Do You Give Him Help?

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Yeah, I think Saturday was a clear tipping point - and for avoidance of doubt, the interviews both pre and post match.

That was me also.  Just last week I said “keep him”, but last week was last week, and I didn’t quite have a case.  But in the last 6-7 days it crystallised for me.

The Manning we currently have in charge gets a “sack” vote from me.

He would need to make some serious changes and then execute them incredibly quickly for me to revert.  

16 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Ive been unconvinced for a while that he could do the job. I think from the Boro game I expressed concerns over game management and it’s just got worse as times gone on. Even with that, I put out a poll last week and voted to give him until the end of the season to show improvements in three areas.

I wouldn’t say I’ve been unconvinced, just waiting to be convinced.  And I think 20 games is enough to have a clear view of Manning and Manning-ball.  I don’t need to wait for him to have his players, I’ve seen what he can do (not do) with the existing bunch, who are as honest a bunch of pros as I’ve seen at this level in a City shirt in a long, long time.

I believe it is him / his style of play (and coaching of that from evidence on the pitch) that is the problem.

If SL wants to chuck £20m at him in the summer, fine, but that’s not justifying Liam Manning is it?

I don’t feel great coming out with this, I’d rather he was doing well and we were worried some other club might nab him.

But I’m at the point I was with Lee Johnson (twice) where I’d realised he wasn’t influencing anything

Spooky similarities.

And I think City under Manning are influenced by our opponents not by him.

 

 

[Silvio Dante]

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

That was me also.  Just last week I said “keep him”, but last week was last week, and I didn’t quite have a case.  But in the last 6-7 days it crystallised for me.

The Manning we currently have in charge gets a “sack” vote from me.

He would need to make some serious changes and then execute them incredibly quickly for me to revert.  

I wouldn’t say I’ve been unconvinced, just waiting to be convinced.  And I think 20 games is enough to have a clear view of Manning and Manning-ball.  I don’t need to wait for him to have his players, I’ve seen what he can do (not do) with the existing bunch, who are as honest a bunch of pros as I’ve seen at this level in a City shirt in a long, long time.

I believe it is him / his style of play (and coaching of that from evidence on the pitch) that is the problem.

If SL wants to chuck £20m at him in the summer, fine, but that’s not justifying Liam Manning is it?

I don’t feel great coming out with this, I’d rather he was doing well and we were worried some other club might nab him.

But I’m at the point I was with Lee Johnson (twice) where I’d realised he wasn’t influencing anything

Spooky similarities.

And I think City under Manning are influenced by our opponents not by him.

 

 

Waiting to be convinced vs unconvinced is splitting hairs a bit, but take your point…!

Reading the Placebo thread especially (I can now say and “it all breaks down” in that context) you’re right in seeing the similarities. Where I think things may differ now in the outcome are this:

- I think LJ got periods of being bulletproof because he was/is a friend of the Lansdowns. He had that personal relationship and they were totally engaged in his success. So he could come back from periods where he hadn’t been successful as he was always going to be backed until it was impossible not to

- People may like or not like it but LJ did/does have a genuine affinity for the club. Liam is a careerist (and there’s nothing wrong with that) - but you’re more likely to give the first some slack than the second when times are hard

- At the time of those posts we had been given some relative success by LJ. The first was the season post Man U for example, where in the first half he got it spectacularly right - so there was some fan “currency”

- The person in the firing line who does now have a relationship with the owners is Tinnion. And as stated, he’ll look out for himself. He can still throw Manning under the bus and come out looking reasonable (“We made a mistake..he disregarded the academy and his ethos wasn’t ours”) as long as he does it quickly

Definite synergies but I can see the outcome differing due to the above

[Dr Balls]

18 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

Excellent post and the fact that this similar thing keeps happening over and again at the club - suggests something about the Lansdown’s.

I read a quote recently from SL, can’t remember exactly what it was, but something like:

”we’ve created a direct line of communication from owner to manager” 

or something on those lines - and that’s the rub for me:

He can’t have people of experience and talent in those roles of JL and BT because frankly no one good would put up with the meddling. 

Hence the pile up of bodies fired or people jumping ship - Burt, Cotterill, Ashton, Gould, Alexander, Pearson in not many years.

We may not hear from SL anymore, but his fingers are all over the current set up and situation IMO.

 

There’s the other view the Lansdowns want the glory and they want to own it themselves.

Hence why they’ll experiment with bringing in their ‘own men’ and running the show themselves, but then when they’re in a mess, go back to basics and get someone with experience in to fix it.

When we’re back on an even keel, they go back to the ego move of saying “we can do this ourselves again now”, but they can’t and we get in a mess again.

What next?

The list of those with experience leaving AG under Lansdown goes back further than that. The Coppell “cameo” showed that a real football person with a brain (degree in economics iirc) took a week or so to work out that there was something very wrong with the way the club was run by the owner. The owner who brought in  David James as goalkeeper on an enormous contract without informing the manager!

[Swede]

His taxi fare

[Clutton Caveman]

4 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Picking up on something @headhunter said on the pod re Ward, Benny etc and at times the need for help, particularly when adapting to a new level.

It’s now accepted that in a lot of ways Liam is struggling. Badly. In such a circumstance the “third way” can be to bring in someone from outside in order to assist. If you look at our managerial team (including Tinnion) there is nobody who has managed at this level successfully, or played above League One consistently. In short, there’s nobody who really, really knows the game and how it works.

So, on the assumption the board don’t want rid of Liam, would this be an acceptable third way? And who would it be (please don’t say Nige) - and most importantly of all, because I have my doubts, would Liam accept it?

If he needs help he isn't good enough. Sack him and get someone who doesn't need help

He strikes me as a nice bloke that read all books and has all the badges. What he doesn't have is credibility and the players know it.

He seems to be a 1 trick pony and the pony is lame.

[redsquirrel]

i will go and help him, i will show him the skysports article  from antoine and tell him to let everyone else do the same at what they are best at.

we just dont have a squad of all rounders who can switch to this,that or the other style of play

part of the article, so simple to understand i dont get why the coaches cant see it

A handful more appearances for Bristol City followed before another loan spell, this time at Sunderland in League One until he finally broke into the first team. Then Nigel Pearson arrived. Semenyo smiles at that name.

"I had a bit of a cagey start with him. I wasn't really playing much and as a player you're like, 'Why am I not playing?'. He just said your best ability is running and shooting so all you need to do is run and shoot!

"There was a lot of direct football and I blossomed off that. I played in a front three with Andreas Weimann and Chris Martin and that year was one of the best of my career."

 

[Davefevs]

@Silvio Dante yep, splitting hairs…but I was keen not to reach any real conclusion until the end of January (at least), either on the back of a few poor games like the Preston, Brum, Millwall, nor a couple of good games, Boro and Saints.  I think my overriding thought after Southampton (and the cup games), and I really, really enjoyed Southampton was - how will we play against teams where we have the ball.  I was just building evidence.  Although I think you can tell by my reaction to Boro and Saints that I thought this wasn’t gonna be the “new norm”!

What slightly pisses me off is that Manning himself said (last week) something like “two weeks ago everything was great”.  Well it wasn’t!  Maybe he himself got “too high”.  Ok, I don’t actually think that, because he recognised the different opponent types encountered, but we now have evidence that his preferred way doesn’t work.

If you’re an opposition manager, you’d watch a couple of Coaches Voice videos of his, and do a little work on our individuals, and you’d know what you’d get, whether he played a back-3 with two-10s or a back-4 with wide forwards.  The “fact” (not really a fact, but it makes sentence work) that allegedly inferior sides on paper stopped us, was really the evidence for me.

[Red-Robbo]

Call me naive if you like, but the fact we have produced some good performances under him, makes me feel the situation isn't definitely unfixable.

I should preface this by saying I've only watched one of the past three defeats, but even that game - plus how outclassed we were by a Leeds side that were on the back foot against 10-man Huddersfield on Saturday - does show me there are huge, huge problems.

We have 8 games and if we're going to plunge into trouble, I'm not sure a new man would have long enough to prevent that. Personally, I'd hope there are enough mediocre teams below us all swirling around and occasionally playing each other, which will keep us safe, providing we bank a few more points.

If it remains as shit. If we finish in the lower reaches, he should depart in the summer and give a new man a chance to work with the players, identify problem areas and recruit accordingly. 

[SecretSam]

Nigel Pearson as DoF? 

[SecretSam]

16 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

i will go and help him, i will show him the skysports article  from antoine and tell him to let everyone else do the same at what they are best at.

we just dont have a squad of all rounders who can switch to this,that or the other style of play

part of the article, so simple to understand i dont get why the coaches cant see it

A handful more appearances for Bristol City followed before another loan spell, this time at Sunderland in League One until he finally broke into the first team. Then Nigel Pearson arrived. Semenyo smiles at that name.

"I had a bit of a cagey start with him. I wasn't really playing much and as a player you're like, 'Why am I not playing?'. He just said your best ability is running and shooting so all you need to do is run and shoot!

"There was a lot of direct football and I blossomed off that. I played in a front three with Andreas Weimann and Chris Martin and that year was one of the best of my career."

 

He scored again yesterday, guess what he did...

 

35 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

The list of those with experience leaving AG under Lansdown goes back further than that. The Coppell “cameo” showed that a real football person with a brain (degree in economics iirc) took a week or so to work out that there was something very wrong with the way the club was run by the owner. The owner who brought in  David James as goalkeeper on an enormous contract without informing the manager!

I've got a degree in Economics, do you think they'd give me the job?

[TonyTonyTony]

1 minute ago, Red-Robbo said:

If it remains as shit. If we finish in the lower reaches, he should depart in the summer and give a new man a chance to work with the players, identify problem areas and recruit accordingly. 

I hope we are tapping someone up now, because it's not impossible for us to be losing 7 games in a row - the 3 we have just lost plus the next 4 (Ipswich, Swansea, West Brom and Leicester). 7 losses in a row, you would have thought, makes his position untenable. Holden was sacked for 6 in a row, Johnson 4 (Pearson 5/7). If that happens, we need a new manager in to guide us through the remaining fixtures, where we will need a couple of wins

[Harry]

2 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

I get what you're saying and largely agree but I also think, had Manning brought in some Klug-style support at the start it might have helped.

At the moment we have:

1) A (possibly) promising manager who has previously managed for a limited period of time in League One and who is at this level for the first time.

2) An assistant with the same amount of experience as he has and who has only previous been assistant to Liam before so doesn't have experience of a range of inputs and approaches.

3) A Technical Director who is a club stalwart who has worked their way through the ranks behind the scenes which has the upside of knowing the club inside out but the downside of not being able to draw upon experiences from other clubs and approaches. 

4) A Chair who has been at the club from a young age through his father and, whilst having been Chair for a long time, doesn't have a wide range of workplace experiences.

I don't actually think any of 1, 2 or 3 in isolation are necessarily a bad thing. It's good to give people opportunities and sometimes you are better off taking a gamble on someone who is unproven rathe than someone who has reached their ceiling and is jaded as a result.

But 1, 2, 3 and 4 combined leaves us with a massive deficit in experience and - as we saw a few years back with Dean Holden - it tends to be when things are going against you that the lack of experience shows as there isn't the knowledge and experience to draw upon different solutions from different places to find something that works. 

If the club want Tinnion to succeed as Technical Director then brilliant but, to do that, you need some experience on the board and a relatively experienced manager to address the experience gaps. If the club want Manning to succeed, great, but you need either an experienced DoF/Technical Director OR an experienced assistant. 

Like I said in my previous post, I don't think there is any way that the club right now could push for a change in the managerial structure without implicitly admitting a lack of faith in the manager. But I do think Jon Lansdown and Brian Tinnion have failed themselves as much as they've failed Manning and Hogg by allowing a system to be implemented where the entire command chain from Chairman to Assistant Manager at the club has massive gaps in its range of experience and no consideration has been given to addressing the obvious gaps.

 

Superb post. 
Just one thing to add :

Lack of experience in the recruitment team too. It’s basically led by a guy who by all accounts is a decent analyst, and then the rest of the team are mostly interns straight out of Cardiff uni having completed their sports studies. 

[Silvio Dante]

2 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

I've got a degree in Economics, do you think they'd give me the job?

Only if you’ve also got ones in Maths, Physics and Bionics.

[Silvio Dante]

20 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

 

If you’re an opposition manager, you’d watch a couple of Coaches Voice videos of his, and do a little work on our individuals, and you’d know what you’d get, whether he played a back-3 with two-10s or a back-4 with wide forwards.  The “fact” (not really a fact, but it makes sentence work) that allegedly inferior sides on paper stopped us, was really the evidence for me.

Pretty much what the concern has been from day one. He’s a very predictable coach and anything that deviates from the plan he can’t cope with.

[SecretSam]

5 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Only if you’ve also got ones in Maths, Physics and Bionics.

Curses.

[Red-Robbo]

Just now, TonyTonyTony said:

I hope we are tapping someone up now, because it's not impossible for us to be losing 7 games in a row - the 3 we have just lost plus the next 4 (Ipswich, Swansea, West Brom and Leicester). 7 losses in a row, you would have thought, makes his position untenable. Holden was sacked for 6 in a row, Johnson 4 (Pearson 5/7). If that happens, we need a new manager in to guide us through the remaining fixtures, where we will need a couple of wins

 At the same time, Johnson wasn't sacked when he lost eight in a row in 2017. In fact, he had another three seasons.

I'm unconvinced just a new face, working with demoralised players he might be unfamiliar with and players coached a particular way, would instantly turn things around at this stage of the season. Certainly didn't with SOD and he had 19 games to save us, not 8.

[1960maaan]

11 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Only if you’ve also got ones in Maths, Physics and Bionics.

He would be Perfect 

[1960maaan]

 

[Davefevs]

20 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

 

I quite liked Garry Monk, but wasn’t there some stories of brown envelopes?

[The Original OTIB]

9 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I quite liked Garry Monk, but wasn’t there some stories of brown envelopes?

A person's stationery choices really should not be a thing in 2024!

[Sir Geoff]

11 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I quite liked Garry Monk, but wasn’t there some stories of brown envelopes?

There were. And he did a Tinnion to get the Swansea job, allegedly.

[1960maaan]

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I quite liked Garry Monk, but wasn’t there some stories of brown envelopes?

 

26 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

There were. And he did a Tinnion to get the Swansea job, allegedly.

Every day's a school day. 

I did like him though .

[DaveInSA]

2 hours ago, fisherrich said:

I have no problems with LM. Took on a poisoned challice.

The guy is clearly out of his depth in the Championship. A ridiculous appointment (again) by the Lansdowns that is doomed to failure.

I also have nothing against Manning the man.

The football on the other hand is predictable, pedestrian, and pathetic.

[jayjay]

5 hours ago, BrizzleRed said:

The longer we experience the many failures of SL’s ownership of this club, the more I’m convinced that Hargreaves is the real brains of the Hargreaves Lansdown empire.

If that company was run in the same way City are, they’d have been totally ****** years ago.

I agree totally.

Landsdown supplied the spare bedroom, Hargreaves supplied the brains.

[frenchred]

7 hours ago, milo1111 said:

If he needs/gets help he’s done. He shouldn’t be managing at this level if he isn’t completely ready and it would make the decision makers at our club look even more foolish. If that’s possible.

 

He shouldn't be managing at this level. Full stop!

[BrizzleRed]

21 minutes ago, jayjay said:

I agree totally.

Landsdown supplied the spare bedroom, Hargreaves supplied the brains.

Pity Hargreaves wasn’t a football fan with a liking for City then.  

Some of Lansdown’s footballing decisions are ******* inept, and getting worse, rather than better.

I’m getting to the point where any change of ownership is better than what we’ve currently got.

[fisherrich]

28 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

Pity Hargreaves wasn’t a football fan with a liking for City then.  

Some of Lansdown’s footballing decisions are ******* inept, and getting worse, rather than better.

I’m getting to the point where any change of ownership is better than what we’ve currently got.

Widely recognised that Hargreaves was the brains.
Lived out our way for a while. Met him on a couple of occasions. Seemed a decent bloke.

[milo1111]

1 hour ago, frenchred said:

He shouldn't be managing at this level. Full stop!

All evidence so far points to this being the case !!

[Superjack]

6 hours ago, Capman said:

I agree, and that is what makes the whole thing so depressing. Maybe the supporters need to act and demand change at the top to force Steve’s hand. 
It would be great to see the crowd make a statement, not turning up would be probably the most powerful. I imagine that Steve would feel forced to change if the ground was empty for the next home game (apart from away fans). But short of being able to arrange that I don’t see what we can do. The club has treated us with contempt, but as long as we take it I agree they will continue to do so. 

[Superjack]

5 hours ago, Alessandro said:

Excellent post and the fact that this similar thing keeps happening over and again at the club - suggests something about the Lansdown’s.

I read a quote recently from SL, can’t remember exactly what it was, but something like:

”we’ve created a direct line of communication from owner to manager” 

or something on those lines - and that’s the rub for me:

He can’t have people of experience and talent in those roles of JL and BT because frankly no one good would put up with the meddling. 

Hence the pile up of bodies fired or people jumping ship - Burt, Cotterill, Ashton, Gould, Alexander, Pearson in not many years.

We may not hear from SL anymore, but his fingers are all over the current set up and situation IMO.

 

There’s the other view the Lansdowns want the glory and they want to own it themselves.

Hence why they’ll experiment with bringing in their ‘own men’ and running the show themselves, but then when they’re in a mess, go back to basics and get someone with experience in to fix it.

When we’re back on an even keel, they go back to the ego move of saying “we can do this ourselves again now”, but they can’t and we get in a mess again.

What next?

Absolutely nailed it.