16 Points, 13 League Games

[And Its Smith]

3 minutes ago, pillred said:

Well, I've seen no evidence of that so far and there are certainly no rumours of imminent transfers that would fit your thinking.

We wanted to spend £2.5m on Twine, is one example.  Azaz was a similar fee and we were after him. Would assume if we had signed Azaz we wouldn’t have been after Twine. But, still there is £2.5m that Pearson wasn’t allowed 

[Royz]

2 hours ago, Tomo said:

Of course, Liam has had 2 great FA Cup games, but it's the league statistics that's the most important.

Exactly this, but were these performances down to the management ?  or just the occasion/crowd /TV  ect. 

 

 

 

 

[pillred]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

If we match last seasons totals without Alex Scott at our disposal, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, in an arguably tougher division than last seasons was.

It took NP 2.5 years to get to where we were - it may be harsh to expect overnight improvement on his record without a summer window or pre-season to work on things.

I think with how we are trying to play now, Skyes & Naismith are being sorely missed.

I like the addition of Twine & hope that Sykes' running will compliment him - Likewise, having Atkinson available for Twines set pieces would be a huge boost aswell.

I expect a mixed bag for the remainder of this season & to kick on a bit next season.

NP cleared the decks & paved the way - but didn't feel like we were going anywhere beyond that with him & many forget that he was probably leaving in the summer anyway.

LM is showing foundations of a more controlled & deliberate way of playing, but fully expect that to take time & probably some different personally to make it click.

 

I'm afraid your opinion and mine for that matter seem to be in the minority, a great deal of posters on here seem to want us to fail to prove their argument, they may say not but it's certainly the impression I get reading the various posts on the subject. I'm hoping there is a lot of humble pie being eaten at the end of the season I will certainly hold my hands up and admit I was wrong if we don't improve.

[Mr Popodopolous]

For the record. Some League figures.

From NP's 14 games, with the injury issues especially spiking in October we had 3 more points or even 5 more points depending on how you want to measure it from the equivalent 14 the prior season..Fleming cemented it to +5 from 15.

So far, -2 from 14 under Manning.

5 wins in 14 under NP.

4 in 13 under Manning.

GD +2 or +4 under NP, definitely rising under Fleming to +4.

GD under Manning, -1 set against last season and the equivalent games.

[The Swan and Cemetery]

The club would be much better having a more authentic/less spin approach to communications. Desperate attempts to imply everything is obvious and binary, when clearly it’s not, look silly. “NP was untenable, LM does need time and windows” etc might result in short term egg on faces given comms to date, but keeping the spin going will be more damaging in the medium term. For those of us who thought NP was doing a good job and didn’t deserve to go, we can disagree with that decision, but also accept it might turn out to be the right one and we’ll get behind LM anyway as he’s managing/coaching City. But pretending that we’re already seeing revolution is daft and unnecessary, when we’re not (and no reason to expect it from LM yet, it’s the rampant confirmation bias from the club comms that is annoying people, or at least me). 

[BCFCGav]

They wrote off another season because their egos couldn’t handle Nigel. And given we’ve been treading water for 9 seasons now, we shouldn’t be writing off seasons. We’ve been patient enough. 
 

I like Liam and think he’ll do well. I thought his record was better than the thread title so I’m a bit surprised by that, but the three wins on the spin and West Ham games show he has something. We’re defensively resolute more often than not and if he can find a way to get the goals flowing, we’ll be in a really good place.

But it’s bloody annoying we’re in a transition again because some billionaires don’t like a straight talker.

 

[chinapig]

11 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

He will be judged BY SOME by the claims JL and BT made. Not by me and not by some others either.  He won’t be sacked if we finish 10th, for example.  Or even 14th I suspect. 

But what criteria do we judge him on other than the ones set out by the club?

Of course he won't be sacked and nor should he be. As I said it's not his fault but if we finish 14th will Jon and Brian accept responsibility and admit they were wrong? I think not, more than likely Liam will take the heat.

[pillred]

16 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

We wanted to spend £2.5m on Twine, is one example.  Azaz was a similar fee and we were after him. Would assume if we had signed Azaz we wouldn’t have been after Twine. But, still there is £2.5m that Pearson wasn’t allowed 

I realise £2.5 million is quite a chunk of money but in the grand scheme of things it's almost chickenfeed these days even in the championship, the timing was maybe wrong for NP perhaps the maths just didn't add up at the time, of course, you could well be right and they just weren't happy with Pearson for reasons we know nothing about and did not trust him anymore with transfers.

Edited January 21 by pillred

[And Its Smith]

3 minutes ago, chinapig said:

But what criteria do we judge him on other than the ones set out by the club?

Of course he won't be sacked and nor should he be. As I said it's not his fault but if we finish 14th will Jon and Brian accept responsibility and admit they were wrong? I think not, more than likely Liam will take the heat.

I will just judge him for myself 

[Jose]

10 minutes ago, pillred said:

I'm afraid your opinion and mine for that matter seem to be in the minority, a great deal of posters on here seem to want us to fail to prove their argument, they may say not but it's certainly the impression I get reading the various posts on the subject. I'm hoping there is a lot of humble pie being eaten at the end of the season I will certainly hold my hands up and admit I was wrong if we don't improve.

 What a pile of horseshit. Nobody wants us to fail. They can see what’s in front of them though. When Manning was  appointed I was on here saying he deserves all the support possible and we need to try and move on. That being said it’s hard when the football hasn’t got any better, and he’s a fitter squad available. Compared to the past manager here anyway. The last manager played to our strengths.
 

Prople can try and dress that points return how they like but the bottom line is it’s not good enough. But whatever happens my anger is directed at the three idiots at the top. It’s on them.

[mozo]

37 minutes ago, Midlands Robin said:

For those who say we should just judge Liam on the here and now and forget the past, they are correct but to some extent looking back can't be helped.

Imagine if you were going to watch a bang average film. One that you'd not heard anything about in advance but you knew a few of the people in it and thought you'd give it a go. After watching it you'd form an opinion of the film, there'd be bits you enjoyed, bits you didn't and you'd give your opinion to others on what it was like.

Now imagine the same film but you're watching it because you've been told how great it is and that it should be recognised as a brilliant bit of work and that you'll really enjoy it. The film is still the same bang average film as it was before and there will still be bits you'll enjoy and bits you don't but your expectations have now been increased by someone telling you that it's better than it actually is.

That's exactly the problem we have with the Nige / Liam situation. Even though 90 percent of us knew that the board were talking out of their collective backsides, its still expectation management at its worse.

On another note, if you look at some of the clubs that Nige has managed for a decent spell, in the first full season following his sackings at Hull (12/13 season), Leicester (15/16 season) and OH Leuven (20/21 season), all three clubs were promoted or won their league. It seems like Nige is great at setting clubs up but not so great at getting them over the line.

We've got 10 days of the transfer window to go and aprart from brining in Twine on loan and nailing down TGH (who would have been here until the summer anyway), our first team transfer business has been slow so far. I have a feeling it will remain so with maybe 1 more coming in but no big cash signings until the summer. This season has already been parked at board level and they a) know that and b) don't give a flying fig.

The big step forward will come in July and then, starting in the 24/25 season we will really be able to properly judge Liam on what we see on the pitch.

I really like your analogy, but take it further and imagine that the person telling you that the film was going to be amazing was someone you knew talked absolute shit! You'd have different expectation again 

[ray savino]

LM was given a 3.5 year contract wasn’t he? 
 

Year One (and this season the half year!) Next Season 24/25

I would suspect that he will need a turnover of squad to accommodate players that will perform more comfortably in the roles he wants for his team. Plus a pre-season of coaching on the grass, I reckon we’re going to see next season as the one of change not challenge the top.

Year Two Season 25/26

I would expect we should have a squad and team looking like it is challenging for play-offs.

Year Three Season 26/27

Serious challengers for promotion via play-offs or even auto. (Plus 10 year anniversary celebration of our defeat of Manchester United).

Whether I’m happy about the timescale as a fan is immaterial (unless of course performances don’t markedly improve consistently to give us fans real belief - thereby potential for drop off in attendances). That is all up to the owners and what they need to invest again to back the manager.

Given that it would appear that there won’t be risky huge amounts of cash to spend for a quick go at success and the sort of young players to develop that we seem to want to sign, then inevitably it looks like another significant amount of time and patience that we are going to have to have before we have a tangible squad to become one of the favourites for top six and not just an optimistic outside bet/dark horse.

If Manning doesn’t come up to scratch in this time, or he does and is poached by a bigger club, I would at least hope that the changes the club have decided to make will would mean they would stick to their strategy and appoint a replacement that would suit the style and properly have a succession plan.

Meanwhile if we can’t win trophies or get promotion, let’s hope we can see more performances with the passion and commitment we saw in the cup games, starting on Friday.

[mozo]

6 minutes ago, Jose said:

 What a pile of horseshit. Nobody wants us to fail. They can see what’s in front of them though. When Manning was  appointed I was on here saying he deserves all the support possible and we need to try and move on. That being said it’s hard when the football hasn’t got any better, and he’s a fitter squad available. Compared to the past manager here anyway. The last manager played to our strengths.
 

Prople can try and dress that points return how they like but the bottom line is it’s not good enough. But whatever happens my anger is directed at the three idiots at the top. It’s on them.

I do think we also need to accept that the improvement wasn't necessarily going to happen immediately. That's a tall order for a new boss coming to a side where the team were already trying their best. It's not like at Villa where the team were grossly underperformed and so making an immediate impact was possible. This will take time. And of by the end of next season, we're still mid table or worse, and the football ain't great, then we can start pointing at the head coach. 

Agree with you that the three at the top are the ones to blame if things go bad.

[Kid in the Riot]

1 hour ago, beaverface said:

I'm expecting that this season is just gonna fizzle out.

Just like our past three seasons then...

This season seems to be following a very similar path to last season. Some decent form and a cup run, followed by season fizzling out with nothing to play for by the start of March. 

[luke_bristol]

If come the end of the season we are in 15th place with fewer points than last season even after lots of returnees from injury and backing in the transfer window, how will JL and BT justify keeping him for next season? Why did they give him a 3.5 year contract? I was probably expecting 10-15th at the start of the season so it’s not that position that would disappoint me, it would be the conduct of senior figures at the club.

Of course I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere in that scenario. They’ve stitched him up with the talk of a top 6 squad but they can hardly complain of fan impatience when the circumstances are of their own making. 

[Jose]

Another thing that winds me up is the odd person saying as a fan base we are entitled and like a good moan. What a load of rubbish. 
 

Look at Palace yesterday. You know the team we beat 16 years ago in the play off Semi final. Safe in the PL. Fed up and letting their board know. What do we do? Hold a banner up for someone who is way out of his depth and feeds us bullshit. You couldn’t make it up. We are no different fan base wise than any other club in the country. In fact we are ******* soft.

[ray savino]

27 minutes ago, The Swan and Cemetery said:

The club would be much better having a more authentic/less spin approach to communications. Desperate attempts to imply everything is obvious and binary, when clearly it’s not, look silly. “NP was untenable, LM does need time and windows” etc might result in short term egg on faces given comms to date, but keeping the spin going will be more damaging in the medium term. For those of us who thought NP was doing a good job and didn’t deserve to go, we can disagree with that decision, but also accept it might turn out to be the right one and we’ll get behind LM anyway as he’s managing/coaching City. But pretending that we’re already seeing revolution is daft and unnecessary, when we’re not (and no reason to expect it from LM yet, it’s the rampant confirmation bias from the club comms that is annoying people, or at least me). 

I agree with this, but I believe the Board panicked in their comms and seemed ill prepared in their PR/narrative. They could have constructed a far more palatable narrative to all fans avoiding the divisiveness that was caused, and unintentionally adding pressure to the new coach.

Its inevitable that a club will spin stuff, but in this case I think it was clumsily handled at best.

[Shauntaylor85]

3 hours ago, Tomo said:

Liam has now had 13 league games in charge and banked 16 points in the process, which equates to 1.23PPG... not great reading is it!

That's below what the average was, this season, before Liam was appointed, but let's try to focus on Liam in this thread and look forward, not back.

Of course, Liam has had 2 great FA Cup games, but it's the league statistics that's the most important.

If we continue at this rate, we will end up on 59 points and probably be positioned in and around 14th, which is the exact same position and points total we achieved last season...

Can we do better over the next 18 games or shall we accept that we are likely to be mirroring last season?

It hasn’t worked so far. The West Ham success is skewing it. Had we been knocked out as quite frankly without that red card I feel we would have, then many would be saying it’s not working. The board clearly said they wanted to make the change as the target was play offs, we’ve gone from being quite an aggressive, pressing side who were solid (without major injuries) to reverting to what I would say is the most dull football I’ve witness since the depressing days of O’Driscoll. Similar style and approach to SOD, we are just team of central midfielders  

[Maltshoveller]

All the stats thrown about on this thread show to me one thing

Be it Pearson in charge or Manning 

We are a bang average championship side Simple as that

We will win a few Lose a few

[Shauntaylor85]

Just now, Maltshoveller said:

All the stats thrown about on this thread show to me one thing

Be it Pearson in charge or Manning 

We are a bang average championship side Simple as that

We will win a few Lose a few

Goes back to the ownership. We didn’t need a new manager….we needed change elsewhere. To appoint an ex failed manager as Tech Director sums up our plight. 

[LondonBristolian]

For me, there was a fundamental lack of realism about three things.

1) Our team is decent but not one that anyone looking objectively would expect to be challenging for promotion. 

2) The appointment of Manning - whilst I'd argue it was logical and consistent with direction Pearson had taken the club and the players brought in - was not an immediate continuity appointment in a way that Manning could be expected to hit the ground running without a bedding in period. 

3) We've got some decent technical players but not a team immediately reading to play possession-based football without hitches.

The reality is that the result will be a season of (yet more) transition and inconsistency and, as others have said, it won't be until Manning has had a pre-season to get his ideas across that we'll really know whether he can improve the team. I'm okay with that and I see no evidence so far that a January and summer transfer window under Manning will take us in the wrong direction or lead to a fundamental change of approach. At the same time, I think the level of rebuild we undertook under Pearson and then Manning means we can't allow us to get ourselves in another Lee Johnson-type situation of waiting three years to see if the appointment is going to pay off or not. 

I want Manning to succeed next season but - if we get to November and the signs aren't there - I'd be frustrated if we kept giving a manager brought in for immediate results more and more time to see what happens. 

[Roger Red Hat]

2 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

At the same time, I think the level of rebuild we undertook under Pearson and then Manning means we can't allow us to get ourselves in another Lee Johnson-type situation of waiting three years to see if the appointment is going to pay off or not. 

 I agree, but three and a half year contract, isn't it?

[LondonBristolian]

3 minutes ago, Roger Red Hat said:

 I agree, but three and a half year contract, isn't it?

It is. And any long contract for a manager is either going to be a stroke of genius if it works and they are coveted by other clubs or a massive error if the club find the manager hasn't achieved what they hoped. I actually lean towards the former - I think we could well see that a team with a pre-season under Manning looks a very different proposition to where we are right now - but I would want the club to recognise that the leadership and direction of the team is sufficiently important that they'd need to budget to be able to pay up on that contract and make a change if things were not working out. 

[cidercity1987]

16 points from 13, total stain on Lansdown, Tinnion and Marshall. Totally as expected by the majority of the fanbase.

No blame on Manning at all from me 

[headhunter]

2 hours ago, Bar BS3 said:

If we match last seasons totals without Alex Scott at our disposal, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, in an arguably tougher division than last seasons was.

It took NP 2.5 years to get to where we were - it may be harsh to expect overnight improvement on his record without a summer window or pre-season to work on things.

I think with how we are trying to play now, Skyes & Naismith are being sorely missed.

I like the addition of Twine & hope that Sykes' running will compliment him - Likewise, having Atkinson available for Twines set pieces would be a huge boost aswell.

I

 

Sykes is a starter for me but where does Naismith now fit in a first X1?

If you are labelling Atkinson as a starter when fit then what is your best picks line up and in what formation [accepting that the matchday squad is 20 which offers plenty of scope for change]?

[cidercity1987]

26 minutes ago, Jose said:

Another thing that winds me up is the odd person saying as a fan base we are entitled and like a good moan. What a load of rubbish. 
 

Look at Palace yesterday. You know the team we beat 16 years ago in the play off Semi final. Safe in the PL. Fed up and letting their board know. What do we do? Hold a banner up for someone who is way out of his depth and feeds us bullshit. You couldn’t make it up. We are no different fan base wise than any other club in the country. In fact we are ******* soft.

That was unbelievable from Palace. Shite support base (17k usually in the Champ) and yet always seem to be in the Prem, well overachieving as a club

[Capman]

What the season shows me is that the club has a lack of ambition and no strategy to deliver premier league football. We shift priorities and my assumption is that happens because the personal ego of a few at the top is more important (to them) than the success of the club. 
Promotion from the championship is hard. It requires spending time building the right team (off and on the pitch). The current ownership seem incapable of creating the environment needed to do that. So the club is likely to have the odd good cup run but languish below the target most supporters want. Unless we happen to get very, very lucky. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

NP for the record wasn't sacked by Hull, he quit to return to Leicester.

He never really gets the chance to finish tbh, the notable exception being his return to Leicester having inherited a mess and culminating with firstly their 100 point plus season 10 years ago winning this League then keeping them up with a Great Escape..as well as signing the bylj of their title side.

His reward was the sack. Some people don't get the breaks in the game, see Cotts too..

[luke_bristol]

54 minutes ago, Jose said:

Another thing that winds me up is the odd person saying as a fan base we are entitled and like a good moan. What a load of rubbish. 
 

Look at Palace yesterday. You know the team we beat 16 years ago in the play off Semi final. Safe in the PL. Fed up and letting their board know. What do we do? Hold a banner up for someone who is way out of his depth and feeds us bullshit. You couldn’t make it up. We are no different fan base wise than any other club in the country. In fact we are ******* soft.

Was surprised to see you’re absolutely right about Palace, just checked their stats for 2012/13 when they were promoted through the POs:

https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/crystal-palace/attendances/2012-2013

 

I always thought of them as a club that would consistently draw around 25k every home game, but they only got more than 20k on a handful of occasions that season, when success would likely have attracted “fence-sitters” that could take it or leave it 

 

Perhaps JL and BT should be the ones thinking “it could be worse…!”

[cidercity1987]

1 minute ago, luke_bristol said:

Was surprised to see you’re absolutely right about Palace, just checked their stats for 2012/13 when they were promoted through the POs:

https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/crystal-palace/attendances/2012-2013

 

I always thought of them as a club that would consistently draw around 25k every home game, but they only got more than 20k on a handful of occasions that season, when success would likely have attracted “fence-sitters” that could take it or leave it 

 

Perhaps JL and BT should be the ones thinking “it could be worse…!”

https://european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/league/cryp.htm

Their attendances are utter shit, they'd be near the bottom of this years Champ