IAmNick

Yeah agreed, I can see why they'd be pissed off. I think if one where if it's in your favour your happy, if it's not your raging. Given their position I'm not surprised they're so angry, but the sexist abuse is pretty disgusting (as I'm sure we all agree).

Why would people feel the need to mention someone's race/sex/sexuality/whatever when doing it? It's literally irrelevant. Although actually - it's not entirely, because I can guarantee you she had to work 10x harder than all the other refs we've had this season to get to where she is. Bringing the fact she's a woman into it is just reinforcing those barriers she's had to break. Oh - and it's not alright to call male refs "all the names under the sun" when they make an honest mistake at work... which is what they're doing. But that's another discussion! People can be angry without getting personal. I thought she was really good. The ref on Weds was a level above, but I wasn't expecting her to match that. I thought a couple of the early yellows were a little soft, but she set the tone and importantly was consistent throughout so that made it a lot easier for the players.

The person hasn't even been to like 2/3 of the teams... it's like us getting excited about being 6th in September. It can be great, it's average most of the time imo.

Do you think there's a chance though that as the 1st and 2nd goals came from near identical balls that was planned? Conway on the first, Sykes on the second. Same ball, same defender, mistake from him both times. You have to be playing the ball and have a player there ready to capitalise on it - and I'm not sure we would have done around Christmas time. So yeah, Conway didn't literally force him into playing that shit backpass, but he was in the right place to take advantage of it. Agreed about MacFadzean.

Yep, agreed - the first two goals came from the chipped ball up the wing/into the channels we saw a lot earlier in the season (and imo were doing too often in fact), which we then basically stopped entirely. We're mixing it up a bit more and all the better for it.

Surprised you didn't just add this to your last premature thread instead before an absolutely atrocious run of results Just give it a rest you sad attention seeker

Blackburn were absolutely terrible... but how many times have we said that over the last few years and come away with nothing, let alone a 5 - 0 win? You still have to beat them, and we absolutely put them to the sword. Yes, they made mistakes - but we forced the mistakes. Earlier in Manning's rein we wouldn't have been looking to force them, and wouldn't have been in a position to capitalise on them either. He's changed that, and for the better. Well done City. Great performance, just what we needed, and set up in just the right way to take advantage of Blackburn's frailties so credit to Manning and the coaching staff. The fact Blackburn were so poor shouldn't take away from that imo. I'm enjoying the football more lately. More direct, getting the ball up the pitch quickly, pressing more at the front, forcing mistakes, and a bit of grit in the middle from Williams and Knight. If he can take the best bits of what Pearson was doing, and add his own flavour to it that'll do me. I'm not a Manning convert yet, but we're edging in the right direction. Hopefully we'll have got even closer by the end of the season.

I liked Naismith a lot, but I think it's time to just move on from him at this point and not consider him available for us again in general. The only partnership he's formed recently is on RobinsTV and unfortunately I can't see that changing much now.

Why's the centre circle / middle strip of the box a different colour? Just as it gets more wear so has newer/harder wearing grass there or something?

I was working at Renishaw for a few months recently and went past this twice a day. It looked nice but was never open or I'd have thought about stopping for a coffee or something!

Yeah I agree. I can remember a few years ago lots of negative comments about how Cardiff played... And tbh it was crap. But if you looked at their forum or spoke to their fans they loved it. Direct balls up the pitch ("long balls", whatever), aggressive players, and goals. Give me some of that! I think the metric I care about most is how fast the ball moves up the pitch. If that's many quick short passes, incisive through balls on the counter, or long balls I don't really care. It's exciting.

It's actually a difficult question to answer imo. It's very different on an individual basis compared to over a season. I can take a few crap 1-0s each season, and even celebrate them. I mean the really dire, boring possession without intent, fluke goal from nothing type. But if I'm having to watch that every week then no thanks. I won't be walking away happy unless we're absolutely smashing it in the league as a result. Even then I'm not sure. "Poor" football that gets results? Like Gary maybe, Warnock, or whatever - sign me up. That's exciting even if it's perhaps not for the purists. I couldn't care less there. It's 85% result for me but there is a limit.

Ah ok so you've mostly invented a bunch of people in your head and then got weirdly angry at them, got it

This is just sad now

Subs at 65 instead of 60! And who says we can't mix it up sometimes eh

Max vs the world today

You only need the VPN if you're trying to watch the official broadcast(s) on robinstv. If you just click one of the links posted above in the thread they should work normally.

Intrinsic, extrinsic, and germane. We do it at work too, and I work in tech. It's everywhere these days - It's important to understand and people who dismiss it and similar are foolish imo. City will get left behind if they don't pay attention to it. The concepts have been known for decades, centuries even. They're just put into more understandable language now so the players will be able to understand and help themselves as much as anything.

Passionate fans discuss the club they've supported all their lives on forum dedicated to said club, news at 11

It may well do - but being "well run" should mean you outperform your expectation, and poorly run means you underperform. That goes for both on and off the pitch. If we're exactly where we'd expect, we're just average. We do some things well, and some poorly, which sounds like a fair reflection on our club at the moment I think. I reckon our mid table finishes are broadly reflective of where we should be as a club. perhaps a little poor if you look at the total investment over the last 10 years or so, but I also think that can be seen as somewhat of a failure as we should be trying to outperform expectations, not be happy with matching them. I don't think that's being entitled, personally.

Isn't that going to primarily be due to O'Leary, Pring, and Vyner who are 27, 26, and 26 respectively playing almost every game? I think the meaning behind "the pathway" is a route into the first team, rather than just having lots of academy players play for the team in their mid/late twenties, right? Personally I'd look more at debut/breakthrough seasons.

Yeah I think we are mate. How boring for OTIB. You're a **** - Phew, that's better

Caveat - all the "xg is nonsense" / "stats can prove anything" luddites can just skip ahead You're right of course - however, as I know you like your stats and xG, take a look at the expected column. The post shot xG for Max shows he faces the 2nd lowest post shot xG (per shot on target) in the division. His xG against is actually slightly lower than you'd expect. Per 90m, he's mid table - 14th. In fact his (deep breath) Post shot xG minus goals allowed per 90m is 0.0. He's doing exactly as well as you'd expect. He's good in other areas and for the record I think he's doing a great job this year and wouldn't be looking to upgrade, but he's doing as expected this year imo for a Championship keeper, and nothing remarkable (when it comes to shot stopping). Obviously there's more to being a keeper than that, and he does well there too. If I've misread/understood anything please do correct me - as it gets kinda complex quite quickly!

City goal (Wells, but it looks like an OG to me): https://streamin.one/v/69fb9fb9

Sorry I'm genuinely confused here - your original complaint was that we were doing the same thing wasn't it - "stumble across something that worked and kept on until it no longer worked" But now you're complaining we have a new plan A every game. Which is it?