mozo

6 minutes ago, Gazred said:

“Not at the moment,” Manning said, when asked whether there had been any developments around his contract situation. “We’re really keen to keep him. I think we’ve been quite clear on that. An offer has gone into him so the decision will be with him, ultimately.

“He’s been great, I love working with him. He’s been one, I think we can have a real positive impact on his career. I don’t think he’s someone who has to chase anything too soon. If you look at his journey so far this season, he’s improving and getting much better. For me, he should be targeting 15 goals plus next season, that should be the aim for him. He’s someone, when you look at it, the defensive side is terrific.

“At the weekend, the cross at the near post where he nearly scores, I think he’s now starting to get in better areas and part of it, having Twiney helps that; you see the relationship between them building, the link-up is massive.

“Tommy’s someone who we want to keep and the ball’s in his court now.”

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/tommy-conway-bristol-city-contract-9244274

Sounds like we want to keep Twine then!

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Shhhhh, only if you mention it!

I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it...

3 hours ago, headhunter said:

Last Thursday our much heralded, and derided when it seemed it might not happen , meeting with Gavin Marshall took place when we [DaveP & Ian] were able to talk about the season as a whole and what the landscape for the club looks like going forward.

I hope the content answers some of the questions in all of our minds at this time.

AVAILABLE FROM 1.00 PM today on You Tube and Spotify etc.

 

 

Well done Dave and Ian for getting this done  

Also, fair play to GM for fronting up. We criticise them when they don't answer questions, so hopefully this is a sign of improvement fan comms.

I don't think we learn anything revelatory here, and no doubt there will be criticism, but there were questions relating to a lot of the key topics that we debate on the forum and I think GM answered where he could (he's not exactly going to divulge our transfer budget).

I suppose one controversial comment from GM was that our current position is only slightly below our season expectations. This will ruffle feathers following the narrative around the Pearson sacking. 

What I took from the interview is that the current strategy will remain in place; that we hope to achieve success on the cheap, via canny recruitment, and hoping we get the wind behind our sales.

18 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I'm going to play Devil's advocate a little here. Whilst there's plenty of good reasons to be sceptical of the board's willingness to spend, bringing in "one or two" doesn't automatically equate to spending less.

The "one or two" are presumably a striker and a permanent solution to the Twine loan (i.e. either Twine or a player who can play the same role). Strikers and attacking midfielders are the two most expensive positions to sign and there is a valid argument for saying "let's concentrate all our resources on those two positions" rather than spreading the budget thinly and therefore spending less of the budget - whatever that budget is - on the two key positions.

With Bird coming in and if no departures, I honestly think that our defence, full backs and midfield are not in urgent need of signings and - whilst there is certainly a case for competition for Max O'Leary, I think O'Leary is good enough as a goalkeeper. Everyone is upgradeable of course but I'd be relaxed going into next season with our current defence, our current goalkeeping options and our current midfield (plus Bird, less one of James or Williams, with a possibility Murphy or Stokes will be ready to compete for a place).

However I think we need to get the striker and attacking midfielder correct and I think doing that is far more important than several signings. Obviously all this depends on how much the board are actually providing as a budget and if it is sufficient but I'm going to judge the club on how much we're prepared to spend rather than how many players we're prepared to spend it on. 

Spot on assessment 

28 minutes ago, mattjb said:

You will need a large adjustable spanner at the very least I would suggest 

Post of the Day winner right there... 

16 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Perhaps he just peaked early. Might be nothing to do with attitude, but while the typical "career arc" of a player sees them at their very best in their mid-to-late 20s, some just fade earlier than others. Might be a mental thing, not getting as much enjoyment out if the game?

It could be a confidence thing too. There have been one or two rumours about attitude, but I've no idea I'd they're true.

2 hours ago, fatchers said:

Due to Manning only playing one forward and continually subbing Tommy off in games it must be very frustrating for him. He probably feels frustrated and undervalued.

Tommy has been playing as a lone striker most of his short pro career. That's not a recent thing. And he's never consistently had good service.

I also doubt he feels that he deserves the full 90 every game while more senior pros like Wells and Cornick are second fiddle to him.

The question is, which team out there will offer him better money, and better minutes.

The first bit is easy, but he might not necessarily want to go to a club like Burnley, Southampton or West Brom, for example, where he might have to start down the pecking order and try to play his way into contention.

He best mate, Alex Scott, has only played more than 60 minutes in 6 games this season, despite being in the squad 18 times.

Maybe Conway doesn't care about any of this, but he might be considering it.

I'd imagine his agent will want him to move on.

17 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

What happens when the young hungry players aren't quite good enough and you've let go of your experienced players ?

There's definitely a risk there.

The thing for me is that we might fill our squad with players that will be great in 2028, but until then we won't go anywhere, and those players won't even stay that long.

At the moment we have players like Williams, Pring, Dickie, O'Leary and  Vyner all in or approaching their prime years, and few a couple of years behind, but we do need to be careful that we don't lose the nous, maturity and character that older players can bring.

13 minutes ago, phantom said:

I hate to say I wouldn't have wasted your time, you'll never be able to work it out that way

Exactly that, I'd say more people wouldn't renew because of the uncertainty of our fixtures 

If people are simply not renewing because of crap football I'd ask who they think they're actually watching, and apart from a very small handful of seasons in the past 50 years when we did 

Are tickets back on sale yet? 

Not really, why is it so important to you that you know how many season tickets have been sold months before the new season staers

I'd imagine rising mortgage repayments won't help.

3 hours ago, phantom said:

I know it is interesting to know how sales are going but does it really matter that we don't know?

 

Yes because we can't jump on the narrative that the events of season have lost a big chunk of the fanbase.

1 hour ago, pongo88 said:

When he started playing regularly for the City first team he looked as though he had a great career ahead of him. Then it went pear shaped. It can’t be ability as he demonstrated he had it. As with a lot of jobs you need more than natural ability to be successful 

The thing that was a revelation was his forward passing. We forget how crap we used to be at passing the ball forwards, that when Tyreeq started doing it, we were in awe.

19 hours ago, DaveInSA said:

There was an interesting LinkedIn post I came across the other day, which I will summarise as : DATA is making the world more boring.

They cited several examples, but a couple stood out. In the NBA, nearly ALL of the teams play the same way, points are scored from very specific areas of the court and it’s become dull and predictable as a result. The second was the music industry, within a given genre (pop, country etc) the diversity of music has decreased, there is less innovation and music is working to a “formula”.

What does this mean for football. Well, probably something similar isn’t it? Football is becoming dull. I’m sure that there is a multitude of reasons why, but definitely a cause will be the statistics around “most likely methods to score from” - I think that is called xG for or something.

What I’ve seen with my eyes is something completely alien to me at times. It’s structured. Ponderous. Boring. My enjoyment of football comes from chaos, a lack of structure and being able to thrive in the midst of all of this. I like passion. I like both teams going at it.

I like rugby more than football now as a spectacle. 

Interesting what you say about basketball, because my understanding was that in the NBA 3 point shooting was increasing, which is higher risk. Is that a good thing for the game or a bad thing? From the NBA games I've watched in the last couple of years I didn't notice anything dull about it, but I presume the writer follows the sport a lot closer than I do.

2 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Came back from u17 World Cup with a “this isn’t what I play football for” type mentality apparently. Hated all the noise, stress and media around it. Probably explains why he wanted to stay at non league level basically forever thereafter. 

Thats understandable tbf. Not everyone is psychologically fit for that kind of stuff. That's why I didn't become a pro footballer and decided to instead write shit on a football forum...

...that and I was rubbish at football...

4 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Think the latter is already planning on going back to Guernsey. 
 

The one that’s really stood out to me in recent years is Opi Edwards. From what I saw of him for Weston this year, would honestly say he’s probably toolstation level, if that. 

On the checkout?

Supporting City is rarely boring and always ridiculous 

15 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I wasn’t referencing a “side”, just saying there are those who can’t divorce the two and those that have agendas.

Agree.

Yep, totally agree, and I was just elaborating on your point from my own perspective. 

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Because some people are incapable of divorcing the two, do not understand context, nuance, etc etc. And some have agendas too!

And likewise, there are a number of OTIB regulars that I could name that have been pretty busy posters after Manning's less convincing games, and yet have seemed to have lost their log ins during and after the indisputably decent performance v Norwich (and other games previously). Was the same under Nige who had his haters on here.

I've been backing Manning simply based on how I've interpreted the football, but I've written here many times that if I turn out to be wrong, I'll come on and say it. I think for some people, it's more important to pick a side and win an argument, than to present a fair assessment.

1 hour ago, IAmNick said:

Why does Manning (hopefully) doing well also always seem to mean that Pearson had to be shit? Or if you think Pearson was doing well, then Manning has to be shit?

How about Pearson did a good job for us, progressed us, Manning took over, had a wobble as he found his feet, and now will hopefully go on to do a good job next season and progress us again. That's what we all want isn't it?

But that's not a culture war. It'll never work... 

5 minutes ago, petehinton said:

A nige groupie? I’m honoured!!

Do you have a big tattoo of Nige on your chest? "I'm just a fan Nigel, your biggest fan!"

7 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

I agree, but he comes across as a very thoughtful bloke and I have no doubt he'll be choosing his words very carefully to remain professional but also provide a few subtle nods along the way as well. He's not going to outright say anything rude or stupid of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if he makes what he wants to known as well.

We'll see!

One thing he said during his time with us that surprised me was alongside lines of: "At Watford, we knew what the owners are like so when the opportunity came we thought, yeah let's have some fun with it while it lasts." I suspect that will come up on the pod.

5 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

We have one of the best defensive records in the division and a poor goals scored record. That alone tells you it's binary for the major part.

So we need to be more creative and clinical in the final third,  which I guess is why we are strengthening our attack in the summer.

28 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

.........and the rest of the games have been Binary in terms of our goals scored, bar a 3-2 defeat at Ipswich, haven't they?

Coventry 2-2 springs to mind, and dlfew 2-1s either way. I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary. 

We've won 1-0 seven times this season. Of those, 4 were under Manning, 3 were not.

12 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I’ve been quite outspoken about whether we should try to match the possession sides or not, and fallen on the side of “not”, because in the main those sides are the monied teams.

Saw this reply to a thread started by a PNE fan and journo:

 

The thing that stands out to me when we come up against the more technically talented teams is the speed of thought of the players, and the consistency of execution.

We've got players like Bell, Mehmet and Sykes that are capable of top quality attacking play (in different ways), but you can't depend on them to execute consistently. 

In a lot of our games under both Manning and Pearson I've seen a midfield capable of high quality build up play, only for the possession to break down in the final third.

So it's not just a case of having a set style, it's also dependent on who's playing, and what version of that player turns up.

The general passing style might be consistent, but other variables may change depending on personnel. For example, if ball carrying defenders like Atkinson or Dickie are on the pitch, the passing options in midfield increase, and the sum of the parts is different. 

Equally, Roberts can be trusted on the ball in defence, whereas Vyner might be better off launching it under pressure. 

I'm rambling, and I guess trying to make the point that whether you play a possession based style or a mire direct counter attacking style, the effectiveness will always depend on variables, and for that reason, neither Pearson nor Manning have been able to garner consistent performances. 

When either style works, it looks beautiful. When Nigeball was bad, it descended into long balls and wasted energy. When Manningball is bad, it looks tentative, ponderous and negative.

The challenge for the head coach is to pick a style (identity etc), and to make it work with all the limitations that our players have. 

I genuinely think that quality in the final third has been letting us down for years; ever since Andi Weimann decided he was going to be Andriy Shevchenko for a year.