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If it helps, at AG last night, the guy behind me suggested that O’Dowda is a Kante.

Until he goes missing for 5 or 6 games. His ability was never in doubt. An in form Paterson is a great player at this level. Unfortunately an in form Paterson is also quite rare.

Firstly, it’s a penalty. Their bloke trips Scott, who might tumble theatrically but it’s a foul, so it’s a penalty & if the ref really thinks not, then why doesn’t he book Scott for diving? So if we score that (not a given with our record, though as we are coming up to a year since we had one in the league then that isn’t based on too much), we are 2 up & I reckon we’d have held on. Secondly their winner is as clear a handball as you can get, poor by Bentley, we also should have done far better to stop the cross but I can’t believe that it was given. None of this excuses the result but we could certainly do with the rub of the green in a game at BS3.

Nahki Wells played very well last night I thought . The guy gets criticised a lot but he deserves some recognition and support. Let’s show him the love folks.

Quit your whinging. You wanna be thankful you don’t support Blackburn!

I wonder if The Rising Sun being closed down is giving away fans more confidence to be pillocks. It was quite a focal point for City fans

Got any more?

You honestly think that the team currently in 13th is "At least 4 players short of having *a chance* of staying up"? Personally I still don't have any major worries about relegation. I'm confident that there's at least 3 teams worse than us. IMO we should aim to avoid business in January if possible - it's a dreadful market to try and buy in. If something happens to come up then great, but chances are that we'd have to pay over the odds for what we'd want. That includes loans too, which have many associated fees that fans often forget about - they're not free. Unless things go south and we really are looking in big trouble, then I'm happy for us to hold out until next summer for signings.

Brilliant to see AD on form at 87 years of age and this snippet sums up one of our heroes. Talking about knocking Leeds out of the cup: "Dicks recalled: “In the first game at Ashton Gate I heard Don Revie in the opposite dug-out signalling to Bremner, pointing and saying ‘the number four’. “I didn’t know what he meant, but the next time Bremner and Gow challenged for the ball, Billy went in with his foot really high, only to realise that Gerry had his even higher!" Bremner was the hard man of the dirty Leeds team who dishes it out to all the 1st Division stars Gerry was just 20 years old and feared no one.

I think this level of arrogant delusion deserves to be repeated just in case anyone missed it the first time. Cretins.

I saw what happened pre Preston. Absolutely laughable. Two groups of around 30 came across each other on Ashton Road. There was lots of dancing but absolutely NO contact. Both groups stayed behind their respective side of the Ashton park wall of safety. I didn’t realise that we had installed invisible force fields with the redevelopment! Then some bottles were thrown whilst people jumped onto the wall and back off it again. Then 3 coppers ran in and drew batons and the two groups ran away despite outnumbering the police 10-1 each. Our lot congratulated each other on the way into the stadium on how it had “properly gone off”. Embarrassing.

Baker - failure? You having a laugh? He’s played pretty well almost every game he’s played so far. Yep he’s a Pearson signing in effect….a free transfer on a significantly reduced wage based on incentives.

This smacks of delay followed by cancellation. The government are in dire need of funding for various projects and just to keep the country running. No doubt there will be some sort of announcement referring to the environmental impact against the possible advantages of the reopening. They'll site projected lower use due to the effects of the pandemic, against increased traffic flow to the P&R aspects of the new line, after asking for another feasibility study. This has been happening to the greater Bristol area for as long as I can remember. It matters not which political party is in power. They know we'll just put up and, shut up. The funding was withdrawn for our metro by Dawn Primarolo in the nineties, after Bristol's Labour council argued the toss with the Lib Dem South Glos council over the termination of the line. Anything that has been built in Bristol has nearly always been from private funding, or by the council and the ratepayers themselves. Bristol had to fund the Royal Portbury dock with no government aid. Nissan wanted to build their car plant at Royal Portbury, the then Labour government refused to licence it, instead offering financial inducements to locate it in Sunderland. We've had to compete with decades of financial bribery offered to firms to locate/relocate to south Wales, with quite a few leaving Bristol to subsidize their profits. Our centre for the performing arts on the Harbourside was granted funding of £100m, only for it to be taken away and given to the Covent Garden Opera house. The very successful Commonwealth Museum was taken from Bristol at TM and taken to London. We receieve far less funding than any core city and most other Cities and towns in the UK, due to the "Barnet formula". Quite frankly, after spending a day in Cardiff recently, which the BBC chose to relocate the long standing successful TV programme "casualty", from Bristol and learning that they're planning "another" Arena on top of the one they've already got, I can honestly say I'm totally pissed off with it. If we have a Labour council, we get a Conservative government and vice versa, who then tend to irritate central government, so we tend to never get the rewards that other cities do. And I really believe it's because we don't fight hard enough or, shout loud enough, similar traits could be aimed at the supporters of football in the city.

Attendance: 2,069 (257 Bristol Rovers fans). Colchester fans seem to have forgotten that this was actually a Cup Final as it was, by some way, their lowest home attendance of the season.

I think the reality is that the team that we all expected to be a lower midtable team in a season of transition has proven to be a lower midtable team in a season of transition. We need to turn around our home form and we need Williams, Massengo and Semenyo fit. O'Dowda and Palmer are going nowhere unless somebody agrees to pay their wages, let alone a fee. I'm guessing Simpson and King are here as low cost cover options. Moving them on is all well and good but we'd need to replace them AND stay within budget. I don't think anyone - either in terms of fans or the management of the club - is under any illusions about where the weaknesses of the team lie. I don't think addressing those weaknesses whilst staying within budget is anywhere near as easy as some supporters think.

Interesting what you mean "take the piss" I seen a number of our fans goading and trying to start something with Swansea fans on the walk home out of the ground. Some football fans of any club are just bellends basically

Non alcoholic beer is like going down on you're own sister... it tastes the same, but it just not right ?

From what I saw all involved looked about 16. Lots of meer-cat dancing in front of each other with very little actual fighting - classic

Adam Baker joined me for last night's OSIB. Apologies about the sound quality. I left my microphone at home. LISTEN HEREhttp://linktr.ee/osibpodcast

There should be a statue of AD At Ashton Gate..............and also some kind of tribute to Gerry Gow. GG was immense, his combination of toughness and skill would be worth a fortune in todays transfer market. What an outstanding player.

Football Manager and FIFA have so, so much to answer for.

The only players still here in 3 years time will be the bang average ones. The bad will be bombed out The good will be sold Hence why O'Dowda is probably our current longest servant

That's exactly the reason. Once that reopens, these incidents of away fans bravado will soon stop...

Pearson isn’t the problem imo it’s the mess of a squad he’s inherited and lack of budget to address it

As we start to move towards the window in January it’s clear the squad is to light to sustain a season of championship football. Players coming back won’t help us this year we just don’t have any. Williams will help as will Seyemyo but that’s it. Not getting a few loans in the summer is costing us now and it looks a bad decision now as it did then. We are short at least 4 to give us a chance of being not just competitive but staying up. Left back - I don’t think we have one at the club. Prefer Pring as an option in midfield and JD is just not up to it. Holding midfielder - James is to good and important to play that role same for Massengo they need to play further forward. Also we need to allow our fullbacks to get further forward and even dare i say overlap. Striker - goes without saying. Last night we ended without one the pitch and that played a big part in Forest playing so far forward as not much to worry them about defending. winger - we need someone who can carry the ball with pace and take us up the pitch and also push the opposition back. An Albert type player someone who actually has pace and can take on a fullback. Could have written this in the summer and it’s even more obvious now so I’m not calming to be a football genius. But if most of the supporters can see it then not sure why the manager and the club can’t - I hope they do. Palmer, Simpson, Bakinson and King add very little or nothing to the team so please move them on could also throw in COD but still need a few bodies. If we don’t make these signings in January loan or perm then pretty sure we are going to finish in the bottom six if not lower.

It’s was absolute suicide for him taking this job and I’m amazed he even bothered, let’s face it we’d be lucky to get anyone with any calibre to replace him! The mess left by LJ and MA and overseen by SL is nothing short of a disgrace, no money, no prospects, league 1’s a certainty and it’s not the fault of the manager!

Bristol City FC over the last 3 years

Are you saying that Pearson has a Plan B? When’s he going to start using it? ???

You'd never see a tackle with Bakinson & COD, Palmer would make his trademark slide on his ars*e tackle from time to time, but that is a midfield 3 that would lead to our first 0-5 or similar. I honestly believe that.

Scott and Benarous will hopefully still be at Bristol City then. Atkinson and HNM as above but doubt hardly any of the current starters will be at city. One thing I am positive about is we have some good young players coming through. One thing I hope is we have won a home game by then .

Whilst I don't think this will be remotely possible, I can sort of see what you're getting at. Jay does sometimes seem wasted at left back, it seems the parts of the game needed for that position are things he doesn't have in abundance. He was the only player on Tuesday night that I had any confidence in when receiving a pinged pass or with a man touch tight...he does have a nack of keeping holding of the ball, turning, and opening up play. Whether that would translate into an ability to play in the middle is something I don't think we'll ever see. I'd like to see him and Pring playing in tandem on the left tbh

Yeh, it’s annoying - I was searching for info on Brechin City and all this Bristol stuff kept popping up ... ??

Caught a radio interview with her this morning in a segment on hypermesis gravidarum(HG). No I’d no idea either, but, apparently, it’s a really severe illness during pregnancy. Sounded a complete ordeal- vomiting 20-30 times every day, bleeding and repeated hospital admissions. Apparently so severe that 25% of the women who get it contemplate suicide. At the risk of sounding like a patronising old bloke- not that difficult in my case- Michelle came over as an extraordinarily resilient and courageous women. Certainly will prompt me to think of her with renewed respect when she rocks up at the Gate for Sky or whoever.

It's a recent change though, previously searching for a hashtag only brought up tweets with that hashtag, which was kind of the point of a hashtag and kind of the point of having #BristolCity was to separate it from Birmingham, Bradford and fricking Bath City. It is a form of #GasLogic, take something that identifies something uniquely and recombine it with all of the things that it might be possibly related to. Google has gone a similar way because the more you refine your search the more it wants to generalise it. #WhatALoadOfBollocks

Gloating, goading generally winding people up and looking for trouble. I assumed the Swansea stuff post game was related to the Swansea stuff pre game. It exists on both sides, I'm not one of the "it only happens between like minded people" people and it's definitely both sides and innocent people always get caught up in it. I have wondered if it due to almost 2 years of not issuing football banning orders.

We def need some pace this must be the slowest City team i can remember.

Yes I always get BCFC news on Twitter, as well as Bristol City. I just delete it/say I’m not interested and say it’s not Bristol City. Twitter can’t differentiate between BCFC and BCFC

I'm confused, if none of that wouldn't have happened pre-Covid, when wouldn't it not have not happened?

Correlation does not equal causation. It has absolutely nothing to do with COVID, it's obviously down to how much our abysmal home form now gives even the quietest away fans a lease of life, particularly when given their obligatory 90th minute booster. I saw every incident you mentioned* and it was largely that, and the contrast is more obvious now that our fans trudge away in Lowry painting levels of depression at this repeated shit show. Pre-COVID as boring as home performances could be they weren't as consistently awful and we weren't consistently miserable and disaffected leaving games, and the two pre-COVID home fixtures that were fun for away fans - getting hammered 4-0 by Brentford on New Years Day and getting hammered 4-0 by WBA - no one begrudges the away side, a lot of City had gone home before full time, and Brentford at least aren't going to act up. *Gobby Fulham fans were an anomaly as it was just some kids in replica shirts who obviously had their first ever beers and were heading back to the pick up point with mum and dad looking forward to being driven home.

Shame this didn’t happen last night for Forest…

I hope your kids are OK. My daughter has just got back to city after the Swansea nonsense 2 years ago. She has always had anxiety but these things can scar young people

I typed out a few things on various platforms last night, but deleted all of them. They ended up being a bit random and bitter. So I'll try and organise my thoughts a little better this morning. Firstly I thought we did ok first half, touch and go whether we deserved 1-0 , but not a massively undeserved scoreline. Scott was excellent (apart from that miss), and the midfield hadn't looked as weak as I'd expected. Defence looked good, Baker was old school Baker (Johnson looked terrified) and we were well in the game with noses in front. Not sure what was said at half time, you expect them to calm out quickly, but it looked like we had been told to try and hold what we had. We never got any foothold in the game, no forward momentum and definitely no control. I hate that we bring everyone back at corners, at one stage it allowed all 10 Forest outfield players in the final 3rd, the keeper acting sweeper near half way. When we cleared it comes straight back, leave someone anyone up front, just to keep defender honest and give us chance to get out. We have, for ages , defended too deep at the end of games. Now this has been, pressure from teams chasing a goal, fatigue meaning players drop deeper to cover plus the simple fact we cannot put a series of passes together to keep the ball and so see the game out. Last night that started from the kick off. Even if you play on the break (which I'm not sure we do by design, more being dominated constantly) , you need to be able to look after the ball. Wells made some good runs and that chip (I actually mentioned there was a chance 5 minutes before) shows his eye for goal, but we didn't have the control to get a decent pass away. Martin had got some good headers and flicks in but he looked like he was struggling a bit so I thought HNM was a good move. Though I expected Scott might have been first because of Nige love of Martin. Forests control and dominance made it hard for Masengo to make a real impact, though he did some nice twists & turns and nicked the ball a few times. Again because we were so deep, space was rare so Scott had become a little less effective, plus cramp , Palmer turned out to be equally ineffective. Still we were defending well, if too deep ( I may have mentioned that before) and Forest seemed to be getting desperate with long shots. The change of Wells for COD was strange, yet not so. I though Nhaki had a good game, and if anyone was liable to nick a goal it would be him. Then again, he had lost his footing a few times, looked frustrated, and more to the point service had all but dried up as we couldn't get decent possession. Now I can see the reasoning, COD is a good runner & Pacey . Get it to feet and he could have caused their defence real problems . It just didn't happen. One thing I will say, it was not a nailed on Pen. I've seen them given, but on first view it looked like he went down easily. The Ref seemed to point at the ball, so I guess he thought the defender got a touch, but also he didn't book Scott so I imagine he thought there was contact. TBF Baker had been excellent, but I sat down as soon as Baker started to dive in. I didn't need the Ref to give the decision, even from 80 yards away it was obvious. Not only that, I was waiting for the 2nd goal. Defend like that, after chasing shadows for 45 minutes and you just just can't change your mindset and get out on the front foot. I wanted to be seeing ALL the touchline staff screaming to get out as soon as we started defending from our own area. We had started to see signs of improvement, and I do think in many ways we are better than we have been previously. But sadly the one thing, the main problem is exactly the same as it's been for over 2 years. We don't keep the ball, we don't control games and so we can't defend leads. Now IMO, it's partly mindset, though Pearson had started to address that with James & King. Partly nerves and partly the ability to pass to our own players in space and a big part of that, is lack of movement. And there is the catch 22. Because we lack movement we can't find the easy pass. Because we can't find the easy pass we tend to go longer. Because we go longer, we lose the ball more. Because we lose the ball more. Because we lose the ball more, we end up chasing the ball more. Because we chase the ball more, we tire quicker. Because we tire quicker we lack movement repeat to fade. It's not a new thing, we suffered the same under Johnson, we suffered the same under Holden and , so far, Pearson has struggled to change it. Maybe having Williams fit might make a difference, but I don't think it's down to players, totally. It's coaching and mindset , as soon as a player passes the ball it seems like that's his job done. What we need is for that player to just move a yard to give the option of the ball back, while others do the same. We are static. When a Forest player was fronted up, and we never really got tight too often, he had an option. If there wasn't one there, someone would make a run. Again they were streets ahead of us on the ball. The 2nd half was Bournemouth levels of dominance and if Forest had their levels of quality , Forest would have won much earlier. Make no mistake, this is a big, big job. One that, sadly may be too big for Pearson. I apologise for the ramble, but at least it's off my chest now. I shall now pretend I don't like football for the next few days.

I think we are desperate for some loans in January to give our squad the right balance. Hopefully there are experienced players not getting gametime at other clubs that we can persuade to come here. I want a striker with a physical presence to lighten the load piled up on Martin. Also a defensive midfielder and a wide player. Palmer and Bakinson can go out on loan.

I am amazed that people who have watched literally years of Championship football cannot see how bloody brutal and intense it is to play in, especially for young kids. Have these people forgotten that Alex Scott, the best of the young bunch, who came back in last night and showed what he is going to be all about had to be taken off after HALF AN HOUR a few weeks back for his own good because the game completely passed him by and was too much for him. Playing someone who is showing themselves to be UNFIT for purpose in effect against Centre Halves like Gary Cahill is literally the stuff of ruining careers, not dreams. Alex Scott showed last night what can be achieved when managed correctly, being taken out of the spotlight at the right time and thrown back in again a few weeks later after learning a few lessons along the way and perhaps the management of Louis Britton will yield a similar result. Setting him up to fail in a league where he will get chewed up and spat out if he isn't ready definitely won't.

There were plenty of joyful forest fans taking the piss on Ashton road after the game one of them decided to front up and say "come on then" when he was told where to go (so was obviously like minded?) and got chased around a bit. From what I've seen this season it's pretty normal now for away teams to take the piss on Ashton road. Bournemouth fans were doing it Saturday, Blackpool at the beginning of the season threw a few cans at themselves by accident while trying to target city fans, Preston were gobby apparently (didn't see that one), even Fulham gobbed off a bit but quickly walked away. I find it interesting because none of that wouldn't have happened pre COVID, not sure what's happened.

Would’ve kept him on. Appreciate the stretching of the game / better pressing (allegedly) shouts but the guys can finish. Has a history of it. Should’ve left him on. Unless he had a niggle of course.

I've no doubts. We're in a perfectly acceptable position imo. Where most expected we'd be. We have to accept 2 seasons of mediocrity whilst contracts run out etc. Once he's had time to make the majority of players ones he actually wants we'll be stronger. Our recruitment has been pretty decent so far. 2 experienced shorter term signings plus 3 1st choice who represent a clear improvement on what was here. Another 6 signings like James Tanner and Atkinson with unwanted players leaving will make us much stronger. I think there's a clear idea about what we need which will make recruitment more successful. The immediate problem is psychological re our home form. We clearly deserve to have amassed more than 4 points from our performances but have butchered opportunities..

Things are so complicated with us. We have an Owner whose heart and even more importantly money is clearly in the right place but he just doesn't have a football brain of any kind. He never even used to follow football as a kid and doesn't it ever show at times. We have Grade A facilities, that's on Steve and a totally mismanaged club with a collection of mediocre players to go with it, that's also on Steve unfortunately. The worst thing that ever happened to this football club was the mantra of "clubs in the bag" spouted by Gary Johnson all those years ago because that's all we've collected ever since. Shall we sign quality players on high wages? "**** that, lets get a few more clubs in the bag for the price of one good player". A manager who has been around the block comes in and immediately says he wants a tighter squad, he doesn't want his Golf bag so heavy with ******* clubs that you need a forklift to carry the bastard. The problem is the tighter squad he wants just happened to coincide with Swiss Tony and Lee Johnson having spent more money on players than any other individuals in the club's history and now, financially, we are bollocksed. So we don't have a tighter squad higher on quality, we have one of the same LACK of quality as we've always had. This is the same Swiss Tony that the Owner clearly stated was a great bloke and totally misunderstood by fans..........who got that one right? If Steve Lansdown was a fat cockney who can down a pint of lager in one (no names) he would have been hounded out years ago. I actually think his current policy of "leave it to Nige for the next three years and stay well out of it" will, if we give Pearson the time, be the right strategy. What I do know is that if he interferes again and we end up with a Mike Flynn/Michael Appleton in charge then I might replace season ticket every season since I stopped playing football with pick and choose. Been there too many times before.

surely they were as it's only like minded fans who fight one another

I think any manager at this time who accepted the job would struggle at Bristol City.