Harry

Rob - Fevs has done my work for me It’s the 4 plus the 5.6 = 9.6. As I said in my initial post. 10 points would be the XD (expected deficit) and we are 13, so a 3.4 difference. But also Fevs is very correct in that it’s the speed of the downturn which is a concern. With which I wholeheartedly agree - hence why last week I nailed my colours to the mast and said that it was time for LM to go. I’ve lost total confidence in him.

As I’ve said before. That game we were short at CB. So in my mind you don’t then play others in unfamiliar roles which then weakens further areas of the team. Hickman should have played RB. He’d done it plenty before. That means Knight would be CM. Sykes RM and move Weimann inside to the AM. That would have ensured we weren’t weakening the whole right side of defence.

Correct. But good teams tend to win more, bad teams tend to lose more and middling teams tend to be inconsistent. Of course, but we’re not taking a 5 game sample; it’s a 15 game sample. After 1 match, some teams will have 3 points and some 0 points. Would you expect that same 3 point gap between top and bottom after 15 games? Of course not. The gaps will gradually grow as the season progresses. In the 15 game example given, we were 18 points behind Leicester. Do you expect us to still be only 18 points behind Leicester after 36 games? If so then we’d be on 63 points. That’s 19 better than we are now. We’d be 5th. If that is your expectation then great. Truth is, the gap between teams will gradually grow as the season progresses. So a 4 point gap after 15 games will likely be a 8 point gap after 30 games. It’s just plain logic. Unless we had some crazy run of form, which for an inconsistent team like ours is highly unlikely, then I’d probably expected us to only be around 3 or 4 points better off than we are now. So yes, we have certainly regressed, but it’s not to a drastic level, it’s about 3 or 4 points worse off than we were after 15 games. By the way, I’ve nailed my colours to the mast - I don’t want Manning here any more. So again this isn’t a defence of him. But it’s just logic that over a reasonable block of games, most teams will probably consistently hit around about a similar number of points.

I’ve not said it’s a positive by any means but I also don’t think you can actually argue with my stats. If after 15 games we were 4 points off the playoffs, then, if the next set of 15 games carried on the same trend then you’d be a further 4 points off, equals 8 points off after 30. So on the same trend after 38 games you’d be 10 points off. There’s nothing to dispute - it’s just mathematics. We are currently 13 points off. So presently we are 3 points behind the trend set after 15 games. Is that good? Nope. Am I defending Manning? Nope. But the math is the math.

I guess what I’d say (and this is no defence of Manning by the way), is that you haven’t really factored in the relativity. Relatively speaking, if we were 4 points off the playoffs after 15 games, then under the same trends we’d be 8 points off the playoffs after 30 games. Now on 36 games, under the same trends, we’d be roughly 9.5 to 10 points off the playoffs (well, 10 would be after 37.5 games in that 15 game model). So we are currently 13 points off the playoffs, so the relative regression is only 3 points.

Sad news and thoughts with Scott and his family. I do have a question. I appreciate that flying is out of the question for 6 months but is there another way to get her home? Would she be allowed to travel by train or car? Just wondering if there can be a huge cost saving here rather than forking out thousands to a Spanish care home? Someone with experience of these matters may put me right, but would travel by another means than flight be possible?

Just along from Severn Beach, yeah?

Yep. Agree on both.

Because Conway doesn’t block or press the same way Wells and Knight do. If you lose Knight from that position you basically have to change the whole defensive set up

Maybe. But it was still the correct plan. And it was what he put out there. We’d knock him if he hadn’t played that way so we surely have to credit when he did actually do the right thing.

They scored 10 seconds after the 4 subs. We’d brought Sykes on and he switched off. Not sure how LM could have reacted to the 4 subs when they literally scored immediately after

Plan A wasn’t executed by the substitutes. Agree. Roberts perhaps could / should have come on for Pring Although Pring is quicker than Roberts. So Burns would have had Roberts on toast too

I thought the ‘game plan’ worked well in the first 60 minutes or so. We basically played Wells & Knight as a front 2 and they blocked any passing lanes into Morsy & Luongo. Ipswich couldn’t play anything through midfield and were forced to play wide and long. This was fine by us, as Mehmeti and Cornick were very quickly getting across to the wide players. Cornick in particular gave Davis no space at all down their right. But then; the substitutions happened! Cornick hadn’t given Davis an inch. Within 10 seconds of Sykes coming on, Davis had 30 yards of space to score the first. Then Conway came on. Ok, Sykes attoned for his error on their goal with a great assist for Tommy. But the ‘block’ that Wells & Knight were doing so well, suddenly disappeared when Tommy came on. I highly doubt this was instruction. As it had basically nullified Ipswich all day. Their 3rd goal arose due to Tommy allowing Morsy to receive the ball on half way (hadn’t happened all game when Wells was on), and he then was able to afford Wolfenden some space to ping the ball to Davis. Where Sykes was off of Davis again!! And don’t talk to me about TGH in the 8th minute of injury time taking 4 touches in his own half and getting mugged. Awful 2nd half from Hickman. From Manning’s perspective, I’ll give him credit tonight. His game plan was actually very good and very well executed for 60 minutes. But the substitutions basically ballsed up the game plan by players switching off from their roles

Did he really say that he sends them out there with the perfect game plan? Wow!

See I don’t actually think the model whereby a ‘club’ has an ‘identity’ and an ‘alignment’ is actually the best one. There’s a helluva lot of talk about Brighton, Brentford and Swansea and the models that they put in place to gain promotion. But let’s not forget the other clubs that got promoted. Very few of them had a long term plan/vision. They just employed a bloody good manager or had a boat load of cash. Here’s the list of managers who have been promoted to the premier league since our playoff defeat vs Hull in 2007/8 : Mick McCarthy, Alex MacLeish, Owen Coyle, Chris Hughton (twice), Roberto Di Matteo, Ian Holloway (twice), Neil Warnock (twice), Paul Lambert, Brendan Rogers, Brian McDermott, Nigel Adkins, Sam Allardyce, Malky Mackay, Steve Bruce (twice), Nigel Pearson, Sean Dyche (twice), Harry Redknapp, Eddie Howe, Slavisa Jokanovic (twice), Alex Neil, Aitor Karanka, Rafa Benitez, David Wagner, Nuno, Daniel Farke (twice), Chris Wilder, Dean Smith, Marcelo Bielsa, Slaven Bilic, Scott Parker (twice), Xisco, Thomas Frank, Marco Silva, Steve Cooper, Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom, Rob Edwards. There’s a lot of what you might call ‘old school’ managers in that list. There’s also a lot of guys who were relatively unknown foreigners (but for the most part I understand they either had experience at a good level abroad either as number 1 or number 2). Yes, parachute money played a part in a number of these promotions, but for every club with parachute money that did well, there were others who failed (maybe because of poor managerial appointments?). But aside from Brentford, Brighton and Swansea, I can’t point to any of those teams promoted in the last 15 years as having a standout ‘identity’. They mostly employed an experienced manager or a manager with a background which could be respected, allowed that manager to dictate what he wanted, and threw a bit of money at it. We seem to be the only club who thinks we can get promoted by doing it a completely different way to everyone else. I’m sorry - I wanted it work out, but the appointment of Manning is looking increasingly ridiculous given the above list of managers. Compared to pretty much every name on that list, Manning is an amateur. Our model absolutely feckin stinks.

Superb post. Just one thing to add : Lack of experience in the recruitment team too. It’s basically led by a guy who by all accounts is a decent analyst, and then the rest of the team are mostly interns straight out of Cardiff uni having completed their sports studies.

Yes, the poisoned chalice is definitely a thing. And it’s for that reason that I have been a bit more defensive of Manning than others have been. I just felt that, as he was now in the door, let’s at least give the bloke a chance. The circumstances of his arrival and specifically the words from the hierarchy added huge amounts of pressure to his role. And whilst I was as shocked as all of us at the words that were coming from the bosses, I managed to put that to one side in my mind and just allow Manning time to see what he could do. I wanted to judge him on him, not on the circumstances. That was the main thrust of one of my threads about 3 games in (I think it was entitled separating the truth and the fiction or something like that). In that thread I was attempting to say exactly this - let’s not judge the circumstance, let’s judge him. And as I’ve said elsewhere yesterday, in the first 4-6 weeks I was able to see one or two things which I thought he was trying to adjust and it was looking ok in my mind. The culmination of this was the Watford away match where I thought was as good as I’ve seen us in years. So I was willing to offer a bit more patience than others have done - and some of you did go very early on this. But since the new year it has very much been a backward trend and the slightly good things I’d been seeing early on are now nowhere in sight. I wanted to give him a bit of time, conscious that the circumstances (and unnecessary pressure) were against him from day 1. But I’ve now come to the conclusion that he’s had enough time. I can’t see any positives in the last 4-6 weeks (and the interviews in this last week have been very very telling) and it’s definitely time to move on. For those of you that did go early - all I can say is fair play, you got it right. I was just trying to be a bit more defensive of him as I wanted to afford him the time but without the prejudice (and let’s not hide, there has definitely been some prejudice). But that’s me done now. He arrived unproven and an unlikely ‘fit’ and the last 2 months has told me he’s not going to prove anything here. Time to go.

It was getting close to considering a postponement at FGR on Tuesday v Wrexham. 2nd half it was really coming in and at one point I could only just see the goal mouth at the other end. But it dissipated soon after and was ok. Foggiest game I’ve been to in a long time though

I believe you mate. I do. Which does mean that Tinnion is lying. Because he said it, at 4:38 in that video I shared. He said it. You categorically say it’s not true, based on your own experience and that of people you know that are part of the academy. And I do actually trust you. So my conclusion is that Tinnion has lied. He wasn’t talking about the future. He said it’s what we’ve got now.

If that form table repeats itself over the next 10 games then we will go into the last day of the season like this : 55 - Swansea, Boro & QPR 53 - Watford 52 - City, Plymouth 51 - Wednesday 49 - Millwall 48 - Huddersfield, Birmingham 47 - Stoke, Blackburn 21 - Rotherham

So you’re telling me that Tinnion was lying in that interview then? Because he definitely said it. Am I to believe you or him? to honest, I think I’ll believe you Mr Cowshed. So that’s another thing Tinnion has lied about then. See my post earlier today on the ‘counterparts’ thread.

On point 1, our technical director would disagree with you. He says so on this video at 4:38. Re point 2, De Zerbi has a very different playing style to Potter. De Zerbi plays deep possession football, possession through central areas and then crosses from high in opposition territory. He is also consistent in his approach against all levels of opposition. Potter tried higher territorial possession, more wing play and he frequently altered his block dependent on opposition. Brighton have a clear recruitment strategy, but their managers are able to cultivate their own playing philosophy.

I understand what Nick says does have truth to it. There was meddling. There always is at this club. However, the SC sacking was done to death years ago and this thread wasn’t started as a discussion point for the Cotts sacking. Its about what doesn’t work and what should work going forward.

If you read carefully you’ll see that I said “limited involvement”. Yes, upon arrival Pearson was allowed to bring in a couple of ‘his own’. But thereafter he was restricted by the ‘model’. And I can also assure you, Nige wanted to renew James’ contract but ‘the club’ didn’t. And that’s where the disagreements started

If you read carefully you’ll see that I said he left at the right time.