IAmNick

I'm there and considering it

Or Pearson about us playing Cardiff: "We have to recognise how important it is when you play a derby but the bottom line is you still have to be able to perform and to perform you've got to have a control over the emotional side of the game." Manning: "Emotion is a hugely powerful thing, it enables you to do certain things, and I want players that are emotionally invested and care, and have aggression and have fight. But, at the same point, you have to control it and if you don’t" I can't really see anything he's said wrong there? Seems very misrepresented above.

Presented to him? You're acting like he was handed a team with Salah, Mane and Firmino ready to go. A reasonable chunk of our fans would face been happy seeing one or all three of WSM leaving at the time. Martin never got much recognition, flappy "just runs around" Weimann, and "not a striker they score goals" Semenyo. Nige getting them working so well together at almost no notice has to be one of his bigger achievements. No signings means he wasn't trusted? Come on. We had no money, it was nothing to do with trusting him. If he'd signed someone you'd say he can only operate with money.

Nothing!

Nothing at all in Southville so I'd be very surprised if it's called off if it stays like this

The year after Diedhiou left Pearson constructed one of the best forward partnerships I can remember at this level, with Weimann getting 22 goals. Where exactly did you see Diedhiou fitting in / improving that?! Surely getting rid of one of our higher earners who was putting in next to no effort (and has only played a handful of games for about 4 different clubs since leaving), and creating a fantastic strike force the season after is a success, not a failure for Pearson?

This is where I am too, and it's really disappointing as like you I did like/rate him for a lot of his time with us, and thought he got a hard deal from a lot of the fans.

Maybe it's too simplistic an answer, but I want to see evidence he can improve things at the offensive end of the pitch, without compromising what has been an outstanding defence this year. I'll be keeping an eye on our GD. People talked about game management - I don't want to see us going for broke in the last 15m and conceding late on again. I want to see players like Vyner and O'Leary continue the frankly staggering progress they've made in the last couple of years and not regress. We've conceded less goals this season than half the top 6, and joint least out of the entire rest of the division. Our defence has been brilliant. That's a serious platform we need to build on. I don't want to see us making such an effort to break down teams that we lose that. I want to see us find a way to build on our solid defensive foundations, not compromise them. People talk about exciting football - well I want to win games. That's what makes a season exciting in the long run I think. I don't care as much about styles, "front foot", or whatever personally.

A few were probably saying that after seeing us vs West Ham or Soton, that's just football I guess

OTIB thread about him, starts holding him hamstring an hour later, it's fate

Great desire, when Sigurdsson picked up the ball you can just about see him on the left of the picture literally put his head down and power forward to make sure he was there. The Newcastle player couldn't keep up. You love to see it!

Sure, and I don't know enough to agree or disagree there. But there's a huge difference between that, and making him caretaker manager until the end of the season - which is what you're saying I think. That just seems like a lose-lose situation to me... apart from the 0.1% chance he turns out to be wonder manager (head coach, whatever). If you're going to have a player pathway, you should have that for both 14 year olds and 34 year olds who are good enough.

Why not get someone who might stay long term in and give them as much of a head start as possible?

Why? Isn't a criticism levied again Manning his lack of experience at this level, so we want to replace him with a guy who to my knowledge has never managed a single game at any level? I get he's a fan and all but, why? What are we basing that decision off? It'd make less sense than Holden and that's saying something. If we're getting rid of Manning (and we're not any time soon imo) we need to replace him with better, not an even bigger punt.

I guess ultimately the question should be - do you think we will get promoted with Manning? Is he the best manager we could realistically have right now to do that in the next year or two? We've somehow got ourselves into a pretty damn good position here - significant FFP headroom and a small squad ready to be added to. We've got a bit of a chance here. When will we next be in a position like that? I can't see many more Semenyo's and Scott's in the next year or two. Then we're back to operating in a tighter budget. This should be a chance to go for it a bit, which is a big part of why I want us to be ruthless.

I'd give him 8 games. If we don't see green shoots then get rid - we could do with being more ruthless I think. Give the new guy 4 games to assess, then back him. We've got a lean, young squad with a pretty good spine. We've got FFP headroom - but the time on that is running out. Let's commit, with Manning if it's working, with someone else before the summer of it's not

To answer the question, Williams. I think on the whole he's looked a lot better since Manning was here and I've been pretty impressed with him. Whether that's Manning, contract stuff, or what I don't know! Also, I don't think this is a since Manning improvement but I realised yesterday Knight is now on 7 goals and 4 assists for the season. What a brilliant return - we'd be looking enviously at those numbers from a "midfielder" elsewhere, especially when you take into account the rest of his game. Such a tidy player.

Ok, so we agree 3 wins in a row is irrelevant and we were definitely going up under Nige, nice!

Sorry, just to be clear you think if a team is say 7 points ahead of you 1/3 of the way into the season the only way you can catch them is by winning three in a row? So, hypothetically, going WWDWWDWWD all season wouldn't be enough? I see.

No, I understand your point. "You need to get points to get into the playoffs" isn't perhaps the incredible insight you think it is. I'm saying three wins in a row is just a laughably arbitrary measurement of whether it'd happen or not.

You've latched onto this weird 3 wins in a row thing not because it's any kind of important metric, but simply because Pearson didn't do it. Who bloody cares if we get 3 wins in a row if the majority of the rest is absolute crap and has us near the bottom of the form table? It's such an irrelevant thing to bring up. Holden won 3 in a row... In fact wasn't it 4 at the start of his season. He was gone about 6 months later!

Oh come on. This week on the pod the bloke said "Every week I suggest a team that would do better than what we've got" - just an unbelievable comment from a fan.

15m or so against 10men, what a gift. We need to be getting something from this now

I'm enjoying Naismith. "Sometimes in training we play a game where you're not allowed to tackle each other... honestly we look a little bit like that". Hahahah.

We're 2-1 down to the team who are 23rd, and the lowest scoring team in the entire division with a GD of -25. We're playing really poorly. I think a bit of criticism is warranted, don't you?