Hawk - Look at the players I said were inherited in my post - you'll see that I mentioned Whitts as one of them. As for Bellamy - he was on loan from ManCity for one season only - Dave Jone's last. He then returned to Man City before Malky was appointed. For Malky's first season, that's last season, Bellamy was transferred to Liverpool and played the entire season for them. He only returned at the start of this season because of his wish to return to his home town as he had some family issues. Liverpool were exceptionally good about it and let him go. Other than Marshall, Huds and Whitts, all our first team squad were brought in by Malky since he came here. I think I'm correct in saying he has brought in 21 new players.
A lot went and a lot came in BUT you had three quarters of the spine from Dave Jones; Marshall in goal, Hudson, who I reckon to be the best centre half in the Championship and Whittingham who is remier quality in midfield. O'Driscoll inherited a squad that would have struggled in an under 13's park league because the spine was and still is not really good enough. Although some are now beginning to look like footballers due to his organisational skills.
SOD is doing a cracking job,turned us around very quickly and i believe in him,where as the previous gaffer before him i had no faith at all,we would have been down already. I say now sparkey i would not want any other manager in charge of us this guy is special. I wanted him as our boss when coppell got the job,very very good manager,very contented with him in charge.
Decent comments guys - many thanks. Red Robin - I too think you've got the right guy, but an awful lot is being asked of him. Can I make it clear I was in no way having a go at Sean as a manager - only the words he used in that interview. As a manager, he has always impressed me. His tactics were spot on when at Doncaster, and they always gave us a tough game. Maybe he actually meant that improved performances will ultimately bring the point winning results you need, but to state that performances were more important than points seems to deny the real world. As far as the mentions of Whitts are concerned, I'll just say that he has been below par since before Christmas, and hasn't scored since last October!! He notched 7 up till then but the goals have dried up since. Having said that, he's not the most demonstrative of players and goes about his business quietly. He's undoubtedly a class player that would grace any Championship side and many in the Prem. His lack of recent goalscoring is definitley a confidence thing. When he hits the ball with that left peg of his, he can place it within a square foot from 25 yards. And no ROD - you can't have him!
well that's just being selfish, its not all about you Spark Plug give me one good reason why we can't have him and I offered you Killkenny thats a good deal I'm sat here today with Caldicot Cider Red Brother and he tells me that he is as bent as a 15 pond note is that why you get on welll with him
It's clear that SOD wants to keep the pressure off his players. Under McInnes things got desperate and as the fans booed and the manager got impatient we just kept getting worse. At the moment, SOD doesn't care if we survive or not because the team are still suffering from being bottom of the table and putting in largely poor performances compared to what people believe we can do. If SOD can get the players playing at their best and believing that they are a good side then he might pull off the greatest escape in Bristol City history, but it's very doubtful and it's probably more to get some good performances in before we kick off life in League 1.
Now come on RODney you plonker....if I was as bent as a 15 pound note, how come I am sleeping with Mrs ROD
SoD's programme notes said that of course results are what matters - what he was saying about Blackpool was that improved/good/consistent performances will lead to good results - simple really!!
it is seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemple's bad performances rarely gain points.................good performances do
There you go Old Sparky in S O'D's own words what was stated regarding performances and results. On Saturday, having just watched arguably the most consistent 90-minute performance since I’ve been here, keeping our first away clean sheet of the season, picking up only a second point in nine away games and my first away point at Bristol City – and all of this in extremely tricky conditions – a journalist asked my reaction to being bottom of the league. I wasn’t sure how I was meant to react. Should I have been filled with despair at the news and let doom and gloom descend? Did it render everything that had happened at Bloomfield Road in the previous 90 minutes a waste of time? Was I meant to have done something different to try to win the game? Was I now meant to have a go at the players for not winning? Should I start blaming the assistant referee for not awarding Steven Davies’ valid goal? Later that evening, local BBC journalist, Caroline Chapman, tweeted that she disagreed with my stance, stating that ‘in a relegation scrap it is definitely about results rather than performances’. She’s right of course, it is about results. But how do you get results – consistent results – without first addressing performances? I’d love to know. To some people, saying you focus on performances not results has the implication that you aren’t actually trying to win every game you play, or you are less bothered about the result. Of course, that is completely not the case. But results can be in the lap of the gods. Does anyone think Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Sir Steven Redgrave or Sir Ben Ainslie have enjoyed all their sustained Olympic and sporting success simply because they have hoped and kept their fingers crossed harder than their rivals? Or they have been luckier? Talent obviously comes into it, but at that level every athlete is extremely talented. More critical is the fact that every great sportsperson understands completely every component part of what they need to do in training and in competition to give themselves the best chance of performing at their highest possible level. They know if they look after all those component factors then more often than not it then comes down to talent and ability. Sometimes factors outside of your control will determine the outcome. Sometimes you don’t get the luck, sometimes you do just have to accept that, on the day, you were beaten by the better opponent, sometimes one mistake – whether player or official – can be costly. But over a sustained period of time, if you maintain a certain standard of performance then you will increasingly get the outcome you desire. All we’ve focused on since we’ve been here is trying to find a way to maximise the individual and collective ability we have in the squad and get consistent performances that give us the best chance of winning every game we play. So far it’s stood us in good stead. Consistent performances only come from players understanding every day on the training pitch what they need to do to contribute fully to the team effort, then taking that into a match and having the confidence to apply it in a pressure situation. If players are confident in not only their understanding but also that of their team-mates, and if they believe what they are trying to do are the right things to give them the best chance of winning the game, you give yourselves an opportunity. In our situation, the absolute last thing you need is players playing with fear, players hiding on the pitch because they are too scared to make a mistake, players who berate rather than support a team-mate who does make a mistake. You don’t need players going into a game consumed by nothing but ‘we have to win’ and then losing focus on the immediate task at hand; fulfilling the roles and responsibilities they need to on the pitch to give the team the best chance of securing a positive result. You want pressure to give you an edge, an additional incentive and determination; not kill you. What does a good performance look like for us at this moment in time? That we’ve been hard to break down and defended as a team, have shown good game intelligence and an understanding of what has actually been going on in the match, have played to our strengths and been bright and innovative in our attacking play. To build and maintain confidence you have to give players boxes they can tick in a game. The more boxes that get ticked individually, the more you tick collectively. The more you tick collectively, the more chance you have of winning football matches. It also means that if you do lose a game, which is one of football’s inevitables, you have things to fall back on, things to build on, things to help you maintain belief. Judging a performance solely in terms of whether you won or lost the game is self-defeating. The lows feel disproportionately low, the highs disproportionately high. Saying results are more important than performances at this stage of the season is just rhetoric. It’s a given that they are. It then comes down to all those things you have to nurture; confidence, belief, understanding, character, responsibility, motivation. All of them contribute to whether a team is likely to consistently produce performances at a certain level or not. I cannot affect what the other teams around us are doing, just as I can’t wave a magic wand and decree we are going to win every game between now and May 4th. The only things I can influence are the components that contribute to what, for us, constitutes a good performance. That will evolve as the team does and I’ll always be the first to admit when I believe performance levels have dipped. But I’ll also always understand why they may have dipped, because I understand what we are trying to achieve and how. As we continue to try to win every game we play, please keep supporting your local team. Sean O’Driscoll
Thank you for that comprehensive post Hawky, and I'm not on here to argue about how O'Driscoll keeps you up - just questioned his earlier interview words. He's obviously chosen to justify them in print because others more closer to your club have questioned them as well. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the couple of previous posts to yours on the thread take a far too simplistic an approach. If you play better stuff, you should pick up more points than playing crap, that's pretty obvious, but I'd rather see my team frustrate a better side and get them to concede a scrappy goal because of it, rather than try to outplay the opposition and get done. Just how O'Driscoll goes about getting the points you require for safety is why he's your manager. It's his job to sort it and I sincerely hope he does, but to say it's performances that matter not points would be more appropriate at the start of a season, not at the end of one when you're at the bottom of the pile. It was a misleading quote at the time that's invoked his response since. Best of luck against Middlesbrough on Saturday. If the improved performances gets you 3 points against them, that'll be 4 from 6 against some very good opposition.
He was responding to a question that someone from the BBC asked him Sparkey - I must say his programme note are the most readable Manager ones we have seen for many a year
Yes smh, I realise it was a response to a question, and Sean has never responded well off the cuff to media interrogation - not that I've seen over the years anyway - it's not his strongest point. His forte is behind the scenes managing his players, not in front on the camera with a microphone stuck in his face. You can see the difference in him when he has the time to sit down and write a measured response to the question from the post that Hawk kindly put up. I'm sure that's what he meant when he first came out with the quote, but it could have conveyed the wrong message. The implication could have been taken by supporters that he was prepared to go down. As long as he got the performances from the players, points don't matter. In fact, that's exactly what he did say. None of this makes the guy a bad football manager - maybe just not the best communicator when put on the spot.
Of course, the big question for me is, if we get relegated, will SOD stay?? I hope so as I believe with him in charge, the future looks good....
