How long do we give him?

Patently clear, plus the fact you only get the snippets available on news and satellite channels in France
makes it far more awkward to gauge player attitudes, work-rate, etc than back in the day you used to attend matches.
A couple more performances like Monday - even if the results aren't as brilliant, and there'll be a wholesale mood swing around the canary camp.
But the damage done between October and January is going to take more than one good win and three good goals to brush aside for many fans

 

In truth, the team was very impressive on Monday from front to back, left to right and especially up the middle (ooerr missus). To compare the City of Monday with the shower of crap that turned out against Huddersfield is looking at two polar extremes. It was like looking at two different teams and therein lies the problem - we just don't know which City is going to turn up on any given day.

All we can hope for is that the City we saw on Monday can and will believe in themselves, we will use the Brady money wisely to invest where improvements are needed and that the City we saw on Monday will be the one that turns out in force for the rest of the season.

 

You do seem to confuse facts and opinion and seem to want to belittle others views by claiming that because they don't want AN to stay at the club their view is irrational and down to a knee jerk reaction based on a couple of poor results. I'm not aware of anyone on this forum who called for his head because of a couple of results. His performance when we were in the PL was extremely poor, especially in the later half, but despite that myself and many posters were still willing to give him a chance this season, yes at some point (and it vairries for each poster) many on here got off the fence and decided enough was enough and their patience with him expired. Yes in my case it was after the Birmingham game on the back of many poor performance in previous weeks despite us getting some good results. But in truth the Birmingham game was just the final straw.

About a week or so ago even you seem to be in the AN needs to go camp after apparently supporting him for many months after most had reached the same conclusion, however after a good result against Derby and a poor performance at Brentford you have now changed your mind, a knee jerk reaction if ever there was one. What do you mean the board have stuck with him and performances have improve. No they haven't we have played well in one game against Derby

On top of that when I respond to your post you then accuse me of misquoting and misrepresenting your views, despite the fact that I include your post in my response. Interestingly you didn't like my post and said YESTERDAY that you weren't suggesting that AN had turned anything around, although your post today suggests that you think he has.

 

Maybe it's just time to try and see things from the other side of the fence (even though that doesn't appear to be the case here) and move on, let it lie, whatever the buzzword is this year
It's a forum, nobody will ever agree 100% that's how it is

 

please log in to view this image

Bah!

 

New buzzword corporate speak for 2017.

Change of mind = pivot .
"For me the pounding at Brighton was the pivot point and Neil should be fired."

Someone is sticking their nose in your business.
"You stay in your swim lane and I'll stick to mine "

 

I wonder what sort of team AN will turn out for the FA Cup match? As it's not a trophy we are likely to win, I suspect he will give some of the lesser mortals a game. I wonder if Canos will start?

 

If he's been properly serviced he should start first time!

 

Some comments from AN in today's EDP re Basil - “People maybe questioned me and him given the money we signed him for but I knew it would take a bit of time,” said Neil. “He is a top player. We knew what we were getting when we signed him. I did a lot of background work. I spoke to Dougie Freedman, who had him at Nottingham Forest. It took him a little bit of time to settle. Cameron (Jerome) was in great form at the start of the season so it was a case he had to bide his time and wait for his chance. I brought him on as a substitute a couple of times and he found it tough to get up to speed but when you start him his quality is there all for to see.”
CJ was in great form at the start of the season - REALLY??????? I'm not sure many fans would agree with that statement!!!!
IMO, CJ and great form are mutually exclusive and shouldn't appear in the same sentence.

 

I think CJ was in decent form to start with, he generally stood out for his work rate more than his quality, that's CJ! but we were winning and scoring goals and he played his part in that.

Bah!

 

Can't argue with that General, but as you say, he was in DECENT form, not GREAT form!!!
You certainly can't argue against his work rate, but I still think he should have buried more chances.

 

True, but as long as the team was winning his place looked relatively assured. Even when we hit the bad run, many were saying that he was one of the few bright spots because he was working and looked like he gave a damn.

Bah!

 

One point to ponder. I wonder if this sudden wholesale change of attitude, work ethic, will to win, and complete togetherness that was apparent against Derby, had anything to do with the fact that the players finally could sense that the board were still prepared to back Neil for a while longer yet. As Neil said after the game, he said and did nothing differently in preparing for this game, than he had been doing and saying for the previous couple of months. So the fact that everything suddenly clicked, rather points to the players suddenly pulling their fingers out, and doing the jobs they were paid to do. If so, we can possibly look forward to the second half of the season with slightly more optimism.

 

It may have been a contributory factor, but public backing of the manager or not, if the playrs don't want to play for him I fail to see what a public backing will have changed? Public backing or not I don't think even our board could have tolerated a no show vs Derby with the ensuing toxic atmosphere, the players will likely have known that.

The cup game comes at an unfortunate time, it is meaningless in the grander scheme of the season and lose it, it's a shrug of the shoulders and focus on the league, but then lose to Rotherham and we have lost 2 weeks of the transfer window to return to square one.

Whilst it was clearly a much better performance vs derby, it is still an isolated good performance, lets wait til after at least Rotherham and preferably beyond to see if the players are all on side and whether form is indeed going to pick up.

Bah!

 

And dare I suggest players were deployed in their most effective positions on the pitch - not a solitary 'square peg in a round hole' - for one of the only times this season.
For example, the recall of Klose, head and shoulders our best CB (despite a 'mare vs Brighton) and Wes in the hole behind AloeVera, not shoved out wider.
'Horses for courses' springs to mind

 

I agree with all of that and would add that perhaps the absense of the shirker in chief, Brady would also have helped enormously.

Bah!

 

Yes indeed - and dare I suggest we have the Brentford match referee thank for that, not AN!
Cos I bet he'd have started ahead of our proper Irish magician. but for the ban

 

From my view the team had much more balance and people were playing in roles they were designed to play in. They played with more purpose and understanding for sure, but for me the main difference was the team actually looked and felt like a team that could play football and boy, they did.

 

Wouldn´t question that, but the fact still remains, that all of the ´returning heroes´ against Derby, Wes, Howson, Martin, Klose etc, have proven themselves equally as poor and disinterested as the rest, at various other times this season. So not only a question of round pegs in round holes, surely.

 

Jerome scored 6 goals in our first 11 matches which I'd say could reasonably be described as 'great form'. His scoring then fell off from the Fulham match onward, which coincided with the 5 defeats in a row. It could be argued that this was the time in which Oliveira was still adjusting, but certainly he progressed quickly once he was starting. His first league start was against QPR where he, like the rest, was limited by having to play with 10 men for over 90 minutes. Since then he's had 7 goals in 7 matches which is also great form and for me, a cause for optimism, though it does need to be continued. I also thought that Mike Bailey's opinion article was a fair discussion about the balance of how much responsibility lies with the manager and how much with the players. This has always kept me on the fence re AN, as I've never been convinced that just changing managers would make a telling difference. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. For me, the key factor is the first goal and that relies heavily on the form of your strikers. We scored first in all 3 of our latest wins and, IMO, played well in all of those. I also thought we played well against Brentford where we dominated the home side and had we managed to score would have won. It is a blend of facts and opinion to be sure, but I always try to put the emphasis on the former first.