Manning Pre Huddersfield

[And Its Smith]

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

Just listened to the full press conference. I'll give my full thoughts on that later. 

But him talking about us being in a transition phase has really annoyed me. We don't need to transition. But here we are less than half way through the season having to transition. I feel like he's read the room completely wrong. 

We are transitioning from one style to another. What would you call it?

[W-S-M Seagull]

1 minute ago, And Its Smith said:

We are transitioning from one style to another. What would you call it?

Writing off the season.

[And Its Smith]

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

Writing off the season.

You don’t know how long it will take so you can’t say he is writing off the season.  Manning has been given the job improve us and his way is different to Pearson’s so we need to transition from one style to another. Manning is telling us the truth and you are angry about it.  I’d rather he was honest.  Whatever Lansdown or Tinnion has said isn’t on Manning 

Edited December 8, 2023 by And Its Smith

[petehinton]

Let’s be honest, he’s not going to say “we’re keeping everything exactly the same; everything was perfect” is he, he has his own thoughts and styles of play. Even Curtis would’ve changed stuff if he got the job full time. 
 

I also don’t see the emphasis on ‘club in transition’ in football generally. Every club is in transition, because every club buys and sells players every transfer window, that in itself is transition.  
 

Think he answered that question well and articulately tbf, and good on Piercy (again, he’s absolutely amazing) for putting it to him 

[W-S-M Seagull]

7 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

By immediately I expect progress as THIS season progresses.  I don’t think that’s unreasonable given what he’s taken over.

Defining what progress means is harder though!!!

For me that is maintaining us as a mid/top half team in the mix.  I expect us to fall short of playoffs based on squad strength (unless we go crazy in January - unlikely), I just don’t think we are as good as a few sides above us.  But I don’t expect us to have a second half of the season without hope that if we could string a few wins together we might be right in it.  If in February we are a dozen points off the play-offs something has gone wrong.  We need to stay in that sweet-spot of being in-touch.

Does that make sense?

So, nor am I talking about 3 windows either.  I don’t think anyone is, are they?

 

I think the next week is a big week. 2 or 3 defeats and its not going to be pretty. You then get into the territory of will the players continue to buy into his methods. 

However 2 or 3 wins and then all is good. I suspect with us being Bristol City it will be somewhere in-between the two possibilities. 

You've known that I've had a long term view that we could have got play offs this season and that my minimum expectation for Pearson was us being in with a shout of the play offs come April. 

That has to be the minimum expectation for Manning too but because of the nature of the change those expectations are higher. Although I think because of the change we are less likely to get play offs. I'm confusing myself here. 

For me I don't think the yardstick can be do as good as Pearson was doing. Because whats the point? 

I just kinda feel as if we have wrote this season off in order to have a good go at the play offs next season and that to me makes little sense either when we had a chance this season. 

No I was just using the 3 windows as am example of what we've heard in the past. What I have noticed creeping into Mannings interviews is that he hasn't had a pre season with the players. I don't like that either. He shouldn't need a pre season. He was brought in to make us challange this season is what we were told. 

Other managers go into other clubs mid season and deliver the objectives without having a pre season. 

The vibe I'm getting is that we may either need to either stall or go slightly backwards in order to move forward in the future. I don't think I have any patience for that sort of approach whilst we were slowly progressing as it was. 

Knowing what I know now, if Pearson had to leave, I'd probably have preferred Fleming to have taken the reigns as that would have been a continuation of the track we were on. We've changed tracks mid journey and as you can tell I'm far from convinced that was the right idea. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

15 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

You don’t know how long it will take so you can’t say he is writing off the season.  Manning has been given the job improve us and his way is different to Pearson’s so we need to transition from one style to another. Manning is telling us the truth and you are angry about it.  I’d rather he was honest.  Whatever Lansdown or Tinnion has said isn’t on Manning 

My anger indeed does centre around the owners. But Manning is their man, he signed up to that. 

We were told that our new head coach would have us playing front foot attacking high press football. Manning ball isn't that imo. 

I'm angry because we have somehow ended up in a situation where we are transitioning mid season. 

[And Its Smith]

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

My anger indeed does centre around the owners. But Manning is their man, he signed up to that. 

We were told that our new head coach would have us playing front foot attacking high press football. Manning ball isn't that imo. 

I'm angry because we have somehow ended up in a situation where we are transitioning mid season. 

Fair enough to be angry at the owners. I just don’t get being angry at Manning.  Unless you want him to turn down a brilliant opportunity based on an interview the chairman gave. 

[Silvio Dante]

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

What I have noticed creeping into Mannings interviews is that he hasn't had a pre season with the players. I don't like that either. He shouldn't need a pre season. He was brought in to make us challange this season is what we were told. 

Other managers go into other clubs mid season and deliver the objectives without having a pre season. 

 

Interestingly enough in his best ever season (MK Dons) he took over in August so had no pre season. Best form was in the second half of the season but it’s fair that to start with he took over a platform from Martin that played a similar game so could hit the ground running.

When he then had a full pre season at Dons the following season he was sacked in December.

So, he can do it with no pre season but the lesson for me there is it depends how much work is needed for the “transition” - with MK Dons to start with it was really pushing at an open door as a lot of the style was already in place. I expect it to be longer here.

[bcfc01]

Only just listened to his interviews in depth.

I don't normally listen to the internal interviews these days as the "qustions" are normally banal and always have the "supporters are amazing" claptrap in there somewhere. Always boring.

The press conference was very good I thought with Piercy on form with his questions. Quite liked how LM answered the questions directly and how he came across generally. Totally different to NP, but just as honest imo.

Edited December 8, 2023 by bcfc01

[Robbored]

1 minute ago, bcfc01 said:

The press conference was very good. Quite liked how LM answered the questions directly and how he came across generally. Totally different to NP, but just as honest imo.

He certainly is very different to Nige who almost always had something interesting to say - this bloke has said nothing of substance so far.

I appreciate that it’s early days for LM particularly as he’s was a Championship virgin and not used to the media and fans scrutiny.

Hopefully he’ll liven up as the season progresses.

[bcfc01]

7 minutes ago, Robbored said:

He certainly is very different to Nige who almost always had something interesting to say - this bloke has said nothing of substance so far.

I appreciate that it’s early days for LM particularly as he’s was a Championship virgin and not used to the media and fans scrutiny.

Hopefully he’ll liven up as the season progresses.

I'll agree to disagree with that.

 

[Robbored]

6 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

I'll agree to disagree with that.

 

So what’s he’s said that floated your boat? 

[bcfc01]

8 minutes ago, Robbored said:

So what’s he’s said that floated your boat? 

Whats he not said to make you say "nothing of substance" ?

TBH, I'm not really interested. It won't make a jot of difference what I say 

[Numero Uno]

16 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Whats he not said to make you say "nothing of substance" ?

TBH, I'm not really interested. It won't make a jot of difference what I say 

He certainly comes across a lot closer to Lee Johnson than Nigel Pearson in style, that's for sure. I think once the Pearson irritation with the likes of Gregor disappeared he had an interview style that many fans appreciated and also put relevant information across in a way people understand, get on board with and could discuss in the pub over a pint, on the forum or whatever. When I hear people talking about behaviours and cultures in relation to football, I won't lie, I just think "bullshit, keep it between you and the players behind closed doors" and switch off.

Early days and anyone seeing my posts will know I'm a firm believer that we shouldn't get on Manning's back because we know who is picking the NEXT Manager BUT I contrast Pearson's defeat against Stoke where we threw a game away "we shot ourselves in the foot" with Manning's defeat last week where we threw a game away "the mentality needs to change" (may as well say "not my fault" then)..........it smacks of trying to blag a free ride this season (and I 100% understand it from his own selfish perspective now that he is probably aware of the stupid comments made by the pair who "run" the football side and how that might affect fan reaction towards him).

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I think the next week is a big week. 2 or 3 defeats and its not going to be pretty. You then get into the territory of will the players continue to buy into his methods. 

However 2 or 3 wins and then all is good. I suspect with us being Bristol City it will be somewhere in-between the two possibilities. 

You've known that I've had a long term view that we could have got play offs this season and that my minimum expectation for Pearson was us being in with a shout of the play offs come April. 

That has to be the minimum expectation for Manning too but because of the nature of the change those expectations are higher. Although I think because of the change we are less likely to get play offs. I'm confusing myself here. 

For me I don't think the yardstick can be do as good as Pearson was doing. Because whats the point? 

I just kinda feel as if we have wrote this season off in order to have a good go at the play offs next season and that to me makes little sense either when we had a chance this season. 

No I was just using the 3 windows as am example of what we've heard in the past. What I have noticed creeping into Mannings interviews is that he hasn't had a pre season with the players. I don't like that either. He shouldn't need a pre season. He was brought in to make us challange this season is what we were told. 

Other managers go into other clubs mid season and deliver the objectives without having a pre season. 

The vibe I'm getting is that we may either need to either stall or go slightly backwards in order to move forward in the future. I don't think I have any patience for that sort of approach whilst we were slowly progressing as it was. 

Knowing what I know now, if Pearson had to leave, I'd probably have preferred Fleming to have taken the reigns as that would have been a continuation of the track we were on. We've changed tracks mid journey and as you can tell I'm far from convinced that was the right idea. 

Much to agree with in there, some bits I don’t.

If you do hold a long term view of Nige being in the mix this season, then you have to afford LM the same timeframe.

If you want to start positioning his likelihood of achieving that after 4 games, or after another few games, that is fine.  But I think scenario setting, e.g. if we lose the next few, if we win the next few, is pretty futile imho.  I think it’s better to reflect at those points rather than predict and give an opinion on a possible outcome.

FWIW I don’t see LM as a “bluffer”, I think he’s pretty genuine in what he says about what he sees.  I don’t think he’s making it up as he goes along, he’s got 20 years of coaching experience at different levels behind him.  I think he is confident, he believes what he’s saying…but I don’t think a lot of fans will really warm to his interview style.  Some of that may come from the subtle differences in being a head-coach versus being a manager.  We will probably hear more about how the players are coached to perform rather than how they performed.

I think we are aligned on expectations at the “business” end of the season.  I just think we have different approaches to what happens between now and then.  There is no right or wrong way to look at it though.  You’ll probably have more fun than me, because you’ll get the rollercoaster of ups and downs each week.

Whereas I’m finding it hard sitting on my hands, waiting to crystallise my thoughts, whilst I see lots going on.

At this point I’m happy with performances generally, I think we’ve deserved more than 4 points from 4 games.  I’m hoping results begin to mirror performance, they tend to catch-up in my experience, whether that be upward or downward alignment.

[Robbored]

12 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

He certainly comes across a lot closer to Lee Johnson than Nigel Pearson in style, that's for sure. I think once the Pearson irritation with the likes of Gregor disappeared he had an interview style that many fans appreciated and also put relevant information across in a way people understand, get on board with and could discuss in the pub over a pint, on the forum or whatever. When I hear people talking about behaviours and cultures in relation to football, I won't lie, I just think "bullshit, keep it between you and the players behind closed doors" and switch off.

Early days and anyone seeing my posts will know I'm a firm believer that we shouldn't get on Manning's back because we know who is picking the NEXT Manager BUT I contrast Pearson's defeat against Stoke where we threw a game away "we shot ourselves in the foot" with Manning's defeat last week where we threw a game away "the mentality needs to change" (may as well say "not my fault" then)..........it smacks of trying to blag a free ride this season (and I 100% understand it from his own selfish perspective now that he is probably aware of the stupid comments made by the pair who "run" the football side and how that might affect fan reaction towards him).

His style is similar to LJ but without the waffle and hot air - thankfully.

I appreciate that many of us are hugely disappointed by Nige’s sacking but we have to move on and try to resist comparing Manning with his predecessors style.

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Robbored said:

His style is similar to LJ but without the waffle and hot air - thankfully.

That’s kinda my point above, he talks like a modern head-coach, not like an experienced manager who’s been around the block.  He’s gonna sound different to Nige.  But his underlying messages aren’t dissimilar to Nige.  Culture, process, ownership, etc.  Nige said all those things too, he just did it from a slightly different viewpoint.

[Red-Robbo]

21 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Yeah the last one I can think of (and probably the only one I can think of) who had a better platform in my time was Jimmy Lumsden who took over post Joes first stint in 1990.

Historically as a club we’ve not had managers leave to better things or be poached - the only one post Joe was Tony Pulis and he didn’t leave a good base for any number of reasons! What that says about us as a club I’m not sure, but it does seem careers go here to die managerially.

I suppose you could say McInnes has gone on to have a high-profile career in Scottish football management whilst Benny was successful after his City sojourn, in Scandinavia.

It's far more common though for our club to be the graveyard of managerial careers however. 

[1960maaan]

14 minutes ago, Robbored said:

His style is similar to LJ but without the waffle and hot air - thankfully.

I appreciate that many of us are hugely disappointed by Nige’s sacking but we have to move on and try to resist comparing Manning with his predecessors style.

I hope he turns out to be what LJ could have been. 
The big difference is the Manning has an idea and a focus. Johnson studied the game but every new idea meant a change , he was always tinkering . Quite often he ended up making the game necessarily complicated .
Manning has his style set already, let's hope that gets the results. 

[bcfc01]

19 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

I suppose you could say McInnes has gone on to have a high-profile career in Scottish football management whilst Benny was successful after his City sojourn, in Scandinavia.

It's far more common though for our club to be the graveyard of managerial careers however. 

Agreed, but there have been noteabe exceptions;

Hodgson - England and Premier League

Pulis - Premier League

Houghton - 3 x Swedish champions and European Cup runners-up (not sure if that was before or after us tbh - just checked, it was the year before us so scrap that one))

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by bcfc01
Correction

[Sir Geoff]

11 hours ago, Red Skin said:

No one really knows, but regardless of the talk of 'top six' finish that was nail in Pearson's coffin, LM would not have been given this as a target for this year when he was being courted.   And that's what his appointment was, not an interview.  He's a manager on the up, why would he come to City weighed down with those expectations?  He'd be better off staying at Oxford and having the chance of a better opportunity in the summer, or taking them up and having it later.

He is a man so immersed and obsessed with football at the club he is working for, I do not believe he'd have had any idea about how the fans felt about Pearson's sacking.  Why would he?  Did you see anything in the national media about how badly we took it?  

The only thing he would have had to go on would have been what he was told by the club.  And most people seem to think they either didn't know or didn't care what the fans thought, so at the very least it would have been played down. 

The club owners are fair game, but I don't believe LM is.  And taking the position that LM is fair game, where does that leave you?  It means the righteous anger and antipathy that should rightly be levelled at the club owners and hierarchy is completely misplaced.   

Absolutely disagree with this. If you are leaving a successful job for a position elsewhere, it is on you to do your homework on the company you're about to join. Surely you would have someone researching what the opinion of the fans was regarding the sacking of the previous incumbent. You wouldn't rely solely on what your new bosses are saying. That is outright negligence.

[bcfc01]

3 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

I hope he turns out to be what LJ could have been. 
The big difference is the Manning has an idea and a focus. Johnson studied the game but every new idea meant a change , he was always tinkering . Quite often he ended up making the game necessarily complicated .
Manning has his style set already, let's hope that gets the results. 

The other difference is that LM has been coaching for 18 years whereas LJ had 5 mins before joining us.

[bcfc01]

1 minute ago, Sir Geoff said:

Absolutely disagree with this. If you are leaving a successful job for a position elsewhere, it is on you to do your homework on the company you're about to join. Surely you would have someone researching what the opinion of the fans was regarding the sacking of the previous incumbent. You wouldn't rely solely on what your new bosses are saying. That is outright negligence.

I wouldn't think he could give a toss about what a few minority fans think tbh.

The job is very attractive, a step up, and probably three times the salary minimum.

[W-S-M Seagull]

26 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

I wouldn't think he could give a toss about what a few minority fans think tbh.

The job is very attractive, a step up, and probably three times the salary minimum.

Minority

[red panda]

18 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Absolutely disagree with this. If you are leaving a successful job for a position elsewhere, it is on you to do your homework on the company you're about to join. Surely you would have someone researching what the opinion of the fans was regarding the sacking of the previous incumbent. You wouldn't rely solely on what your new bosses are saying. That is outright negligence.

If potential managers looked at fans forums before accepting a post, I'm not sure any club anywhere would ever manage to appoint a manager!

More seriously, even if LM was aware of the strong feelings of some fans, I would hope that he only accepted the job because he thought he could be a success here (otherwise why move from a job that's going well so early in his career?).  If he does reasonably well (and let's not extend the tedious debate about what that means), then that should get most fans on his side (perhaps not all - we can guess some of those who will never be converted).

This was probably too good an opportunity for him to turn down - an underperforming club with lots of potential, patient owners, a good base on which to build.  Not in any way negligent in my view.

[Silvio Dante]

21 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

I wouldn't think he could give a toss about what a few minority fans think tbh.

The job is very attractive, a step up, and probably three times the salary minimum.

Few points:

- It wasn’t just necessarily what the fans thought of Pearsons sacking, it was the message that the board gave to the fans and how that would colour expectations moving forward. Ultimately his most visible workplace is in the stadium each week and if he’s not delivering on what has been publicly stated as expected that would be toxic quickly. Any manager or head coach would as a minimum have read the public statements and if he didn’t he’s negligent 

- I think as this forum shows, and as the booing/general atmosphere shows, it isn’t just a minority of fans who are troubled by what’s been going on. There are scales of that troubled status - and they are largely driven by those above him - but there are, naturally, genuine questions over Liam. And to be clear, he would again have been smart enough to pre-empt those likely concerns and know the need to dispel those - through performance - as soon as possible

- He’d better give a toss what the fans think. Although Jon and Brian may be in charge, you can be damn sure if the atmosphere gets toxic it won’t be them falling on their sword - it’ll be him going. Same as at any club, unpopular managers don’t last long because that unpopularity translates to lost revenue and ownership bruised ego.

I repeat, it’s basic due diligence to when you move any job to do your homework. If he didn’t do that, he’s a fool. If he did and didn’t care what fans felt or understand the expectation he’s equally a fool. And if all he cares about is the money as your last line indicates, he’s less of a man than we hope he is.

[transfer reader]

3 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

I repeat, it’s basic due diligence to when you move any job to do your homework. If he didn’t do that, he’s a fool. If he did and didn’t care what fans felt or understand the expectation he’s equally a fool. And if all he cares about is the money as your last line indicates, he’s less of a man than we hope he is.

Glad we got such an exhaustive list of all the options, weird how they all paint him in a negative light!

[Son of Fred]

3 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

expectation for Pearson was us being in with a shout of the play offs come April. 

That has to be the minimum expectation for Manning too but because of the nature of the change those expectations are higher. Although I think because of the change we are less likely to get play offs. I'm confusing myself here. 

..your not the only one, I'm absolutely sure Jon Lansdown can join you in that!

[Silvio Dante]

11 minutes ago, red panda said:

If potential managers looked at fans forums before accepting a post, I'm not sure any club anywhere would ever manage to appoint a manager!

More seriously, even if LM was aware of the strong feelings of some fans, I would hope that he only accepted the job because he thought he could be a success here (otherwise why move from a job that's going well so early in his career?).  If he does reasonably well (and let's not extend the tedious debate about what that means), then that should get most fans on his side (perhaps not all - we can guess some of those who will never be converted).

This was probably too good an opportunity for him to turn down - an underperforming club with lots of potential, patient owners, a good base on which to build.  Not in any way negligent in my view.

I agree with a lot of that; I think the bottom line though is slightly wrong. If he’s read the statements, gauged the fans view and got a holistic view (and we are told he has huge attention to detail) and then said  to himself “You know what? I understand what happened and what’s been said and I think I can make this work with those factors understood as underpinning the expectations” - then that is in no way negligent and fair play for taking on the challenge.

If he didn’t do any due diligence and took the job “sight unseen” then that is negligent (and out of character from what we know)

Bottom Line.

2 minutes ago, transfer reader said:

Glad we got such an exhaustive list of all the options, weird how they all paint him in a negative light!

Read the response above

Edited December 8, 2023 by Silvio Dante

[Mr Popodopolous]

A few minority is a tad low IMO.

Even if this forum may have a greater %, I do think it has split the fanbase somewhat and there was certainly no chanting for NP to be sacked  this year.

That in itself brings a level of pressure. If results and go performances go South, the heat is on somewhat which makes trying to get your ideas across very difficult.