FBC POD - Watford [H] the verdict ...... it was OK, no more than that

[Engvall’s Splinter]

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

When LM first jointed I posted a few times that I didn't think JL and BT quite knew what they were getting with LM. 

To a lot of us it was quite clear that in this moment in time, he didn't quite suit what we have here. Others assured me that it could be fine. He would adapt to us etc. 

I think there has also been an element of he didn't realise what we had here either. 

To a certain extent I think he has adapted so credit for that. He's admitted publicly that he's had to role back on the information he gives the players. 

Whilst I wouldn't want to see LM sacked at this current moment in time, I suppose I'm of the view of being quite sceptical about allowing him to overhaul this squad. The squad is decent. It shouldn't need an overhaul. 

My worry is we overhaul the squad to suit Manning and then that still doesn't yield improvements and then we look back and think oh ****, we ripped up a decent squad for nothing. 

I do agree in the fact that we should now be sprinkling the stardust to take us to the next level. I’ve a feeling though we’ll be ripping up the copybook and almost starting again. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

35 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

I think the point I'm trying to make @Sheltons Army is that i believe that JL and BT actually thought we had a squad capable of making the top 6.

The fact that we weren't doing that, is one of their justifications (rightly or wrongly) for sacking Pearson.

Manning no doubt will have opened their eyes to the limitations of the current squad and the need to bring in new players (as you've said the signings of Murphy and Stokes show some planning for the future already).

@Davefevs have you noticed that the agent Phil Korklin (@philkorklin on Twitter/X) is the agent for both Twine and Stokes.

He seems to also be the agent of a number of lower league players who are making an impact. His client list is certainly one to watch. 

I think they were right in their assessment that we potentially had a top 6 squad, under Pearson. And that's the key bit, under Pearson. 

We ain't getting out of this league by being "well coached" Mannings MK couldn't do that. They came up against a physical and motivated and determined Wycombe and got done. There are many well coached teams in this league. To be better well coached than them is going to be difficult. 

We didn't get to the play off final previously by being well coached. We ended the season on +1 goal difference. We got there on belief, hard work, determination, momentum and endeavour. The club and the fans were one. 

At the start of this season I was quite excited because I felt as if we had those ingredients in place. We also have quite a decent squad. With a fully fit squad I think our defence is certainly top 6. 

In fact, we saw against West Ham in both games that those ingredients are in place. 

With a fair wind and some luck around injuries I certainly felt as if top 6 was achievable. In fact I said that my expectations were that we'd go into the final games with a shout of the play offs. 

The big mistake the club made imo was under estimating Pearsons role in us having the potential to be a top 6 squad and believing that we'd still have a top 6 squad without him. 

Imagine the limitations Manning would have felt we had in that play off final team! 

The squad may have limitations to play Manning ball, but there is no guarantee that if we built a squad that could play Manning ball, that Manning ball would be successful. 

I've always had concerns that Manning is emotionless. He doesn't like emotions. He doesn't like his players playing on the emotions. I think because you can't put a stat on emotions. It's something he can't control. 

However for me, Ashton Gate is at its best when players and fans are harnessing the collective emotion. That's something Pearson understood. 

Fine, the decision to sack Pearson was taken. The mistake that was made was not replacing him with a manager that suited the squad we have and replacing him with one that requires X amount of money to be spent to shape the squad to his preference. That's a big concern of mine. 

[FNQ]

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I’m talking about exploiting inbound recruitment.  We don’t want to rely on spending £2.5m plus as our only way of improving our squad.

re Sell-ons, Devil’s advocate says we did that with Brownhill, Kelly and Webster…and we didn’t get a bean (yet)!  The likelihood with Scott and Semenyo is that they are that bit younger, so we ought to get something when they move.  The last sell-on of any note was Bolassie!!  We did get some for Freeman and Szmodics.

How can tactical nous be up for debate?  Surely a manager with better tactical nous than another can turn that advantage into points over a season?

I think Bournemouth were of the opinion that they were exploiting inbound recruitment when they signed our two, three if we include LK. 

Tactical nous could come into play if we were trading in the premier league fringe market (like Twine) or proven championship players, as opposed to delving into leagues 1 and 2 or lower, whereby better quality players could join and better develop our current squad.. therefore enhancing our points position over the season whilst also increasing squad market sell-on value too. 

[Davefevs]

33 minutes ago, FNQ said:

I think Bournemouth were of the opinion that they were exploiting inbound recruitment when they signed our two, three if we include LK. 

Tactical nous could come into play if we were trading in the premier league fringe market (like Twine) or proven championship players, as opposed to delving into leagues 1 and 2 or lower, whereby better quality players could join and better develop our current squad.. therefore enhancing our points position over the season whilst also increasing squad market sell-on value too. 

I’m on about us exploiting….i don’t give a stuff about Bournemouth’s recruitment!

I’m on about tactical nous on match day, not tactical nous in recruitment….i’m not sure what that even is!

I think I’ve thereforenot explained myself very well…you said we needed to start spending larger sums (£2.5m +) to improve.  I suggested alternative ways to spending large sums:

- Coaching towards improvement with what’s already here (and what you bring in)

- exploiting the market, by trying to find gems for us (e.g. Murphy) or undervalued players who are good but it’s not working out at their current club, or in their current system (e.g. Dickie)

- being tactically better in the game plan / in the 90 mins

Does that help explain what I initially put?

 

[marcofisher]

13 hours ago, JP Hampton said:

So at what point or what would need to happen, for the lone striker idea to be parked. I’m not convinced Tommy’s the right person up front, in fact would anyone be doing better if the problem is service?

 I believe he’s got a lot of skill and obviously things could change with more service but at the moment it’s the same formation and same scenario. Tommy’s on for an hour then replaced by Wells with the same issues.  
 

I think we can just park the two up top idea full stop. Modern managers don’t often go for it and unless I am wrong, Manning has not really gone for it at his previous clubs. He is obviously wanting to implement a possession-based style of football, and I suspect he will spend the rest of the season seeing who will fit that mould and who won’t. 

A bit depressing for us to have ANOTHER transition season after spending years getting rid of deadwood to then change style of play again and through doing so create even more deadwood, but this is Bristol City after all. 

Hopefully next season is the first in a long time that we are not in transition and everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

[JP Hampton]

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

I think they were right in their assessment that we potentially had a top 6 squad, under Pearson. And that's the key bit, under Pearson. 

We ain't getting out of this league by being "well coached" Mannings MK couldn't do that. They came up against a physical and motivated and determined Wycombe and got done. There are many well coached teams in this league. To be better well coached than them is going to be difficult. 

We didn't get to the play off final previously by being well coached. We ended the season on +1 goal difference. We got there on belief, hard work, determination, momentum and endeavour. The club and the fans were one. 

At the start of this season I was quite excited because I felt as if we had those ingredients in place. We also have quite a decent squad. With a fully fit squad I think our defence is certainly top 6. 

In fact, we saw against West Ham in both games that those ingredients are in place. 

With a fair wind and some luck around injuries I certainly felt as if top 6 was achievable. In fact I said that my expectations were that we'd go into the final games with a shout of the play offs. 

The big mistake the club made imo was under estimating Pearsons role in us having the potential to be a top 6 squad and believing that we'd still have a top 6 squad without him. 

Imagine the limitations Manning would have felt we had in that play off final team! 

The squad may have limitations to play Manning ball, but there is no guarantee that if we built a squad that could play Manning ball, that Manning ball would be successful. 

I've always had concerns that Manning is emotionless. He doesn't like emotions. He doesn't like his players playing on the emotions. I think because you can't put a stat on emotions. It's something he can't control. 

However for me, Ashton Gate is at its best when players and fans are harnessing the collective emotion. That's something Pearson understood. 

Fine, the decision to sack Pearson was taken. The mistake that was made was not replacing him with a manager that suited the squad we have and replacing him with one that requires X amount of money to be spent to shape the squad to his preference. That's a big concern of mine. 

I get why you’re saying this, and agree with you but I’d also have to agree with @Sheltons Army response too. I don’t really believe they thought or cared if we had a top six team, their main objective was to get NP out. Whatever reason they used for getting rid of him, they knew from previous experience that eventually they’d be able to side step this notion of a top six team or top end team, fans would soon forget (even thought they haven’t,yet). 
  I think they hoped to work on the premise that they’d get enough fans on board, with the idea that NP wasn’t going to take us up.
 

 I think they underestimated what a good proportion of fans could see that NP was actually getting the best out of that team, given the players he had and as you say LM isn’t working that way. He’s not working on the team he has, but the team he wants. 

  Now LM has come in I believe they knew exactly what he was going to bring to the club, the changes that would be needed and I believe they will be willing to spend, they clearly just didn’t want it to be spent with NP in charge. 

Edited January 23 by JP Hampton

[JP Hampton]

3 minutes ago, marcofisher said:

I think we can just park the two up top idea full stop. Modern managers don’t often go for it and unless I am wrong, Manning has not really gone for it at his previous clubs. He is obviously wanting to implement a possession-based style of football, and I suspect he will spend the rest of the season seeing who will fit that mould and who won’t. 

A bit depressing for us to have ANOTHER transition season after spending years getting rid of deadwood to then change style of play again and through doing so create even more deadwood, but this is Bristol City after all. 

Hopefully next season is the first in a long time that we are not in transition and everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

Thanks, that makes sense. 

[FNQ]

32 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I’m on about us exploiting….i don’t give a stuff about Bournemouth’s recruitment!

I’m on about tactical nous on match day, not tactical nous in recruitment….i’m not sure what that even is!

I think I’ve thereforenot explained myself very well…you said we needed to start spending larger sums (£2.5m +) to improve.  I suggested alternative ways to spending large sums:

- Coaching towards improvement with what’s already here (and what you bring in)

- exploiting the market, by trying to find gems for us (e.g. Murphy) or undervalued players who are good but it’s not working out at their current club, or in their current system (e.g. Dickie)

- being tactically better in the game plan / in the 90 mins

Does that help explain what I initially put?

 

Yea, that explains it Dave.. Hopefully it all works out.

[Davefevs]

42 minutes ago, FNQ said:

Yea, that explains it Dave.. Hopefully it all works out.

Thought I was losing it!

[maxjak]

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

When LM first jointed I posted a few times that I didn't think JL and BT quite knew what they were getting with LM. 

To a lot of us it was quite clear that in this moment in time, he didn't quite suit what we have here. Others assured me that it could be fine. He would adapt to us etc. 

I think there has also been an element of he didn't realise what we had here either. 

To a certain extent I think he has adapted so credit for that. He's admitted publicly that he's had to role back on the information he gives the players. 

Whilst I wouldn't want to see LM sacked at this current moment in time, I suppose I'm of the view of being quite sceptical about allowing him to overhaul this squad. The squad is decent. It shouldn't need an overhaul. 

My worry is we overhaul the squad to suit Manning and then that still doesn't yield improvements and then we look back and think oh ****, we ripped up a decent squad for nothing. 

You say the squad is 'Decent'?   All that decent will get you is a ongoing mid-table position......unless we take a certain calculated gamble on recruitment, tactics and show some ambition, all we will ever be is a Decent Championship team languishing for ever in a mid-table mundanity.   I believe that City and Manning did plenty of research, and knew exactly what was forthcoming, and am pretty certain they have a cunning plan ( Just like our celebrity supporter... Baldrick?), whether it works is another matter?   LM is here for the long haul, and unless disaster strikes, he is not going anywhere, and i will continue to support him and my club.

[Mr Popodopolous]

It is decent, has been decent and indeed has players who can grow due to their age and profile.

We do need more quality but we need to build on the solid base rather than wholesale change.

[Yozzarian]

My main takeaway from the game was total boredom - for the majority - and the noting of absolutely NO noise for the early part of the match (fair enough). I did catch-up with mates as per though and we even went out around Hotwells for drinks and a curry. 

I've said to friends, that I find the modern way of playing really tedious.  You accept that the game has moved on but when your first season was Gavin and Smith bombing down the wing, putting in crosses for Taylor and Turner, it does not compare. 

 

Clearly, it CAN still be good - just check Cotterill's team or Johnson's at their best.

Edited January 23 by Yozzarian

[FNQ]

4 hours ago, Yozzarian said:

Clearly, it CAN still be good - just check Cotterill's team or Johnson's at their best.

TBF the league 1 team under Cotts as good as it was struggled in the championship.

Johnson Sr brought in flair players like Nick Carle and Lee Trundle to supplement what we had and got us to that play off final. Johnson Jr brought in quality players like Tammy on loan (thank God) and Adam Webster as an upgrade for Cotts player of the season Flint to maintain our championship status.

I know I’m going against the grain on here but I think that what we need now is again a couple of proven quality players to supplement the squad that we have now to best enable us to push on.

I’m all for the signings of the promising players young Adam and Josh as they are clearly not for the here and now they’re for the future.. But we don’t need anymore Hayden, Harry and Anis type quality players.. we got enough.