Dr Balls

Finally decided to renew my season ticket, against my previous judgement, and tried last night online. Wouldn’t accept any of my cards. Tried again today and same problem. Then spent 1 hour on hold today before getting through to customer services (I started at number 20) and when they put through my original credit card it worked fine. So the warning is that it may take ages tomorrow morning to get through to speak to someone if you don’t use the online system or if the online system plays up and it won’t accept your card.

Now fit and recovered from injuries, Roberts is proving just how good a player he is. A back 3 that includes Roberts and Dickie means we have players who can pass and are happy to bring the ball forward out of defence, plus score goals. Agree that Tanner has improved this season defensively on the right but his first instinct is always to pass back as he approaches the halfway line. A more progressive right centre back with some more height might not go amiss. And unfortunately for Vyner, I just don’t see him playing in a back 3. He is fine at this level defensively and we have seen flashes where he can bring the ball forward and go past players but his passing is poor. A give away to an opposition forward every game is not good.

Is he still there and actually playing football? He’s been out as much as Naismith this season every season since he left! The term “collector’s item” should be falling from a commentator’s lips…

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/bristol-bears-go-back-to-attacking-as-owner-steve-lansdown-was-bored-with-rugby/ar-BB1lNX10?cvid=480deb1971ec45e18dae23fb2f005236&ei=25 If this is how Lansdown has felt about the rugby, goodness knows what he has thought of some of our home games recently. Excitement in terms of our playing “style” has been in short supply much of the time. And no I am not going to mention “that” game as a counter argument, although it was a return to how this team plays best.

Funny you should mention Paterson, because I would suggest that he’s a better player than Twine even now. Not that I would be looking to get him back either. The point being that there are better players with a greater Championship pedigree out there than Twine, who probably wouldn’t cost more in fees or wages. The advantage Twine has is that Manning clearly likes him and trusts him, evidenced by despite yesterday’s shocker, he wasn’t subbed off.

Out of those 6 previous games, the best performance was against Ipswich, when a draw would have been a fair result. We were lucky against Swansea, having been bobbins for most of the game, we were undone by a corner against Cardiff, but did nothing to deserve any more from that game, and the other 3 losses were deserved as we were really poor. I know it’s often said that the sign of a good team is one that wins when playing badly, but the opposite argument which fits us is that if you play badly most of the time you really can’t be that good!

The more I see the less convinced I am about Twine. Best performance was his first game against Watford when he scored. Since then it’s been diminishing returns and today he veered between anonymous in the first half to dreadful in the second. Are we more creative with him in the team? No. If anything in the same position, Mehmeti has looked better than him recently, which hardly suggests Twine is going to take us to the next level. Against all that though, is a shared history with Manning, so the likelihood is that he will want to sign Twine permanently whatever anyone us might think.

So unbeaten in the last 5 games, which is good, but the results have generally been better than the performances. Dreadful first half against Huddersfield today, a copy of the Swansea game last month, with not a single shot in the first 45 minutes. Last weekend indebted to Max for keeping a clean sheet against Sunderland. Good win against Leicester, decent performance versus Plymouth, while the Blackburn defence was giving away more gifts than Santa at Christmas! Happy we have the points, and defensively we look pretty good, accepting that we were missing both Dickie and Vyner today. However, still unconvinced that Manning has really cracked how to get us playing forward, particularly how to break down teams that sit in and play 2 banks of 4 across the pitch and are happy to watch us huff and puff in front of them with minimal penetration. Also very lucky to come away with a point this afternoon.

On recent performances the term “show pony” comes to mind. Thinks he is better than he is , but really isn’t all that good. Gave the ball away countless times today, offered little going forward, and had a shot near the end that was just a “look at me” punt when there were far better options available. He’s lucky we got the penalty or otherwise he could be up for belters over that one! Would I shell out £5+ million on him in fees and many thousands per week in wages on the basis of what we have seen so far? Absolutely not. He’s very lightweight and easily robbed of the ball at this level. He may have torn up League 1 a couple of years ago, but on a similar level, scoring all those goals in League 1 didn’t make Kieron Agard a championship level player.

Agree either King or Knight-Lebel could have played in the middle of a back three. We had nothing to lose so why not play them. With Tanner and Roberts there we had no height at all against a tall physical centre forward, and it showed.

They wasted at least the first 2 minutes of the added 5 with the shot to the midriff from distance, for which the player went down as if he had been hit by a sniper. Then there was their substitution with Sorba Thomas walking from the far side of the pitch to go off , hugging his teammates and waving to the Huddersfield fans in the Atyeo, so that was at least another 30 seconds. It all added up and the penalty award can’t have been more than 20 seconds before she was planning to blow for full time. Then it took ages to get taken, because of Huddersfield arguing and time wasting. Which is why there was only about 20 seconds played after the restart. All makes sense and perfectly managed by referee sticking to the rules of the game. God knows we have had some awful refereeing performances at home in the last few seasons and this definitely was not one of them!

Can anyone explain why we were playing Sykes behind Knight/ Knight ahead of Sykes on the right side until Williams went off? Made absolutely no sense and really didn’t work. Neither player looked comfortable playing out of position. That one’s on Manning.

The penalty was awarded in the 97th minute. The Huddersfield players then spent 2 minutes arguing with her about it and time-wasting, which earnt them 2 more yellow cards, and that’s why it wasn’t taken until the 100th minute. Huddersfield only have themselves to blame for such blatant time wasting, especially as it came back to bite them hard on the arse!

Playing James and Williams in central midfield in a 3-4-3 formation and shunting Knight out to the right forward position was bizarre. It didn’t work and we only looked any better when Knight went back into midfield as he at least looks to take and pass the ball forward. James and Williams were safety first, creativity zero today.

Proper centre forward, something we have missed since letting Chris Martin leave last January. Never been replaced and it shows.