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Just checked the stats, 1 more goal than us in open play. Is that your weapon of choice?
The football has been bad at times, no doubt, but we've also had some entertaining* games, far more than in the last 2 seasons (even under Neil Harris it was a hard watch). The league table suggest we are currently 11th best, I'd take that given where we've been. I'd rather see NG bang in a free kick or Goutas tower in a header off a corner if it meant winning a game.
Truth is, a win last weekend it would be a very different place here.
*entertaining does not equate quality.
Yes, we are worse at scoring goals from open play than the worst team in over a decade, probably longer. It is not good enough. We are the lowest scorers in the league from open play. I don't have to explain why that is bad.
I want us to win games but we're not very good at that, either. I think Bulut is a very poor manager and a win last week would not have changed my opinion. Your point about set pieces is fine, I'd be happy but set pieces should be a bonus to your goal tally, rather than the only route to a goal! Judging Bulut against other bad managers does not mean he's good, they're all crap.
I think we are agreeing, but feel i am being pushed to defend something that i am not strongly opinionated on, my quest in here was to understand fans expectation, as most across the leagues want their manager sacked, surely not all managers are bad, you think they are with your last sentence.
We are team that has a reputation as being set piece, long ball and physical. I just don't think 1 season is enough to change that, would i give Bulut another season, yes, but because we need some continuity and stability and we are above my expectations in the league. Changing things takes time sometimes. I would have liked Lamouchi to have stayed as well, same reason.
We've seen the peoples/chairman's choices of "proper football" managers being hailed and hired only to fail, like Trollope, Solskjaer, Harris and Morison.
My point, lower your expectations because what you are looking for has not been seen since Lennie Lawrence.
I disagree with the notion that Bulut is a poor manager, he is an uninspiring, play-by-stats standard identikit modern manager. We are 11th with a pretty poor squad. Our best players are three defenders, Danny Ward would look like Harland if he returned compared to our centre-forwards.
I don't think he knows what to do with Colwill but would play Davies as he is a pretty conventional inside forward. I think he stays and we are waiting for the Wales games to finish before the media blitz.
We are solid at the back and with three or four forwards we'll be competitive.
Slade was poor (just have a look at his squad compared to now), Morison was poor, Hudson a joke....
There has to be a team that scores the least goals from open play every season and there has to be one that scores the most set piece goals - the latter shouldn't be a bad thing, but, put it with the former and a certain picture starts to present itself. We're on course to be the least creative side from open play and the most effective from set pieces in the Championship this season - clearly, we're far from the divisions great entertainers.
I don't share your opinion that we have not seen "proper football" in the near twenty years since Lennie Lawrence was in charge. Dave Jones teams could be direct, but it could be definitely be argued that they needed more of the kind of physicality that City teams have been built on in the last decade or so - if anything, Jones' teams had too many "proper footballers" in them.
Four years ago, Neil Harris tried to change the way we played a bit and at least two others since then have had a go - all of them had to adjust their approach because we weren't good enough technically to play the sort of football we were trying to move towards. I find it ludicrous that there's has been a desire to shift to a way of playing that is more progressive and I would argue watchable over a four year period at the club and we appear to be no further forward in that goal than we were in 2020!
You might not mean it, but, in effect, what you're saying is that we've had four years of dreadfully boring, losing football at Cardiff City Stadium during this decade, but there's nothing which can be done about it because we're stuck with it - it's what we are.
As a stalker of this forum rather than a main contributor it always strikes me how romanticised football talked about on here with a large cohort. It's a brutal professional sport where every person is trying to raise their individual profile to gain larger contracts or just contracts.
Within the game, a multitude of interested professionals are monitoring every player and manager. They will write up reports that say whether Bulut has achieved more than the sum of the parts or not. He isn't going to go gung ho. He has improved us.
I agree it's dreadful, boring, attritional stuff but we are where we all hoped for at the start of the season, mid-table obscurity. Buluts' reputation has been enhanced, and so has NG's, Goutas, and maybe McGuiness other than that two fading stars in Rambo and Ralls, L1 CM's loaned out, no strikers at all. Grants has amazing work ethic, but £15 mill can't see too many top end champ clubs pestering Forest over Bowler and Colwill poses as many questions as answers. We will not be worried by summer raiders.
I just don't believe the wage bill figure knocking around socials and when Dalman referenced it for Roathboy I doubted it even more. Its a limited, attritional collection of players for an assault on the championship