Regardless of if he does well at Bristol City eventually or not, their fans are now using the sticks we gave them to beat him down with. Robotic interviews, looking down rather than into the eye of the interviewer, buzz word bingo. He's really fucked it for himself and I don't think our fans/Manning himself quite realize it just yet, but the signs are there.
Say he does well next season there and his name is touted for jobs higher - does anyone at Bristol City have full faith that he'd stay? Would they believe anything he says regarding speculation?
If he continues how he has started, he will go down as just another modern coach who reads the manual but doesn't have the people skills or personality to be a manager. No one will touch him unless they are desparate. He may get a coaching job somewhere, putting the cones out for someone better than him, but he damaged his reputation an awful lot by leaving us, more than people will ever believe.
He had it really good here and could have achieved decent things (IMO, this season was always a step too far, and we'd be around the same position we are now if he had stayed) but left on the first opportunity, and to quote Kevin Keegan "I will love it when Manning is languishing in league 2, LOVE IT"