

Two wins, whatever we think, have given him a little up-tick, it’s up to him to use that now.

I think many of us, definitely including you, me and WSM would love to wander in to the alternative universe in which Nige was backed for 2/3 quality signings (of his choosing)! I wonder where we are in that world!

In reality, we're going to get exactly that but with Manning in charge. You can't choose your universe!

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

I choose reality too. 

And in reality we should be doing better than we are doing. 

 

We agree. High five!

We probably disagree re how much better we should be doing, but that fine.

23 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I wrote this to someone else this morning when I read JP’s article….because I couldn’t answer in a single tweet.

It is the impossible question though - from outside looking in.

Whether hes playing back-3 or back-4 the two constants (3 if you include GK) are one striker and 2 DMs.

To my mind you need 5 DMs.

Knowns:

- Knight - you get the bonus of player who you can keep minutes topped up in other positions
- Bird - new signing
- TGH - again, like Knight, can play elsewhere - needs to improve fitness too

Unknowns:

- James and Williams

- Other targets

I do worry about bloat, but I think you could retain both:

Williams - in his prime years, effectively all his transfer fee / amortisation is sunk…he’s like a no / low risk free transfer

James - still a good player, why wouldn’t you use him on a yearly-review, use him to bed in Bird, develop all of your others, e.g. TGH and Murphy.

Other targets - gonna have to be good to replace the two above.  You’d think we’ve picked up the lg1 nugget already in Bird, so who else shapes up…and and what cost?

I’d probably err on keeping both, and concentrating on the 9 and 10.

+++++

Playing Football Manager, you try to convince James to sign an incentivised 1+1 deal.

Williams you’re probably fighting the likes of Preston and Stoke type clubs. Preston you can beat on £s, Stoke I dunno.  So it’s possible it’s out of our hands.  Lowe and Schumacher’s scouse connections might play a part?

I really hope James is the one we retain. We have to bear in mind that his agent will be fishing for a minimum of two years to protect his client.

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

I can. All we've got to go on is what was said and numerous interviews by numerous people said that the expectation was for us to improve this season. Other wise why make the change (JL) 

When people say "Jon didn't actually mean what he said" makes me piss myself as they are just making things up to suit their agenda. 

We were just outside the play offs. We didn't bring these in to be happy to sit in mid table. 

We have a choice to make: either a) we live in the fantasy fairy land that the board were in when they tried to PR the Nige sacking, or b) we live in the real world.

I choose reality. That means, like it or not, that top 6 was the stretch target set for Manning and Hogg, but definitely not the strict brief. I'll bet the words 'build something' we're discussed behind the scenes.

So, because I reject the Jon L fairyland, I can't sit here and point the finger at Manning and say 'Hey! You failed at achieving top 6! Get out."

And by the way, I have lots of respect and appreciation for Nige and I opposed the sacking. But do I think he was about to achieve top 6 with this squad this season? No chance.

I'm giving Manning and Hogg benefit of the doubt and some time to do their thing. Not years and years, but definitely next season. 

Come on board mate, it might be more enjoyable with you on the ride 

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

"Its not going to be an over night thing where you can parachute in to somewhere and bish bash bosh everything totally changes and you start winning every week and you go from mid table to top 6, it doesn't happen over night, it takes time" 

It was their bloody brief to come in and change things quickly! I'm not buying into another 'project'

It wasn't really their brief though was it?

The bit you quoted is a really reasonable statement.

You don't have to buy into it if you don't want to. Totally up to you.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Ignoring the bollox spouted about league position expectations, playing style expectations are a different matter though.  The problem for me is the chalk and cheese approach / intent of the last two versus the longer period prior to Easter.  Where does that come from?

1. this is how he really wants to play - so why did it take so long to bring it to the fore?
2. he’s realised his approach needs a tweak, a bit of pragmatism - good stuff!

I also didn’t expect immediate upside, I won’t bother copying my first Manning expectations, you know what they say.  But even if his previous “sterile” (my word) style was his preferred way, it was making us worse, not better…hence all of my frustrated posts and tweets.  After 5 months you might normally see some dip, some inconsistency, as you embed your behaviours and principles, but you’d expect to see some signs of coming out the other side, even if like yourself, you think he needs preseason to tune-it.

He has spelled it out.  But what we witnessed on the pitch was certainly at loggerheads with Manning-ball TM “front foot, high press, forward thinking, attacking football, control games through possession, etc”, wasn’t it?  It was almost the polar opposite.  Even enjoyable (degrees of bloody enjoyable to quite enjoyable) performances and results weren’t achieved by Manning-ball (FA Cup, Southampton, etc) per se. Leicester (h) didn’t match Manning-ball either.  So, I’m not fussed about being excited about what he says, I’m fussed about what he does (what the team does).

So, are we witnessing an evolution of Manning-ball to Manning-ball 2.0?  I dunno.  I hope so.

We will learn more over the coming games.

We may even learn more from today’s press conference…I am about to get my wish!

+++++

Final para, yes OTIB is OTIB.  Frustrating innit!

The way I see it (just my own subjective imaginings), is that we haven't seen Manningball yet. We've seen bits and pieces of it; some of the games we controlled possession very nicely whilst also moving the ball forwards, transitioning from the defensive shape to the offensive shape, forward passing, a selective press, etc etc in spells but not for a full 90, week in week out. I think the Leicester game was closer to it, maybe not so much Plymouth. But I don't think the players have mastered it yet, which is essentially Manning's responsibility. Time will tell if he gets it right.

We've obvs all got the right to make committed judgements when we see fit. Mine is much more like a dozen games into next season. For some people it was about two weeks after Manning was appointed! Your assessment is obviously based on solid analysis and reflection and I respect that.

...

Yeah, every time I get annoyed by it I have to remind myself "it's just OTIB, it's not real!"  I do enjoy the debate though.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I know that.  That’s exactly my point.  When can we see results / performances from coaching an identity, rather than it (all) being about a game by game tactical plan?

I think a perfectly reasonable answer to that is you'd expect to see it for the majority of next season. Manning gets a full pre-season, a more bespoke squad and experience at the helm to draw on. I personally didn't expect anything sooner than that, but I appreciate other have different timescales in their own minds. To that extent, it's subjective.

Manning knows what his philosophy is and he's spelled out a few times. The good news is that what he describes would keep most fans happy. He needs to implement it successfully though. 

Regards the anti-Nige, anti-Manning stuff, this is OTIB and it won't change. With both managers there have been swathes of negative posters looking to criticise at every opportunity. Then, if you're critical in a rational way, you get thrown in with the extremists. Whenever I criticised Nige on here, who I generally supported, I'd get a really emotional response. It's a forum, therefore it is stupid.

We do have to appreciate that we are currently 12th in the Championship. 

So it's not like this is a tragic period in our history. 

The senior structure is quite clearly not right at the club, but we're just waiting for new investment/ownership to shake things up.

I'd love us to take the next step to becoming playoff contenders but I think we need some reinforcements and a bit of luck.

12 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Plymouth were in far better form when they came to Ashton Gate and if I remember rightly they had quite a few good chances. 

That spell of games under Nige said everything you need to know about this Bristol City squad.

There was the exciting, rampaging win v Plymouth where we also rode our luck.

Then the resilient and dignified effort in a narrow defeat away at Leicester. 

Then...we give away a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 to an very ordinary Stoke team at Ashton Gate!

Should we judge Nige on these games? Or does it just tell us more about what he was working with? I'd say the latter and that applies to Manning too.

3 minutes ago, DOZZYBCFC said:

Ian Foster has been sacked by Plymouth.

@petehinton called it

2 hours ago, Galley is our king said:

He's become a "pathway blocker" which I thought we didn't want anymore.

Bring on one of our own wasn't it?

I think it's a big deal for Yeboah and possibly others from the academy.

What's that noise?..... oh it's one of the 5 pillars crashing to the ground....

 

 

I don't think Yeboah, who also isn't good enough for the first team yet, was going to see any benefits of sitting on our bench. We're better off putting a loanee there and letting Yeboah get Men's football elsewhere.

2 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

The revisionism is great. No matter what anyone says there were games where we were simply awful. 
 

What appears to have changed in the last couple of games is 

A We won them

B We played with an intent to go forward that was lacking 

 

Yes but not that many in my opinion.

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think he has. Sykes and Mehmeti.

Sykes was injured too until recently 

3 minutes ago, JP Hampton said:

  Why does someone always have to say something like that

   Well I’m sure that there would virtually no one, who wouldn’t be delighted. 
 People forget it was the style of play and losses that were the problem for most fans who complained. 
  Let’s not use two wins to batter people over the head with and actually enjoy the win that brings all fans together. 
  

I quoted on here with 20 minutes to go in the game, two posters discussing how Manning needs to be sacked. They weren't posting about delighted they were!

After the Leicester someone posted that they were disappointed that it probably means that Manning won't be sacked. 

Someone above saying they're not delighted, but not bothered. 

There's still plenty of negativity or abstaining from positivity after we win three out for four games, and it'll be the same if we beat Sunderland.

He was a punt that didn't work out but it's not really a big deal.

Good question Gav!

The only player I'd really like to see is Knight-Lebel but who do you drop? Dickie is really important to this side so maybe give Vyner's spot to KL for the last two games?

1 minute ago, redkev said:

I agree with the majority of what you say but I don’t buy into this if Leicester had brought there shooting boots blah blah city had just as many chances as they did given in my opinion there was deffo 2 poss 3 pens we should could of had 

Spot on, and there have been a few games where we've fluffed our lines in the final third and not won the game, so how far do you go with the ifs, buts and maybes?!

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

I’ve always said I don’t think he’s been awful (just not good enough), but the trend was very worrying…and I think he’s struggled at this level, and saw little to give me encouragement he’d ride out that downward trend, ie it would continue.

That was after Cardiff.

We've played 5 games since.  The first 3 (Ipswich, Swansea and West Brom) gave zero indication that we’d play with the intent of Good Friday.  I wasn’t very impressed with Ipswich, I think leading twice blurred the game.  Swansea, the final 25minutes blurred a horrible performance.  West Brom not as bad but not great.

So, I’ve now got one game (Leicester) and 2/3ds of Plymouth to add into the mix of 20+ games.  Some good, too many not so good imho

If I see consistency (of intent) going forward then some of those 20+ games will move into the “archives” and be less relevant.

Others will have very different ways of getting to their viewpoint. That is absolutely fine.  I’m just expressing mine.  Some people think I want to be right.  Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for LM to bring success to Bristol City.  The only manager I’ve ever been against appointing was Pulis.  Up the reds!

 

I thought the Ipswich tactics and performance were pretty good. Swansea was a pretty terrible winning performance, but you could see that irrespective of the annoyingly passive block, the players had no confidence left, and that just happens in football when pressure builds.

8 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

He did ok up to and including Boxing Day then the wheels came off in terms of our league form which is all I care about really. It was poor bar six to seven halves of football (out of 28) for three months in the league. Even after a very impressive Easter he’s still on a 44% Defeat Ratio (you brought stats into it!!) and that is unimpressive in anyones book.

If and when Liam shows this isn’t a false dawn (and we don’t go on another post Southampton run) many people will revise their views and that is fair enough imo. I can only think of one obvious poster who has not praised anything about the last two games. One.

I think of a lot of posters that decisively called Manning out of his depth and frequently mocked him*, but that's all part and parcel of this forum. Was the same for Nige, LJ etc etc.

Theres been a lot of emotion this season. I think everyone just needs to summer break to reset their brains!

*prior to Leicester 

1 hour ago, The Journalist said:

Would agree with all of the above - but I maintain the biggest difference has been the intent.

Playing 20 yards further up the pitch against Leicester, going after the ball, closing people down, putting tackles in, playing at pace... All far more important than any personnel or formational change IMO.

So in Manning's 10 wins, only 2 showed the right intent?

13 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Exactly that. People who have been critical of Manning are calling out two much improved performances. Not just improved, chalk and cheese to what preceded them. Don’t see that as a problem tbf. If that trend continues into the early part of next season then there will be full U turns. For me he needed these performances to even make it to next season and that’s a given now.

Speaking for myself there is one person in a Senior position in our club I wouldn’t U turn my view on and it definitely isn’t Liam.

The issue I have with your framing of it is that it sort of implies that everything pre Leicester was rubbish, when it clearly wasn't. We all know that he won three in a row early doors, he has the FA Cup games, the big performance that shall be not mentioned, plus games like Coventry and Ipswich that were far better performances that the 1 pt yielded shows.

If we beat Sunderland Manning will be on nearly 40% win ratio for City. 

So I'm not saying he's had an amazing start to his City career, but you'd think from some rhetoric that before Easter came he was a shocker. Also not true.

We had a bad patch. It wasn't enjoyable, and clearly confidence sapped from the players. That's football.

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Tweaked.

Fair!