Not good reading for us if we want to keep Conway

[Dr Balls]

Article about how Haaland is a potential problem for Guardiola because he has potentially disrupted “their processes” I.e. boring opposition teams to death with their midfield possession play and wanting to walk the ball into the net.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/mar/02/erling-haaland-remains-both-solution-and-problem-for-manchester-city

But of course Haaland is the ultimate centre forward of modern times and gets goals that others wouldn’t just because of how he plays. What he really likes is balls played through in front of him that he can run into as per most of the 5 he scored against Luton. Helps that he has De Bruyne to play those passes.

Supposedly playing Haaland and playing to Haaland’s strengths as a centre forward has made Man City more open at the back against balls behind the defence, so conceding more goals. Yet going back to how they played with “their processes” potentially strangles the flow to Haaland and negates having such a prolific goalscorer upfront.

It’s no coincidence that the form of Tommy Conway and his goal scoring from open play has fallen off a cliff since Manning arrived. The tactics, formation and “processes” are meaning he has few if any opportunities on goal. We all remember the goal against West Ham away because it was brilliantly taken and absolutely what he is capable of, but also because it’s such an outlier since Manning arrived. When since that game has he been given a through ball like that to run onto? I am struggling to think of a single occasion in the last 8 weeks.

So it should be no surprise that Tommy might be stalling on signing a new contract. Why stay at a club that’s not only going nowhere but completely ignores your strengths and makes you look far worse as a striker? Especially when there will be clubs willing to offer you far more to play in a team that plays to your strengths and values your goal-scoring ability. He only has to look how much his mate Alex Scott is making at Bournemouth to realise his own potential earnings, plus the opportunity to play at the highest level.

So in summary, given how he has been treated by Manning and his tactics, do I expect Tommy Conway to be a Bristol City player next season? In a word “no”.

[petehinton]

He’s leaving, just a matter of where to go.  

[redsquirrel]

4 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

Article about how Haaland is a potential problem for Guardiola because he has potentially disrupted “their processes” I.e. boring opposition teams to death with their midfield possession play and wanting to walk the ball into the net.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/mar/02/erling-haaland-remains-both-solution-and-problem-for-manchester-city

But of course Haaland is the ultimate centre forward of modern times and gets goals that others wouldn’t just because of how he plays. What he really likes is balls played through in front of him that he can run into as per most of the 5 he scored against Luton. Helps that he has De Bruyne to play those passes.

Supposedly playing Haaland and playing to Haaland’s strengths as a centre forward has made Man City more open at the back against balls behind the defence, so conceding more goals. Yet going back to how they played with “their processes” potentially strangles the flow to Haaland and negates having such a prolific goalscorer upfront.

It’s no coincidence that the form of Tommy Conway and his goal scoring from open play has fallen off a cliff since Manning arrived. The tactics, formation and “processes” are meaning he has few if any opportunities on goal. We all remember the goal against West Ham away because it was brilliantly taken and absolutely what he is capable of, but also because it’s such an outlier since Manning arrived. When since that game has he been given a through ball like that to run onto? I am struggling to think of a single occasion in the last 8 weeks.

So it should be no surprise that Tommy might be stalling on signing a new contract. Why stay at a club that’s not only going nowhere but completely ignores your strengths and makes you look far worse as a striker? Especially when there will be clubs willing to offer you far more to play in a team that plays to your strengths and values your goal-scoring ability. He only has to look how much his mate Alex Scott is making at Bournemouth to realise his own potential earnings, plus the opportunity to play at the highest level.

So in summary, given how he has been treated by Manning and his tactics, do I expect Tommy Conway to be a Bristol City player next season? In a word “no”.

i dont think hes the only one that wants to get back to playing proper football

[Northern Red]

Tbh I think he was going regardless of what's happened in the last few months.

[DirtySanchez]

In my opinion his eyes are already towards north of the border, hence the drop off in form 

[Jacki]

18 minutes ago, petehinton said:

He’s leaving, just a matter of where to go.  

This. Everything about the current situation points to him going. His non committal interviews, total lack of service in this bizarre way Manning is trying to play, and his own drop off in performance all suggest he’s off. Not to mention his body language, which I thought was also poor yesterday.

Worst thing is, I don’t think any of us would blame him for going. He won’t fulfil his ambitions at Bristol City just as all the other players we’ve sold on wouldn’t have done. What a time it is to be alive….

[Lack of Action Man]

28 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

Supposedly playing Haaland and playing to Haaland’s strengths as a centre forward has made Man City more open at the back against balls behind the defence, so conceding more goals. Yet going back to how they played with “their processes” potentially strangles the flow to Haaland and negates having such a prolific goalscorer upfront.

So, by playing Haaland Man City games have become less of a snooze-fest? I’d keep playing Haaland then! 

23 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

i dont think hes the only one that wants to get back to playing proper football

Agreed. I wrote a few months ago that I suspect the emergence of Haaland into the Premier League limelight will inspire thr footballing media to wax lyrical about the next “great footballing philosophy” from the bald Spanish one - the return of a more direct/incisive play style.

However, football is an ultimately cyclical game. The trend for a possession based approach as used by Pep, is derived from the total football approach of Cryuff. Sky, BT and TNT like to make out that the game goes through revolutionary changes every ten years but it doesn’t really. It just recycles previous styles and approaches and adapts them to the players (and the interpretation of the laws of the game) for that era. 
 

As a side note I’m going to be sad to see Klopp leave the prem. Give me heavy metal football over tiki taka any day.

[Grey Fox]

Managers are temporary, the club is permanent, so NO , I don’t expect Tommy Conway to be moved on, I do hope that Manning is instead.

Last year it was all about moving on Scott, now, predictably it’s Tommy. FFS will this club, and sadly some of our supporters get some ambition .

See you all in August.

[Lrrr]

1 minute ago, Grey Fox said:

Managers are temporary, the club is permanent, so NO , I don’t expect Tommy Conway to be moved on, I do hope that Manning is instead.

Last year it was all about moving on Scott, now, predictably it’s Tommy. FFS will this club, and sadly some of our supporters get some ambition .

See you all in August.

Realism is a thing, if we want to get a fee for Conway, rather than compensation which won’t be much and minimal if he went to Scotland, then he needs to be sold this summer as he won’t be signing a new deal 

[Grey Fox]

1 minute ago, Lrrr said:

Realism is a thing, if we want to get a fee for Conway, rather than compensation which won’t be much and minimal if he went to Scotland, then he needs to be sold this summer as he won’t be signing a new deal 

Change “Conway” to “Scott” and you could cut and paste this whole paragraph in to last year’s debate on here about Alex. And that as worked well, hasn’t it!!!!

Using this logic, we never progress, sometimes you need some balls ️️️

[1960maaan]

His best mate and flat mate , went straight to the Prem on loads of money . TC would see that and the fact that the Club hasn't got near Promotion since 2008. 
Then there is how we play and set up and basically strangle the life from our strikers.

If the first bit wasn't enough to tempt him , the 2nd bit will . 

As soon as I read he's leaving it to his representatives to sort, you know he was going to leave .

[Dr Balls]

4 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

Realism is a thing, if we want to get a fee for Conway, rather than compensation which won’t be much and minimal if he went to Scotland, then he needs to be sold this summer as he won’t be signing a new deal 

It would help Conway’s valuation if the team actually played a way that even slightly suited Conway, given that he’s our best striker and the object of football is to score more goals than the opposition. That’s not a process it’s an outcome that appears to have been completely overlooked by a Head Coach who appears increasingly clueless the longer he stays in post.

[ralphindevon]

I wonder if his stock has fallen since Manning took over? With the high profile West Ham goals probably not.

But if I was him I’d be looking for something different. Him and Wells look a very different combination than they looked under Nige.

[Dr Balls]

4 minutes ago, ralphindevon said:

I wonder if his stock has fallen since Manning took over? With the high profile West Ham goals probably not.

But if I was him I’d be looking for something different. Him and Wells look a very different combination than they looked under Nige.

Wells and Conway have hardly been played as a combination at any point in the last 4 months so I don’t think you can say that they aren’t working well together. It happened briefly against QPR and gave us the best opportunity of a goal in the match, as Nakhi played in Tommy and his shot narrowly missed .

[Major Isewater]

Comparing Conway to Haaland I love it. 

[Dr Balls]

4 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Comparing Conway to Haaland I love it. 

Processes Major, processes. It’s the one word that Manning learnt from Guardiola!

[ralphindevon]

8 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

Wells and Conway have hardly been played as a combination at any point in the last 4 months so I don’t think you can say that they aren’t working well together. It happened briefly against QPR and gave us the best opportunity of a goal in the match, as Nakhi played in Tommy and his shot narrowly missed .

Yeah I don’t know why I put in the word combination, I was just remembering when they were a good combination.

I feel for both having to play in this team. Such a shame Tommy’s effort was ruled offside, we all really needed that. 

[Lrrr]

13 hours ago, Grey Fox said:

Change “Conway” to “Scott” and you could cut and paste this whole paragraph in to last year’s debate on here about Alex. And that as worked well, hasn’t it!!!!

Using this logic, we never progress, sometimes you need some balls ️️️

We were never holding onto Scott, you deny him a move to the PL given the level of interest he had and the fees we would have been offered you'd have pissed him off no end, I don't think Alex would have been the type to down tools but you run that risk, equally his sale put a good cushion in our finances which obviously would have been nice for Nige to have been allowed to spend but was equally almost neccessary, Conway you don't have the length of contract that Scott had and I don't see the squad in a position where keeping Conway around (regardless of who head coach is) that pushes us into being a top 6 team. Also how well would our medical department have dealt with Alex's injury he had early season? 

[Shauntaylor85]

13 hours ago, ralphindevon said:

I wonder if his stock has fallen since Manning took over? With the high profile West Ham goals probably not.

But if I was him I’d be looking for something different. Him and Wells look a very different combination than they looked under Nige.

He his not playing well under Manning, looks unhappy. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

27 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

We were never holding onto Scott, you deny him a move to the PL given the level of interest he had and the fees we would have been offered you'd have pissed him off no end, I don't think Alex would have been the type to down tools but you run that risk, equally his sale put a good cushion in our finances which obviously would have been nice for Nige to have been allowed to spend but was equally almost neccessary, Conway you don't have the length of contract that Scott had and I don't see the squad in a position where keeping Conway around (regardless of who head coach is) that pushes us into being a top 6 team. Also how well would our medical department have dealt with Alex's injury he had early season? 

Birmingham seem to have denied Jordan James. Multiple clubs across a mix of Serie A and PL were reportedly interested in January.

[Slack Bladder]

14 hours ago, Northern Red said:

Tbh I think he was going regardless of what's happened in the last few months.

This may be true, but surly the lack of goals will only be detrimental to his value, which will ultimately be damaging to us, in the sense we will have less money to replace him with. Which in turn means more sh1te for us fans to watch

 

[Grey Fox]

59 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

We were never holding onto Scott, you deny him a move to the PL given the level of interest he had and the fees we would have been offered you'd have pissed him off no end, I don't think Alex would have been the type to down tools but you run that risk, equally his sale put a good cushion in our finances which obviously would have been nice for Nige to have been allowed to spend but was equally almost neccessary, Conway you don't have the length of contract that Scott had and I don't see the squad in a position where keeping Conway around (regardless of who head coach is) that pushes us into being a top 6 team. Also how well would our medical department have dealt with Alex's injury he had early season? 

Same old , same old. After Scott last year ( Semenyo scored again) , Conway this , who do you fancy next , how about Knight. 
And the club goes nowhere.

Our medical team are fine as far as I know, but who knows , perhaps we can get a few bob for them too 

[Fuber]

14 hours ago, Northern Red said:

Tbh I think he was going regardless of what's happened in the last few months.

He was gone the second they sacked Pearson.

[bpexile]

I think TC had such a close bond with Nige & deep down hasn't forgiven the club for what happenned to possibly the best manager in my 76 yrs.

[Dr Balls]

1 minute ago, Fuber said:

He was gone the second they sacked Pearson.

 

1 minute ago, bpexile said:

I think TC had such a close bond with Nige & deep down hasn't forgiven the club for what happenned to possibly the best manager in my 76 yrs.

Clear that Nige was a bit of a father figure for Tommy, in part because he had the confidence to play him up front at such a young age, plus pairing him with the experienced Nakhi. And the way that Manning wants the team to play would frustrate any forward. It’s Guardiola pre-Haaland, when even Aguero was sacrificed so that they could play some kind of 4-6-0 formation.

[Lrrr]

19 minutes ago, Grey Fox said:

Same old , same old. After Scott last year ( Semenyo scored again) , Conway this , who do you fancy next , how about Knight. 
And the club goes nowhere.

Our medical team are fine as far as I know, but who knows , perhaps we can get a few bob for them too 

Weirdly we have to sell players to meet FFP restrictions unless you want us to significantly decrease our wage budget 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Reckon we don't need to now until 2026 provided we don't go nuts.

Scott was the last..albeit let us see how some other clubs are dealt with as I've a feeling others trajectories to this year or beyond have worsened or are set to.

The past losses have overhung but TV money up this year although bizarrely seem Birmingham fans seem to think it is set to double ie up £8-9m, they clearly haven't extrapolated Solidarity Payments from regular TV deal. £2-2.5m increase iirc.

Edited March 4 by Mr Popodopolous

[Lrrr]

35 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Reckon we don't need to now until 2026 provided we don't go nuts.

Scott was the last..albeit let us see how some other clubs are dealt with as I've a feeling others trajectories to this year or beyond have worsened or are set to.

The past losses have overhung but TV money up this year although bizarrely seem Birmingham fans seem to think it is set to double ie up £8-9m, they clearly haven't extrapolated Solidarity Payments from regular TV deal. £2-2.5m increase iirc.

Point being though Conway staying is not the difference to put us in a position to challenge for top 6, then we don’t want to lose him for just compensation, so it points to selling him in the summer, if he had 2 seasons left sure don’t sell him but he doesn’t 

[Superjack]

16 hours ago, Grey Fox said:

Using this logic, we never progress, sometimes you need some balls ️️️

Guess what? 

NOBODY RUNNING THE CLUB HAS THEM!!!

[fgrsimon]

Ironically I think Mebude was signed with TC in mind (they've played together when with Scotland I think?). The way that's working out, they'll be lucky if they get more than 5 mins on the pitch together.