Looking over our shoulder

[Dredd]

6 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

I'm talking out and out centre forwards not wide strikers who rarely score (with the exception of Sykes) That leaves us the three centre forwards you've mentioned of which Cornick never played that roll at Luton, Wells is well passed it which leaves us with the still very young and inexperienced Conway, we were well under-cooked in the CF department going into the new season

Nobody was asking for another CF till Conway got injured and by that time Nigel spent the 25p he was given from the Scott money in the positions we did need reinforcements eg midfield and defence. If you remember we were then told we had hit the wage limit and he couldn't sign anyone. 
So rather than blame Nige, if you think we were in such dire need for a striker, what's Manning done to fill that void 

[MarcusX]

14 hours ago, old_eastender said:

After QPR and Huddersfield won today, we are sitting just 10 pts clear of a relegation place. 

Given our next game is Southampton, that gap could well be less ahead of what could be a key game home to QPR.

Can't imagine we would have had to worry about being drawn into a relegation scrap had Pearson stayed...

 

We don’t need to worry about a relegation scrap, although some people were spouting that rubbish around the time we lost to Cardiff with Pearson here - we weren’t in danger then either.

[Northern Red]

Last time people started flapping about relegation we won 3 on the bounce. A repeat would be nice.

[Baldyman]

I really don’t think we can afford to be too blasé about our likelihood to go down even with one relegation spot all but decided already . Plymouth will go above us if they win their game in hand and Blackburn and Birmingham will be within one win of us if they win theirs . Add in the fact that we’ve got Southampton and Boro coming up , the game against QPR could become a must win ! If we don’t , we’ll be well and truly in it so any “ we’re safe” arrogance is a very dangerous thing . 

[Oh Louie louie]

Six points we need at most, we win two on the bounce now guarantee there will be a play off thread.

[old_eastender]

17 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

Last time people started flapping about relegation we won 3 on the bounce. A repeat would be nice.

Totally agree.

I'm not "flapping" though, just raising a genuine concern. We have taken just 2 points from the last 5 league games, continue that form over the remaining 16 games and we will go down. I don't expect us to continue getting such a poor return, but we may well get little out of M'boro and Southampton, meaning the 3 after (QPR, Sheff Wed & Cardiff) will become crucial to pick up some wins. 

 

Edited February 4 by old_eastender

[Baldyman]

3 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Six points we need at most, we win two on the bounce now guarantee there will be a play off thread.

There is a huge “ however” here ! Namely that we’ve averaged just 2.3 shots on target per game since Boxing Day and have scored from 23% of those shots . We aren’t picking up six points against Boro and Southampton with those stats so the games against QPR and Sheff Weds will be crucial . 

[Lew-T]

There was a chance to get points against the likes of Birmingham, Millwall and Preston. We didn’t, the players have looked leggy going into a spell of games(7 in 23 days) against some very good sides.

This division is brutal but my word, we could do with a win somewhere!

[Redtucks]

16 hours ago, old_eastender said:

Can't imagine we would have had to worry about being drawn into a relegation scrap had Pearson stayed...

 

So why was it a matter for discussion every season that he was here?

 

 

[Davefevs]

4 hours ago, TV Tom said:

The fact that Pearson didn't address the fact in the summer that we needed a striker is half the problem

 

3 hours ago, Dredd said:

In the summer we were playing a different system with 3 forwards. We had Bell, Mehmeti, Weimann and Sykes as wide forwards, and Conway, Wells and Cornick as central strikers. Cornick and Weimann could also play central or wide and let's not forget Yeboah was also getting minutes. 
I'd say we were pretty well stocked in the forward department at the start of the season and it was only a significant run of injuries that started eating into these options. Though as I remember it I think the issues were more in defence and midfield that up top. 
 

So I'm not having Pearson being to blame for that, let's not forget Manning inherited a top 6 squad

spot on, and

3 hours ago, TV Tom said:

I'm talking out and out centre forwards not wide strikers who rarely score (with the exception of Sykes) That leaves us the three centre forwards you've mentioned of which Cornick never played that roll at Luton, Wells is well passed it which leaves us with the still very young and inexperienced Conway, we were well under-cooked in the CF department going into the new season

Yes, Cornick played that role at Luton.  Played alongside Adebayo in 21/22 scoring a dozen as part of a two.  He had played a lot of his career as a wide forward admittedly, but you said never…he had a huge part of that season playing there.

Minutes become harder when Luton signed Carlton Morris for 22/23.

3 hours ago, TheReds said:

So do tell, who was available to Pearson for free, because he didn't have any money to spend did he? Or let's pretend he had some cash, who should he have bought?

Ah, yes, the budget.  Or should we say “budget for Nige”!!!

 

[TV Tom]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

 

spot on, and

Yes, Cornick played that role at Luton.  Played alongside Adebayo in 21/22 scoring a dozen as part of a two.  He had played a lot of his career as a wide forward admittedly, but you said never…he had a huge part of that season playing there.

Minutes become harder when Luton signed Carlton Morris for 22/23.

Ah, yes, the budget.  Or should we say “budget for Nige”!!!

 

 Cornick has scored 39 goals in 8 years, so he doesn't even average 5 goals a season irrespective of what position he plays in, he is most definitely not a centre forward, which is my point

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, TV Tom said:

 Cornick has scored 39 goals in 8 years, so he doesn't even average 5 goals a season irrespective of what position he plays in, he is most definitely not a centre forward, which is my point

Fair enough, but to say he didn’t play there for Luton was the point I referred to.  The tea spitting was re budget constraints.  

[Sheltons Army]

8 hours ago, TV Tom said:

The fact that Pearson didn't address the fact in the summer that we needed a striker is half the problem

incredible post 

Simply incredible

 

 

 

Id recommend sticking to horse racing , but if betting , you may actually want to keep up with what’s actually happening  

 

 

 

Edited February 4 by Sheltons Army

[Sir Geoff]

To all those that say no way will we go down. Just a reminder. On 9th February 2020 Hull City sat in 14th place on 40 points. At the end of the season that sat in 24th place on 45 points. 

[Banjo Island]

35 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

To all those that say no way will we go down. Just a reminder. On 9th February 2020 Hull City sat in 14th place on 40 points. At the end of the season that sat in 24th place on 45 points. 

If there is a football club capeable of going on a relegation run its defo bristol city

[Barrs Court Red]

1 hour ago, Sir Geoff said:

To all those that say no way will we go down. Just a reminder. On 9th February 2020 Hull City sat in 14th place on 40 points. At the end of the season that sat in 24th place on 45 points. 

While nothing is guaranteed, I think relegation is extremely unlikely. Not exactly a glowing endorsement of the manager that we’ve even started having this conversation though. 

[Street red]

Personally I think Jon Lansdown looks at the table upside down.

[Sleepy1968]

44 minutes ago, Banjo Island said:

If there is a football club capeable of going on a relegation run its defo bristol city

A run is a run . One thing's for sure, I'm not going to be as quick to renew my Season Card this year.

[Silvio Dante]

1 hour ago, Sir Geoff said:

To all those that say no way will we go down. Just a reminder. On 9th February 2020 Hull City sat in 14th place on 40 points. At the end of the season that sat in 24th place on 45 points. 

Wasn’t it the case that in that particular season Jarrod Bowen was carrying a poor Hull side and after they sold him to West Ham form fell off a cliff? Not great stats either way but I don’t think we’re in the shape of if we lose one body from the current squad it’d impact us in any where near a similar way

13 minutes ago, Barrs Court Red said:

While nothing is guaranteed, I think relegation is extremely unlikely. Not exactly a glowing endorsement of the manager that we’ve even started having this conversation though. 

Indeed. As prior I’m more concerned with next season, and have already said I’d look at LMs position in the summer before committing a load of funds to a rebuild which we seem to be in, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say if we are in the highly unlikely event of a relegation battle in late April things would have gone catastrophically wrong and the only logical conclusion should be both the manager and Tecknikal Director leaving.

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Wasn’t it the case that in that particular season Jarrod Bowen was carrying a poor Hull side and after they sold him to West Ham form fell off a cliff? Not great stats either way but I don’t think we’re in the shape of if we lose one body from the current squad it’d impact us in any where near a similar way

Indeed. As prior I’m more concerned with next season, and have already said I’d look at LMs position in the summer before committing a load of funds to a rebuild which we seem to be in, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say if we are in the highly unlikely event of a relegation battle in late April things would have gone catastrophically wrong and the only logical conclusion should be both the manager and Tecknikal Director leaving.

They lost Grosicki that window too iirc.  Might’ve been another player who left too, but those were key from memory.

[Silvio Dante]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

They lost Grosicki that window too iirc.  Might’ve been another player who left too, but those were key from memory.

Yeah I think you’re right. I think it’s totally different circumstances to what we have here at the moment - the closest parallel would be if Max broke an arm (key as no cover) and Pring or Dickie (POTY contenders) got injuries but even then I don’t think it would fit the Bowen/Grosicki impact

[handsofclay]

I think it unlikely we will get relegated but we should never have been in this position as the club had been on an upward trajectory albeit a very gradual one. I have heard that if we are relegated and Derby promoted they will buy Max Bird back off us but lend him to us for the 24-25 season. 

I want Manning to succeed as I am a Bristol City fan but as Silvio Dante has pointed out the worrying aspect of all this isn't this season it's next. We have been in relegation form since Manning took control fortunately we had enough points in the bag when he took over to most likely avoid the drop this season but what about next.

There are parallels, in the opposite way, with when Cottrell became manager. Under SOD we were relegation bound, but Cottrell provided us with promotion form the rest of the season, unfortunately we had far too few points behind us when he took control and only achieved mid table. But as we know that form with some great additions to the squad continued the following season and we were promoted. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1.4 PPG.

40% win ratio.

Injury position slowly improving, International break to maybe albeit minus the players on International duty to work on a bit.

This was the factual position inherited in November 2023.

[Numero Uno]

35 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

1.4 PPG.

40% win ratio.

Injury position slowly improving, International break to maybe albeit minus the players on International duty to work on a bit.

This was the factual position inherited in November 2023.

This is where the hierarchy are in danger of backing themselves into a corner. Nige was sacked because the results and the football weren’t good enough. Jon Lansdown held that view last season too. That was made clear enough.

The facts are the new regime has had the same games as the old regime so far if you count Sheffield Wednesday with more players available and are four points WORSE off. Nothing has improved yet, Leeds ruthlessly exposed that.

There comes a time when fans can rightly expect to see improvement. Being fair to Manning I would say next Christmas is a time we should be seeing this front foot football spoken of by Sid and better results, particularly at the Gate. If we don’t what happens then?

It doesn’t matter what those in charge say in private if the fans are disillusioned and that permeates to a Saturday afternoon a young manager is going to find himself under unnecessary pressure created by the hierarchy.

[Monkeh]

We've 2 many points on the board, we'd have to lose the next 16 in a row to go down,

Look at it another way, we currently have 5 wins in 18,

We need 4 wins in 16 to stay up on current form we should achieve that

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Numero Uno said:

Being fair to Manning I would say next Christmas is a time we should be seeing this front foot football spoken of by Sid and better results, particularly at the Gate.

That’s way too generous imho.  That’s just me.

I think I’ll be pretty confident of which way we are going by the end of the season, probably the next month or so in reality.

I won’t be aligned to the hierarchy though, I know that.

[Sheltons Army]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

That’s way too generous imho.  That’s just me.

I think I’ll be pretty confident of which way we are going by the end of the season, probably the next month or so in reality.

I won’t be aligned to the hierarchy though, I know that.

God knows what Tinnions idea of front foot football (He used to align it with ‘runners’ and pace , two thiings I don’t see as priorities in a LM player

 

But do you see us , playing , what you regard as ‘Front Foot Football’ now , or , in the future under LM ?

I don’t 

[Shauntaylor85]

On 03/02/2024 at 18:18, bearded_red said:

I’m about as unimpressed with the club at the moment as it’s possible to be, but we really don’t need to worry about relegation.

The only way we get relegated is if everyone gets so bored that we actually fail to turn up for any of the rest of our games this season and keep forfeiting.

We don’t create chances or score goals. Big worry. 

[Sir Geoff]

2 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Wasn’t it the case that in that particular season Jarrod Bowen was carrying a poor Hull side and after they sold him to West Ham form fell off a cliff? Not great stats either way but I don’t think we’re in the shape of if we lose one body from the current squad it’d impact us in any where near a similar way

Indeed. As prior I’m more concerned with next season, and have already said I’d look at LMs position in the summer before committing a load of funds to a rebuild which we seem to be in, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say if we are in the highly unlikely event of a relegation battle in late April things would have gone catastrophically wrong and the only logical conclusion should be both the manager and Tecknikal Director leaving.

I get that there were extenuating circumstances but to fall off a cliff like that just shows it is possible. What if Tommy has been approached by Rangers and knows he's off there in the summer, that Williams and James, knowing they're off too all do a Fam and down tools, it won't take much for results and performances to continue on the current trajectory.

Fwiw I think we will have enough and probably finish 16-18th but that will be some bad indictment on Manning, BT and JL.

I too worry for next season. Someone earlier posted a list of next years likely squad and there isn't a lot of Championship experience in it. At least 2 sides coming up that won't go straight back down.

 

[Sir Geoff]

3 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

We don’t create chances or score goals. Big worry. 

Always look at the sides that can't score as the ones to (suddenly) drop. You're correct we aren't even creating chances to think that we will be ok once we start scoring again.