IAmNick

Wednesday second: https://streamin.one/v/60135791

City goal (Knight): https://streamin.one/v/bbd92854

Wednesday goal: https://streamin.one/v/90946ddf

3rd in the form table, WLDWWWDW. Bloody frustrating isn't it.

So scrappy but you have to love football sometimes

Eh?

I saw like 60 new posts - made the foolish assumption maybe there was some season ticket news! This forum is like bloody groundhog day at the moment. The same half a dozen posters, making the same half a dozen points about bloody Pearson / Manning / Tinnion / FFP on EVERY BLOODY THREAD. I get that it's important but my god it's hard reading at the moment. There are about 10 threads on this already.

I think quite often teams who are playing very poorly for a time and fire their manager will then naturally improve purely by regression to the mean. Whether it was the new manager or not is hard to tell. City weren't in some awful death spiral of results though, and have largely continued as we were. It's not really comparing apples to apples in a lot of these cases imo.

I agree - but also surely the managers (head coach, whatever) job is to get the players performing at a level above their raw expectation? If we have a 14th place budget, and a 14th place squad, and the manager gets them finishing in 14th that's not even a good job for me - that's just bang average. They're doing exactly what you'd expect. Could you make the argument that a good manager would get the squad finishing above that? I agree with your entire post for the record, but just playing devil's advocate - why? I think we could perhaps get better at spotting when a manager isn't doing the job and ditch them sooner. I'd use Lee as an example, Gary before him, and many would also point to Pearson (I wouldn't but many would!). We're a club who now are very used to our recent managers being given a fair chunk of time and leaving us pretty much where we started. Should we be more ruthless? The current "give them time, let them build their own squad" philosophy doesn't really seem to be paying dividends does it. I'm not advocating the Watford route of course, but we are a bit of an outlier I think. Whether we have the right people at the club to be making those calls is another question of course... and we probably know the answer to that.

I'd be interested to see how many final third free kicks we actually win in a "shootable" position (i.e. not near the corner flag or whatever"). I suspect it's not many, and the considered possession based style just isn't going to win as many as a faster moving or counter attacking style. Then from the few we win, it's actually unlikely we'll score. One of the best in the world at the moment, Ward-Prowse, scores 13% or so - and he really is a bit of an outlier. Messi and Ronaldo are both under 10%. So if we're only winning a shootable free-kick once every few games, and then only scoring well under 10% of them it's not really surprising. Looking quickly In the premiership (https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/att_freekick_goal), half the season is gone and there have only been 5 direct free kicks scored this season. So that's one in every 50 games played or so I think... So that's about one per season we'd SEE (which could be by the other team!) - or roughly one every two seasons we'd score. Which is about what we think we see so... who knows?

Socks have no holes in them.

There would I'm sure. I sit in the central Lansdown just in front of the posh seats and every game, 5 minutes or so into each half, there's a steady influx of people without tickets wandering up, standing around, and trying to find seats - usually in the more expensive bit. I don't actually care about them sitting there too much, but it's a pain in the arse with them moving around, getting in the way, sometimes then getting kicked out and doing it all in reverse etc. while I'm trying to watch the game.

I agree, he was excellent, it was just an example.

I think it's a more complex question than that though. He's good enough for us in the literal sense - in that we're a mid table Championship side which he's clearly more than capable of performing well in. The question is though, is he what Manning wants in a keeper? If his possession based, building from the back game is highly important and it's acknowledged that distribution is perhaps one of the weaker areas of Max's game (not saying he's poor, it's just not a strength) then perhaps we'll change. Not for one who is overall "better" in every department, but for one whose strengths compliment what Manning wants. It's like how say, Williams is clearly a good Championship midfielder, but is he what Manning wants from a Championship midfielder?

I thought the same, the South Stand looked really sparse again. I'd describe the atmosphere as nervy rather than patient personally. The game was a bit slow/drab/dull for the first 10-15m as the teams figured each other out (there was definitely a bit of frustration around me), and then the game and atmosphere started to improve from there. Once we were ahead everyone seemed to get some belief and then it was good. I knew @Davefevs would be doing his nut at the two bounce around the ground chants at crucial moments though!

I thought the same. I've seen that opening 45m where we go in the best team a few times, only for us to lose the impetus in the second half. Not tonight, we topped it and managed the game brilliantly. An outstanding 90m, a huge well earnt credit to all involved.

Yeah - I guess there's a difference between refreshing technique and removing bad habits, as opposed to actually training patterns and so on which would take more time. Any time spent can't be a bad thing as they're pretty woeful at the moment. Speak for yourself!

I know basically nothing about football as will be clear from most of my posts but is 20m a lot? It sounds like basically nothing to me! Edit: haven't listened to the interview yet so if I've missed some context apologies

I don't think it's that deep really

is everything ok bud

It's interesting in that context that the "We always seem to up our game against the better teams" / "We struggle against teams near the bottom" myth is so prevalent here.

Yeah I agree, even if they're kind of shit I much prefer the songs which are unique to us (always believe, bounce around the ground, flint said no) to the ones you hear the tune from almost every team in the country - Massengo's chant, 8 men had a dream, etc.

It's a crap song/chant but I'll admit I kind of like it. It's ours. That 2008 season with it ringing out at Ashton Gate even when we were losing with 10 minutes left, Brooker randomly coming on as a sub, McCombe up for the 5 corners we'd have in a row in front of the East End, McAllister looping in shit crosses from barely 10 yards inside the opposition half, but somehow you really felt we'd get a draw if not a win even so... Good stuff.

Yeah and if Hargreaves owned us and we were in this situation we'd be saying if only we had the accountant as he'd at least know what to do with the money.

Sorry but this attitude drives me kind of mad. It's bloody February, as far as I know I shelled out £600 for a season ticket, not something that finished not even 2/3 of the way through? Soton in 2nd about 200 games unbeaten getting boo'd off at half time today for being behind, they go on and win 5-3. I'll never forget us being 2-0 up at Leeds at Elland Road, who were in a similar position, them getting boo'd off, and coming back in the second half to draw. Meanwhile we're here happy with our first win of the year in February, it's a tough league, it's a transition year, blah blah - on to next year. Don't worry about the losses, or the crap football - our PPG will eek out our 9th consecutive season in the Championship bobbling around mid table without enough excitement to stop half the crowd disappearing down to the concourse 10m early each half. It's a rant and I'm sorry, but being safe in Feb at some point has to stop being an achievement and start being the minimum expected of us. It's fine to say we're happy with a win but not the entire performance. Yes I'm happy we're not getting relegated and I saw a few good cup matches but **** me we're so soft sometimes.