The Exiled Robin

With memories of a 6-0 drubbing, amongst other Portman Road defeats, still relatively fresh in the memory, as well as Ipswich’s pedigree at this level, then Suffolk is probably one of the last places City would choose to head towards to right the wrongs of a difficult start to the season. Saying that, a win at Middlesbrough earlier in the season should give them confidence that, on their day, they can go anywhere in this division and get a result. A game that at the start of the season where many might have thought “ah, we’ve got ‘x’ points, it’s not been a bad start and we never do well there. A loss may not be too hard to take” has suddenly into another critical test of City’s credentials at this level. Given the start to the season and our inexperience at this level, many managers of many sides would head into this match considering a 4-5-1 formation to bolster the hitherto porous defensive record. Get ten men behind the ball, keep it tight and if we can snatch a b...

Undoubtedly the headline signing of the summer so far, Paul Anderson made way this week for Jay Emmanuel-Thomas' arrival from Ipswich Town, a somewhat maverick character but one City fans will remember in particular for a stunning performance when directing unfashionable Doncaster (now, who was their manager that day?) to a 5-2 demolition at Ashton Gate. The flourish of his signing was matched by significant fan's excitement, at the potential of having an impact player who can unlock games and score stunning goals as well as cause havoc amongst the opposition defence, the type of player we've seen all too rarely over these past few, fairly barren years.  A crescendo was reached when 'JET' took to Twitter, engaged in mass interaction with his new fans and introduced them to #WED (apparently an abbreviation of an East-London phrase What Else Den), seemingly exclusively used by JET.  If he'd had a massive and expensive PR team behind him, I doubt they could have...

They say good things come to those who wait. Let’s hope so! I mockingly suggested on Twitter yesterday morning that City fans should enjoy the day, as it would be the only day in the calendar we would be in the League Cup (or ‘COC’ as they seem to have decided to rebrand it!).   I was mostly joking, I was mostly positive and felt, actually, this could be our year for a little run.   Sadly it was not to be. But let’s not read too much into one match.   The real business starts on Saturday and although it may be a long season ahead, the signs from pre-season were largely encouraging. I would have been the first to tell people not to read too much into those results for the past few years when they’ve been poor, so we must take them with a pinch of salt, but what particularly encouraged me on the face of the results was that we were scoring goals and seemingly playing a more attacking style of football.   After the relative drudge through the past two seasons, t...

A couple of weeks ago I asked three Nottingham Forest fans to give a view on our new signing Greg Cunningham.  The result was a resounding thumbs-up, a player they all had wished had returned to The City Ground following his loan spell last season. Derek McInnes has raided the former European Champions again, this time for permanent employee Paul Anderson, a winger who has dotted around league one and the Championship, often threatening to make an impact sufficient enough to earn a really big move, but without ever quite managing to maintain form on a consistent basis. So, how do the three Forest fans view City's signing of Anderson?  A perfect foil for Cunningham? A player to unlock the tightest of defences, or another once bright young prospect who sadly looks as if he'll never really make it in the top two divisions? Peter Blackburn @petermblackburn Peter is a trainee journalist and indicates City have a player who, given a chance, might just be...