cityfanlee23

Across the 90 it was an okay performance, improved on the last 6-7 weeks. This should be the minimum though we really haven't looked like a top 6 team today overall. Need another 5-6 performances where this is the absolute minimum standard before I would consider wanting MC to get more time.

Winks was always pretty average even under Enzo. The system flattered him. 75-80% of his passes in the championship and then premier league were sideways or backwards. People saw how much of the ball he was getting under Enzo and mistook it for “controlling” the game. In reality we were so slow on the ball teams just let us have control and sat back watching us pass it sideways for 30 passes before either losing it or one of the wingers creating a chance. Very rarely did Winks produce anything exceptional. Had some good games obviously but for someone on his wage having played for England you’d expect him dominating this league as the bare minimum. There were 10+ midfielders 23/24 that could have passed the ball sideways and backwards and not lost possession. This season there have been a few games where he’s really turned the game around for us and injected a bit of life into the game, but for most games he’s been pretty average again, only this time our tactical system is of lesser quality compared to Enzo so he’s not standing out.

I can appreciate all of this, but Marti chose the dustpan and brush approach and not the bulldozer; there is absolutely nothing stopping him from being the extremely strong and no-nonsense character we desperately need. What if we give him time delivering this absolute guff, then bring in a technical director who signs more ego driven players, do we just give Marti more time in perpetuity because he isn't going to get on top of their egos? He instantly caved in to the "old guard" after telling us he loves to develop youth and give them minutes. This club in the position it's in, with the ownership and board we have, needs a leader. If he's not that, he has to go. The yes man approach only works if the club is a well-oiled machine that could run even if the manager wasn't at the match.

This is it. What people don’t seem to want to accept is that a good manager can, to some degree, offset the circus happening upstairs. Look at the messes Warnock has walked into in the past and turned around. Look at what Rohl achieved at Wednesday while Chansiri was actively destroying the club. Look at what Pearson did for us — he stopped the rot and completely revolutionised the club. Big Sam is known as a relegation specialist for a reason, because he often goes into long term damaged clubs and at the very least keeps them up and brings in players and organises them a bit more and gets them fighting. None of these names are flashy. But the point is that they all have a reputation for building foundations, creating good habits, and, most importantly, starting to stop the rot. Marti is currently helping the board push us toward oblivion with his arrogant approach to football, where he seems to believe his system is the only way — despite it being blatantly obvious that it isn’t. Good managers can take some of the sting out of the board’s incompetence. For all the mess our board has created over the last 5 years, we actually had a half-decent window: bringing in Begović, Ramsey, and JJ, while offloading multiple big earners, including great fees for McAteer, Justin, and Ndidi and we are now in a position where we can afford to actually pay for a technical director. The board, to some degree, is restructuring both the DOF and CEO positions. Top has finally realised publicly that they need to make changes. If anything, MC has inherited us at a time when we’re actually trying to fix mistakes — and yet he’s adding to them. (don't get me wrong, we are a mess with or without him) All we needed was stability on the pitch, whilst giving adequate game time to Okoli, Nelson, Aluko, Silko, Monga etc and we could be talking about this whole situation as the club turning a corner. Instead, we are now looking over our shoulder at relegation if the deduction is big, despite having at least 7-8 players that would get into the majority of promotion candidates' teams. Give me Warnock over this.

I think that’s being lenient

Edited my response at the same time you posted, went back through my chat with friends and saw the mistake, I screenshotted skys “as it stands” graphic just before Kimi had his moment. So I was doing the maths based on Lando having 406 points not 408. So yeah, I’m an idiot

Turns out my brain wasn’t working. I thought Lando was on 406 not 408 🤣 yeah if he comes 3rd he wins!

There were huge periods where we did the same under Enzo, I repeated this exact point as nauseum, the difference was we had the quality to offset the snails pace. Now we lack a lot of that edge couple with Marti-Ball actively nullifying any talent we have with a complete lack of movement from players off the ball.

So if my brain is working here is what each driver needs to be WDC next week assuming they win the final race. EDIT- It wasn’t working.

Alonso casually defending against the entire rest of the field from 6th

Here we go, hopefully be a good race! Expecting a bit of a snooze fest here though

It wouldn't surprise me if we aren't just leaving it up to christmas crackers at this rate

Kingy is a nice thought but I don’t want to kill his management career before its started, I’d prefer to see him become the next assistant and begin a process of promoting from within once the next manager moves on. I think the most realistic prospect we have right now is going to be a friend or contact of whoever the technical director will be.

There is only one scenario where JJ stays and that’s if we get into the playoffs and go up, which is completely impossible under Cifuentes. Every single day we continue on this path, is another day closer to JJ getting a prem move and us missing out on a having a player that could literally captain us in the top flight for the foreseeable future.

I need you to promise me you’ll reply with this every time I mention his name

Well, we aren't going to get hammered by a cricket score so might aswell hope that we equalise, fml, another 4+ weeks of this to come.

I'm being delusional, a line followed by smelling salts couldn't wake this board up.

HAHAHAHAHAH I genuinely love this decision, Skipp at CB could genuinely be the decision that wakes this board out of its coma. Honking decision. I genuinely want us to concede another 5 goals now.

Warnock (Actually want him if we can't get a more permanent manager in just for the stability and half time screaming) Hassenhuttl Adi Hutter (would need to sell a player to fund a big wage) Bo Svensson Henrik Rydstrom Carrick Mowbray

If we sack TODAY, the new manager will have potentially 2-3 weeks to analyse us before January.

I'd snap your arm off for Neil Warnock kicking tables over in the dressing room.

We are fully in the territory where those still wanting to give MC time are just as culpible for him remaining as the board are. The recent John Rudkin controversy with the fans singing quite vile things proves that the board do actually hear us, they just don't often listen, but they cannot ignore us. MC doesn't have the capacity to set us up for a game, or even get the players fired up. Players need a massive rocket, he isn't giving it to them, and as long as the players are under contract we cannot dither with someone who can't get them going. I'd genuinely rather lose this game 7-0 and force the sacking than us come back and win. If we somehow come back to draw 2-2 or even win 3-2, it just buys MC time, and that would be a far bigger cost to us than being embarrassed today and pulling the trigger.

Really hoping Tanganga has a bad game, has quite a big ceiling imo and i've wanted us to sign him for a few years now when he was at spurs/milwall.

Yep, we have moments where Fatawu has 3 players around him, and on the other side Mavididi is in miles of space, all we need is a fast ball from Fatawu into either Winks or Vestergaard and a first time pass to Mavididi and we will have our opponents absolutely all over the place scrambling to get into position and making mistakes. Instead it takes us 10 passes to get the ball from 1 wing to the other. Kompany has adapted his game to include these types of fast diagonal passes, Bayern’s goal vs Arsenal was a perfect example of just a long diagonal ball resulting in a goal.

It’s a running theme with possession managers. Marti with us, there were times under Enzo that we simply were not good enough to do what he wanted us to do, but he continued on regardless. Russell Martin did the same at Southampton, Kompany at Burnley.