IAmNick

3 minutes ago, Better Red said:

Effort - Yes

One decent cross.

But what is he - He’s been here a year and I can’t still work it out.

I'll tell you what he's not - he's not a striker, they score goals

1 hour ago, RollsRoyce said:

I thought we had finally set on our plan. Use a lot of youth, fast-tracked to first team, sink or swim, the ones that swim, become the team. Add in some excellent senior pros to set the standards, and guide the youth. It is a slow process, but it was a plan. It might have seen us struggle for a few years, but it also had the chance to have a breakthrough. You develop more than you sell , so eventually you have a collective that have grown together and work together. All with the basic underlying physical/power/intensity of the current Prem league standards. It might not give instant promotion, but it did mean over time you would attract better youth players, as they they know they can have the chance to sink or swim, you become the club for youth. I quite enjoyed the process, even without a promotion. I like watching a new face come along, and see if they can do it. As long as the team are giving maximum effort and commitment. 

I really have no idea what we are doing now, apart from going back to the repeatedly failed Lansdown dream of uncovering a young manager, when (McKenna maybe, and Howe apart) the vast majority that gets teams out of the Championship are experienced managers/coaches. It is what it is, it is a league where experience and pragmatism abound. The Prem is a different challenge, and you need aspects of the club to be ready, recruitment for sure, and some of your promotion squad to have the physical attributes to at least compete. 

But look at who is/are making the decisions. We have no one, yet again, who knows what they are doing to the right level. We make superficial decisions, without any deep understanding about what makes elite teams, performance or culture. 

Me too, but I've thought that a few times now. The "five pillars" seems to be gone from the website, but it's been archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20140811073302/https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/article/20130206-lansdownfivepillars-641677.aspx

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Lansdown on City's long-term vision.

Jon Lansdown has revealed an insight into the club’s long-term vision and strategy.

They were:

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Community Engagement

The Bristol City Community Trust has already made its mark, reaching out to more than 50,000 young people in the region each year. 

With its own website, www.bristolcitycommunitytrust.org.uk, the club’s charity arm promotes social inclusion, health, participation and education. They aim to improve lives through the power of football and the Bristol City name is behind everything they do.

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Academy and Youth Development

At the same time the club has committed funds into achieving Category 2 status in the forthcoming FA audit into the Academy, which now has its brand new base at Filton. 

Competing in the new Under-21 development league has also helped close the gap between the Academy side and the first team squad, while several of the club’s younger players have been rewarded with contracts.

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Player Recruitment and Talent Identification

Revealed by the club’s majority shareholder Steve Lansdown in January, the club has taken a major change in direction with regards to its policy on recruitment. 

The club aims to sign players aged 24 and under more often than not, with older recruits becoming an exception, rather than the norm. The club is also building up a database of young players in all positions to aid in talent identification.

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Financial Prudence and Control

Financial Fair Play will take hold in the years to come and Bristol City wants to be ready, so already the club is taking steps towards meeting the stipulated regulations.

A lot of that is tied in with a much more focused recruitment policy, but also in trying to increase revenue streams where possible – including at a new or redeveloped stadium.

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Facilities

The players and coaching staff are now based at the Failand training ground full time, whilst the Academy has moved into its Filton home at SGS (South Gloucestershire & Stroud). 

A new stadium at Ashton Vale or a newly-redeveloped Ashton Gate, the club’s spiritual home, remains the club’s long-term aspiration. 

Supporters will have a key part to play should Ashton Gate redevelopment be the chosen option, including full consultation – starting tonight at the Fans Parliament. 

Some of it, arguably, we've been decent at. The community engagement is pretty good, and we have achieved Cat 2 status for the academy.

The player recruitment seems very familiar to what they're now saying - "The club aims to sign players aged 24 and under more often than not, with older recruits becoming an exception, rather than the norm." but that's definiely not been our approach in the interim!

Really I have no idea if I'm right here, but my assumption is we have no mechanism built in to course correct what we're doing. In theory, you'd want your plan and then to iterate on it gradually sensing if the bits you're implementing are moving you in the right direction or not. That needs to be built in, and for that to work you have to be getting honest feedback from everyone at the club, and that making it's way up to the most senior folk there (Tinnion, Lansdown x2). It sounds like we don't have that - the most senior people at the club don't seem terribly good at taking on board honest feedback on the stuff they've implemented (or tried to) so instead we stick with our plan, it gets way off track, then we panic, rip it up, and start again. We've seen that so many times.

Then we end up with the beginnings of a plan that's working (Cotterill, Pearson), they try and adjust it or build on it, but the people in charge simply see something sort of working, assume that's job done, why is this bloke telling me I still need to change, and then don't accept the feedback they need to take it to the next level and it all comes unstuck. Rinse and repeat.

Agree with a lot of this thread, particularly @Harry's post above.

I think there's a HUGE survivorship / confirmation bias when it comes to a "plan" for promotion. People tend to look at the couple of clubs we want to emulate, look at their plans, and assume that's the "right" way to do it. However there are many, many more clubs who went up in a completely different way. There are also no doubt many who had a similar plan and got relegated. All clubs think they plan is good - just saying we have a plan, and here it is... that's not enough.

It's a bit of a cargo cult I think. We're building stadiums and HPCs (not out of wood on a pacific island, but sort of) and talking about our behaviours without really grasping the underlying theory. That's then manifested in the confusion of the actual implementation. Steve's at home watching yet another club pass us by, pointing at the things he's done and thinking no doubt we'll be next year, I've copied them exactly!

4 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

I cannot explain why losing is a good thing hence mad. Then again the OP has a decade of negativity behind him so maybe it's no surprise?

Yeah fair, I'm not sure I can ever remember wanting City to lose, but I can sort of see the logic in it.

16 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

 

Well- there we have it. A victory against Ipswich will be largely meaningless and you'd want BCFC to lose for the greater good. Madness.

If he thinks that's City's greatest chance of success why is it so mad?

I'm not sure I agree by the way, but just wondering.

I think they've just evolved a bit?

Now lots of teams will instead try and draw the opposition to one side of the pitch and then quickly switch play leaving a "winger" with an isolated player in front of him.

There's not so much running down the line trying to beat the player head on I guess.

Probably a victim of greater understanding of the game/stats too. I think your 40% is very generous, and then add on the poor chance of scoring from crosses and it's not seen as productive in a very statistically focused game at the moment.

It'll come back though, hopefully - at some point the current popular style will go into decline.

9 minutes ago, The Original OTIB said:

Are we crap or not? This is all getting terribly confusing now ...

Yeah we're really crap, but there are better ways to measure it than comparing the number of points off the playoffs we are 20 games apart!

15 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Indeed, @Capman

4 off the playoffs and 10 above the drop when Manning joined.

Now we have 'progressed' to the below..

I see this quite a bit, implying we've moved further away - but I always think that to remain 4 points off the playoffs that means we'd have to be keeping pace with the team who are 6th. That'd be an improvement on before.

In fact after 15 games we were 4 points off, after 30 or so we're 8, now we're 12... that's roughly the same pace as before (a bit worse). The issue is we're not now 20 points off the drop (having been 10 before)... the teams at the bottom are picking up points at a greater rate than we are.

Using absolute points over time is a bit unfair I think... not saying we aren't a bit crap, we are, but just a comment really.

26 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

If he wants feedback from Naismith then he just needs to listen to the RobinsTV commentary from Sheff Wed!

If King and James have checked out or are going through the motions then that's a shame but I don't blame them. Never blamed Diedhiou or any other player for easing off in the dog days of a contract. It's only human.

I'm not sure they have (at least not intentionally), as they're great pros like I said. However, it doesn't exactly imply "We value and need your input to get us looking up the table" when they're 2 months away from leaving the club with seemingly no offer to stay on the table. It'd feel odd to Manning to start getting them heavily involved in things at this point and in that situation imo, both for him and them.

5 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

The players? Anyone really but particularly people like King and James?

First port of call should be sourcing feedback from the squad. Working with the players and other staff to look for a solution, and listening to suggestions. 

If the issue is truly that the players are struggling to implement or understand Manning's system then surely they've told him that. Surely there's been some discussion, however informal, about how else they can play.

It's a good shout and I agree, however in the squad of that stature we have:

Weimann - off on loan (and making a decent impact at a side who are 5th but that's another story)

Naismith - good guy, but he's always injured. He's not actually training with the squad or playing games so there's a bit of distance there

King/James - Both consummate professionals I think so I don't doubt they'd help. However, they're very much Pearson players (not that this should matter, but it's still there) and they're also both off in a few months time - and if rumours are to be believed their contracts (or lack of) contributed to Pearson falling out with other senior members of staff. That's got to impact their mental state however professional they are

People often suggested the same for Lee. I always wondered that in that case, what exactly are they bringing to the table?

Is it just a demotion to coach in all but name? If so, then what's the point - I'd just ditch them and get someone in to replace them rather than attempting to paper over the cracks (and then have another payoff in 6 months when that doesn't work either!)

16 minutes ago, BasSavage88 said:

I just don't get why people care about an optional podcast they don't have to listen to that the guys do for free. Just stop listening 

 

Because presumably they like the rest of it, like I do?

I started listening to FBC just over 3 years ago and really enjoyed it. I've defended it lots of times on here since when it gets some flak. I even quite liked Ian (I know I know...). He had a role on the show and he did it very well - he was the heel, the bloke who prompted discussion, he said things which were 20% over the top but they were kind of interesting and got everyone else going and people sort of met in the middle quite often.

I've dipped in an out since, but this few months he's become a parody of himself. I think he's maybe played the character for so long he's just become it for real now, or maybe that's just who he really is, I have no idea. But he's rude, abrasive, talks over and down to people - and what really pisses me off, he has basically no interest in what everyone else is saying. He waits for his turn to speak, takes ages (often ignoring the point and just saying whatever he wanted to regardless of what he'd been asked), and then when someone replies he's not even listening... instead messing around on his laptop, replying to comments, whatever. It's just rude.

I actually like his opinions being there as I said, and I like the rest of the pod (@headhunter does a great job, week in week out rain or shine, and his hosting and the pod in general has come on loads since it started so hats off there) but Ian really makes it borderline unlistenable at times recently which is a shame.

I don't want to stop listening as I like it, and the Suttons are a great addition, but it's tough going. So I "care" about it but don't want to stop listening I guess?

1 hour ago, CityBS15 said:

It was the Tories fault, or maybe Labour. Or some other mainstream political party you’ve been brainwashed into putting your energy behind. Sheep.

If I can work out what this is meant to mean I'll respond to it properly

Thanks for sharing, insane fight! Wow! I've watched it back at least 10 times, can't get enough.

The Welsh will definitely think twice before trying to walk along that small path again eh lads

42 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

We play at least 5 of the teams below us. One win and a couple of draws from those should see us ok, as long as the win isn't against Rotherham. Might have to sit 10 behind the ball A to Stoke on the last day.

You're suggesting we might need an attacking performance (for us) on the last day then?

Just wait 6 years and we'll probably have a commemorative shirt for it along with a bit of info then.

In the three games following Southampton, we made 584, 422, and 537 short passes. We had 0 chances in all 3 games from counter attacks (according to whoscored).

Against Southampton we made 277 short passes. We had 4 chances from counter attacks in that game alone.

What changed? Well we played football that suited us against Southampton, football the players knew and had been bought to play. Closer to Nige's football.

We went back to Manning's football after that.

As has been done to death on here, there was a lot of anger in the fan base at the time directed towards the management of the club.

However it's clear that never really subsided even though it's been 4 or 5 months now - that was evident both on the forum here and at the games.

Now Manning is struggling the anger that was already there is being directed his way as well (fairly or not) and it's got very toxic very quickly 

That's the risk you run when you make decisions like the club did though - and also never really confront the fans anger head on meaning it takes a lot longer to subside. They've made their bed, now they have to lie in it. Manning is now caught in that crossfire too, but he's also not blameless by any stretch of the imagination imo.

Seems like a job entailing all the bits he seemed to hate about working in football, and none of the stuff he liked.

I'd be very surprised if he was interested in it, even in the alternative universe it'd take for him to be offered it.

Really interesting post.

What are your thoughts though on the last few managers - Lee, Pearson, and now Manning. To my (untrained) eye they play a very different game, so when did this playing philosophy actually start?

Was it pre Pearson, but they put up with him to get us out the shit? Or was it mid Pearson, he didn't buy in, and they replaced with Manning who'd be a better fit?

But if that's the case, how do we explain the signings which clearly don't fit what Manning wants... Which in theory should be what the club wants as they only just appointed him?

Confused is the word.

Bit of a downgrade from your "have we turned a corner" thread about four games into Manning's rein eh

Part of the job of being a manager is working with and improving 'not your players'.  Who gets to work with entirely their own squad? Nobody within a year or two of joining a club at least.

If he can't get results out of a group at least equivalent to what they were doing before then that's on him.

He looked completely despondent at the end today. Holding his hands up to the fans in apology, head down.

Not a happy man.

Just now, JP Hampton said:

Wasn’t able to go today. Chris Honour said he’d not heard boos like it. 

After the game Williams went over to the South stand corner to a chorus of boos and was literally holding his hands up in apology and looked completely beaten/disheartened. Same boos any time anyone went near basically, and not just from that corner.

Manning got 1/3 of the way there half heartedly clapping of and the boos were even louder.

Sack or keep?

How is that a yes/no question