Red Exile

I'm not convinced that getting rid of Brian Tinnion is the solution, although the last couple of performances suggest there certainly is a problem. I think might we have to accept, after so many years of frustration, that the 'Bristol Sport' priority is building the portfolio - bricks and mortar, the 'Sporting Quarter', whilst doing no more than building the 'potential' of the component sports clubs. But not realising it. On the football side both the men's and women's teams could be sold to an investor with the 'potential' to go higher, yet always lack what is really needed to compete at the highest level. Just as long as neither are relegated I suspect that fits the Bristol Sport group objectives perfectly.

I can't quite get my head around Oxford - Oxford! - a club on my doorstep whose fans I've made sympathetic pitying noises to for many, many years, playing in a half finished ground to crowds half ours at best, a club not owned by one of the richest men in the land - somehow sit 10 places above us! That'll take some getting used to!

I'm at the point where I expect nothing from the game itself - the excitement of the Millwall finale or Blackburn and Southampton or West Ham last season is lovely, but not what I expect. When it comes to the match I am indeed apathetic, the action on the pitch has been dull/disappointing for several years. What I enjoy is the journey and the ritual of a match, home or away...I'm mildly excited about a trip to Swansea and have the train booked for Preston. As for City's on-field prospects, I can't see us having another exciting season until we've been relegated and are going from promotion from the third tier...again!

It'll be the last days of LJ revisited - so I think you're correct. 18 months I reckon.

I mean. What to say. This is simply unacceptably poor. It’s all down to Manning. No one had ever heard of him. He has zero personality- a bold hire that’s been questioned almost from off. Terrible. Going nowhere. Players booked for diving. Ugly stuff.

This reeks of relegation. We’ve got a decent squad. You wouldn’t know it. Pity we didn’t hire John Eustace!

Sorry to say that we look like precisely the sort of hit and hope - and just a little bit dirty - side that I can’t abide. What on earth is going on?! Shapeless mess. Surely this isn’t part of a plan. We’re not playing to any of our supposed strengths. The players look confused and second best. Men against boys all over the pitch. Abysmal. Lucky to still be in this match. Manning has work to do!

Blimey. We look absolutely awful! Weeks ‘on the grass’ and serving up this tosh. Long ball hit and hope is what it looks like. We’ve surely not signed Bird and Twine to play that. If there’s a pattern it’s lost on me.

They look well prepared- frankly we don’t.

What I wrote was 'sold or got rid of almost all the players with flair, spirit and profile, and replaced them with unproven hopefuls from the lower leagues'. I'm not running the football club, I'm just watching. We've lost some excellent and experienced players and replaced them with largely unproven at this level. Not writing anyone off. FWIW I was a great fan of Andi Weimann, had much to offer and has since been offering it elsewhere at better placed clubs than us. Could never understand the criticism.

Semenyo, Scott, Weimann, James….??

Fair play - sadly 'positive' and 'realistic' don't always align with City!

Couldn't agree more. We've reached the point where Liam Manning can be judged on his own record - which he has to build here because yet again we find ourselves with a manager who has no managerial track record to speak of anywhere else. We have to take it on trust that he's widely respected as an up and coming coach, as we did with serial loser Lee Johnson. In hideous echoes of that era it looks a bit of a shapeless mess at times. He said that yesterday wasn't 'us'...but in Liam Manning terms what is 'us'? - beyond an aspiration, because under Manning we have rarely played with conviction for 45 let alone 90 minutes.

Captures it perfectly. Could almost be the club motto...printed on the back of the collar. And if you accept that as a City fan the whole experience is a lot more enjoyable!

That we took so many yesterday is testament to a fan base willing a football club to be successful in the face of all the evidence...which is remarkable when its owned by a man who never speaks publicly, run by a son who barely says an intelligible word, managed by a man totally lacking charisma and with no significant footballing achievements, and which has in the past 18 months sold or got rid of almost all the players with flair, spirit and profile, and replaced them with unproven hopefuls from the lower leagues. The potential is, as always, massive, sadly it's better recognised by the fan base than by the owners.