Sack or keep Nigel Pearson

[ProfitInMyPocket]

Do you trust the higher-ups to make the right appointment? I for sure as hell don't. 

We're not plucky Bristol City spunking money down the drain anymore. No 'big names' will come here, people been spouting these names for years and we still end up with nowt. We are not as big or as good as we think we are. Never have been. 

This proper rebuild we're trying to make takes time, football fans and people in general have no patience anymore.

We could be in the Championship, League One or National League South and I'd still support and get behind them. This is the first time since SC's reign where we had a man who is trying to initiate real change and for once the Lansdown family are actually on board with it instead of wasting money.

All I see is this entitlement and I have no idea where it has come from.

I've actually enjoyed watching us quite a lot this season, probably for the first time since 2017-2018.

[Olé]

Keep - there is a massive overreaction to two poor performances at home either side of Xmas for which mistakes by individuals have done for us.

 

This season there have been 5 unacceptable performances - Birmingham and Reading away in October, Lincoln in November and then these two.

What they all have in common is comically bad defending and individual mistakes, for a team that otherwise if it defends well, can be competitive.

We've only lost 1 match this season when conceding no more than one goal - against a very good Sheff Utd team - so if we stay tight we are fine.

When we've sacked managers (i.e. Holden, LJ) it is because there was no longer clear direction and the teams looked confused and disorganised.

It's nonsense to say that's where we are now - it is very obvious how we are trying to play, we are simply underperforming as a squad of players.

 

Up to and including losing away at Norwich and Burnley we were playing among the best football I can remember us playing in the Championship.

We play a 3-5-2 which is compact out of possession and goes direct on the counter to spring players down the channel and crosses into the box.

We stay solid, but try to take the game to opponents early to nick a goal (which is why we're still even after yesterday top 3 in the division at HT).

What has happened over Xmas since 1-0 up vs Stoke is we've made a series of calamitous defender/keeper cock ups (or Naismith when pressed).

At home making big mistakes, confidence drains rapidly to the point our direct style is slow and laboured (5 sideways passes then overhit it long).

 

None of this is a manager who doesn't know how to turn it round, a manager who has lost the dressing room, and all that crap we've seen before.

Remember when LJ or Holden football was at its worst, it was zero shots and no idea what our style of play is or what we're hoping to try and do.

Anyone who claims that's the case now is telling porkies. The instructions and approach is clear (and was evident from how we play from kick off).

We've got players who need to cut out basic errors that put us on the back foot. Brum/Reading at set pieces. Stoke/WBA defender/keeper comms.

Players need to take some effin responsibility. I'm not a fan of Pearson's spiky deflective interviews, but is he really that wrong with what he says? 

[Kolsch]

I think yesterday showed why we need a new manager. The contrast between the way West Brom were yesterday and us was light years difference.

They were well coached and everyone knew their roles.

Us on the other hand..

Edited December 27, 2022 by Kolsch

[firstdivision]

6 hours ago, Davefevs said:

This is where it’s worth reading beyond the headline! 

The art of effective communication, Dave, is that your message is clear. There was enough ambiguity in what he said for supporters to infer he was having a bit of a go. For all  his ‘blame me’ rhetoric, he hates being criticised. He always wants to jab back because he is naturally spikey.

It’s starting to feel like the last days of Rome. Dreadful performance, admittedly against a decent side: poor team and squad selection, odd substitutions and two more mistakes leading to goals, one of them basic. If O’Leary had come for the through ball, he could have a post-Christmas G&T and still got there. 

 

[Major Isewater]

8 hours ago, JoeAman08 said:

I read a headline where he said not bothered about booing and been booed out of bigger stadiums. That sounds like an insult to the club when I see that. His track record outside of Leicester is absolute shit. Can take that billy big bollocks bullshit(how about that alliteration) somewhere else tbh. 

He’s just saying that he is not cowered by the boo boys. It won’t influence how he works. He has broad shoulders. 

[Sir Geoff]

I 've been a staunch Pearson must stay up to the Lincoln game where I had a wobble and a few doubts crept in. I am now totally ambivalent as to whether he stays or goes. Nearly two years now and little or no improvement in how we play. At the moment we are going backwards no doubt about it (and that's not just with the ball).

[Rob k]

43 minutes ago, Kolsch said:

I think yesterday showed why we need a new manager. The contrast between the way West Brom were yesterday and us was light years difference.

They were well coached and everyone knew their roles.

Us on the other hand..

You can’t compare WBA (a parachute club) with us. 

[harvey54]

Lose at Millwall and Coventry and he has to go

[22A]

15 hours ago, Atticus said:

Sack.

Refusing to change formation. Playing players out of position. Not playing players he signs.

Defensively we show zero improvement week in week out.

Really woeful imo. 

Agreed, but are certain players also just not good enough?

[Shuffle]

We all know that he inherited a massive financial challenge but I genuinely feel that we have a squad that should be doing better than we are currently.  However, what I’m struggling with is the following:

Playing players out of position

How many players has Pearson fallen out with over his tenure….. my impression is that he is too stubborn and cuts off his nose to spite his face

Poor signings

inability to address defensive problems

Too rigid in formations -3-5-2 isn’t working but we persist and don’t adapt to try anything different

Poor use of substitutions - yesterday was final straw

i do accept that the wage bill has come down and that the culture of the club has shifted to probably a more professional environment.  At the end of the day everyone who posts on here wants City to succeed & therefore Pearson to be a success.  Football is a results business and whilst he hasn’t done a bad job off the field and left us in a better position both financially & culturally, we are going backwards.
 

Time for a change 

 

[Kolsch]

1 hour ago, Rob k said:

You can’t compare WBA (a parachute club) with us. 

Nonsense.

 

Compare that WBA team to the one we beat earlier in the season. The new manager has come in and got the players well drilled and fully aware of their jobs and roles. Tactically, they were on another planet.
 

Them being a parachute team is completely irrelevant. I’m comparing NP to their manager and other managers in this league who’ve completely schooled him this season.

[The chief]

8 hours ago, ProfitInMyPocket said:

Do you trust the higher-ups to make the right appointment? I for sure as hell don't. 

We're not plucky Bristol City spunking money down the drain anymore. No 'big names' will come here, people been spouting these names for years and we still end up with nowt. We are not as big or as good as we think we are. Never have been. 

This proper rebuild we're trying to make takes time, football fans and people in general have no patience anymore.

We could be in the Championship, League One or National League South and I'd still support and get behind them. This is the first time since SC's reign where we had a man who is trying to initiate real change and for once the Lansdown family are actually on board with it instead of wasting money.

All I see is this entitlement and I have no idea where it has come from.

I've actually enjoyed watching us quite a lot this season, probably for the first time since 2017-2018.

I don’t think the sack Nige viewpoint is based on  entitlement. As many have said on this thread, it’s the consistent playing players out of position and the continued mistakes made .  His substitutions and inability to impact a game are worrying. How many times have we lost leads in Nige’s reign? No one expects us to dominate this league but if we were smarter with our players and tactics then it’s not ridiculous to think we could easily be mid table . Supporters have every right to call this out and be highly critical. 

The mis use of Weimann baffles everyone . It’s like playing fellow top scorers from last season, Mitrovic or Solanke, at RWB. 

yesterday there was a certain passiveness to our play and players weren’t giving everything to win every ball. You could see it all over the park.
 

Given the above I’d say time for a change

I agree about the higher ups and hiring tho . This is an area where we’d be hoping they get lucky as opposed to having a well considered succession plan! 

COYR. 

[Bedred31]

52 minutes ago, Kolsch said:

Nonsense.

 

Compare that WBA team to the one we beat earlier in the season. The new manager has come in and got the players well drilled and fully aware of their jobs and roles. Tactically, they were on another planet.
 

Them being a parachute team is completely irrelevant. I’m comparing NP to their manager and other managers in this league who’ve completely schooled him this season.

If you think being a parachute payment team is irrelevant, you’re gong to have to explain why Burnley and Sheffield U - two teams who had a terrible season last year- are 1 and 2 in the league- and by a country mile.

[And Its Smith]

How can he not at least try a back 4?  We’ve had a shocking defence for nearly 2 years under his tenure all whilst playing a back 5.  Does he seriously think a back 4 will be any worse?  Crazy to keep on picking the same kind of team 

[Rob k]

59 minutes ago, Kolsch said:

Nonsense.

 

Compare that WBA team to the one we beat earlier in the season. The new manager has come in and got the players well drilled and fully aware of their jobs and roles. Tactically, they were on another planet.
 

Them being a parachute team is completely irrelevant. I’m comparing NP to their manager and other managers in this league who’ve completely schooled him this season.

Your talking rubbish if you think having 100 odd million over 3 years is irrelevant, this isn’t football manager, they have better players than us all over the pitch 

funny how you give no credit to NP for that result though isn’t it!!

[tin]

1 hour ago, Kolsch said:

Nonsense.

Compare that WBA team to the one we beat earlier in the season. The new manager has come in and got the players well drilled and fully aware of their jobs and roles. Tactically, they were on another planet.
 

Them being a parachute team is completely irrelevant. I’m comparing NP to their manager and other managers in this league who’ve completely schooled him this season.

You mean compare the West Brom side that has proven quality players at this level (Furlong, Swift, Wallace to name three) who are all on big wages that we can’t afford to pay, with players who’ve been picked up from L1 and L2 (Sykes, Atkinson, Tanner to name three)? In no way is that irrelevant. 

[redsquirrel]

it will be flemming or euell if NP goes, you just know it,then the twaddle of long and hard selection process which will be decided on who needs the least money.

im still for keeping NP, even if we go down. let him finish the job he took on and see where we are then. i dont think hes the sort of bloke who would take on such a basket case if he didnt think he could rebuild it

[Red-Robbo]

1 hour ago, Kolsch said:

Nonsense.

 

Compare that WBA team to the one we beat earlier in the season. The new manager has come in and got the players well drilled and fully aware of their jobs and roles. Tactically, they were on another planet.
 

Them being a parachute team is completely irrelevant. I’m comparing NP to their manager and other managers in this league who’ve completely schooled him this season.

 

This is it. It isn't a reaction to that loss. It isn't even a reaction to our precarious situation.

It's a reaction to peculiar managerial decisions, that even Pearson's staunchest defenders cannot explain. Weimann as RWB; King as CB; facing a big, strong, physical side and waiting until we were 0-2 down to bring on our strongest, most robust attacker. The cutting your own nose off decisions regarding HNM. The disparaging of the loan system, used to great effect by other Championship managers. And why restart a side that had failed against a mediocre Stoke against a burgeoning WBA? They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. 

And TBH considering the way confidence has ebbed away from players who've been solid earlier in the season, I don't think Pearson's uncompromising manner is picking up morale in the squad. Players don't like losing games, but they looked unhappy throughout yesterday. 

Pearson talks a great talk about 'building a long-term project' here, but I've seen no evidence that he is doing that. I see evidence that what he's building, thanks to his idiosyncrasies and stubbornness, is a long-term mess. He's cut financial losses, I'll grant him that and that alone, but perhaps the CEO change was more critical there.

His mojo is lost and was last seen nearly a decade ago in the East Midlands. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Red-Robbo

[italian dave]

3 hours ago, Rob k said:

You can’t compare WBA (a parachute club) with us. 

I think the comparison (which is a fair one) is between the WBA and City teams we saw when we played them at the Hawthorns earlier in the season.

Parachute payments of not, they had the same squad then, so did we. They were absolutely shambolic. We were OK. The only thing that’s changed since then is they have a new manager, 

[italian dave]

45 minutes ago, tin said:

You mean compare the West Brom side that has proven quality players at this level (Furlong, Swift, Wallace to name three) who are all on big wages that we can’t afford to pay, with players who’ve been picked up from L1 and L2 (Sykes, Atkinson, Tanner to name three)? In no way is that irrelevant. 

But the point is that they had all this players in October - or whenever we played the, away. You still have to manage them to set up in a way that works to their strengths, and so on.

They have too 6 quality players, sure. We don’t. But we have a decent squad, decent individual players - certainly mid table at this level. 

[Robbored]

“Stability” is a word SL uses a lot when talking about City and largely why he was so patient with LJ for so long. If Nige was sacked it’s not just one man that goes but his backroom staff as well.

That would cause a massive upheaval and have a destabilising effect on the football club. I can’t see  SL panicking just yet.

[Rob k]

5 minutes ago, italian dave said:

But the point is that they had all this players in October - or whenever we played the, away. You still have to manage them to set up in a way that works to their strengths, and so on.

They have too 6 quality players, sure. We don’t. But we have a decent squad, decent individual players - certainly mid table at this level. 

I keep hearing we have a decent squad, bar Scott i can’t see many getting in a top 6 starting 11

[tin]

4 minutes ago, italian dave said:

But the point is that they had all this players in October - or whenever we played the, away. You still have to manage them to set up in a way that works to their strengths, and so on.

They have too 6 quality players, sure. We don’t. But we have a decent squad, decent individual players - certainly mid table at this level. 

I get that, Davide, but as you rightly say West Brom have considerably more quality in their ranks because parachute payments enable them to do so. When we played them in October, those quality players were coasting and they we caught them cold. That’s the Championship, it happens. Did anyone moan about that win? No. Did anyone moan when we beat Rotherham TWO games ago? No. But people are moaning because they changed manager and he’s getting a better tune out of those quality players and assists me the same would happen here, failing to acknowledge that we have nowhere near the quality to achieve a similar outcome. Compare Sykes with Wallace for example, poles apart in terms of quality.

Our season won’t be defined on a defeat to West Brom, it’ll rest on games against Cardiff, Huddersfield, Rotherham, Blackpool and co, plus whatever points we can pick up in between. But to give us a chance of that, Nige needs to pick players in their proper positions. What’s the realistic alternative? Euell? That’s the sort of replacement we’d get. Be careful what you wish for. 

[redsquirrel]

do the players still get appearance bonus? i can understand the massengo bit if so. 

[Redandproud]

The 38.51% of keep are gasheads I expect, they'd love for him to get us relagated ,

[Northern Red]

4 minutes ago, Red-Al said:

The 38.51% of keep are gasheads I expect, they'd love for him to get us relagated ,

Clown.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Northern Red

[Red-Robbo]

7 minutes ago, Rob k said:

I keep hearing we have a decent squad, bar Scott i can’t see many getting in a top 6 starting 11

 

If he plays like yesterday much longer, he would struggle to get in a top 6 conference side.

Let's hope the real Alex Scott returns pronto. 

[johnbytheriver]

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PODCASTS GONE?

[italian dave]

7 minutes ago, tin said:

I get that, Davide, but as you rightly say West Brom have considerably more quality in their ranks because parachute payments enable them to do so. When we played them in October, those quality players were coasting and they we caught them cold. That’s the Championship, it happens. Did anyone moan about that win? No. Did anyone moan when we beat Rotherham TWO games ago? No. But people are moaning because they changed manager and he’s getting a better tune out of those quality players and assists me the same would happen here, failing to acknowledge that we have nowhere near the quality to achieve a similar outcome. Compare Sykes with Wallace for example, poles apart in terms of quality.

Our season won’t be defined on a defeat to West Brom, it’ll rest on games against Cardiff, Huddersfield, Rotherham, Blackpool and co, plus whatever points we can pick up in between. But to give us a chance of that, Nige needs to pick players in their proper positions. What’s the realistic alternative? Euell? That’s the sort of replacement we’d get. Be careful what you wish for. 

Our win there wasn't a 'one off' when we were lucky to catch them on a bad day. They were playing dire football week in week out at the time. We spoke to their fans before the game and couldn't believe how despondent they were about their prospects generally.

As I've said repeatedly - I'm always hoping that whoever the City manager is they'll stay in post and achieve success. Whether and when they go is something Ive no control at all over so I try not to get too worked up about it! And who replaces them even more so! We all know it's entirely unpredictable anyway.

[hertsexile]

In the current football climate it is hard for any manager to succeed players on excessively high wage’s , agents asking(ripping off clubs) for bigger cuts of transfer fees. Clubs asking for high transfer fees for run of the mill players , FFP ! We are lucky that we have an owner who is credible and not Mickey Mouse like so many at other clubs in recent times. 
NP may not be working at the moment but the club was in an absolute mess following the Ashton years! Any changes are going to take time football management is a rollercoaster at the best of times many owners twist when they should have stuck. Seeing our academy produce some fine young players is a bonus.  
No team has a right to success as a supporter you have to ride the good times as well as the bad.