Sorry guys i despair,we have one of the best managers outside the premiership,highly thought off by the football world and fans around the country.a manager that has carried out a excellent job at all his clubs,and we have fans that are not happy we have seen far better standards of football already. Quality signings. Just keep Fontaine out of the side and you will keep the majority happy. He is changing the whole mentality of our club,keep up the good work Sean.
I'm not suggesting we change manager but he's had nine months now to sort out our defensive frailties and from the first three league games, it's obvious he has not. I geniunely want him to succeed but once again this season we have started with goals a plenty from our attackers but the defenders are much too generous. How long before the attackers say it's not worth scoring goals because we'll let in one more than we get every game? It's not rocket science to defend a lead or hold on to a draw but the personnel who make up our first team squad appear totally incapable of doing this.
Where did I call for SOD's head.? As a bloke I like him but he is not a saint and our results are crap, what I do on 606 has got nothing to do with the performance of Bristol City FC or their coach and I'm entitled to express an opinion.. As your average fan nothing will make me more content than a few points on the board, I am not advocating a get SOD out campaign, in fact I want him to succeed, I'm just fed up of failure, all of this hero worship and postulating improvement get's us no where, I speak as I feel and when you are near the bottom of the league it's not good, I want improvement on the pitch and it's not happening. I've expressed an opinion, he needs to improve things fast or we will be adrift, people might not agree with me, I can't help that.
I understand "Excellent" to be not far from perfection. Yes we fought back in both games, yes some of the football played was very good to watch, so I judge from radio commentary, press reports and posts on this website and we scored a total of five second half goals. So in part(s) we did very well but isn't excellent stretching it a bit far? We still conceded three second half goals and in both games, failed to hold on to the draws that the second half recoveries should have produced. Thus I'd give the squad 7/10 but certainly only "excellent" through rose tinted specs. Red Robin. It's a horrible reality that in football, a team needs to collect points on a regular basis otherwise that wonderful commodity called CONFIDENCE just disappears down the toilet before you can blink your eyes. I sincerely hope that you are proved right and that I am proved to be a miserable old sod, but a long lifetime of supporting Bristol City tells me that only rarely do we do miracles.
Last season, early in the season there was a performance that shook those who were there. Individuals in the team were clearly not putting in enough effort (appearing not to care) for club or manager. This season that cannot be said. Goals have been conceded due to poor "team" play, not only individual errors by defenders. The narrow formation of the team made the former more likely, but that formation has changed. I expect changes to continue, but not in a day, or months, but seasons. The mentality everywhere has to change. City saturday were excellent for a period. A couple of players shined. Plenty to be optimistic about for the level headed.
I have also not called for SOD's head....yet. Currently, and as others do, I still remain totally unconvinced by him as a manager, but I am also questioning his tactics, signings, and other elements. He may be trying to change the culture, mindset, attitudes and other things, but this is a results driven game, and our results are just as bad as they were in the Championship, and at this level they just shouldn't be. Yes we've only played three games in L1, but are we still going to be saying it's early days and things are getting better after 10, 20, 30 games if results dont improve ? We've been relegated, and we probably should have been capable of staying up last season. Aside from a couple of decent home results against a weak Watford team and an out of sorts Nottingham Forest when O'Driscoll first arrived, we went back to the losing habit very quickly and we went down without a whimper and seemingly with no effort by the manager or the board to try and address and avert the situation while there was still time. Funny how the likes of Coventry who are not even playing in their own city or even allowed to sign players due to the embargo have already got 2 wins on the board and have cut their points penalty from -10 to just -4 already. At this rate they'll be above us in a couple of games time and how will that look for SOD and his methods ? Changing things takes time, granted. But as this level, and even at this very early stage of the season, we are massively underachieving as per usual and as I said, it's a results oriented game. Nothing else matters really. Encouraging performances are great if you soon turn them into points, but for all the rhetoric from SOD about how we're gonna turn Ashton Gate into a fortress again, the fact remains that we've played 2 home games and have only got a solitary point from them. So much for the fortress ! Our last win was against a poor Middlesbrough team back on 9th March !! The win previous to that was at home to Barnsley in February. So to put things in perspective we have 1 league win from the last 15 league games.
'It's when they can't be arsed I get pissed off.' Last Saturday I came away totally pissed off. If, like we should have been 3 down at half time, the fans would have certainly let SOD have it. We needed 45 minutes to sort ourselves out from SOD's continual and ridiculous selection of Kilkenny. Even allowing for the useless Kilkenny I thought our 1st half attitude and performance was appalling. Pack did OK but Wynter in particular just went through the motions. Our 1st half performance mirrored SOD's appearance and demeanour. That's what pissed me off.
It's all empty words when we editorialise the thread titles. You can claim to be on the fence, but "Are These Just The Latest Set Of Empty Words From SOD ?" shows exactly what you think about SOD.
It was either encouraging or not. City played very well for a period of time. Playing very well has to be good, but in not 606 world it's not. What a **** bunch of fans there are on here. Call this support. Might as well put the pirate at the top instead of Ernie.
The one about encouraging certainly got me. It's encouraging but actually they are ****. Wouldn't want to think about it for too long as my head might explode.
I'll continue to support my team and I will give SOD 100% backing when there is clear evidence that his methods are going to work. I'm clearly not the only one that still isn't convinced and his record as our manager is frankly piss poor, or do you consider 1 win in 15 to be acceptable because I don't ? It sounds like you do to me though. Let's see if you're saying the same things in a month or so if things don't improve
I thought before the season started there was a sense of realism about what we could expect this season. Most agreed that a lot of new players, many of them young, promising but unproven would take time to gel. Well I don't think 3 league games is a reasonable time to be making a judgement on this. We can all see signs of encouragement (JET - goals for tally to mention two) but obviously we are still a bit hit and miss. We play well for spells (better than in recent times) then throw it away with silly mistakes. SOD said he was surprised after the pre-season when few goals were conceded to find this scenario arising - he was thinking the problem would be scoring. So now he is looking at cover to shake up the defenders he thought would be motivated enough without the competition. He knows what he is doing and the proof of this is in his previous successes. Unlike Del or Millen. No he won't work miracles - name me someone who could be guaranteed to do that and will come to the 3rd division! We just have to be patient and recognise that it isn't SOD's fault that we have had 3 years of **** football to put up with and our patience has been tried over and over......I think he will do the business given time.
Fair summary of events to date. It's what is going to happen in the coming weeks that is bothering most of us "so called negative merchants".
