tin

Sunderland win and both teams to score is very tempting today

Does possession and territory always equate to positive results, though? I don’t think so, but it’s how SL’s Barcelona fantasy play. 

Mourinho’s won everything going by playing counter-attacking football; Pep’s won everything by playing possession football.

I think it’s a load of shit, personally. We want to see winning football. Whether that’s dominating teams - like in the Wilson era - or grinding out results - like under GJ - it’s being competitive that matters IMO.

50 minutes ago, TheSpaniard said:

Won’t go even in a relegation scrap not that we will be

Tinnion, is that you? The delusion, the illiteracy, and I remember you setting up a scheme in Spain for players who’d been bombed out of clubs. Swapped Twitter (probably on Steve’s orders) to hide behind pseudonym on OTIB, have you?

This is what happens when lunatics run the asylum. Lansdowns out.

25 minutes ago, Harry said:

Out of interest, and I know this is completely hypothetical, if Nige was still in charge how would we all have felt if we did the following :

QPR away. Rancid game vs a team on a new manager bounce and came away with a battling point. 
Boro home. Good home win. 
Southampton away. Narrow defeat to relegated prem side in top form. 
Norwich home. Heartbreaking last minute loss, something we’ve been too familiar with at AG in recent seasons. 
Hudds away. Dominant performance, horrible conditions, disappointed to have only got a draw, one simple mistake preventing the win. 
 

If Nige had presided over that, would anyone be saying he was under pressure? 
 

I’ll happily answer that. No. He wouldn’t. 

The board would’ve had him under pressure as he was sacked for getting six points from his last five games.

As for pressure, that comes from those at the top and I have no sympathy with them for that. 

‘90s: Andy Cole

’00s: Marvin Elliott

’10s: Tammy Abraham

’20s: Alex Scott

54 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Next 5 games.

Blackburn (A)

Sunderland (H)

Hull (H)

Watford (A)

Birmingham (A)

The 5 before the January window. How many might we be looking at, how many should we be looking at?

I won't make another poll but if anyone else wants to.

We rarely get anything at Watford or Birmingham, and I can’t recall us beating Sunderland at home in my 32 years. We’ve fared better v Hull and at Blackburn in recent times, but both of them are in decent form. I think we’d do well to get 5 points, in which case we will be looking over our shoulders. 

37 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Absolute graveyard for managers.

Michael O’Neill incredible first spell with Norn Iron, failed.

Nathan Jones, excellent job at Luton, failed.

Gary Rowett, pretty decent elsewhere, failed.

Alex Neil is a treble promotion winning manager, failed.

The Coates family spend fortunes on high wages & fees & they are the only club I can think of that serially underachieves more than us.

They’ve had a spell, and a fairly long spell at that, in the PL which is more than we’ve had under the Lansdowns, mind. 

Not saying you’re wrong in your assessment but they’ve had more joy than us (even if that odious shit Pulis was responsible for that!)

23 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Looking at their results over 20 games now I reckon you’ll be waiting a long time.

They are on a roll even better than ours under GJ in 2007/8.

As for Ashton, I despise him & Watford fans don’t like him either.

Maybe Ipswich have a system where his excesses are kept in check, under SL we sure didn’t.

On a related note I’m surprised no one has mentioned Fleetwood’s recent run, absolutely horrific, LJ looks in big trouble already (again).

Exactly that IMO. He had the keys to the kingdom at Ashton Gate and due to SL’s neglect, he was accountable to nobody. At Ipswich, I’d guess the Americans expect ROI and therefore his wings have been clipped. He still had the spending spree on players last year, but appears to have struck gold with McKenna.  

1 hour ago, TV Tom said:

It's only 7 points because QPR have won their last three games, other teams in this division are allowed to win games you know

No shit, Sherlock! 

8 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

You want us to beat all three of those teams? Have you ever met the championship! It doesn’t really work like that!

I want us to beat every team, obviously, but this is about what the board have said and how we are measuring up against that.

I think it’s not unrealistic to expect a return of 5+ points from those games and the reality is we’ve got 2 points which isn’t good enough IMO. 

Were led to believe we should be competing at the “top end” of this division this season, that we have “a top-10 budget” and that this “is the best squad in my [JL’s] time here”. So why are we going backwards? We must be beating the likes of Huddersfield, Norwich and QPR. 

It takes more than possession stats to impress me and Manning hasn’t done anything to win me over yet. I hope he does, but he hasn’t yet.

We were nine points above the bottom three at the start of play today, now it’s seven. The bottom line is we must be doing better to match the chairman’s target.

If Bell was one of Pearson’s signings, he’d be slagged off as a shit signing IMO. Because he’s homegrown, many people give him an easy ride. For me, he isn’t good enough and never will be at this level. I hope he proves me wrong but I’ve seen enough of him to think he’s too lightweight, offers Pring little protection, can’t cross and seldom beats his man. But he’s the best at the club in the bleep test? So what. He needs to step up in the next 6-12 months or be shipped out. 

The men’s and women’s football teams, the stadium and the training ground are attractive to buyers. 

The rugby, the basketball and the price tag are unattractive. So, SL is caught in no-man’s land.

But that’s nothing new to a man who’s been gripped by inertia when it comes to BCFC for several years.

It goes to show how deluded he really is if he genuinely thought he could create an institution like FCB.

The sooner he and his nepotistic off-the-pitch operation move on, the better IMO. 

59 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Agreed- as for us.

Had we been able to go big late 1990s perhaps we would have been among them.

Hell had we gone big in January 2008, that was as good a time as any- we had momentum, oh we at times rode our luck especially away from home, but we were surely too timid in the January window.

I said it at the time and I’ll say it again: that was the time for SL to roll the dice with minimum risk. And for context, Brentford were in L2 and Luton finished bottom of L1 back then. We even loaned James Wilson to Brentford that January!

I recall being told at the time that we were offered the chance to sign Sylvan Ebanks-Blake for £2m from Plymouth early that January, but instead we signed a 33-year-old Dele Adebola for £100k a day before the transfer window closed. 

Nothing against Dele, he did a job. But that showed SL’s mindset IMO and I can’t help but wonder what if the goals of a striker like that had got us up. We’ll never get that close again under the Lansdowns’ watch. 

We will never get to the PL under the Lansdowns. I’d put my mortgage on that.

The longer they stay, the shorter the odds are of the likes of Birmingham, Coventry, Pompey, Bolton, Cardiff etc getting there before we do IMO.

The Gate and possibly the training ground are about the only things that are PL-ready. When the Lansdowns go, I’ll be more hopeful. 

48 minutes ago, Sixtyseconds said:

Was it an environmentally friendly gig surrounded by twenty thousand cars and grid lock?

A carbon foot print bigger than Lesotho.  

No idea. I parked at my mates, not in the city centre, and walked in via a few pubs and bars. Great night.

I saw QOTSA in Manchester last month, absolutely awesome set list. They are quality IMO.

1 minute ago, JoeAman08 said:

Yes but could be a case of one step back to take two steps forward. How I see it anyway. The powers at the top do not help whatsoever though. Putting the pressure of top 6 on either NP or Manning was unfair. 

However, I see enough to be top half and I feel better about that with Manning than NP. The base is there. However, it is goals that make you successful. We are 14th but have a better defensive record than about 10 of those sides. However, we are bottom 6 in terms of goals. What Manning brings is more shots, more chances and eventually(hopefully) more goals. Wells returning will help massively. Him fit we may be talking about these last 4 games very differently. We should recruit someone who can play in the front 3 as well. 

The only thing I agree with you here is you saying “the powers at the top do not help matters whatsoever”. No shit, Sherlock! They are wholly culpable for whatever happens - good or, more likely, bad. 

I don’t share your view that binning proven PL-winning experience for another hopeful inexperienced punt will pay off, but that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. Nothing against Manning, this ain’t on him. 

1 hour ago, Top Robin said:

Today, we were undone by 2 player cock ups which is out of the managers hands.

The same individual errors that hindered Pearson’s progress, you mean? Shame you didn’t gloss over those at the time you were calling for his head. 

Still early days for Manning, obviously, but the change is an avoidable setback. I suspect we’d have got more from today and at QPR if the change hadn’t been made but here we are.

35 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I liked Wes.

Not saying I ever expected him to be a first choice player in a side who are top two in our division but always thought he had something about him.

Got there the hard way too, via a fair few years slogging away at Fleetwood.

Don’t think too many had him down as the player we would let go & he’d make the Prem, but absolutely fair play to him.

I liked him too, but it’s worth remembering he left us as a striker or right-sided forward and wasn’t made into the RWB he is now until much later.

Szmodics is the one that annoys me now as he would walk into our team and system right now. Burns, I’m not so sure unless we play with wing-backs. 

17 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Then read the thread.

SL clearly isn’t prepared to do that, so it is either a complete sale or nothing.

 

I can’t see anyone in their right mind paying £200m for BS, nor should they be expected to in the current market. So that leaves us with nothing, and the prospect of the Lansdowns bumbling on for another decade is so depressing. If BCFC was up for sale, however, surely a deal would be done. 

Rightly or wrongly, I got the feeling Curtis Fleming was the one driving the interest in Adam Murphy and Sam Curtis. No idea if we retain that interest following CF’s departure.