italian dave

2 hours ago, Mike Hunt-Hertz said:

You Don't Want Me No More...Major Lance

Making Plans for Nigel……XTC

8 hours ago, 1960maaan said:

From the ones on there I actually watched ;

Alan Dicks got us to Div 1 , Semi final of the League Cup and won the Anglo Scottish . Most successful manager in our recent history.  I think THAT Leeds game may have saved his job as we were having a poor year after some building. 

Joe Jordan got us to another Semi Final and I'm convinced we would have got to the playoffs at least if he hadn't left. 

Danny Wilson decent, but could have been so much better . That Brighton Playoff ???

Terry Cooper has Godlike status in my eyes. For all he did to save and resurrect the Club on a shoestring , the style of football and even just giving us that game at Eastville , real Legend and my personal favourite .

AD, JJ, TC: you’ve put it brilliantly. Word for word exactly how I feel.

Not so sure about DW: and it wasn’t just the that Brighton game, there were others when we got it just as badly wrong.

If I had to go for a fourth it might well be LJ - which I know won’t be popular on here! Established us as a respected second tier side for the first time since AD.

But, yes: AD, the elder statesman. JJ, just inspiring. And TC - like you, I just love the man for everything he did for the club. My favourite too. 

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I’m on about in the Boxing Day to end of Feb run.  How many different (16 v 14 - 2 more)?  Do you make that a significant or insignificant difference, coupled with the squad availability for LM?

Fine if you do.

I just think it creates excuses.

 

My 16 weeks was the Sat before Xmas programme through to yesterday (plus the extra 2 weeks as noted).

Much the same.

I’m not making a judgement on whether that’s a significant difference or not. Nor am I making excuses. Just stating the facts - which are that we’re playing more games than you’d normally anticipate, and more than the teams we’re playing.

I know I should have put it on a spreadsheet

27 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

As I mentioned earlier, we played 4 FA Cup games last season by the end of Feb, with a much thinner squad.  Manning has rotated sufficiently for it not to be a huge issue physically.  It’s allowed him less time on the training pitches to work on new stuff though.  But there are several other “new” managers going through the same, not able to get time to drill their “way”.

Fewer league games though, Dave.

Same 16 weeks, last season we average a game every 4.8 days (3.93 this season). And extend that an extra 2 weeks to include the 5th round cup last season, and it’s still one every 4.8.

It begs the question why we agreed to play the Coventry game when we did. 

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

That would be a totally valid argument if the first time he moaned about it wasn’t pre the first West Ham game…!

Ahh, but he’s a meticulous planner…… he knew what was coming

3 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Then why is he making the excuse on a regular basis Sherlock? Cant have it both ways. Either he thinks the schedule is too punishing to give him adequate time to train the players, or he can cope with the schedule and should STFU and get on with it. Which is it?

Could be both, SD!

If you take that 50 games above as the norm, then that equates to a game every 5.5 days over the course of a season.

Over the past 16 weeks we’ve played an average of one game every 4 days.

A combination of the Xmas period and our cup run have made the past few weeks unusually taxing. 

32 minutes ago, Graham76 said:

Yesterday Twine and Mebude, clearly both nowhere near ready, but seen as better option than our academy players. 

And maybe that’s just a reflection of where we are right now.

Doesn't mean the academy hasn’t produced players (look at the squad yesterday) or that it won’t do so in future. 

10 minutes ago, Sheltons Army said:

In his (repeated claims) over the last 2 years or so , when talking about Antoine , Alex , Sam and Tommy , about the ‘next lot’ ‘are even better’

At no point did I get the impression he was talking about 14/15 year olds or players at U18 level , although the reality appears to be that is the situation 

Indeed: and I don’t claim to be any more in the know than anyone else!

I’m just not going to leap to the conclusion that Tinnion’s judgement is wrong just because we haven’t yet seen another Scott. Or that Manning isn’t committed to the academy just because he’s signed Mebude and given him 45 minutes. 

32 minutes ago, Natchfever said:

Pretty strong squad to rotate with on paper though.

Yes, that’s fair - although probably also fair to say it’s the first game in this run where that’s been the case.

I still think LM and his team have managed the schedule pretty well overall. Maybe yesterday was just one game too much. 

8 minutes ago, Natchfever said:

Tbh I wanted LJ sacked well before it happened.

I wasn’t surprised, and at that moment it felt like it was probably the right time. But I didn’t want him sacked: I’d have far rather we’d turned the corner under him and made that top 6;spot that was his objective. And it really wasn’t that long before he was sacked - a matter of a few games - that that seemed a real possibility. 

5 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

So we disagree that Mbude took minutes and blocked the pathway for Yeboah. Fine. If you think I'm moaning about the club for this 'strange' signing, you would be correct.

Well, if you seriously think that Yeboah would have been on the bench yesterday had Mebude not been there, or that Yeboah’s progress has been hindered by Mebude’s arrival, then yes, we disagree. Although, judging by comments on this thread and others, I think you’re in a fairly small minority.

But the point of this thread isn’t just Mebude. Theres another thread for posters wanting to moan about him (). This is about the bigger picture. And my default is to believe that LM - like his predecessors - wants the academy to work and wants to encourage players to come through it. Your default seems to be the opposite. 

2 hours ago, Bs4Red said:

I honestly wish people would stop using Max, Pring and Vyner as “young players” they are 27,26 and 26. 
 

They have all been on loans and worked hard to get where they are but they were not plucked out the academy by NP and they are not young players. 
 

Their experience at this level isn’t huge but they have been professional footballers for a long time with plenty of games in the EFL. 

Can you tell me who he blocked from the pathway yesterday, that you’ve seen who would have made more of a difference? 

True, but I think the point is that they have come through the academy to get where they are. The OP suggested that we’ve been blocking paths for a decade or more. Vyner, for example, played his first 30 odd games for the club under LJ. 

If theyre good enough I don’t see paths being blocked, not by LM, not by NP, not by LJ. It’s just that we don’t produce a Scott or a Semenyo (or a Vyner) every year.

And hence why you’re last question is spot on for me. 

1 hour ago, alexukhc said:

How many games is it now we’ve featured players from the academy? 

Well some still feature, for sure.

But the real point is that you can’t simply measure it by pure numbers at any one time. The academy isn’t a conveyor belt that produces one Alex Scott and one Antoine Semenyo every year.

If there were a 17 year old with the ability of Scott, or a 19 year old with the ability of Semenyo then they’d be getting games, I’ve little doubt.

But there ain’t.

And you don’t play academy players purely for the sake of it, regardless of their ability or readiness. Not if you’re aiming for ‘top end’ anyway. 

2 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

I've no idea, but doubt any of them would have been worse than yesterday's pathway blocker. Manning backed 'his man' yesterday ahead of academy players and it backfired big time.

So you’ve got no idea, and all you can do is ‘doubt’, yet you still feel able to assert that pathways for better prospects from our academy are being blocked?

Tinnion was quite likely talking about 14, 15 year olds who are nowhere near the first team squad. There seems a pretty general consent that there’s no-one in the U21s or even U18s at present who was overlooked yesterday.

So I’m not really sure what it is you want, other than the opportunity to have a moan about the club and about Manning. 

1 minute ago, Sir Geoff said:

Re your first line. It was Tinnion that said, last summer, that there are even better prospects coming through than those we have already seen.

And maybe there are. But what level was he talking about? 

5 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Results aren't the problem. Performances are.

I’d say consistency rather than either.

6 of the last 9 I’d argue were good results and decent performances.

Yesterday was poor on both counts. Likewise Leeds (although in fairness Leeds are currently making most teams look poor). And Watford was iffy.

21 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

I don’t think it’s an issue of the fan base wanting one or the other. It’s just that developing and playing young players, particularly from the Academy, is vital to the club’s current financial model. If the club have then brought in a Head Coach who doesn’t buy into the Academy and the lads there then it may have a problem. 

I know you’ve posed this as a question, but your posts clearly suggest you think LM doesn’t ’buy in’. Or, at least, that there are reasons to have that concern.

What are those reasons? Why do you think he doesn’t or may not buy in? 

10 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Dazed and confused was 60s too (written in the 60s, originally played in the uk by the Yardbirds).

Blimey……this isn’t meant to be a technical examination, just a bit of fun!

Yes, the Led Zeppelin version, which is the one that’s famous, was strictly speaking late 1969 - but was played throughout the early ‘70s.

And when you say “too” - as has been confirmed twice above, Won’t Get Fooled Again was NOT from the ‘60s, it was 1971.

But in future I’ll try to remember that on a weekend after we’ve lost everyone gets a bit grumpy! 

I think there’s a danger that “why don’t we use academy players?” Becomes a bit like the “why didn’t we sign a 20 goal striker in January?” question. It’s not that simple, and it depends on the right players and on good enough players being available.

I don’t see any evidence that any of our managers of the past decade haven’t bought into the academy, and from Bryan to Kelly to Reid to Semenyo to Scott to Vyner we’ve brought players through if they’re good enough. And I’m struggling to think of anyone who’s “pathway” we’ve blocked who’s gone on to prove themselves at Championship level.

I don’t watch the U21s, U18s, so others may speak with more authority than me, but friend who do watch them tell me that there is no-one there at the moment who stands out as either a Scott of the future or as someone we should be giving first team game time to.

It’s too early to judge LM, but the fact that (again, I’m told) we are now getting all the sides in our pyramid to play the same style and with the same philosophy is surely an indication that we’re trying to make it work. I’m told that hasn’t always been the case. And I was also going to make exactly the point @robinforlife2 makes above about bringing in almost ‘almost finished articles’ from elsewhere when we haven’t got them ourselves.

I think if there was a difference between NP and his predecessor and successor (I’m ignoring Holden in this!) it’s about expectations. When the expectations are principally about saving money and just staying in the Championship then giving young players a chance is a lot less risky than when expectations are top 6 (which they clearly were for LJ) or top end - whatever that means! - as they are for Manning.

Just a follow on from a comment on the 1974 heritage thread. Songs from the ‘70s, that will mark both our team from that time, and our performance today.

My three for starters

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Dazed and Confused

Anything by Mud.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

If I’m in a generous mood I’d say it was - one game too far over recent weeks and mental and physical fatigue setting in.

A huge effort on Tuesday, the effects of that seen today.

Sharpness gone for too many players today.

I actually thought Vyner opened the ball out to McCrorie really quickly today, but others wasted several opportunities to bypass the blocker by attempting a chipped / driven a pass out to him.  A lack of bravery?  Or just mentally not seeing the pitch in-front of them.

I think others have covered the less-generous aspects!!!!

 

Generous, but fair point too Dave.

I’ve said elsewhere that we’ve played 11 1/2 games since the new year, QPR have played 8. That’s almost 1/3 fewer.

Bloke behind me made an observation near the end of the first half that QPR were making us run around a lot. Not necessarily doing anything constructive, just making us run.

Maybe they recognised the stats and that was part of their game plan? It worked! 

3 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Brought a tear to the eye to see AD out there.

Name the South Stand after him whilst he’s still with us, bless him.

Someone by me said at HT we should have brought Tom Ritchie on (ok, it actually was me).

Me too. Great to see him, and so many from that side. Three things struck me.

1. I’m old enough to remember AD, that team, that match. A great many younger fans around me aren’t, and the events won’t mean so much to them, but without exception they were appreciative and stood and applauded. Really respectful of our heritage. QPR fans too. Great to see.

2. I’ve moaned like anything in the past about the PA in the Dolman ( @phantom ) but today I could hear everything. The club seem to have been as good as their word in trying to improve it.

3. A little alternative moan. Does no-one at the club realise that there was more than one song around in 1974? Much as I love the Wurzels and One for the Bristol City - that’s in moderation, not endlessly repeated! It just seemed like a great chance to play something different from the era. 

1 minute ago, Ivorguy said:

Because we would like to have hope.  Hope is what Nige gave us, Manning is beginning to give me the opposite.

 

PS. My original post was also a little tongue in cheek, because it is a truism  for 90% of ‘managers’.

1 minute ago, Sir Geoff said:

Really ?

Pulis, Osman, Lumsden, LJ

Really.

And that’s just my point: surely what we should want is for them to succeed: for the next game to be the one they turn the corner, to find the way for the Boro and Soton games to become the norm. Getting to the point where they’re sacked just means we’ve failed, and brings a whole load of upheaval.

My view is that pretty much every City manager in my (long) time watching City has wanted what’s best for City and has worked to bring us success. I’ll support them in that as long as they’re in post.

And yes, that includes Lumsden and most certainly includes LJ.

Pulis wanted what gave him most money. Osman wanted what was best for Osman. So I’ll give you those two. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule. 

52 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Didn’t against Fulham.

However we weren’t allowed to watch football in person for about 16 months after that game..

That shirt was so horrible that I think I’ll rest my case on the shirt alone in that instance. 

1 hour ago, Ivorguy said:

One game nearer Manning’s exit

I never understand why any City fan would want a City manager sacked.