First impressions post Nige

[Woofyourkipper]

12 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Not at all, there was no press, Knight was playing deep and didn’t suit him, the movement was statuesque. We couldn’t string a pass together! 

 

Until cornick and TGH came on

[UncleRed]

17 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Not at all, there was no press, Knight was playing deep and didn’t suit him, the movement was statuesque. We couldn’t string a pass together! 

 

Not the first time Knight played that deep role this season, LM said they haven’t worked in the possession of the ball up until then. Patience Shaun, surely you must have some to be a city fan.

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by UncleRed

[Mr Popodopolous]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-citys-performance-qpr-no-8902975

Very patient. On one hand Math Withers says it was the worst game in many a year then says the performance is no great surprise as early days.

Which was it..first he says it was no different to under Pearson, then in the next paragraph he says it was one of the worst in many a year.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[W-S-M Seagull]

15 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Didn't see the game, highlights only but Knight in a deep role sounds.. interesting. Not his ideal position surely.

Wasn't one of the reasons we brought Knight in was because he can score goals? 

Against Oxford he played in a more advanced role and he got 2 goals and an assist against Mannings team. Bizarrely Manning then plays him in a more withdrawn position.

Edited November 13, 2023 by W-S-M Seagull

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-citys-performance-qpr-no-8902975

Very patient. On one hand Math Withers says it was the worst game in many a year then says the performance is no great surprise as early days.

I'm sorry but this early days bs doesn't wash with me. 

Manning was brought in to get us challenging this season. 

He didn't need to tactically rearrange the furniture against QPR like he did. 

The communication from the club is that Pearson was sacked because results were not good enough and that the change was made to give us the best possible chance of the play offs this season. So Manning needed to come in and hit the ground running in my opinion and the way he set us up against QPR was so far away from that. 

I had a lot of time for Matt but on this occasion he seems to be out of touch.

[UncleRed]

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-citys-performance-qpr-no-8902975

Very patient. On one hand Math Withers says it was the worst game in many a year then says the performance is no great surprise as early days.

Which was it..first he says it was no different to under Pearson, then in the next paragraph he says it was one of the worst in many a year.

Both can be true.

[Mr Popodopolous]

9 minutes ago, UncleRed said:

Both can be true.

This is true, albeit that sounds more like a description fitting the medium to final days of Holden, the final days of Lee Johnson, perhaps good chunks of his final season or the early days of NP when morale was on the floor, injuries were spiralling, our form was shocking etc.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Yet the manager played a completely different game on Sat which meant the players looked lost. I’m not convinced at all, by interviews, or what I saw as first impressions. But good luck to all. 

I’m not sure of the root, but we seemed to be able to get the ball out to Pring quite high relatively quickly, Tanner slightly deeper, but seemed to struggle how to get back infield or forward from there.  I’m all for coming back out and across and down the other side to open up spaces, but we couldn’t do that.

Quite a bit made of the press, and it was different, and at times we did it pretty well (for about a 20 minute spell).  But I don’t think our press was the worst under Nige anyway.  And we allowed QPR to get the ball to Smyth and Willock 1v1 far too often.

Those two things were my main observations.  The third was, we didn’t hit many long balls, so rather than play a bit of a hopeful ball under pressure, we tried to “make a pass”.

So, I’m hoping to see different things knit together over time, but at least I know some of the things that I’m looking out for next game.

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Didn't see the game, highlights only but Knight in a deep role sounds.. interesting. Not his ideal position surely.

He can play wherever, it wasn’t like he just sat in front of the back four, he was operating as more of 6 and 8 combined, if that makes sense.  Personally I think he’s better playing from a bit deeper (not DM though), rather than a 10, but he did more when he moved forward after the subs.  But I think that was partly because we played better as a team in that period and we actually got some moves going.

[red panda]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I’m not sure of the root, but we seemed to be able to get the ball out to Pring quite high relatively quickly, Tanner slightly deeper, but seemed to struggle how to get back infield or forward from there.  I’m all for coming back out and across and down the other side to open up spaces, but we couldn’t do that.

Quite a bit made of the press, and it was different, and at times we did it pretty well (for about a 20 minute spell).  But I don’t think our press was the worst under Nige anyway.  And we allowed QPR to get the ball to Smyth and Willock 1v1 far too often.

Those two things were my main observations.  The third was, we didn’t hit many long balls, so rather than play a bit of a hopeful ball under pressure, we tried to “make a pass”.

So, I’m hoping to see different things knit together over time, but at least I know some of the things that I’m looking out for next game.

He can play wherever, it wasn’t like he just sat in front of the back four, he was operating as more of 6 and 8 combined, if that makes sense.  Personally I think he’s better playing from a bit deeper (not DM though), rather than a 10, but he did more when he moved forward after the subs.  But I think that was partly because we played better as a team in that period and we actually got some moves going.

Indeed, I'm not sure we played any long balls at all in the first half.  In the second half it looked as if the players had been given permission to try the occasional long ball, though usually hit with purpose rather than just hope.  That did improve things, as there was a bit of variety (and probably gave QPR a bit more to think about).  I'm not sure Max ever kicked long (except for the odd clearance and maybe right at the end), so there were far fewer throw-ins than normal 

[W-S-M Seagull]

7 minutes ago, red panda said:

Indeed, I'm not sure we played any long balls at all in the first half.  In the second half it looked as if the players had been given permission to try the occasional long ball, though usually hit with purpose rather than just hope.  That did improve things, as there was a bit of variety (and probably gave QPR a bit more to think about).  I'm not sure Max ever kicked long (except for the odd clearance and maybe right at the end), so there were far fewer throw-ins than normal 

Mannings philosophy appears to be "if the other team don't have the ball, they can't score" I've heard him say that a few times in various interviews. 

So what that means is boring predictable safe football with players that are scared of making a mistake.

One of our greater strengths is on the counter which is going to include long balls which goes against Mannings philosophy. My concern is Manning is coaching out the good parts of our game. 

We don't have the players to play a possession based game. If that wasn't obvious before Saturday, it was very clear after Saturday. 

 

[Davefevs]

10 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Mannings philosophy appears to be "if the other team don't have the ball, they can't score" I've heard him say that a few times in various interviews. 

So what that means is boring predictable safe football with players that are scared of making a mistake.

One of our greater strengths is on the counter which is going to include long balls which goes against Mannings philosophy. My concern is Manning is coaching out the good parts of our game. 

We don't have the players to play a possession based game. If that wasn't obvious before Saturday, it was very clear after Saturday. 

 

Worth having a read of this, which was well received as being a good summary by a couple of Oxford fans I know.

Worth reading some of @Harry’s posts too on how Oxford played.

Did you listen to George Elek on SOTC tonight.  He was a bit gushing at times, but his team were in second place, so you can understand why.

We can only wait to see if it translates.

But personally, I think there will some similarities with how Nige was trying to get us to play.  We weren’t far off, were quite attractive in that little run of games before we lost a few key players with injuries around the Leicester / Leeds games.  I think people forget that.

[NcnsBcfc]

6 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Out of interest - Why are you suggesting a rebuild or am I reading it out of context?  That’s not what Tins and JL are suggesting at all.  They are suggesting the players are good enough, just that Nige wasn’t getting enough out of them.

@Davefevs I'm not suggesting a rebuild at all. I don't think LM will personally be given that much money to spend in the Jan Window and we don't really have anybody else that can generate further funds for him either by way of sales. 

Different training regimes and different styles take a while to get embedded. I don't think that LM has to deal with the same issues players wise that NP had to deal with when he first arrived. The group we have now seem to be more professional in their general approach.

Been up at the HPC tonight with Shuffles. It would be interesting to see if fringe players such as Pearson, OTC, Idehen, Arayoe start coming into the 18 man squad again.

Certainly watching Bajic tonight, his kicking and passing seemed to be a lot better than MOLs as well (albeit with the storm and horrible weather)

I still supported NP when he was here. But in the end it did feel like it was running out of steam a bit, on the basis of rhe obvious lack of support for him within the club's hierarchy.

 

[Marina's Rolls Royce]

3 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-citys-performance-qpr-no-8902975

Very patient. On one hand Math Withers says it was the worst game in many a year then says the performance is no great surprise as early days.

Which was it..first he says it was no different to under Pearson, then in the next paragraph he says it was one of the worst in many a year.

I think there is always a difficulty on OTIB to accurately quote what someone actually says and it's best not to change it. We've seen so many alleged quotes change in the last couple of weeks and it's appropriate to leave a quote unembellished:

Math Withers : "Let me say from the get-go, Saturday’s game was without doubt one of the poorest games of football that I have witnessed in many a season."

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 minute ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:

I think there is always a difficulty on OTIB to accurately quote what someone actually says and it's best not to change it. We've seen so many alleged quotes change in the last couple of weeks and it's appropriate to leave a quote unembellished:

Math Withers : "Let me say from the get-go, Saturday’s game was without doubt one of the poorest games of football that I have witnessed in many a season."

 

Thank you. I still see a bit of a contradiction or mixed messaging though.

One of the poorest games in many a season. Albeit MW also said it was like what went before. Anyway it's one game, time to see how it goes over the coming period.

[Marina's Rolls Royce]

3 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Thank you. I still see a bit of a contradiction or mixed messaging though.

One of the poorest games in many a season. Albeit MW also said it was like what went before. Anyway it's one game, time to see how it goes over the coming period.

Agreed. I expect that people choose which message they wanted to take away from his article. Mine was:

"Everyone just needs to remain calm and keep a sense of perspective but maybe that isn’t the way of the modern football fan. We all need to trust the process and give the new head coach and his team our support and see where it takes us."

[Mr Popodopolous]

It's a fair summary, we have to support and give support of course, to the team and manager but the mixed messages across 2 if not 3 paragraphs...hmm.

[Davefevs]

30 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

@Davefevs I'm not suggesting a rebuild at all. I don't think LM will personally be given that much money to spend in the Jan Window and we don't really have anybody else that can generate further funds for him either by way of sales. 

Different training regimes and different styles take a while to get embedded. I don't think that LM has to deal with the same issues players wise that NP had to deal with when he first arrived. The group we have now seem to be more professional in their general approach.

Been up at the HPC tonight with Shuffles. It would be interesting to see if fringe players such as Pearson, OTC, Idehen, Arayoe start coming into the 18 man squad again.

Certainly watching Bajic tonight, his kicking and passing seemed to be a lot better than MOLs as well (albeit with the storm and horrible weather)

I still supported NP when he was here. But in the end it did feel like it was running out of steam a bit, on the basis of rhe obvious lack of support for him within the club's hierarchy.

 

Ta, was confused by the use of the word “rebuild”, but get where you’re coming from.

Just feels like an awkward (unnecessarily awkward) period to negotiate whilst he embeds stuff.  As you say it all became a bit inevitable, and now we can see what the next phase brings.

I’m not expecting it to be hugely different, because when we’ve had certain players at our disposal we’ve played some good stuff.  So I think the focus will be more on trying to do that more often, because it’s been mixed so far this season.  I’d be finding a way to get Naismith on the pitch, whatever position, because I think he is the passer that helps the team tick…as long as he doesn’t go too long too often.

[Clutton Caveman]

On 13/11/2023 at 13:54, Mr Popodopolous said:

If our strikers are all fit and competing, I'm not so sure. That is a big if though.

We certainly need more goals from other areas of the pitch- Bell has 3 is it and Sykes I was hopeful may get 5-10.

Atkinson got a few last year, Dickie has 2 goals in the last few, hope he can add some more.

Knight in his first year or 2 coming through at Derby scored some goals.

Its not just the scoring of goals but also keeping the ball in the final third of the pitch. At the moment we have nobody who can receive the ball, hold it up and bring others into the game. As such we hit a lot of long ball with most resulting in lost possession. Since Scott left we also have nobody who can take the ball on the half turn and run at the defence. This makes us very easy to set up against. If you don't leave space in behind or over commit in attack we cause very few problems. Our wide players when finding themselves one on one rarely take their man on and instead pass inside or backwards. When we get in the final third it all looks a bit ad-hoc and our crosses rarely find our player. One last thing is attacking free kicks. It seems that we don't have anybody who can offer direct threat with free kicks around the box or even any clever routines from the training ground. Manning promises attacking exciting football. I hope to to see big improvements in the areas above.

[GrahamC]

On 13/11/2023 at 20:21, Mr Popodopolous said:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-citys-performance-qpr-no-8902975

Very patient. On one hand Math Withers says it was the worst game in many a year then says the performance is no great surprise as early days.

Which was it..first he says it was no different to under Pearson, then in the next paragraph he says it was one of the worst in many a year.

I do find some of his comments baffling & as you say he completely contradicts himself here.

Not unreasonable to argue that he had very little time to influence the performance (despite Manning claiming in his first press conference the contrary) but was it really a continuation of how we played under Pearson?

Not for me.

The club putting out social media stuff this week showing the players in the gym is an obvious attempt to highlight the difference from what the chairman claims was a culture of lengthy breaks during internationals.

With Knight, Sykes, Conway & Bell all unavailable though it is hard to see how much impact it can have on a side that struggles to score goals.

The Championship is tough & the next 3 games look very difficult, by the end of them we should at the very least be able to see what the new head coach is trying to do.

[Swede]

Its really too early to give any judgement on the new head coach. I think its fair to say that the majority of fans still feel a little bewildered with the need to change the manager. Let's see after ten games.

[BucksOx]

Ironically, losing Manning to you has meant we've arguably ended up with the guy we wanted all along, and who wanted us, and who may well be an upgrade on Manning. Only time will tell. I don't blame Manning for taking a job in the league above and I'm grateful for him turning us around, but he will just be remembered as a stepping stone for us, as we were for him. I certainly don't wish him any ill-fortune and I hope he does well for you.

[BCFC31]

3 hours ago, BucksOx said:

Ironically, losing Manning to you has meant we've arguably ended up with the guy we wanted all along, and who wanted us, and who may well be an upgrade on Manning. Only time will tell. I don't blame Manning for taking a job in the league above and I'm grateful for him turning us around, but he will just be remembered as a stepping stone for us, as we were for him. I certainly don't wish him any ill-fortune and I hope he does well for you.

It's football its a ruthless business pretty sure oxford put somthing in mannings contract when he saved you from relegation that If you were to go down he would be released from his contract. Managers routinely find there selves on the scrap heap it's a clever move from manning. football is short there isn't much loyalty anymore in the sport, we lost scott semenyo and Kelly to bloody bournmouth for christ sake it happens managers and players will do what's best for there careers and family at the end of the day the same as any of us would do aswell there no different. This des lad if say Birmingham came in for him would probably take it tbh  the same as if say Everton came in for manning in a year I'd imagine he would be gone in an instant.

Edited November 17, 2023 by BCFC31

[BucksOx]

12 hours ago, BCFC31 said:

It's football its a ruthless business pretty sure oxford put somthing in mannings contract when he saved you from relegation that If you were to go down he would be released from his contract. Managers routinely find there selves on the scrap heap it's a clever move from manning. football is short there isn't much loyalty anymore in the sport, we lost scott semenyo and Kelly to bloody bournmouth for christ sake it happens managers and players will do what's best for there careers and family at the end of the day the same as any of us would do aswell there no different. This des lad if say Birmingham came in for him would probably take it tbh  the same as if say Everton came in for manning in a year I'd imagine he would be gone in an instant.

Yes, there was a break clause if we were relegated. I'm not certain but I think either side (OUFC or Manning) could have triggered it. When he kept us up, he was on a rolling one year contract but given how well we started, our board should have offered him a longer contract. I think this only happened when Bristol City came sniffing, by which time it was too late. This is a reason why the compensation you paid for three coaches was less than what we've just paid for one.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Interesting stat.

For balance I suppose maybe average the 3 promoted sides and the 3 relegated sides, from both ends of the division..6th of 18 though, not bad!

Probably between 8th-10th.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous