RedRock

1 minute ago, MarcusX said:

So my view is that I can understand why people don't like it.

As a "lefty" I'd usually be in the "so what" crowd - but I think Nike have messed up here. I think Umbro got away with it, probably in part because people didn't even realise or think about it, but also because it still has the actual red cross - it just has others.

It does beg the question why only some defacing of the flag is frowned upon. In some countries, eg the USA, their flag is highly protected. It's deemed unacceptable to deface or add anything to the US flag.

Over here, we have all sorts of shit added to England flags by club fans, sometimes even colour changes - and it goes completely without comment:

Ummm…. I think the clue is in ‘the official England shirt’. 

Some highly-paid diversity bod in the FA either initiated or approved this aberration. 

Maybe Nike should have a bit lighthearted fun and alter their brand motif so it becomes unrecognisable on the shirt…. but hey, they wouldn’t do that as their commercial interests are far more important than our national identity.

Hopefully, someone will come to the rescue and produce copies with the England flag on so nobody buys the official de-flagged and, btw, obscenely over-priced shirt. 

Always thought at our Club’s level that if you were going with emphasis on a ‘technical’, rather than a ‘man-manager’ coach, you need someone different and innovative.

We need a game plan that is ahead of the trend curve, not just a replica of what everyone else is doing. Unlikely we will be a success based on an on-trend model as most of our rivals can afford better players that are better able to play the ‘established’ systems. 

My fear from day one is we’ve gone technical, but with just an FA textbook man. The very worst of outcomes imo. 

2 hours ago, REDOXO said:

Knight at times has been our best player, I guess that’s why he’s been captain. But at the moment he looks off it!

McCrorie. Who knows. The bloke has had some horrible disease. I guess we can’t judge until next season. 
 

Gardner-Hickman looked great until a few weeks after Manning arrived. The bloke is currently going through the motions

Mehmeti. He’s had a few flashes and the odd goal but….. Most wouldn’t care if he was in the squad or not. IMO

Dickie. Brilliant signing

Cornick has never got going. I’m not sure where he even fits if anywhere 

Who knows about the others mentioned

… and therein lies our problem. Our first team recruitment aside from the very occasional gem is, frankly, abysmal. 

And if Anis and the Belgium chap were on Manning’s radar before he arrived, I’m afraid I’m joining the ‘outers’. The January window, for me, seemed just bizarre.  

Would I trust Manning/Tinnion with the transfer pot over the Summer? No way.

13 minutes ago, tin said:

Passion is an emotion, and a strong one at that. I want to see a City side play with passion, fire in the belly, call it what you will. If you tell the players to control their emotions, you take away that edge IMO. That’s been a consistent in Manning’s time here and a polar opposite of the miserly side Pearson built. Manning out.

We will never win anything playing Pep possession football. To do that you need to be at the top of the food chain in your division. We’re miles off that, and the constant references to not being able to compete with the parachute payment teams should have informed our post-Nige managerial selection.

We will only succeed by being emotional, a team greater than the sum of its parts. A team that plays to its maximum and then some, driven on by emotion.

The numpties that write the FA training manuals can’t describe or quantify ‘emotion’ so that chapter doesn’t exist. Consequently, if you employ an FA textbook coach you get a load of robots.

My fear was we’d appointed LJ in disguise. All I need now is sight of LM measuring the length of the grass to confirm it. 

58 minutes ago, Benneythered said:

God this is depressing, time to have a break and watch some Southgate ball

The FA Coaching Manual has a lot to answer for.

Without emotion the game is nothing. Artists, not Robots.

Got a good feeling about today.

Stung by criticism of playing styles, the January transfer window (again) and performance, the Club will ‘unleash the beast’ today and start Twine, that bloke from Belgium, Anis and Harry, launching a blitzkrieg on the West Brom defence.

4-1 City, with ‘West Brom’ becoming the new ‘Southampton’ in Club speak.

Go Reds.

25 minutes ago, AppyDAZE said:

Even though I agree with the majority, ie he isn’t really fit for the job, I am starting to become a bit uncomfortable with all this. Maybe it is time to slack off.

Yep. Agree.

For me, the probationary period for the new set up has expired. All have expressed their views. The Club have decided to motor on. Fine, we know our place.

The fans have stepped up with amazing home and away attendances considering all that’s gone on. Over to the Club now to deliver on their promises.

Come on City, surprise us. You reds.

14 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Read the room City, read the room! What on earth is Tinnion doing on there! When do football ops people end up on a promo! This is awful, Manning too at the centre of it all, go with a player instead like Pringy who deserves it. Seriously bad PR! 

It’s almost as if it’s a rather unsubtle ‘stuff you’ statement from the Club. 

Well fine. Let’s now see what these two maestros deliver between now and the end of the Season in order for them to have the headline billing on the Club’s most important promotional poster of the year.

No pressure chaps. I will be more than delighted if you deliver, starting Saturday. 

For a Club that has a history of players picking up hamstring injuries triggered by unknowns, to actually sign a player who has allegedly had a history of hamstring injuries triggered by unknowns is just so us. 

At the Fans Forum, didn’t a Club spokesman appear surprised when challenged about the relatively high percentage of muscle injuries and say we might need to investigate the issue. Maybe we just needed a few more examples to help with their data base. 
 

Anyhows, enough of the negativity now. Let’s pull together and have an unbeaten run to the end of the Season just to show all the doubters we’re heading in the right direction under the stewardship of our fresh, new management team. Tally Ho! 

37 minutes ago, Tim Monaghan said:

Right, I've just listened to this interview. 

So, lots of U18's training with the first team. Some not playing in the U21's because they want to keep the squad together. Reason some of them haven't travelled as bench fillers is due to timescales of games at the fatigue of the travelling to sit on the bench. Some are also stepping up to the U21's because a lot of them are out on loan gaining higher level experience. BT - "No problem with them being on the bench if they prove themselves". 

It sounds very much to me that they think the best of the U21's are out on loan, the rest aren't going to make it, so they want to keep the better batch together in the U18's to get ready for the U21's. Then there is a really good batch of U16's coming up. I really don't see what the issue is here?  We've got a chance of getting into a MAJOR youth final, so why wouldn't you focus on it?  Class of 92' for example, they all stayed together. David Beckham for example only made 9 U21's appearances. Other than that, it was at U18 level until he went out on loan to Preston when he was 19. So an argument could be made that these kids are being pushed and given more opportunities than most at this age. 

Look at recent history of winners! Do you not think it would be good for the academy to have this as an attraction piece? We moan enough (funny that) about not being able to attract the top young talent, then also moan when we're trying to give us the selling points in doing so. 
 

  

Some pretty decent teams there, eh.  But lets not focus on what an achievement it would be, but of course, lets hammer the club for not putting these kids on the bench with the first team even though they aren't even ready. They're training with the first team, and that's all that matters in terms of reaching those levels. We all know if we put a 17 year old on and he has a stinker, we'd all be saying "whats he doing, he clearly isn't ready, his confidence will be shoot now". 

Moaning for moaning's sake for me I'm afraid.

As for the rest of it, well, you can't sack Pearson with an injured squad and then blame injuries for the new coach not succeeding. That's insane.  McKenna stats is madness. If you're going to come out with a stat like that, you have to get it right .  Comparing us to Coventry is a joke too. Not sure if that was a slight shot at the owners for not spending, but maybe not.  

Agree that the signing of Dickie for £600k was a steal. Jason Knight, Hayden Roberts (free), Ross McCrorie signing. Not mentioned, but Max Bird, Josh Stokes and Adam Murphy (best young player in Ireland; BT's quote).  Cornick was a bit of a stinker though wasn't he. 

So, apart from the Coventry and McKenna gaff which was strange, I don't see much wrong with the interview.  He's clearly passionate about Bristol City, and MA was hated because of his corporate language. The club literally can't win, can it.  

I fully understand and support the Youth strategy. 

Many have been calling for the Club to develop player ‘partnerships’ and playing the Under-18s as a unified squad will help achieve that objective. So a good approach, with the added bonus of raising the Club profile.

Worth noting that playing partnerships are near-absent from the first team, bar Vyner and Dickie. The only other partnership, Wells and Conway was developed in the Under-21s - a much under-utilised resource for that purpose. As a slight aside, in my view the Under-21s haven’t been used effectively either for nurturing players back to full fitness and integrating new players into our style of play imo. 

I really struggle though with the fundamentals.  Having a Chairman, some sort of shared CEO, a Technical Director, Manager and Coach all pretty inexperienced at managing this level of football/scale of organisation is high risk. The more I hear from these chaps, the greater becomes the concern. IMO we need a good communicator with experience in the football realm, maturity and, frankly, intelligence to get a grip of the situation, and quick. 

Two life lessons I’ve learnt relevant to high level positions in big organisations:-

1) work hard, but most importantly, work smart

2) continually challenge yourself and improve, but know your ultimate limitations 

You’ll always get opportunities in life, be ‘head hunted’ etc but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself, be the judge of your own competence levels. It is hard to turn £££ jobs down and, from my experience, even harder to deliberately **** up interviews, but you live only once. Quality of life is far more important than prestige, mega-bucks and a fancy car. 

May not apply to all, but just saying like ….. 

18 minutes ago, JP Hampton said:

Not questioning whether people are working hard we want to know why it’s not working. 
 Of course we know they want success that’s not in question. 

There’s often a chasm between outcomes from working hard and working smart in terms of success. We need more smart workers on and off the pitch.

1 hour ago, Dr Balls said:

Discussed on Saturday that our biggest loss recently in terms of personnel wasn’t even necessarily Nige, it was Richard Gould. The lack of a proper CEO is really what’s killing us, because basically all the footballing decisions at the club are now between just Jon Lansdown and Brian Tinnion. If that doesn’t worry you about the state of the club, nothing will!

Yep. Agree.

The problem is the Lansdown’s are nice people, really nice. Probably too nice for the cut throat, cheating football world.

In business Steve was complemented by some northern ‘grit’ (think I spelt that correctly) and the chemistry worked. Problem has been the Lansdown’s have managed the Club more with their heart rather than head and their management personas haven’t been counter balanced by some ‘grit’. The nearest they got was managers in Cotts and Nige.. but of whom became too uncomfortable for them to manage. 

Gould was a perfect foil for SL, a rare combination of a decent chap with added steel. Don’t think many could pull the wool over his eyes. His only possible lacking was football expertise. We need someone similar, and if we can’t get the football expertise with the other attributes, any new CEO needs to appoint someone who can add that to the top table… with particular responsibility for first team signings and overseeing the medical side. 
 

I really worry with Jon, Tins and Manning we are going to revert to ‘soft, nice, comfortable’ Bristol City, the Club DNA Nige fought so hard to erase. 

We seem a Club in turmoil yet again.

Frankly, I don’t trust the Board, Technical Director or Coaches to make the right calls. We’ve reverted to go for the easy life. Jon has appointed a non-threatening technical director and coaching staff, rather than people who challenge and push boundaries. We’ve adopted the lame ‘jam tomorrow’, rather than the more difficult to achieve and easier to be judged on ‘here and now’ transfer strategy. Reverted back to passive play on the pitch, lacking adventure, excitement and risk. It’s all very much back to the ‘comfy club’ of days of past. 

So, given the ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach, I suspect  Manning will be here for 2024/25, bar a disastrous end of season set of results - which, admittedly, isn’t beyond him. 

Question for me is will SL let us drift back to mediocracy, or will he intervene and appoint a CEO overseer with football expertise that will crack rather whip. That could be the most important signing of the next few months, together with a medical expert and chief scout. Time for the Club’s ‘continuous improvement’ mantra to become action rather than just words methinks. 

I asked a few weeks back what he brings to the team. I still don’t know.

Even more worrying is that under Manning’s tenure it became permanent.  I don’t think he fits Manning’s style of play at all and has become less and less effective as the weeks roll by.

Yet another expensive punt by our elite transfer department and a further addition to their long list of ‘not good enough’s’ by the looks of things. 

The 2023 January window was appalling, the 2024 little better. 
 
We will never progress with the current first team talent identification set up.

7 minutes ago, GBF said:

With the greatest respect you are entitled to your opinion but as a City fan of  50 years I’ve felt disillusioned a few times but only depressed twice supporting City and it was under Holden and under Manning. IMO  I think you view Is out of touch with how the majority feel and I am genuinely considering whether I will renew my season ticket if SL doesn’t appoint someone who is competent and qualified to run the football club 

Lummydaze. Did you miss the Pulis era? Can remember a 0-0 sat in the Dolman against Cardiff, hoping Cardiff would score. That’s how bad it got.

Some pretty wretched times pre Pearson too, when pass accuracy must have been around 5%. At least we can normally pass to our own player, all be it at present only with a backwards or sideways ball. 

Quite a bit of endeavour, very little quality. 

Hats off to Dickie. The only real positive aside from the 3 points.
 

Oh, and Anis is getting a bit better.

.

22 minutes ago, TomThumb84 said:

An over-complicator and over-thinking analyser.

Does not look at league tables, does not listen to fans, does not show emotion or passion.

 

I do worry about a re-appearance of the grassometer pretty soon.

We do lurch from man-managers - Cotts and Nige -  to technoheads - SoD, LJ and Manning - with alarming regularity. 

Warnock next maybes to continue the sequence? 

Our Keeper looked decent. Well taken goal from Phillips (?) too. Composed right-sided centre back for us.

Generally though, Swindon - despite the result - seemed to have the better quality players/play. 
 

On to Man City. 

As said many times previously, if you want to get promoted playing fast-paced, front-foot possession football you need a team made up of the division’s best and most skilled players at that style. Man City are successful as they can buy the best. 

We simply don’t have those players because they cost £££. Pearson adopted an all together different and pragmatic approach of trying to weld a successful team.  A ‘band of brothers’ approach. His problem - aside from the off the field issues - was that recruitment was pretty poor. As a consequence, we weren’t improving - at least not at a fast enough pace. 

With a great deal of luck you might be able to develop a Man City style of play on the cheap and develop your own youngsters, or buy in young players for elsewhere - the strategy we’re, seemingly, now employing but that will take time and possibly, a relegation. No guarantees of eventual success though and the likelihood is if we do develop any decent players they’ll be snaffled up by bigger Clubs - unless by some stroke of good luck they develop all at the same time so we can offer players a realistic vision of them as a collective going on to the Prem. 

While I can see some logic in ditching Pearson, I struggle massively with flip-flopping to an entirely different approach and reversion back to the failed LJ type model. 

Think we’re right in a hole now. Stick or twist? 

Gamble either way. Do I trust our recruitment ‘team’ to deliver quality, physically resilient players in the Summer that can deliver ‘Pep’ football?  No. Do I think that Manning can adapt his style of play, get the players on board and become a quality in-game manager in the last ten games? No. Do I think the Lansdown’s will press the button. No, at least not until October at the earliest. 

The next few months are going to be hard for us supporters. Relegation, I fear, is a distinct possibly.
 

On the fitness issue, they all looked like pocket dynamos. A number of modest height, but real physical ‘units’, tough and solid. 

Are they being baulked up by the same fitness coaches Mark Ashton employed here? If so, what the hell was going on up the HPC to produce our team of injury prone lightweights! 

Cruel, cruel game. 

Deserved something from that.

3 hours ago, chinapig said:

I'm very much in favour of differing views being debated whether on a pod, on here or anywhere else. I'm happy to give a like to somebody I disagree with if I think they have made their point well.

But opinions should be presented rationally and with respect for those you disagree with. If a mature adult can't do that I for one not going to listen to them.

Lummydaze, FBC isn’t supposed to be an Oxbridge Debating Society! 

It’s a group of passionate and knowledgable football supporters willingly giving their time up and chewing the cud over a match. Even better, it’s free to watch, and has an ‘off’ button if it doesn’t meet your required standards. It seems to appeal to a decent number of us judging by their audience figures. Long may it continue.

I’m sure those who seek more regimented, managed, polite debate can satisfy themselves listening to Liam’s Press Conferences. 
 

..and to FBC don’t let the bustard’s grind you down you are doing great.
 

1 hour ago, exAtyeoMax said:

Yes last thing you want is an echo chamber!

Like you said, the chemistry is great. Tom and Neil are a welcome addition to an already decent line up and variety of voices

The philosophy of our Club seems to be to ignore the ‘here and now’ and take the easy option and just plan for ‘jam tomorrow’.

So, given Tom’s age plus the added bonus that he talks real sense, I personally think based on his FBC performances that JL should invite him to become trainee Coach/Manager/Director. 

Just watched the Cardiff ‘You Tube’ episode which reaffirmed my belief that the chemistry of the FBC ‘team’ is brilliant. Love ‘em all and the format/flow of debate is brilliant. The diversity of characters and views makes it compelling viewing.  Absolutely superb, far, far better than Sky’s Soccer Saturday’s et al professional efforts. 

Struth, if everybody agreed with each other it would as boring as watching 20 backwards and sideways passes of a football team that didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to be doing. 

More than achieves its objective of providing an opportunity to listen in on a good after-match pub debate. Addictive viewing. Hats off to all those involved. More’s the pity you aren’t the fans representatives on The Board (if we were allowed any!) - much sense spoken.