Why hasn’t Manning been sacked?

[Swede]

4 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Very good post @Swede

I'm just tired of the rinse and repeat rubbish from the club, Dave. This is my team and at this moment I have never felt so disillusioned about the short term aims let alone the long term. I have always backed the manager/coach but find myself increasingly not taking to the "Manningisms" and if I'm not believing it then I'm damn sure the likes of James, Wells, Williams, Cornick & King aren't either. I just can't buy into it especially when we had it all ready to go with Pearson.

On the subject of Andy King, he's done his badges, he has the respect and more importantly the playing experience, he's very articulate and as a bonus he's a fan of the club so giving him the role of head coach I'm pretty sure we'd be in a better place than where we are now but he probably knows too much and would be seen as an adversarial threat for the BT/JL cosy club.

So we have to bin off yet another season and look to restart again. I jokingly once said that in ten years time we will still be finishing 12th - 15th in the league but we will stand out as the only current Championship team never to play in the Premier League such is the ambition of the owners.

[Superjack]

5 hours ago, Fjmcity said:

Courageous, give me a break. the love in is embarrassing, especially without any knowledge truly of what happened or what “truths” nige was spitting. Nigel Pearson did nothing to unite or galvanise city while he was here. Steady manager producing steady results - we were not going anywhere further so you have to roll the dice and sorry to break this to anyone but football has no certainty.
There was no excitement in the stands, no chorus’ of Nigel’s name game after game. Revisionary bullshit history to say he’s a some messiah. For 12 months we couldn’t score goals without forceps and our home form was diabolical.

the big talk from management during the change is of course the problem because the majority of people on here are petulant and pedantic and desperate to sell us into the unknown for a shot at god knows what? W*nking themselves off when MOTD is on because Danny Murphy said something nice about us? what did you expect them to say? “We’ve got an average squad with nothing going for it etc etc” not going to happen, you make a change you big it up and believe it might work. It might still work. Nigel might have got us doing more - I don’t know but he had enough time to prove it if he could. 

“Say it as they see it” types is boomer Facebook rhetoric for someone who likely won’t listen to anyone else and mistakes their personal “honesty” for the unequivocal truth and believes people should be grateful for it

One of the most clueless posts I've ever read.

[Redandproud]

17 minutes ago, Swede said:

I'm just tired of the rinse and repeat rubbish from the club, Dave. This is my team and at this moment I have never felt so disillusioned about the short term aims let alone the long term. I have always backed the manager/coach but find myself increasingly not taking to the "Manningisms" and if I'm not believing it then I'm damn sure the likes of James, Wells, Williams, Cornick & King aren't either. I just can't buy into it especially when we had it all ready to go with Pearson.

On the subject of Andy King, he's done his badges, he has the respect and more importantly the playing experience, he's very articulate and as a bonus he's a fan of the club so giving him the role of head coach I'm pretty sure we'd be in a better place than where we are now but he probably knows too much and would be seen as an adversarial threat for the BT/JL cosy club.

So we have to bin off yet another season and look to restart again. I jokingly once said that in ten years time we will still be finishing 12th - 15th in the league but we will stand out as the only current Championship team never to play in the Premier League such is the ambition of the owners.

Our owners have no ambition for this club,

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 hours ago, Fjmcity said:

That last part reads like we are talking of war or famine. Oh wait no it’s just football. Chill, it will be alright in the end mate. Maybe we will get promoted, maybe we won’t. Maybe a hedge fund will buy us maybe they won’t. maybe nige will rise on a Monday, roll across his stone and come to save us.. Truly we are all just shopping bags in the breeze

 

Sorry mate but for a lot of us football is a massive part of our lives. It's not just football, it's way more than that. It's a significant emotional and financial investment. 

For over the past five years it has been total dross by and large. It takes its toll dragging ourselves up to Ashton Gate every other week to watch crap. 

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, JP Hampton said:

Have you ever rated a manager who maybe didn’t have a great string of results? If someone said you were part of a cult or a “love in” how would you react?

 Those sorts of phrases are used to stop people saying anything positive. That it makes people/fans somewhat pathetic in their appreciation. 

Second bit in bold. If that was true you wouldn’t have posted and I wouldn’t be responding. It’s certainly a lot of people’s perception of Nigel’s bringing the club together and why he’s held in great esteem. Are you somehow denying that the team went from clueless, to at least being United, having superb fitness levels, working hard, albeit not always successful, but in the main and certainly towards the end of his tenure, putting in decent hardworking performances.  Are you denying that he massively sorted the financial situation, trimmed staff and saved the club money and in Lansdown’s own words, did great things for the club?

If you can’t acknowledge any of the good he did, then well, you just don’t get it. The reason people liked NP was because despite results, they could see that he had the club’s best interest at heart. He was guiding very young and more experienced players through some very turbulent times. 
 The only people I’ve heard call him the messiah are those like you who once again, berate those who have anything good to say about him. You don’t need to be a Messiah to have an impact. 
 

The big talk from management comment is really confusing. No one bought into that. No one!

 And lastly. Yes NP might have got us doing more. I won’t go into the whole context around his time and the very real hurdles and lack of money. We won’t ever know, but being a Football Manager is about so much more than getting results, it’s about leading from the front and galvanising a group of players and in NPs case, back room staff, to want to get those results. Of course he wasn’t perfect. Not everyone will appreciate his at times abrasive tone, but I think the comments of those he left behind, say more than we can ever know. 

Brilliant most mate.

[red panda]

1 hour ago, Banjo Island said:

With lashings of bang average managers

Silly idiots, they used the wrong rolodex.  They should have used the "guaranteed promotion-winning managers just itching to come and work at Ashton Gate" list.

Most of our recent appointments have fallen into three main categories:

• up and coming managers, probably with experience mainly in lower leagues - Manning, L Johnson and McInnes are recent examples
• more experienced managers - either with moderate track records or perhaps some with good records who have hit a rocky patch (or why else would they be available and willing to consider us?) - e.g. Pearson, Cotterill, O'Driscoll, Coppell , G Johnson and Wilson
• a rookie appointed from within (e.g. Holden and Tinnion).  It worked for Bournemouth with Eddie Howe, but it's a very, very long shot.

We're absolutely not alone in trying different approaches from time to time.  Looking across the Championship, the 'up and coming' route has quite a good track record recently - Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom and Rob Edwards won promotion last year, Scott Parker and Steve Cooper the previous year, alongside exception Marco Dasilva.

The main option we haven't tried recently (since Benny!) is bringing in an overseas coach - this has had a few successes, but also a large number of failures and is really difficult to get right.

Some haven't worked, but not many have been complete disasters and I'd say Cotterill and both Johnsons were quite successful in their own ways.

They just need to look around the office to try a bit harder to find that "guaranteed promotion-winning managers" list.

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 minutes ago, red panda said:

Silly idiots, they used the wrong rolodex.  They should have used the "guaranteed promotion-winning managers just itching to come and work at Ashton Gate" list.

Most of our recent appointments have fallen into three main categories:

• up and coming managers, probably with experience mainly in lower leagues - Manning, L Johnson and McInnes are recent examples
• more experienced managers - either with moderate track records or perhaps some with good records who have hit a rocky patch (or why else would they be available and willing to consider us?) - e.g. Pearson, Cotterill, O'Driscoll, Coppell , G Johnson and Wilson
• a rookie appointed from within (e.g. Holden and Tinnion).  It worked for Bournemouth with Eddie Howe, but it's a very, very long shot.

We're absolutely not alone in trying different approaches from time to time.  Looking across the Championship, the 'up and coming' route has quite a good track record recently - Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom and Rob Edwards won promotion last year, Scott Parker and Steve Cooper the previous year, alongside exception Marco Dasilva.

The main option we haven't tried recently (since Benny!) is bringing in an overseas coach - this has had a few successes, but also a large number of failures and is really difficult to get right.

Some haven't worked, but not many have been complete disasters and I'd say Cotterill and both Johnsons were quite successful in their own ways.

They just need to look around the office to try a bit harder to find that "guaranteed promotion-winning managers" list.

How many of those were achieved without Parachute bolstered and or PL assisted squad.

Heckingbottom, Kompany let alone Silva..all very heavily advantaged financially.

 ...Parker?? No thank you.

Cifuentes and Rohl seem interesting, someone in that mould?

Edited February 25 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

Interesting Twitter thread, opinions very much split as we can see on here too.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Tony Wilkins remains a clown. 

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, red panda said:

Silly idiots, they used the wrong rolodex.  They should have used the "guaranteed promotion-winning managers just itching to come and work at Ashton Gate" list.

Most of our recent appointments have fallen into three main categories:

• up and coming managers, probably with experience mainly in lower leagues - Manning, L Johnson and McInnes are recent examples
• more experienced managers - either with moderate track records or perhaps some with good records who have hit a rocky patch (or why else would they be available and willing to consider us?) - e.g. Pearson, Cotterill, O'Driscoll, Coppell , G Johnson and Wilson
• a rookie appointed from within (e.g. Holden and Tinnion).  It worked for Bournemouth with Eddie Howe, but it's a very, very long shot.

We're absolutely not alone in trying different approaches from time to time.  Looking across the Championship, the 'up and coming' route has quite a good track record recently - Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom and Rob Edwards won promotion last year, Scott Parker and Steve Cooper the previous year, alongside exception Marco Dasilva.

The main option we haven't tried recently (since Benny!) is bringing in an overseas coach - this has had a few successes, but also a large number of failures and is really difficult to get right.

Some haven't worked, but not many have been complete disasters and I'd say Cotterill and both Johnsons were quite successful in their own ways.

They just need to look around the office to try a bit harder to find that "guaranteed promotion-winning managers" list.

I think the main thing here is not to “bracket” managers without looking at context in terms of situation they took over in, situation they left, what support they had in their immediate staff, what support they had from their “hierarchy”.

I look at Rob Edwards and can’t help think that the way Luton are run (outsiders view looking in)by Gary Sweet, through to Mick Harford, etc, is a club completely at home with their identity and strategy.  A set-up to succeed, not fail imho.

And this is my biggest whinge….SL (JL?) looks at the end result and want to replicate that, they don’t want to replicate the journey.  It’s lazy, the flip-flop of who to copy is lazy.  Normally as a billionaire you can be lazy and buy success.  That doesn’t work in football if you’re not one of the “haves”.

And there (imho) is a big part of the issue.

[Natchfever]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Tony Wilkins remains a clown. 

Man is a ******* idiot regardless....

[Fjmcity]

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

Sorry mate but for a lot of us football is a massive part of our lives. It's not just football, it's way more than that. It's a significant emotional and financial investment. 

For over the past five years it has been total dross by and large. It takes its toll dragging ourselves up to Ashton Gate every other week to watch crap. 

Huge part of mine too, I wouldn’t be sad enough to post on here if it wasn’t would I?

I’m not really sure what the problem is though. It’s really disappointing not to be doing better but it’s a difficult game? Quite hard to get right there is literally no one formula and at the end of the day you’ll always be playing 11 who also want to win. 
 

we are quite clearly trying to play football. We have a young manager,  We are signing young hungry players, we are developing our own players. Actually quite weird that some on here (and it really is just on here  ) don’t seem to want to get behind the a club and team? Weird. 

 

[Silvio Dante]

16 minutes ago, Fjmcity said:

Huge part of mine too, I wouldn’t be sad enough to post on here if it wasn’t would I?

I’m not really sure what the problem is though. It’s really disappointing not to be doing better but it’s a difficult game? Quite hard to get right there is literally no one formula and at the end of the day you’ll always be playing 11 who also want to win. 
 

we are quite clearly trying to play . We have a young manager,  We are signing young hungry players, we are developing our own players. Actually quite weird that some on here (and it really is just on here  ) don’t seem to want to get behind the a club and team? Weird. 

 

I think the problem is in your last paragraph - to expand 

“we are quite clearly trying to play football”

We may be. But it’s a football that a large number of people find negative and boring. It’s down to personal preference but you can’t knock people for not liking it - so null

We have a young manager,  

I’m not sure why this matters. Bas Savage was shit at 18 and 28, I’ve no doubt he’ll be shit at 48. If he’s good enough he’s old enough but being young isn’t a qualification unless you want to shag Leonardo DiCaprio

We are signing young hungry players,

 I agree with this. And I liked our January window bar Twine (And in hindsight Medube), but most of the players are punts. And this isn’t some sea change from Pearson.

We are developing our own players. 

But this is. Since Liam came on board we’ve seen Jamie Knight Lebel have 40 minutes - and that’s it. He’s not filling the bench, academy players minutes have gone down. The academy who have played were established before he got here. And our most saleable asset in Conway has gone backwards, This is nonsense.

Actually quite weird that some on here (and it really is just on here  ) don’t seem to want to get behind the a club and team? Weird. 
 

But we all do. The difference is between blindly following and appropriately questioning. That’s all this is.

[Sheltons Army]

1 minute ago, Silvio Dante said:

I think the problem is in your last paragraph - to expand 

“we are quite clearly trying to play football”

We may be. But it’s a football that a large number of people find negative and boring. It’s down to personal preference but you can’t knock people for not liking it - so null

We have a young manager,  

I’m not sure why this matters. Bas Savage was shit at 18 and 28, I’ve no doubt he’ll be shit at 48. If he’s good enough he’s old enough but being young isn’t a qualification unless you want to shag Leonardo DiCaprio

We are signing young hungry players,

 I agree with this. And I liked our January window bar Twine (And in hindsight Medube), but most of the players are punts. And this isn’t some sea change from Pearson.

We are developing our own players. 

But this is. Since Liam came on board we’ve seen Jamie Knight Lebel have 40 minutes - and that’s it. He’s not filling the bench, academy players minutes have gone down. The academy who have played were established before he got here. And our most saleable asset in Conway has gone backwards, This is nonsense.

Actually quite weird that some on here (and it really is just on here  ) don’t seem to want to get behind the a club and team? Weird. 
 

But we all do. The difference is between blindly following and appropriately questioning. That’s all this is.

But ‘it’s a difficult game’ Silvio

 

La di la di la di la 

[Sleepy1968]

1 hour ago, Natchfever said:

Man is a ******* idiot regardless....

"Welcome to Sound of the City. Tonight I'll be discussing Saturday's game with two City fans, Tony Wil......"

"Click."

Edited February 25 by Sleepy1968

[Silvio Dante]

2 minutes ago, Sheltons Army said:

But ‘it’s a difficult game’ Silvio

 

La di la di la di la 

Mental innit?

By all means debate about Liam but if you’re falling back on “well he’s young” it’s pretty much built on sand.

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

"Welcome to Sound of the City. Tonight I'll be discussing Saturday's game with two City fans, Tony Wil......"

"Click."

I take it you've not subscribed to his podcast then? 

[W-S-M Seagull]

9 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

We are developing our own players. 

But this is. Since Liam came on board we’ve seen Jamie Knight Lebel have 40 minutes - and that’s it. He’s not filling the bench, academy players minutes have gone down. The academy who have played were established before he got here. And our most saleable asset in Conway has gone backwards, This is nonsense.

A big deal was made about his experience of working in academy from both the club and our fans and how that would perfectly suit us and the pathway etc etc. 

I've always questioned it. Even when Nige was manager I said on here that managers like Nige are not concerned with their win record so are more likely to blood a youngster than a young up and coming manager would. 

I'm not trying to turn this into a Manning Vs Pearson thing but we wouldn't be playing unfit players under an experienced manager. Nigel wouldn't risk a players welfare for 3 points. He was very much "it is what it is, I'll work with this and I'll use an academy player" 

Apart from working in academy football Manning has no body of evidence to suggest he can develop players and integrate them into the first team. As far as I'm aware he didn't blood youth at either MK or Oxford. 

When he came in here he said something about how he would formulate a depth chart (as if this was a new concept to Bristol City) and that he would always look to use youth and would only sign players if there was a gap in the pathway. Or something along those lines. I called bs on those claims at the time and I call bs on it now. The guy said whatever he could to get himself the job. 

The reality is he came in here and bombed Yeboah out of the first team and then in an interview proclaimed that Yeboah should be happy that he's been given an opportunity in a 21s game! 

But the fact of the matter is that Manning will not blood youngsters because he simply does not trust them to carry out his tactical instructions. And with him being under pressure and potentially a loss = dismissal then he's never going to blood a youngster in the same way Nigel did. 

He commented how even experienced pros are not following his instructions so if he doesn't trust senior players then he's hardly going to trust a youngster. 

[Sleepy1968]

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

I take it you've not subscribed to his podcast then? 

I didn't realise he had one!

Should I give it a listen? Maybe he come across better than he does on the radio ...

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

I didn't realise he had one!

Should I give it a listen? Maybe he come across better than he does on the radio ...

Hmmm. 

It is about sobriety so I don't want to criticise it. 

[Wanderingred]

I had a dream that the Thailand national team joined the FA cup and City got drawn away against them. The away allocation was full so my father and I went in the home end but everybody knew that we were away fans cos we were the only white people there. Then they started singing the Christmas carol “glory to the newborn king” as the teams came out. We lost 2-0. 

[luke_bristol]

5 hours ago, Wanderingred said:

I had a dream that the Thailand national team joined the FA cup and City got drawn away against them. The away allocation was full so my father and I went in the home end but everybody knew that we were away fans cos we were the only white people there. Then they started singing the Christmas carol “glory to the newborn king” as the teams came out. We lost 2-0. 

If you think that’s daft, some of us were dreaming of a play-off charge this season.

[RollsRoyce]

On 24/02/2024 at 23:34, Aipearcey said:

For me the difference is, with Pearson we probably would’ve beaten QPR and Wednesday, but lost to Southampton and that would have been acceptable, knowing that with coaching and a few additions you’re heading in the right direction. Currently we may have pulled a rabbit out the hat against Southampton but gone backwards against the teams that have been struggling all season.

Actually, early season and before playing them, I thought our approach would ruffle Southampton, much as we did Swansea last year. I am not sure about the cup games though, in the sense how they would have played out, probably not as well. But if Pearson was in charge of back to back defeats against two of the bottom three, then I would, like most others be asking big questions. It was not as if "it was not our day" type performances either, or a lucky win for them. In both cases they deserved it, and in both cases, we hardly troubled them. That has to send alarm bells ringing, it was not as if the bench had 5 players who had never started a Championship game in their life. There is a context too.

LM will have the next 12 games to show if he has got it. But if there is more of the same, no way would I head into next season with LM and the squad as we now know it (Tinnion transfer update). That looks like a relegation package to me, and we do not want a repeat of his MK situation where they signed (he was involved) lots of players, it did not work, and they were signed to play Manning ball as it now seems to be phrased (has he dome something special to have an approach named after him? Have I missed something? ) he could not find answers in difficulty, and they got relegated and he got sacked. 

What is very clear though is that we do not have a united club with everyone working together and in the same direction, or more succinctly, there is a total lack of leadership. 

 

[Sleepy1968]

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

Hmmm. 

It is about sobriety so I don't want to criticise it. 

I assumed it would be football related. Good luck to him.

[bexhill reds]

12 hours ago, red panda said:

Silly idiots, they used the wrong rolodex.  They should have used the "guaranteed promotion-winning managers just itching to come and work at Ashton Gate" list.

Most of our recent appointments have fallen into three main categories:

• up and coming managers, probably with experience mainly in lower leagues - Manning, L Johnson and McInnes are recent examples
• more experienced managers - either with moderate track records or perhaps some with good records who have hit a rocky patch (or why else would they be available and willing to consider us?) - e.g. Pearson, Cotterill, O'Driscoll, Coppell , G Johnson and Wilson
• a rookie appointed from within (e.g. Holden and Tinnion).  It worked for Bournemouth with Eddie Howe, but it's a very, very long shot.

We're absolutely not alone in trying different approaches from time to time.  Looking across the Championship, the 'up and coming' route has quite a good track record recently - Vincent Kompany, Paul Heckingbottom and Rob Edwards won promotion last year, Scott Parker and Steve Cooper the previous year, alongside exception Marco Dasilva.

The main option we haven't tried recently (since Benny!) is bringing in an overseas coach - this has had a few successes, but also a large number of failures and is really difficult to get right.

Some haven't worked, but not many have been complete disasters and I'd say Cotterill and both Johnsons were quite successful in their own ways.

They just need to look around the office to try a bit harder to find that "guaranteed promotion-winning managers" list.

You forgot the current selection category which was seemingly based on a 20 min spell in a Caribou cup match this season which our current appointment went on to lose 5-1....

[Bazooka Joe]

23 hours ago, Swede said:

There is so much more about being a coach/manager at this level which he's now finding out to his cost.

More like the fans’ cost !

We will always stick with and support our club. 
He definitely won’t.

[stortfordred]

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

 

He commented how even experienced pros are not following his instructions so if he doesn't trust senior players then he's hardly going to trust a youngster. 

Lions led by donkey (s)?
 

 

‘Right chaps! Over the top!!!!…………………………

Oh sarge!! What do you mean I forgot to hand out the rifles and the grenades?’

[Baldyman]

This from the Oxford forum back in December. We were warned !!!! 

“I've got to be honest. Having Manning as a manager was like having a robot in charge. Bloody boring and while his football was excellent at times it soon turned into a snore fest of passing sideways and backwards at snails pace.””  

[Sir Geoff]

Pearson was sacked after Cardiff, maybe some synergy.

[TV Tom]

3 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Pearson was sacked after Cardiff, maybe some synergy.

Another woeful performance, as i remember just one shot on target