Harry

And you sir certainly know about the BERRRRRRISTOL bellow. You were probably the loudest ever! Ha ha, as for the “who’s your barber boy” I’m pretty sure I introduced this after seeing something similar on the Mary Whitehouse Experience. I used to begin it with a shout that again wouldn’t be allowed nowadays : ”Nice hair ya homo!! Who’s your barber boy”. And I am also pretty certain that it was you and I who introduced the “Garden Shed” song away at Wigan. @TV Tom - Banbury Red will be able to back me up on a number of those chants which you “weren’t having” last night

We also got this one going quite well away at Wycombe mid 90’s at their keeper Martin Taylor (after we’d been shouting at him that “Taylor - you’re wife’s got a cock”). Don’t know why - we just decided to pick on him that day. oh Taylor’s wife. She’s got a cock. oh Taylor’s wife has got a cock. She’s got a cock, and some bollocks. Oh Taylor’s wife has got a cock. Fun days You’d probably get a 3 year ban for singing that now!!

Nope. Super Bowl is on so I’m up late. We did get this one going fairly well in the East End circa mid 2010’s : Kick it in the goal, kick it in the goal. Come on City, Come on City, kick it in the goal. Or how about : We’ll be running round the rovers with our willies hanging out, we’ll be running round the rovers with our willies hanging out. We’ll be running round the rovers, running round the rovers, running round the rovers with our willies hanging out. Singing I’ve got a bigger one than you. Singing I’ve got a bigger one than you. Singing I’ve got a bigger, I’ve got a bigger, I’ve got a bigger one than you. Ooh aah

Ha ha. Nope. There was a few of us. But as noted, some went better than others.

Ha ha. Nope. All sang at games. Not all necessarily caught on much, but I definitely sang them

Baby you’re all that I want, when you’re lying here in my arms. I’m finding it hard to believe, it’s Phil Jevons. Little Mark Little, you gave us everything we ever dreamed of. Little Mark Little, the best right back the City’s ever seen. Little Mark Little….. The one about Holloway and his children (whilst it would be severely looked down upon nowadays) was actually very catchy!! Panic on the streets of Bristol, panic on the streets of Bedminster, I wonder to myself. Could life ever be the same again, on the Knowle West street you just slipped down, Odemwingie Odemwingie Odemwingie….ODEMWINGIE, ….. Hello hooray, what a great save - Heaton stifles Heaton stifles. Don’t bury me at Rovers memorial Take me home to Ashton, let me rest And on my gravestone carve a simple message Here lies a soldier of the CSF Here lies a soldier, here lies a soldier Who fought and died for the freedom of The West, The CSF Here lies a soldier, here lies a soldier Here lies a soldier of the CSF.

Hey Dave. I like your little chart. It’s actually played very well into my thoughts on why the system was changed. I’ve made a mark on the chart below. The red line on the left signals the 32nd minute. The red line on the right signals the 55th minute. I’ve seen lots of comments here asking why we changed shape at half time. And then further comment saying the Manning failed to react. It was actually Boro who made the first tactical change. They had started with Barlaser & O’Brien as two deep lying CM’s and then had Hackney playing as a high 8. Azaz and Forss were wide, with Azaz occasionally coming inside from the left side. It was basically a 4-2-3-1. For the first 32 minutes we were able to play out from the back as they had little pressure on the ball high up as the 2 deep CM’s were sitting in their own half allowing us the space to play. Likewise, and I know this was one of your points about their CB’s not having an out ball in the first half, having Azaz wide and the 2 deep CM’s didn’t give Boro any numerical advantage centrally. They had a gap in central midfield. And whilst they were unable to hold possession in our 3rd it meant that Ayling had few opportunities to get forward. Only happened a couple of times in that first 30. Carrick made a change on 32 minutes. Highlighted in the pic. He moved Hackney back to play as a deep lying playmaker. He moved Azaz inside to the 10 position and he shifted O’Brien to a wide midfield role; on the left but enabling him to come inside and be a 3rd CM when out of possession. This change allowed the CB’s or Hackney to have an ‘out’ ball as Azaz was much more influential in finding holes and receiving the ball between the lines. We can see exactly on your chart how this impacted the possession. Boro, from 32 minutes onwards started to cause us problems. They weren’t huge problems but they were ominous. The only 2 blue blobs on that chart from 32 mins to half time were the 2 Sam Bell chances, where we counter attacked. So, from 32 minutes, Boro changed their shape and their system and started to find their way into the game and begin to dominate. It was clear in that 13 minutes that we needed to counter this because it was already 1 way traffic for the rest of that half. Now, the change was made and as we can see from the chart, we actually managed to stifle them for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half. I think Azaz managed 1 very good through ball and they had another chance from a right sided cross when Pring was receiving treatment and we were down to 10. So the half time change actually managed to contain them and put a stop to their dominance from the 13 mins pre half time. Look at those blue blobs for us at the start of the 2nd half. Whilst Bell had been moved a little further back to RWB, that first 5 mins of the 2nd half he managed to get the ball in the opposition 3rd about 6 times and made 3 runs into the box. It could be argued that the half time change actually stifled Boro (pre halftime dominance became an even game again for 10 mins 2nd half. The biggest problems came when the 2nd set of subs was made. From 55 mins to 70 mins we were all over the place. Azaz was picking up the ball in the gaps and was enabling Ayling to get forward which was causing us all sorts of problems. Hackney was playing more as an 8, Azaz as a 10, Barlaser as a 6. They had numerical superiority in central midfield. At 70 mins, when Williams came on, Manning did react to this and he told us to be more compact centrally. You can clearly see Williams give this instruction when he comes on. Knight and Mehmeti, when out of possession, were now tucking in a lot tighter and started denying Boro the space that they enjoyed centrally. This worked for much of the remainder of the game. We conceded possession and territory but were generally very compact and hard to break down. After 70 minutes Boro didn’t really force too much upon us (between 55 and 70 they were very dangerous). They only had space out wide rather than centrally and thus were restricted to just crosses that we were able to clear or a couple of shots from distance. The Williams sub and tactical tweak worked and again it stifled Boro and denied them the numerical superiority in midfield which they’d been enjoying. Conversely, when they finally got their goal it came from Ayling getting tonnes of space out wide, because Mehmeti was very narrow and Roberts had come too narrow as well. But in summary, Carrick made the first tactical change on 32 mins and Manning responded to this at half time. Which worked for a while until we had to make the further subs. As Boro got on top, Manning tweaked it again and regained the solidity in midfield to begin to frustrate Boro again. I think overall he reacted quite well to the changes that Boro made.

Ah diddums. We won a game so let’s have a pop at the way the manager speaks! And your hero Nige never said unusual, baffling or purposely vague in his interviews did he You know, the bloke who has been well known throughout football in the last 15 years as being rather difficult with his post match pressers. Jeez! And you then go on to have arguments with people on this thread about attendances, having been the one who started with the “50,000 fanbase needing answers” Thats some rather inflationary figures old bird (gas logic territory). I highly doubt we have 50,000 fans waiting on Mannings every last word. We probably only have a couple of thousand who actually even bother listening to player or manager interviews and fewer yet who even care what’s said. Anyway - I don’t think you’ll respond to this as you messaged me last week telling me to not reply to you as you have blocked me. Presumably because you don’t like people who disagree with you (because we’ve certainly not had any ‘personal issues’ to warrant blocking). Seems rather cocooned, don’t ya think!

James won’t be staying. One reason for disagreement between Nige and “the club” was that Nige was pushing for James to stay but “the club” didn’t agree. I can’t see “the club” changing their mind even if Manning wants him to stay. Simply because his salary is too high and we won’t pay that level any more.

6 months ago I’d have happily said no extension. But to be fair, he’s really proving himself and for me he does now deserve a new deal. Question is, on what terms? As alluded to above, Joe is likely one of our highest earners. And if we take his total contract over his 4 years here so far, he’s not really given us value for money. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that he’s been earning around £1m per year over the last 4 years. Add the fee and we’re talking around £5m total. And we’ve only really seen any value from that in the last 4 months or so. So we’ve seen a fair amount of money down the drain, but of course through no fault of his own. I would imagine (well in fact I had actually heard it confirmed) that we will offer him a deal on reduced salary. I guess it depends how much we’ve reduced it. And he will of course be free to talk to other clubs to see if they can offer him anything better. I’d say it’s fair and reasonable for us to offer reduced terms. Whilst he may currently deserve at least the same as he’s on now, I’d be offsetting that against his 2.5 years of being unavailable, so reduced terms is fair, in my opinion (to re-accrue some of that lost money). But. Let’s say we offer him 3 years at his current rate. That’ll be £3m. Are there other players who we could bring in at half the salary and circa £1.5m fee? Maybe. But if none of those are available at that price and wage then I’d have no qualms in Joe sticking around.

Sorry for your loss and condolences to you and your family. I met Martin on a few occasions going back years and he was a good chap. RIP Martin.

But Sam Bell is a striker. He’s paid to put the ball in the net. What makes you think that Dickie would have a better chance of doing so? There is absolutely zero evidence to back up your claim.

“Dickie would have been a decent option” Based on what?

Maybe James was down as the 5th penalty taker. Which more often than not is the real pressure one? We had Cornick, Bell, Wells & Mehmeti take pens. We don’t know who the 5th was. But only James & Williams were likely, as I doubt Tanner, Vyner, Dickie or Lebel were up for it? That’s all we had. If James had taken it and missed I’d imagine you’d be saying “why didn’t Bell take one - he’s a striker”

In the grand scheme of things. Yes. But let’s take tonight in isolation. With Roberts & McCrorie needing to go off at 60, please tell me who your back 4 would have been?

I think I recall one vs Bournemouth in the early rounds of the JPT (or whatever it was called then, Auto Windscreens maybe)

For the record, I’m not ‘pro manning’. I’m just willing to give the bloke a chance (ie more than 10 games before writing him off). Facts are, Roberts clearly could only manage 60 minutes. So who goes to left back? Maybe Tanner? But then if you stay a back 4, he’s your right back. So if Tanner goes left back, who goes right back? We ought to remember that we have 14 first team players available tonight, with the 2 starting full backs returning from lengthy injuries. As I said on page 3 earlier. We are bare bones FC again tonight. So the subs were always gonna be rough.

Roberts has to have his minutes managed. He hasn’t played for 4 months. McCrorie has to have his minutes managed. He lost half his pelvis, didn’t play for 8 months. Knight runs 57 miles every game. He needs a rest sometimes. You realise that the players minutes are managed to the nth degree with all the sports scientists. All 3 were likely told they have 60 minutes today. I highly doubt Manning would have wanted to make those changes when he did. I mean, are some people so anti Manning that they think his thought process was “we’re playing really well here against a Prem team, we’re on top of the game and looking good. I know what I’ll do, I’ll purposely make us worse by taking off one of my best players and totally change the team shape” ??

Who would you have put at left back then?

Is it on Teletext?

Radio saying we’re playing a back 3 with Roberts as LCB and Mehmeti as wing back. Can anyone confirm?

Yep. I think we are ‘Bare Bones FC’ again tonight. If James isn’t fit we’ve only really got 14 players with first team experience. That includes 1 OAP in King and 2 full backs who are only just recovering from long term injuries (McCrorie & Roberts). So really only 11 players who have been ‘regular’ starters this season. I hear Courtney Sweetman Kirk on Talksport hasn’t done her research. Just on H&J show and she said “Forest may want to rest players so this gives Bristol City an advantage as they’ll be able to play a full strength team”. Not very likely!!

I had the same thought. And then I remembered ……

That wasn’t the point I was making. The point I was making was that, no matter who is the manager/head coach, a football club will always sign players and not rely solely on players from their academy that they have to ‘coach up’.

The Seagull is blinded by his love for Nige. He thinks that because we now have Liam in that we don’t need to sign any more players and that the academy kids should all be ‘coached up’ to top level championship players. He conveniently forgets that Nigel signed the following players : Danny Simpson, Matty James, Andy King, Rob Atkinson, Timm Klose, Duncan Idehen, George Tanner, Tim ApSion, Ben Acey, Ewan Clark, Kane Wilson, Kal Naismith, Mark Sykes, Stefan Bajic, Nikita Haikin, Anis Mehmeti, Harry Cornick, Rob Dickie, Ross McCrorie, Haydon Roberts, Jason Knight, Taylor GardnerHickman & Lewis Thomas. I can only assume that he thinks that none of those players should have been signed because we should have ‘coached up’ the academy lads and that we should now be starting with Zac Bell, Araoye, KnightLebel, Kadji, Casa Grande, Leeson, Rose, Yeboah, Joseph James, Nelson etc etc. So yeah, I’m pretty sure the Seagull thinks that having hired Manning we shouldn’t have to sign any more players ever again.