IAmNick

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

6 minutes ago, Lew-T said:

Preston

 

Another season we finish below those bastards.

3rd in the form table, WLDWWWDW.

Bloody frustrating isn't it.

So scrappy but you have to love football sometimes

10 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Any little dig

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.

25 minutes ago, OneTeamInBristol said:

Ancelotti wouldn't get promotion out of this league with this current squad.

Majority are mid-table Championship players which is where they'll end up come the end of the season.

Pearson and Manning will get the same overall results with the same overall level of squad.

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?

8 minutes ago, The Journalist said:

We rightly gave Pearson time and Manning should have time too, whatever the rights and wrongs behind how we arrived here.

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?

5 hours ago, spudski said:

They have holes in them from the beginning...you put your feet through them

Socks have no holes in them.

22 minutes ago, Rocking Red Cyril said:

But then there be lots of complaints of ticket checking once in the ground 

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.

Just now, Middlesbrough Robin said:

The way he was spreading around the play, setting up attacks and taking good free kicks yesterday, probably yes.

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

1 hour ago, David Brent said:

Don’t want to get told off for being positive about Max again but he’s perfectly good enough for us. Certainly not a priority for recruitment. 

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?

38 minutes ago, TinMan's left peg said:

I was actually thinking how quiet (our end, saints were loud at times) it was in the first half and how many empty seats there were.  The turnstiles were quiet, was really easy to get to my seat which normally takes ages for a big crowd.  Whole rows empty in the south stand and Lansdown and around us in the Dolman.  Must have been way under the 24k sold.  Anyway, once we got ahead and the nerves settled the atmosphere was brilliant.  

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.

10 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

You've not missed much context. It's just right at the end.

I agree it doesn't sound like very long at all. However I guess, and it is a guess, that throw ins are one of those skills that footballers learn when they're 9 and then never practice, and actually 20 minutes of just correcting bad habits and reminding people of the purpose is quite helpful. 20 minutes won't do as much as an hour might, but if it's something different in training then maybe it's fun for the players?

In the discussion I mentioned I asked if it would be worth the time and effort required to train them. Seems like it wasn't as much time as I thought might be needed. 

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.

11 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

All I can compare it to personally is how having a 30 minute golf lesson can do wonders for your swing. 

Speak for yourself!  

19 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Interesting to hear that we did 20 minutes of throw in practice. I had thought I'd noticed a bit of improvement there. We had a thread on here a couple of weeks ago about that. 

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

14 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

It's a stupid question.

The sort only a juvenile intern who isn't really a fan could ask - posting clickbait shite, with no genuine interest in the answer so long as there's social media traction.

So **** off non-fan whoever you are.

It's impossible to say one is better than the rest.

Hereford 86. Donovan 91. Pompey 76. The first ever game under lights against Wolves. The list is endless. Stupid bloody question

The night Gordon Owen tore Swindon a new one. Liverpool 77.

On it goes. Anybody who's actually been there as a fan for even 5 minutes wouldn't ask such a dumb ass question.

How about the night the Saints didn't go marching in 2024? 

I somehow doubt it but we live in hope.

I don't think it's that deep really

36 minutes ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

What you clearly fail to appreciate is that the vast majority of people attending the match are not posters on otib and not prone to the same extreme negativity or "I'm not gonna give my money to Lansdown" or "the season was over in January".

With 6 points between us and the top six and 45 points still up for grabs and several players on their way back , this team has everything to play for but, hey, don't let that get in the way of your negative nonsense.

is everything ok bud

2 minutes ago, Carey 6 said:

I dread playing against sides that have been relegated from the PL the previous season. We’ve won 1 of the last 20 games against them. (W1, D5, L14)

Hoping we can turn that around tomorrow, probably take a draw if offered to me now though.

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.

8 minutes ago, One Team said:

At the time this was pure genius and really loud. To take what someone says and spin it is just superb (similar to GJ saying bounce around). 

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.

7 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

Yes because Hargreaves is/was the investor as opposed to the accountant Lansdown.

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.

No issue with us defending a lead at all but I was surprised we barely even got to put our foot on the ball for a couple of five minute periods to regain our concentration/have a rest/take the sting out. It felt pretty full on defending to me.

There's defending a lead, and inviting a level of pressure which you can't sustain... I felt we were getting towards to latter at times. Really glad they held out but it didn't feel entirely controlled to me as those defensive performances sometimes can.

I understand the comments about us defending well etc. but there is a limit to how much pressure you can invite onto yourself - it's so, so physically and mentally tiring defending constantly