Maybe it's not as bad as we think it is?

Observant not606 City fans will have realised that I'm an old boy living abroad so don't get to see many live games at the Gate. But did see first home game v Ipswich, watch the videos on bcfc.co.uk and do listen to the Radio commentary every match.
That is except for yesterday as I was trundling around Berlin museums with my wife. She did let me off the leash on Saturday afternoon so I went to see Hertha Berlin play Mainz at the Olympic stadium in the Bundesliga. Sat next to a Moenchengladbach fan and we both hoped for plenty of goals. Well you've guessed it. 0-0 and the biggest load of rubbish I've seen in a long time.
It was like watching City away - Mainz ran the game, squandered endless chances and then 10 minutes from the end, decided to "defend" the game out! So it was a miracle that they survived as they also have a poor defence. I've never heard 47,000 people so quiet, Well maybe at King George sixth funeral.
I was disappointed by the Birmingham result but not entirely unexpected was it. They still have a lot of quality from their last season in the Prem.
Now a tenuous link from B'ham City to Man City - Man C beat B'ham C in the 1957 cup final when keeper Bert Trauttmann broke his neck and didn't find out until the next day. Bought Daily Telegraph in Cologne airport this morning and nearly wet myself laughing at Man City's trashing of the other team from that city. Any other Cidereds who shared my delight at that result?
I was for Delboy as soon as I heard him mentioned. Anyone who gets a team to 4th in the SPL deserves some respect and he had a record of being a leader and winner at almost every club he played for. I am quietly confident that he will turn us around enough to escape the dreaded drop.
I believe there will be some unexpected departures from the club in January and/or from the first team squad. For example, great admiration for his efforts every game, but am I alone in feeling that Marv has gone too stale to recover it for us. I also have a hunch that NM only stayed here in August because of the impending baby arrival and that he will be pushing for a move in January. And I still wonder why we signed DJ! His nickname used to be Calamity James but now it's just butter fingers. He's the Bruce Forsyth of the football world - gone on too long! Gerken is competent enough with a couple of better central defenders in front of him. COYR!!!!!!!!!!

 

It is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! , your bottom .

 

Crawl back into your ghetto. No one likes you or your club. Talk about fans with no sense of control or intelligence. The FA should kick you out of the football league and do us honest fans all a favour. Going to the post, good post and agree about Marv he has gone off the boil but I believe that's due to the amount of responsibility he tries to take on. Marv tries to do everything for us because the lack of guile and creativity in the middle of the park which is astonishing for a club with our aspirations. We need a creative influence asap but players of that ilk are not easy to come by especially in the loan market. Not saying we are like Man Utd but they have the same problem. Coincidently I was not impressed by the Manchester derby. I hate both clubs buy I hate City more for buying success and the arrogance of their fans since yesterday. Back to City I do have a horrible feeling we may get relegated but if worse comes to worse I am confident McInnes could get us back quickly and better equipped. I really hope we don't take the drop and there is a long way to go but we need to improve fast and get some new personnel.

 

Agreed Wiz there's plenty of games left to turn things round. I guess I'm saying that this is no quick fix. Millen is a good bloke and a great servant to the club but the decision to relieve him of his duties was 100% correct. He was completely out of his depth and we are paying the price now because there is so many problems with the tactics and the way our players play. McInnes was right when he was talking about mixing up the supply to the forwards. Hoof ball is fine and appropriate some of the time during a game because if played correctly into the channels we have runners to get in behind and hurt teams. However, we must get more ball into feet and through balls along the ground and currently we have no one who is good enough in midfield to supply this on a consistent basis. Kilkenny can in glimpses but 3 or 4 good passes a game isn't good enough. Also a point I touched on in another article he needs to attack the opposition box more. When we get the ball to JCR and Adomah we need more options in the box. It's no good bemoaning the quality of the final ball if they only have 1or 2 players to pick out amongst an entire defence. We have been stuck with one pattern of play for the best part of two seasons now and habits are hard to break. We have an average squad at best and defensively we are woeful. If anyone can turn things around I'm confident McInnes will. I'm not a pessimistic fan, I go to every home game and support the players 100% but sometimes you need to honestly assess the situation and at the moment we are relegation fodder and McInnes has his work cut out big time. The future will be bright but it may take a few months as opposed to weeks. COYR!

 

Really good and original first post.

Anyway, I really don't really follow Premiership football that closely (but I would if we were there!!) although I do scan the results. I am quite content with the BBC Football League Show on a Saturday evening and the regular non Prem live games that Sky and the BBC show. I'm happy watching any league from the Championship down.

The money on offer since the creation of the Premiership has created multi millionaires out of very average sportsmen and has seen an influx of cheap, and not always very good foreigners overwhelming the beautiful game, to the detriment of the national team. That combined with a series of really bad England managers and the narrow minded and money orientated views of the FA. However in time even the FA will change, they'll have to, especially after they announced that the abortion of a World Cup Bid cost £22,000,000. Anyone in their right mind would ask exactly what that money had been spent on because even with an army of people flying the world 1st class and on substantial expenses, that is still the figure of the GDP in some small countries.

Millen was a bad appointment and was a knee jerk reaction like Tins was. With hindsight I'm sure the board would agree.

Marv's best days for us were his first season when he was our player of the season, a bit like McIndoe was, but he would probably benefit from a move.

Getting DJ was a real coup at the time (as was Lee Trundle), but with hindsight was it such a clever move, especially after letting Weale, Henderson, and especially Basso go ?

I'm convinced that McInness will be a revelation for us in the fullness of time, but we're in such a mess (all self inflicted) that it may take him a year or more to sort things out. I just hope that he has time (and funds available) to prevent relegation.

 

You definately deserved to draw level, and if that had happened, who knows what the result would have been...

 

'deserved to draw level'

No we didn't, before Stead missed our best chance 1st half we could have easily been 3 down.
How James saved the header from 4yards 2nd half I'll never know. AND they scored 2.

We were set up wrong (2 wingers and no Cisse) and Nyatanga out of position with a proper LB on the bench.

Not the most encouraging start from the new man.

'Maybe it's not as bad as we think it is?' - Bl**dy well is.

 

I was only listenin to it on the radio, but early in second half Birmingham keeper slipped and ball went agonisingly into side netting ???

 

The main thing about Sunday is that McInnes saw in the flesh eactly what our problems are.
On the day we did ok - Birmingham had some chances, but who knows what would have happened if Marv's effort went in rather than hit the bar.
It was one of those games that if it was a draw, you would have said fair enough, but can also make a case for Birmingham deserving to edge it.
I said a couple of weeks ago in another thread that I was worried that we were expecting marv to do too much - my post was more about him being a target man and ball winning midfield player.
Key thing - we must give McInnes time to sort this out.

 

Agreed we must give DM time because there is no quick fix here if he does turn it round within weeks then I'm even more optimistic about his tenure than I already am!

Redprint sometimes you do really d*** me off with your negativity. I thought we deserved more out of the game on Sunday. I wasn't very impressed with Birmingham at all. They didn't show the quality I expected for a team looking for a swift return to the Premiership but then again they didn't need to get out of 3rd gear because we were too wasteful in the final third. Had we been playing with more fluidity and confidence we would have turned them over.

It's a real bug bear of mine that we have so many negative fans. I'm not a happy clappy fan and consider myself a realist but when I go to the Gate I back us 100% and encourage instead of waiting for a tiny mistake to get on the players/managements back. It feels like a small minority want us to fail. I sit next to too many t***s in the Ateyo who fit the description above. It was the same on Sunday moan, moan, moan. I'd rather they didn't turn up and have only fans willing to encourage turn out to support.

There are loads of things wrong with the current set up and by his own admission DM doesn't know a lot about our playing staff etc. Not as if they are household names. I suggest we ride through this rough patch together and lets be positive and encouraging in the terraces and that may help breath some confidence into our players. DM will make us a better team and a more competitive team but this will take time, patience, money and support from us guys. I don't think we will go down but at the moment it's more than a possibility but if we do I'm confident we would bounce back quickly and be stronger for it. Look at Norwich and Leicester as recent examples.

 

'negativity'

AM - you're confused with objectivity.

'DM doesn't know a lot about our playing staff etc' -That's just stating the obvious.
After watching the famous dvds (his words) he played 2 wingers with Marv and the lightweight NK and dropped Cisse. I thought it wrong.
He played an 'Ocean Liner' at LB and a 'natural' LB was left on the bench.
I thought that wrong as well - it's called objectivity.

Cisse will start Saturday, J-C-R won't, and Nyatanga won't play LB either.

AM - Is that negative or objective ?

 

Granted that sometimes you can read a post and not read it in the way that the original author meant so for that I apologise.

I was rather p***ed off with some in the Ateyo on Sunday though. Some of them think running a club is like playing Championship Manager. I have to bite my lip sometimes not to get into a fight or argument.

I agree with your views on Nyatanga though, he's not a left back but I think he's improved greatly at centre half this season. Trouble is our full backs are crap and it's these areas where mistakes have cost us the vast majority of goals shipped. I've been underwhelmed by Spence and McGivern this season. DM does not have a lot of options with JM still injured. Isn't Ribs fit yet? For me he's first choice right back?

Midfield wise in my opinion NK needs to get higher up the pitch more often. He has a decent eye for a pass but he's too deep to really influence a game. Plus his confidence is really low there was a moment Sunday when he was put through and had an option of a first time shot across the keeper on his right foot but he took an extra touch and the chance went. A confident player would have smashed it across the keeper first time.

Apologies again RP sometimes we take things out of context, however, I do sit by some right muppets and it clouds my judgment when reading stuff on here between objectivity and negativity

 

probably not

why?

hes got 3 years

 

Morning Matt

'I do sit by some right muppets' - I do as well in the Williams and some are really negative.
Be assured that during each game I 'give it' 100%, but on here I try to just give an honest opinion. Please, absolutely no need to apologise, you are not the first to call me negative. Pre season I got it in the neck from Shiny as I didn't see our campaign as he did, another wrote 'blimey RP you've written our season off before a ball is kicked'.

'NK needs to get higher up the pitch more often' - I agree, but the only way he will is if Cisse is selected to play a 'holding' role. Last Sunday it was as if Millen had selected the team/set up and I feared the worst, by 5pm we'd lost another home game.
I wish DM the very best of luck, he's been left by Millen and our board a squad who not enough are Championship standard and bereft of confidence.

 

Really ? - I think his record this season (and the end of last season) and our current league position speaks for itself that he is

 

"Maybe it's not as bad as we think it is?" It is

 

Mcldst...

I dont think we would have gone down, even with KEEF, and YES WE ARE A CRAP TEAM at the moment, and I think if one for had / has football management skills with the present squad he could probably have guided us to safety, I dont think going down is or was an option...........I play chess I look at now and in a number of moves time maybe 6-8, I drive a lot of miles over half a million in the past 4 years or so when I drive motorways or at speed I am looking some 5 or markers up the road, the point I am making is a lot on here see the immediate game, maybe the next but their long term picture is built on this foundation, so a bad result or 2 is relegation, 3 or 4 good results is top 6 eg we play the top 2 teams and lose, then play the bottom six afterwards totalplayed 8 games win 4 draw 2 lose2.= top 6 form

It was not rocket science to see KEEF was struggling, thats why some were on his back often 3 or more posts a day and it was inevitable he would go whether then then or then...

DEMI has a problem, again not rocket science, most of us know/have known the squad is in imbalance since day 1, when you build a team you cant look at a list and say right we need one of these one of these one of them..

you often dont get the complete set, you finish up lacking, teams that have done that got all the bits are in top flight of the division.
In a way you cant blame KEEF or any other manger for that but some do....poor Sven NEEDED A GOALSCORER didnt get one pays the price...same with Keef came up short on at least 2 players paid the price.

DEMI has a good insight into some of the SPL league players, watch out January could be buying 2 then!

angelic cant disagree with your statement regarding results ..but what is a carpenter without a saw? or a manager without the right tools in his box

 

Very true, it could be pre 1982 again

 

Sorry John as always but most, I have to disagree with.
Keith had plenty of time, in fact he'd been with us for the past 12 years (a good head start), knew the set up, should have learn't from several managers.
but was just not mean't to be.
It's not totally Keefs fault though........It's mainly down to the board why we are in the position we find our selves in.
1. Should never had appointed Keef in the first place.
2. Once appointed, although quite a few fans believe he saved us the season GJ left, I'm not convinced.
You say he saved us from relegation last season, but he put us there in the first place.....IMO the only thing that saved us was Caulker.
3. All the time Keef was in charge IMO never felt right, no settled side, no settled tactics, no settled formations, most of the football was dire and the situation was there for all to see (well I saw it!!) he was not the right man for the job and was NEVER going to progress our club to the next level. Or shall we say, "more damage than good".

The board were VERY SLOW to see and react to this situation and didn't have the balls to do anything about it.
Had the board taken action at the right time, I don't believe we would be in the situation we now find ourselves in.

What must happen now, is the board backing the manager to go out and get the players he needs (loans til Jan) covering and improving the positions required.
If they do then I'm confident that DMi will get us out of this mess.

By the way, you can still break a piece of wood without a saw, it won't be pretty but you can.