italian dave

Of course you can say anything with stats, the question, is it both based on accurate facts, and is it meaningful.

 

Extrapolating points per game of both managers this season over a full term, SOD comes out at 36, and SC comes out at 56.

 

No team has ever stayed up with 36 points, and no team has ever been relegated with 56 points.

 

 

I'm not going to get into the mud slinging, name calling, cock measuring or any other of the more competitive elements of this thread - but this one puzzles me - serious question.

 

I'm assuming you're right Nick - I haven't got the time to check in detail! But if that's the case, and if we're that much better now (I think you said 55% on another thread) then how come the other much quoted fact recently, namely that at the end of SOD's reign we were two points from safety, -3 GD and on the same number of games as all our rivals, and now we are two points from safety, -8 GD, and all our rivals have games in hand on us.

 

We are evidently in a worse position, table wise. I can't believe that the one game where we dint have either as a manager can make that much difference!

 

So, how come we are doing 55% better on results, but in a worse position in the table??

Haha, superb. If pointing out that Steve Cotterill has been guilty of spouting b******* in the media throughout his managerial career gets me a place in the 'hall of shame' then at least I won't be lonely as I'm hardly unique in pointing that out.

By pointing it out, I'm not even making any judgements or criticising his personality let alone not supporting him in his task to keep us in this tinpot league . Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho have been known to chat complete and utter s*** in the media, surprisingly I wouldn't doubt their managerial ability or not support them in some parallel universe in which they're managing City.

However, yes after witnessing what I think maybe the worst performance I have ever seen from any City team (what an achievement that is) his 'I'm a winner' comment greatly irritated me. What does it mean? What is it achieving? It's just a pointless, futile comment which serves as nothing more than a soundbite to try and distance himself from the players on the pitch who, by implication, are losers.

'We were abysmal today. That's tough to take because I'm a winner'. Well I guess the good news is that I found that performance pretty damn hard to take, so I guess that makes me a winner. Excellent news. Equally, I was stunned to see David Moyes come out last night saying 'We were abysmal, but fortunately I'm a loser, so it's pretty easy to take'. This isn't City fans who didn't want him here having some sort of agenda, going through Twitter Saturday night there was people, from supporters to journalists, from many different clubs laughing at Cotterill, and by association City, because what a cringeworthy comment it was.

I'll tell you why that performance should hurt Steve. It should hurt because anybody who backs their ability to manage any football team (as Cotterill clearly does and I have no problem with that), let alone our aimless rabble, must be questionning that ability after a team they are in charge of serves up that horror show. Not because you're a 'winner'. I'd be slightly disappointed if I was thrown the job and my team performed like that, let alone a somebody who's profession is football manager.

I'm being naive of course, but I want reasons why were so bad, why Sheffield United were able to make it look like a cup tie against a team 4 tiers above us, why El-Abd is playing so poorly if he is someone that is good to enough to deserve a 3.5 year contract, why he has a fullback on the bench and another on the wing while he plays centre halves in their positions, what he is going to do to make sure that a- we improve this week and b-how that never happens again. That's what I want, not some arrogant soundbite that makes him sound like nothing other than a bang average lower league manager with ideas well ahead of his station.

I'll be honest, I didn't want him here when he got the job, but I am doing my very best to not judge him earlier than I would someone who I wasn't against and in fact from time to time I have actually found myself defending him to people who I won't give him any chance. As much as his interview Saturday irritated me, I don't actually care that much about what any manager says when a microphone is shoved infront of him ten minutes after watching his team get totally and utterly embarrassed.

What I do care about is from the Wolves game onwards (and I would actually say since the Watford cup game at home), with the notable exception of Leyton Orient we have been absolutely ******* dreadful. There have been or two steady enough performances since the turn of the year that have earned us draws and of course we managed to nick the Carlisle game, but we have been abysmal. As someone I know said the other day, you leave a game thinking that's as bad as you've ever seen, and then the following week, almost without fail, it is even worse. After we won a game against Carlisle that we did not deserve to I posted a relatively positive post on here saying that although we had been dire in that game, winning a game like that in which we didn't deserve to could do us the world of good going forwards. Fast forward 3 days and Coventry spend the opening 45 minutes taking the **** out of us.

As I posted a few times when SO'D was coming in for abuse though, targeting any of our managers and laying all the blame at their door is a rather futile operation and doesn't get to the root of the problem which is why, as a club we seem to be rotten? It is all far too easy to decide in our heads that Millen, McInnes, O'Driscoll and Cotterill are all hopeless (as well as most of the players they have all signed) and maybe one or two of them are, but what are the chances of them all being so?

There has to be a much bigger reason as to why we endlessly fail.

Spot on, great post, well said.

Other than on this board, I've yet to meet anyone with a good word to say about him. !

Arsene Wenger?!

Robbo, I think you and I disagree fundamentally about SOD, and probably always will, but you're dead right about the constant SC v SOD thing. It's divisive, and it's completely pointless because at the end if the day no-one will ever know what would have happened if Sean had stayed, and we'll never know what would have happened if Steve had been able to start this season with the sort of clear out that Sean had.

There's still room for comment and for views on SOD (and that's where you and I will differ), for comments on SC (which tend to differ depending if we've won!) and on the board (where I think you and I have more in common, at least as far as the constant churn of managers and lack of a coherent plan is concerned).

But what's really pointless is playing one against the other. "....well at least he's not as bad as the other...", " I like a therefore b must be bad." stuff. They're different people, and they have different strengths, and neither is all good or all bad. Clearly Sean was uncomfortable facing the media in a way Steve isn't. Sean got the best out if JET in a way Steve hasn't. And so on.

I may be wrong, but if not this thread and some of the contributors will look a bit sad, and in any case the constant sniping from day one at a bloke who is on OUR SIDE is embarrassing.

Nick, I get where you're coming from on this, and I agree that constant sniping isn't helpful. But what very often starts it off is the constant sniping at another bloke who was also on our side.

It works both ways.

He was sacked because of his horrendous record. I can only think the people who said he was beginning to turn it around weren't at the Sheffield home game.

I was at both Sheff U games. I'll say no more, except don't judge anyone on one game.

Been looking at another SU forum - s24su.com - another interesting perspective on yesterday, especially this. Depressing reading I'm afraid - but worth a look - and yes they do ask themselves why they hate being called "Sheffield" but keep calling us "Bristol"!:

 

"I also had a look at their main forum, and the atmosphere felt much like this forum did after the Crewe game. I therefore decided to have a look back and see what people were saying after they won away at Leyton Orient a couple of weeks ago.

There the similarity ended.

They are, at least, consistent in their depression. Even having just won away against a team near the top of the league, they were very down. There was the odd "credit where it's due" but generally the view was still that the team was disinterested, that they'd been lucky to win and - where most of the focus lay - that Cotterill was the main problem.

Their view of Cotterill couldn't be more different to our view of Clough. We tend to see Clough as the bright spot when things go badly, and the hero when things go well. They see Cotterill as the cause of most of their woes.

The general atmosphere is much worse than here. They sound as if they think they're down".

Just goes to show how you can twist everything if you've a mind to.

 

Of course a manager should want to form a rapport with the fans - the last one notably had no interest in it

 .

I think you're confusing a lack of comfort in front of the press with forming a rapport with fans. Sean made it clear that he believed fervently that the club had to engage with the community and with its fans. And he tried to live that too: he was much more engaging when he was at a fans event, or a community event. Even his programme notes were an attempt to do that, and to spend some time trying to explain what he and (he thought) the club were doing to move forward. Personally I found that far more engaging than a few lines of 'we were unlucky last week' and 'get behind us , your support is vital'.

He may not have gone about it the way you'd have liked, you may not have felt he'd been successful, but please don't say that he had no interest in it.

He took over a shambles from that last idiot.

Just back from Sheffield and re-living the game via OTIB - how sad is that!

Got to respond to this tho'. You have raised the matter of our former manager, so I'll bite.

I couldn't disagree with you more if you'd said we should play in blue next season!

I've been to most away games this season and I've got to say that under SOD we were anything but a shambles. We generally looked organised, we were hard to beat (never lost by more than the odd goal, we had players who had been brought in to do a job that they were suited for, they looked like they knew what to do, and what the plan was. I'm looking back at some of those games: Coventry - early on some shocking defending, but we fought back and it was a great game to watch. MK Dons - some great football from City, and enough chances to have won easily. Soton - great performance - matched a Prem outfit. P Vale - very disciplined, should have won. Crewe - not the best, but at a time when the priority was to stop conceding and to stop making silly mistakes we came within a whisper of a 0-0. Carlise - lost the plot first half, but completely back on track second and the players knew what to do. Tranmere - again, organised, good shape, good point. And at all these games I felt that the team selections made sense, the substitutions made sense, what we were trying to do made sense, and the players understood that. And, for the first time in ages, I was really enjoying away trips again.

Contrast that with Wolves, Brentford, Oldham, and now today. Today was a shambles. We had no shape. We played our two best centre backs as full backs. Our in form striker out in the wing. Baffling substitutions, players who looked like they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing - and certainly had no idea what the plan was.

However, you cant entirely blame either manager for today - either Sean's legacy or Steve's line up today. The fact is that the bulk of our side was recruited by a manager who had a certain style of play: possession, passing, technical. Now that squad's been inherited by a manager with a totally different style - speed, quickness, running, challenging for everything - but the players don't necessarily have those strengths and they've been coached something different for most of the season. Not surprisingly they look lost. We've got players who can play the Arsenal way being asked to play the Wimbledon way.

It's a bit like I start up a building form and recruit a head plumber and a load of apprentices, train them up as plumbers, coach them as plumbers, then sack the manager, appoint a carpenter in his place and tell him to run it as a carpentry business - then wonder why they struggle!

Today was pathetic: others have said enough about it. It was also a sharp contrast to how enjoyable those games above were. My emotions today were a mixture of boredom, anger and embarrassment.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the boards decision in November to abandon their strategy for taking the club forward in the longer term was the worst decision in the 50 years I have been following City.

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We did it at Highbury.

We had Paul Cheesley. They had Malcolm McDonald. Nowadays......no, not going to depress myself going there!

OK. Potential bogey grounds

You wouldn't be confident going to The Emirates then?  

There are only another 90 away grounds!!!

And they're not all bogey grounds. We've never lost at the Emirates, never lost at the Etihad - and unlike some, never lost at Accrington!

We need wins where ever, if we don't go on a nice run of wins at home we are buggered.  If we are relying on home form we are screwed, we have been shite at home for 2 or 3 years, the crowd often leave the players frozen at home, So I think getting those away wins is a must.

Problem is, if we're relying on away from we're even more screwed.

Fooooooooooooorrrrrrzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaa Bristol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't post stuff like that! Long words of identical letters usually means we've scored!!

I agree, great delivery on Sat. Let's hope that Coventry have someone as diligent and alert as the Carlisle player who tracked Waggy to stop us playing a short corner both times!!

By April will have 2 sides in the 3rd )

.....if we're lucky.

And said it then and will say it again.. as many of us have.. he would have been the solution. Not saying Cotts will not keep us up mind just saying as much as Colin divides opinion he would have been a far safer pair of hands for the immediate task of keeping this club in Div 3.

 

But this board like to talk the 'long term plan' game but in reality they act out a short term one... We should be known as Oxymoron City.

Long term? Short term? I think it's the whole concept of 'plan' that our board struggles with.

Question. Is part of the problem playing JET as a Baldock's strike partner? Most of the through balls that put Baldock one on one come from JET. What that means is that there's no other striker running in alongside, or slightly behind, Baldock. That means he's got no options, and that makes it easier for the opposing keeper. I'm thinking play JET behind the front two: he'll still get goals from there, will still be able to spot Baldock's runs and play to his strengths, but not mean that every time that happens it's a straightforward one on one. Thoughts?

He just can't finish!!!

....consistently. Finish for his first was great.

All those who criticised "hoof ball" Cotterill must have egg on their faces now.

Yeah, bit like the guy who said we wouldn't throw away a lead at Notts Co....

We are under new management now, we won't throw games away like we did under SOD

Would you like to rephrase that?

Louis to start, and equal appearance record!

Maybe they didn't have time to reply, revolving Door and all that..

Oh for a Terry Cooper now!

100% agree. Only thing is, would he be given the time now? Eight months into his reign we were bottom of the whole football league!!

I tell you what, the ground ownership issue is becoming more worrying as time goes on.

This is it, in a sentence. SL can chuck his own money at us buying crap players and paying off managers if he wants. But long term the ground is a huge worry.

There's another thread running about 1982: one thing I remember clearly about 82 was the board that rescued us being absolutely adamant that they could and would only do this if ownership of the ground was part of the deal and part of the plan. They were clear that the football club could only be rescued and have along term future if it owned its own ground. And I have to say that! for all lansdown's success in the financial world, Des Williams had a far better understanding of how to run a football club.

The other thing that keeps coming back to me is what happened to the Gas and Eastville. Ground owned by a separate entity, albeit with a common owner. Two sports. Owner gets fed up with the stick he gets because the football club is going nowhere. Falls out of love with the football club. Sells ground. And the Gas are still paying the price for that.

I thought we gave a decent and wholly professional performance, combined with a bit of Emmanuel-Thomas magic.

 

At times the football wasn't fantastic, but I don't think we were too guilty of lumping it from back to front and the pitch and Tamworth's rather overzealous tackling (I don't blame them and would expect the same from us should we play opposition 2 tiers above, but the referee was a joke) made it difficult to really play any sparkling football.

 

One thing that is heartening for me is how well we stood up to their physical threat and although they are obviously poor opposition I think we have all seen City teams get bullied enough to appreciate when we stand firm and in my opinion defend well. I haven't seen the game back on TV yet, but the common opinion seems to be that it wasn't a goal? And I felt the clean sheet had we taken it would have been fully deserved.

 

At the start of the second half we should have scored a couple of goals and had we done so it could have ended up a Cricket score, but once we didn't and Tamworth started throwing a few men further forwards I felt it was right that Cotterill bring Pack on for Taylor even though I had enjoyed JET playing in behind two strikers. For a period just before Pack came on it was more like a Basketball match than a football one and as the team in the lead and possessing the greater quality it made sense to try and calm the game down.

 

Obviously JET will grab the headlines, but I thought Marv and Flint both had good games and went a long way to blunting any threat Tamworth had.

Agree with most of this, but I thought the ref was OK today. Couple of early bookings put a stop to the really naughty stuff. After that it was a lot of pushing and shirt pulling, and he picked up most of that. Not his fault that he had an incompetent linesman who gave the goal and missed a blatant offsie.

At last a bit of sense from people who supported SOD.

Just a shame SOD couldn't rely on the same support