Massengo

[grifty]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Rob played centrally in a three last season and looked pretty comfortable.  In pre-season I was surprised when Naismith started as CB3 and Atkinson outside him as LCB3.  It is definitely an option to swap them over.

Back 5 of;

                  Kalas    Atkinson    Naismith

Wilson                                                              Dasilva

Back up with Tanner, Klose, Vyner, Idehen and Pring

[RudiRed]

7 minutes ago, collier said:

What credit does he have in the bank? He has played 2 meaningful games for us. Ok last week he was unlucky with the penalty but he made the tackle. Today he gave the opposition a goal head start. He played some good forward passes today but as a centre half I want him judged on what he does as a defender. He has been a part of a defence that has conceded 5 in 180 mins.

He has come from a team who were in the playoffs and voted as player of the season, you may not see that as credit in the bank, but others will. If he turns to shit then obviously things and mindsets will change.

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Rob played centrally in a three last season and looked pretty comfortable.  In pre-season I was surprised when Naismith started as CB3 and Atkinson outside him as LCB3.  It is definitely an option to swap them over.

I'm surprised he is in thd middle too.

[Silvio Dante]

33 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Thought he was okay first half, some good things, some not so. Second half we pretty much got dominated as a team.

But OTIB being OTIB, has to pick one or two players.

Why isn’t there a Naismith thread for example. Don’t get me wrong I think he’s a good player, but he had a poor game today.

Just to be clear Dave, I’m not scapegoating. What I’m saying is that in practical terms second half we were down to one midfielder who was on a yellow card. In any game, at any level, you lose the CM and you lose the game because it impacts so much of the pitch. He was poor/anonymous second half, and that IMO had the biggest impact on us getting dominated as we did.

FWIW he wasn’t the only poor one, but the impact of how poor he was impacted the collective the most because of where he plays

[bcfc01]

31 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I thought he made some poor decisions today, positionally he got caught too…plus their winner wasn’t a great piece of defending.

But if we judging today’s performance he’s getting one helluva free ride.  He’s barely being mentioned.

He is now.

And rightly so.

 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Just to be clear Dave, I’m not scapegoating. What I’m saying is that in practical terms second half we were down to one midfielder who was on a yellow card. In any game, at any level, you lose the CM and you lose the game because it impacts so much of the pitch. He was poor/anonymous second half, and that IMO had the biggest impact on us getting dominated as we did.

FWIW he wasn’t the only poor one, but the impact of how poor he was impacted the collective the most because of where he plays

I know you’re not, I’m talking generally.  I thought he had some good moments first half, second half it passed him by. He might’ve been knackered, first game and all that?  It just felt to me like as a who team we felt we’d won the game at 2-1 and it would be a canter from that point.  Not easy to get a good appreciation on Robinstv either.

[Flagon]

38 minutes ago, Fuber said:

One of those midfielders, similar to Nagy, that in a three I can see how it would work.

Tactic doesn't help him. Square peg round hole etc.

Yeah i agree , we just don’t have the players around him to compliment. But having said that I’m not sure exactly what role he needs to be. He does get round the pitch, so it’s not lack of effort. Probably the wrong effort though. He  rarely comes away with the ball when closing down so not exactly a defensive midfielder. As others have said , when on the ball or trying to wriggle away he quite often does it but then doesn’t release it when he could do so not exactly a creative midfielder either. 
 

[MattWSM]

2 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Seemed like the ball was getting caught under his feet for most of the game. 

There was a moment early in the second half where he didn't know what to do with it, then lost possession. 

Needs to take the opportunity when it presents itself. Without knowing the extent of James' injury, he could have used today as a chance to push for a regular starting place.

Didn't do enough today. 

I thought it got caught under all of them, worst performance I've seen for a long time

[Snufflelufagus]

Not good ent.get rid

[A Horse With No Name]

2 hours ago, Agard Days Night said:

Han-Noah Massen-go away more like. Stealing a living at BCFC.

Wow

[brad blit]

Another performance where like before, I come away still wondering how to get the best out of HNM - obviously a good technical player, but he dosnt tackle like Williams, he dosnt possess the passing/dribbling ability of Scott, and can’t shield the back 4 like James……. So what can he do? 
Maybe in a 433 we can afford to give him more freedom to use his energy effectively as a ‘box to box’ player, but Pearson only appears to have Plan A and I don’t think he’ll be drastically changing formations just because of 2 games 
 

[North of the River]

Quite simple really, the most overrated player at Ashton Gate.The sooner he leaves the better and he can take Vyner with him. Nice lads but not tough or skilled enough to perform at the level required to win games in the championship.

 

[Engvall’s Splinter]

Overrated. If he didn’t have a fancy name and from a well known club there would be more justified stick thrown his way. 

[TV Tom]

Cannot believe the absolute nonsense I’m reading, I really do despair sometimes

[Swede]

He tired second half but not as much as Williams though. 

Naismith, I just thought looked woeful.  Looks good on the ball though. I feel sorry for Atkinson who had a good game.

 

[Simon79]

One of the best players in the first 30 minutes. Did he get a whack just before half-time? Definitely tired in the second half, did he recover from the whack? As for people not rating him, game of opinions I suppose, but he could play a higher standard than most in our team. Seems to get highlighted by a lot on here, yet others don’t seem to get a mention & were fairly anonymous for most of the game. COYR 

[Cardy]

Far from being a ‘French Wonderkid’ I think we are now really seeing why he ended up playing for Bristol City rather than a top French club. I will stick my neck out & say he will never play Premier League.

[Cityboy1954]

8 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

I’m sure this won’t be the only player there’s a thread about, and it’s easy to point (correctly) to Vyner on the second goal and Naismith on the first, but for me, he was our biggest problem today.

I can also appreciate he wasn’t necessarily “set” coming in late, however this far into his time with us he should have a modicum of football intelligence. He doesn’t. If we’re playing from the back then angles to the CMs are huge. Not once in the second half was he in a position to receive and our options narrowed as a result. With Williams on a yellow he needed to be making tackles. He didn’t. When he did have the ball, he ran down blind alleys and didn’t use it.

It got so bad that Scott had to drop in and Massengo behind front two shortly before the sub to give us some kind of a body in there.

Primary school children run around a lot in games. By about year 5 they start understanding positioning a bit better. Han played like someone who was 8 years old and playing where he does, that always disjoints and impacts the team. I can’t fault his effort, but football intelligence is just not there and that - more than anything else - loses you games at this level.

Scott is our main man but last two games he hasnt shined 

[Guest]

Waste of air and hair space, too nice for a midfielder needs off loading asap.

[Alex_BCFC]

What does he actually offer? He runs round like a headless chicken. Doesn’t win ball enough to be a defensive central midfielder. Doesn’t create anything and doesn’t score. I can see why Pearson doesn’t favour him. We really need a new central midfielder.

[Charlie BCFC]

13 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Thought he was okay first half, some good things, some not so. Second half we pretty much got dominated as a team.

But OTIB being OTIB, has to pick one or two players.

Why isn’t there a Naismith thread for example. Don’t get me wrong I think he’s a good player, but he had a poor game today.

Naismith made a poor error for their first, but after that wasn’t that bad. You can see a very good player in there, times his tackles well, great on the ball and clearly got a good delivery on him. Seems like he can play numerous positions though 

[Rob k]

14 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Thought he was okay first half, some good things, some not so. Second half we pretty much got dominated as a team.

But OTIB being OTIB, has to pick one or two players.

Why isn’t there a Naismith thread for example. Don’t get me wrong I think he’s a good player, but he had a poor game today.

Spot on - im not a big fan of Massengo but if there is going to be a thread on players then where is the one on Bentley too? 

[Roe]

This thread feels very harsh. 

He got a big whack about 5 seconds into the game, was then arguably the best player for half an hour and then faded along with almost everyone else in a red shirt before getting another knock. 

[bearded_red]

Runs around aimlessly when we don’t have the ball, is basically a dog chasing a balloon when we do have the ball.

So, so overrated.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Charlie BCFC said:

Naismith made a poor error for their first, but after that wasn’t that bad. You can see a very good player in there, times his tackles well, great on the ball and clearly got a good delivery on him. Seems like he can play numerous positions though 

Totally, I’ve liked Naismith for a good while now.  He’s what we need, but he cost us the opening goal yesterday and made other mistakes too.

Last week he played very well.

I’m certainly not changing my long-held view of him over one game.  But on a one game evaluation (yesterday) he was poor overall.  It takes more than one game to form an opinion, and more than one poor game to change it too.

[pillred]

16 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

Seemed like the ball was getting caught under his feet for most of the game. 

There was a moment early in the second half where he didn't know what to do with it, then lost possession. 

Needs to take the opportunity when it presents itself. Without knowing the extent of James' injury, he could have used today as a chance to push for a regular starting place.

Didn't do enough today. 

Flatters to decieve would be the phrase I would use to describe him.

[pillred]

13 hours ago, brad blit said:

Another performance where like before, I come away still wondering how to get the best out of HNM - obviously a good technical player, but he dosnt tackle like Williams, he dosnt possess the passing/dribbling ability of Scott, and can’t shield the back 4 like James……. So what can he do? 
Maybe in a 433 we can afford to give him more freedom to use his energy effectively as a ‘box to box’ player, but Pearson only appears to have Plan A and I don’t think he’ll be drastically changing formations just because of 2 games 
 

Did you write the what have the Romans ever done for us sketch?

[SecretSam]

As others have said, I think he would flourish in a better team, one that isn't struggling for shape and confidence. There's a player in there, for sure.

I seem to recall lots also didn't rate Hartley, back in the day...

[Bristol Oil Services]

56 minutes ago, bearded_red said:

Runs around aimlessly when we don’t have the ball, is basically a dog chasing a balloon when we do have the ball.

So, so overrated.

Lovely use of metaphor, thank you.

[Silvio Dante]

2 hours ago, Rob k said:

Spot on - im not a big fan of Massengo but if there is going to be a thread on players then where is the one on Bentley too? 

There isn’t one because he couldn’t do anything about the goals (if I’m being hyper critical on the first it’s close to him  but was taken very early) and made two world class saves.

 

13 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

As others have said, I think he would flourish in a better team, one that isn't struggling for shape and confidence. There's a player in there, for sure.

I seem to recall lots also didn't rate Hartley, back in the day...

Really weird comparison. Totally different types of players, and Hartley was proven, and positionally excellent. Massengo positionally is all over the shop (or was yesterday) and it’s not the first time. If he doesn’t improve on that, notwithstanding any ability, he’ll struggle moving forwards as he won’t have the benefit of “learning the game”.

For me the key here is that Scott had to go back into CM. Not as an extra body, but to swap with HNM. I know Nige when asked said “he did alright” but when you’re physically pulling him out of where he’s supposed to be playing (which is his natural position) then there’s no other conclusion that he was playing badly. And again, if a CM is not presenting angles or making a position to recieve the ball, you cannot relieve pressure or play the ball out.

[Gillies Downs Leeds]

3 hours ago, bearded_red said:

Runs around aimlessly when we don’t have the ball, is basically a dog chasing a balloon when we do have the ball.

So, so overrated.

I have always said that he reminds me of someone that has just started playing. Like an under 6's game he always wants to be where the ball is and goes chasing it. Makes easy passing lines for the opposition as he is out of position. I have seen no improvement in him and have no idea what type of player he is meant to be.