petehinton

They should have been hoovered up in some cases, agree, but don’t think anyone has. Ian was let go by Tinns when he became academy director I believe as part of his reshuffling. He did some work for NS over the summer, and another lad from saints is full time at NS now, Ian has a role at Man Utd I believe.

Totally. But as pearson/Tinnion have mentioned, loans aren’t for everyone. I’d imagine they see people like JKL, maybe even Eph, as gaining more by staying around the first team environment, training with the first team every week and have extra individual coaching, having minutes here & there etc as better than having to drop down into league two (probably) full time that suits them a bit less. Not saying they’re the same ball park….but players like Foden are examples of where sometimes sticking around at a club full time and being coached as much as possible is better for them than minutes in a lesser league. I’m probably in a minority but I’d rather they both stick around, with Yeboah especially imo having better cameos than some have made out. Yes he’s erratic and is carnage, but his defensive work and tracking back was really impressive for someone of his age, and his raw pace couldn’t be dealt with especially on counters. Manning probably won’t trust him ahead of Mehmeti now, especially as he’s come off back to back losses, but I think Saints away in particular him coming on instead of Anis would’ve been better for us for that game in isolation.

They’ve shut down a few centres yeah, because of relegation / the new owners being absolutely obsessed by data. It’ll grow to become one of the most ridiculous decisions they’ve ever made imo. They’ll never ever be able to reopen it, due to the circumstances in which they were able to have access granted to be there in the first place!

Course, there’ll be some others in there (Cardiff, Norwich) etc too, but my point is it’s great and a clear upgrade on what we had - but to hear the club and others call it “state of the art” “second to none” and other things along those lines, are way way OTT.

Yep, those two, Butland - Clevedon, Alfie Jones - Long Ashton(!!!), Kammi Doyle & Will Merry at Saints (Redland), there’s probably even more if you scratch further As you say, always going to be some that slip through, but some should be too big to miss the net!

What a great start for the snake Also seen earlier they’re charging £36 adult and £32 for u18 for their games over Christmas period….wowza. Crazy how they need the money that badly when they’re the richest club in the world.

I think there is a blend of genuine hype to believe, bigging up the academy to help with the narrative of not spending money on players, and we’ve just been so used for so many years producing one player who’s maybe good enough to have a stint in the first team then be sold a few years later that (we pretty much went from Skuse….huge gap….Bryan) now having a solid group at most ages is still a bit of a novelty. IMO the ones I’ve mentioned above are the ones I’m most excited about, and for anyone who was there Sunday will see what I mean about athletes. Meerholz is an absolute unit, 6ft 2, ball playing lefty and he’s just 17. The one thing I do roll my eyes at a bit, and I understand why they do it, is HPC this, HPC that. It’s a lovely building. Nice facilities. They are brilliant pitches. But you are cramming in first team, all academy ages, the womens side and all non playing staff into that building. Pearson made reference to it in his final days, which also probably went down like a bucket of sick seeing as it’s heaven on earth to the club, essentially saying if we were to grow as a club and operation which is ultimately the aim, it’s not really fit for purpose. So I don’t know what the expansion potentially is, or if it’s even possible? Is it a damn sight better than first team being in failand in crap facilities and the academy being on the motorway? Without a doubt, but the narrative it’s best in class for the division, that it’s somehow saved the academy and it’s the reason that Semenyo, Scott etc flourished is baloney, imo. They flourished because they’re good enough and were blooded really, really well at the perfect time for their development. Category is another point I’ve seen raised. One thing I do agree with, within reason, and Tinnion covered this last year, is there’s no real point in becoming category 1 from the category 2 we are now. Running costs, quality of coaching (costs) become much higher, it doesn’t particularly protect us from a bigger club coming in and taking someone they really want to, just means the compensation is much higher & still a pittance for a PL club. We’d also be grouped into cat 1 league, so against Chelsea, Man City, United etc who take incredible pride (rightly) in winning it all at academy level, and rarely let their top players at those ages go out on loan in order to fulfill winning it all, so in short we’d get absolutely pumped most weeks. We also can’t be cat 1 with the facilities we have atm (see above HPC point!), so would need upgrading if we ever wanted to as we don’t have the right indoor areas (and I think My other gripe is recruitment and scouting. My fear (and there’s very recent proof of this), but the approach from the club seems to me to currently be “well we’re the best in the area, if they’re good enough we’ll hear about them” or they’ll fall on our lap with recommendations like antoine and Alex did. That’s not really how it works. A 15 year old lad from the area signed a 2 year YTS at Newcastle last month after a short trial, and after City (and others, tbf) weren’t interested because of his lack of academy experience up until being 15. Low and behold, we became interested after hearing Newcastle were. There’s some top 21s at Southampton who are from Bristol and been overlooked, have made it into matchday squads there, and who I have no doubt would be in and around our first team this season. Maybe even starters honestly. A few on here know (and I don’t mind knowing) but i talent scout for North Somerset RTC & have done for a few years now, and being out and about most weekends over that period I have seen City staff (scouts) at games once (no typo). But have seen Villa & West Brom staff a fair few times. It’s a huge shame and also just something I don’t understand at all. The quality at all ages at Avon League/woodspring levels these days is extremely, extremely strong. A bit of a ramble, but it’s all the above - along with the nest egg, best squad ever comments - that make me feel even more passionately / protective over it (especially being involved in it from a youth etc perspective). In what strange universe we can harp on about all our success & have the club Pat themselves on the back each day about certain things (and also not promoting that you can watch the 18s and 21s for free entry and parking multiple times each month!!!), and yet we are left with having Joe James (who came through at North Somerset, even more extra points for being a Kewstoke lad) as our only fit RB across all senior age groups in the club is an absolute travesty to me. The lad is a pretty mid-range u18 player, in the nicest way possible, hardly featured in the 21s yet we are meant to laud him being thrown in when he’s not ready, along with throwing Jamie KL on when we’re chasing the game as we’re so out on our feet, in a game that was then basically outed as being make or break for our manager of 2.5 years as a major success for the club??? How is that good for their development when JJ drops straight out the squad immediately afterwards. Feels like some strange dystopia to me. Anyway, I massively digress, just a real passion and interest of mine. A 10 minute wait for the bus well spent

I think the club wanted Manning regardless of when, but with Oxford flying it made them nervous they would get either beaten to him by someone else, or we’d be too far along in waits and Oxford would be promoted. Whether Gould would’ve made any difference to that, I guess we’ll never know, but I’m not convinced if he was still here that Pearson would be too. Whilst we’re on it, what the **** is this ‘cult of Nige’ stuff all about? Seems like nowadays it’s negative to be supportive of a manager (who knew), and the people bringing Pearson up more than anyone over the last week or so are the ones who wanted him gone rather than wanted him to stay

Yes been a few times, would honestly say it’s the best sushi I’ve had outside of Japan. Walked past it last week, looks really impressive and a massively welcome addition to Bristol. Go to the one on Charlotte St a fair bit as I work on the corner of TCR, excited to have one far closer to home now!

Would absolutely lump on Luke Williams taking that btw.

He was never a right fit from the off. Was a dead man walking after saying he didn’t care that he lost to us, and wouldn’t care if he followed that up losing to Cardiff the following weekend. No coming back from that really.

To chip in (sorry), I know Tinns saw Oxford play at least two more times on top of the games we played against them, so you’d certainly hope that he understands we don’t have the clientele to play the way LM does. So we need to make signings and change the squad. But then we’ve come out and said our wage bill is at the absolute limit, so there was no money for Pearson. Corner, and backed.

Too many 6.5s for sure, yet the constant 7s have been Dickie, Sykes and Knight for me. The latter, concerningly for me, yesterday second half we seemed to just think “give it to him and hope he does something” akin to what we used to do with Eliasson. That’s not really his game. I’m largely in agreement with your views and thoughts on games under LM so far. Having been to all of them, the differences are quite clear now, or at least the ideas on what we want to do are clear, But it does scream of another transition / mini rebuild type job which tbh I’m getting a bit bored of. My real concerns are how totally out of ideas we’ve looked in every second half under him so far, after really positive first halves. Same issues he has, are the same issues Pearson has. But not to worry, we are a top 6 squad and we have a premier league fan base so it’s OK…. If this roll of the dice doesn’t work, and I think Manning will be a real successful coach whether that’s here or somewhere else, I really don’t know what we turn to next. I’m almost at a point of writing this season off, likely getting Weimann and Williams off the wage bill and seeing what next season brings. ******* depression considering this was the real season for us to kick on with, but that’s the bed that the board have made for themselves.

I’ve probably be in the minority, but I’ve not been as convinced by Vyner this season as others. Lots of great recovery tackles, largely cleaning up his own poor passes. I’d have a back two of Atkinson Dickie every day of the week, when Atkinson is back fit.

Ah yes, the angle I’ve never understood in anything to do with life of “things used to be awful so we aren’t allowed to be unhappy about anything ever again”

I didn’t see him do it tbh, at the least he certainly didn’t go round the ground as he did against Boro. Not that that bothers me tbh, but don’t do it for wins and not losses.

I personally haven’t seen any ‘abuse’ toward him other than some fair criticism or questions, happy to stand corrected if anyone can find any evidence of people @ him directly with some pretty grim comments. The ‘will be back when we’re premier league’ is just very odd and needless. Essentially saying “you’ll all be sorry” to his own fanbase, whilst also saying I’ll come back when everything is perfect, I can’t handle taking flack, which is a big reason people couldn’t stand Ashton.

It’ll be his choice I’d say, I don’t think someone at that level would be told what to do. Players can be told by management (and ironically, Tinnion), but I can’t see how Tinns would be told to do something like this for the level he’s at.

This. He’s dished it out a bit to fans, and even chipped in earlier today biting on a tweet from a certain someone who (I believe) he made redundant from his role at the club. Now suddenly wants to take his ball and go home because people aren’t being nice to him 24/7. “The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.”

maybe they’re starting to realise

I think it’s become quite clear that they wanted Manning to be our next head coach when Nige went, thought we could tread water until next summer when Nige was OOC, but got shit scared Manning would either get Oxford up or someone else would poach him. Hence the awful timing and grim rhetoric.

Yeah, thought the same. Has said similar with the post too about us “having a history of starting halves slowly” - we don’t. Not this season anyway. Hopefully not a sign of how he is after losses, because I think he’s spoken well with the media thus far. Also went straight down the tunnel at FT, after lapping up the crowd on the pitch after we beat Boro. Cannot stand managers that do that, can’t have it both ways.

It’s not impatience, it’s frustration and anger that what we’ve wanted for so many seasons, we finally had, and it was ripped from us to now have ANOTHER new manager who’s now, suddenly after today, talking about fixing the past, issue of the past, bla bla. I really like him and think (hope) he’ll do well, but it screams of ‘will need 4 windows to make his mark properly’ type narrative which everyone is just tired of. We had a clear identity that was working & we could get behind, now suddenly we’re going against what we’ve been good at for more patient play, I.e Belly becoming a back to goal, link up winger, when he’s had a great start to the season being set free chasing the ball. Suddenly Jason Knight today was expected to be our creative outlet, and has basically been a second striker in each game Manning has had. The only way it works, is by them going against their lies and actually allowing money to be spend in January. But then we’d all see the last 7/8 weeks for what it really is.

Said at the time, their rhetoric of ‘young, progressive, on the grass coach’ that they doubled down on made no sense to them. They kept harping on about it in every PR push, but they seem to forget that fans literally couldn’t care less about that. It’s not as if we’re there training with them.

4 points, 4 games, 4 goals scored, 5 conceded - all of which in the second half. About as ‘meh’ as can be