Lack of Action Man

So glad of 3 points today. Attacking front three were quality. Found it difficult to get a clear view, but both of Cardiff’s goals looked either preventable (Massengo!) or saveable? Could anyone with a better view than me comment?

Spot on. And Bakinson is crap too.

Not sure I’ve seen enough from Max to make me confident he’s a long term number one. It’s a bit like when we had Stephen Henderson here under Basso. Everyone kept saying he deserved a crack at the number 1 jersey, but realistically he wasn’t even in Basso’s league. Max’s Distribution is good, but I do wonder how much of that is purely down to him versus coaching instructions. Then again you could argue if it is a coaching instruction then why did Bentley seemingly ignore it? Why keep going with the long punt? Can only assume Bentley is being sold though to have been benched so suddenly and ruthlessly. He’s definitely earned us more points than he’s cost us so should have been firmly in credit with the number 1 shirt. Haven’t heard anything conclusive about a move in the press though?

Why are rovers on RB when they’re at home?

Shop (and the choice of stuff on sale) is pretty crap it has to be said.

Rubbish draw.

Big respect to Frankie Fielding - I recall him doing lots of work with Children’s Hospice South West during his time here with us. On the subject of selling Bentley - he’s a great, great keeper. However we are failing to keep clean sheets (fwiw I don’t feel he is at fault for this). Would selling him generate enough funds to recruit a quality striker? I’m not sure.

Yeah I have to admit that whilst Bakinson looked better on Wednesday, he’s one to ship out on loan for me. League 1 standard at best.

Pearson needs to stay, the players who don’t want to be here (or don’t buy into the longer term plan at the club) need shipping out. More than anything we desperately need to bring a quality finisher in. Either a forward or attacking midfield player we could deploy similarly to how we moulded Bobby Reid. (I’m not even sure who we could get though).

Is showing good commitment in an unusual/unfamiliar position/role. Well done to him.

I agree, finally we are starting to look a bit more street wise as a team. Getting tackles in, even if a bit cynical in nature, and plenty of off the ball shit housery. Since every other team does this to us week in and week out it’s about time we wised up and did it back ourselves.

It really is pleasing to see the Academy and development teams either producing or developing players of this caliber.

I’m over the moon we won. I really hope Nige’s return is a turning point for us. I hope we have a solid January transfer window and that he is free to release anyone who doesn’t buy into the longer term plan at the club.

Agree, the commentary from both contributors has been truly awful and clearly biased to Stoke. That being said, still better than Martin Tyler who doesn’t actually bother to commentate on the action anymore, he just offers inane drivel in the vague guise of commentary.

Not for me.

Well yes, if he is never coming back then there's not much point persevering with any of his backroom team. We just don't know what's going to happen

I think prior to the revelation that NP will be on sick-leave indefinitely, I probably would have agreed with you that it would be an unnecessary addition to the backroom team. With tonight's news however, I would be leaning towards it being exactly what is needed. NP would then have two trusted right hand men in position at the club, who he can liaise with when (or... if...) he decides he's fit enough to do some light managerial/coaching work - perhaps working remotely first of all (as I think Steve Cotterill did with Wilbraham at Shrewsbury when stricken with Covid)?

Totally bizarre of Gould to say we're not interested in even speaking with Craig Shakespeare. I can only assume (as alluded to on another thread) we are well and truly ****** financially.

It's fairly simple for me. My dad supports city. I'm from Bristol. I don't like Wales, Scotland or the north of England. I like feeling proud of my city competing on a national scale (though based on our performances, I haven't felt that pride in a long, long time sadly).

It is concerning, to say the least, that NP is unwell enough to be on 'indefinite leave'. I wish him a speedy recovery, but the cynic in me says that we have seen the last of him as manager. As I mentioned earlier, this is giving me nightmare-ish déjà vu from the totally bizarre period of time leading up to (and including) Steve Coppell's departure - which IIRC was also mired by huge amounts of speculation but ultimately attributed to poor mental/physical health?

This is such an accurate representation of that car crash of an interview My take on it - Gould is a lot less nauseating and grating than MA, he pretty much used the same excuses/diversion techniques to evade the pressing question from 20pence (who, to his credit, did keep trying to press Gould for an answer on Nigel's "absence"). It seemed totally barmy to me that the only concrete answer Gould gave was to categorically rule out Craig Shakespeare, which seems like total madness given out current situation (unless we really are up shit creek without a 'financial' paddle).

Yeah I picked up on that too. A very cagey response.

Bizarre sequence of events, culminating in… likely no news at all! The whole feel of things at the moment is very reminiscent of when Steve Coppell left.

Mixed feelings for me. I have no doubt that NP should be getting more out of the squad than this. However, even with the addition of King, James, Atkinson and Tanner, there’s still a core of players there that have been there under LJ, DH and NP who (for whatever reason) are just not up to the level required: -Dasilva -Bakinson -Palmer -Vyner -Pring -Baker (horrendous injury record) -Williams (ditto) For me, we were absolutely reckless with spending under MA and LJ, resulting in a scatter gun approach to signings - very few of which went on to make money or enhance the squad (Engvall - wtf was that all about?!). Now we are stuck in the mud by FFP, unable to recruit anyone to sort this dross out. Blame for the situation goes all the way to the top (SL) for me. However I will concede that NP is proving hugely disappointing. Our current plight also stinks of the end of SC’s tenure. I remember him not using subs and also not fielding a full bench to stick two fingers up at SL for not backing him in the transfer market. That’s pretty much exactly what it feels like currently for me.

I’m beginning to think Chris Martin must have some sort of bizarre “must start” clause in his contract.