Nibor

Get in.  Can we start playing now?

A good first half performance with no real cutting edge.  Wilbraham didn't have the best of times in the first 45 and Agard would have been more helpful to Kodjia.

QPR woke up at half time and Phillips was a real danger, and we were weaker.  Their goal was undeserved but exemplifies the clinical nature of games in this division, something we have to emulate.

We took a while to get going but when we finally made a substitution started to get on top again and the team goal was great.  Good to see Freeman starting to return to form (long way off his best still but improved).  Kodjia and Smith stood out for me for good reasons and Pack had a horrible game.

The ref was at least consistent in never giving even the most blatant of fouls and it probably made the game more watchable.  The time wasting was annoying as was persisting for too long in the second half without making changes (nothing new there though).

I was very surprised to hear that SL said in an interview there's nothing planned yet for January, that's a travesty.  We need a quality central midfielder, a striker and a keeper walking in the door on Jan 1st as far as I'm concerned.

Good point in the end but we need to get more than that on average to stay up.

If that's a 532 I'm not optimistic. 

Great result - pleased we managed to hold out as we always have trouble with that.  It sounded like Boro had a whole lot of possession without creating many clear cut chances, which I guess is an indicator of a resilient away performance.  More points on the board  Well done City.

They weren't shit. They were very very defensive. And it nearly worked.

I disagree, they were shit.  The only time they had the ball was when we gave it to them and they lost it pretty quickly every time.  If we'd played like that I'd have been fuming.  It was only defensive due to ineptitude.

Leeds were shit.  Absolutely shit.  We had to make two mistakes in a row to give them a four on one and they still needed a dive and a penalty to turn it into a goal.  They scored their only other chance whilst we were down to ten men.  Both were our own naivete more than anything Leeds actually did.  

Getting two goals at the end of the game was psychologically nice especially given the obnoxious opposition but in truth we created enough to get three points handily and on another night would have.  Kodjia is threatening and when he finds his feet will score at a good rate, Robinson looked effective and Bryan again delivered a lot of quality from the left.  

Defensively we need to wise up and realise that last year we could go adventuring up the pitch safe in the knowledge that most mistakes weren't capitalised on - at this level we can't.  Once we do that, and with a few key signings (two midfielders, two centre halves) we'll be fairly competitive I think.

It was all looking a bit anti climactic at 2-2, but after that everything we did came up gold.  I thought Walsall were decent enough going forward but terrible at defending set plays and when the result was no longer in doubt they gave up and we didn't.  A nice way to sign off from league one and a very enjoyable day - cider time now.

Unfortunately,the unfortunate Karleigh has not scored this season.

 

Unfortunate, because he was wonderful last season, apparently was wonderful on tour (Botswana) but suffered a horrendous injury and has not (hardly) been heard of since.

 

I understand that SC is not sentimental (witness MS's last game), but is there any chance of KO getting a game once we have been confirmed as Champions - home against Swindon?

Well, that's true - but I think qualifying it with "who have started" is reasonable.  In any case it's remarkable how every part of the team has chipped in with goals.

What a great run of form we're on - fantastic.  Well done Cotterill and all the players.

Interestingly Saville's goal means we are back to the only players not having scored this season being the goalkeepers.

Great result, well done all round.

An excellent performance all round, well done everyone at BCFC.  Great to see JET back in form and going past defenders like they're not there, I thought Freeman was exceptional as well.  Cider o'clock.

Great result, well done City!

My thoughts:  In short, good result, average performance.

Bringing on Burns and switching to 442 was shooting ourselves in the foot and our dominance only re-emerged when we switched back late on.  Burns was awful until the goal - I think we need to play him either on the right of a front three or in a front two.  Down the left he never wants to beat his man outside and left of a 442 he looked lost defensively.  But what a goal!  This lad needs to play because the things he does wrong only experience will fix and he does have talent.

Freeman was excellent as was Elliott but in both cases more decisiveness around the 18 yard box was needed, shoot ffs!  Bryan had a good game too, nice touch and provides good service..

Wilbraham and Agard worked hard without really threatening to score.  Ayling playing in the middle of the midfield for the mid part of the game did ok but needs more awareness to deputise for Smith there as a regular thing.  Little looked a bit off the pace, Flint was very solid again and Williams did fine - nice to see him get a goal.  Fielding was unremarkable but I'd still like to see him kick at the sidelines less often, it goes out too much.

I would like to see us either not bother bringing JET on or bring him on with 20+ minutes to go.  It is utterly pointless bringing him on at 89 minutes.  I was bemused by us not replacing the injured Smith with Pack as a like for like, the tactical switch was not required.

Chesterfield were a decent side ability wise who were a bunch of niggling cheating scumbags aided and abetted by the worst set of officials I've seen for a few years.  I hope they go down.

Very good result today.  A committed performance that lacked composure but important points against strong opposition.  I thought Fielding should have hung onto the ball for the first goal we conceded and the main question for the second was why the hell we were playing it backwards at that point anyway?  In any case, the results so far this season have been excellent - well done to the manager and the team and long may it continue.

S****horpe are terrible. We have no penetration. We don't need to have only three attacking players at home against sides like this.

Did you notice how many options he had at any one point? He over hit 4 passes maximum out of I would guess to be well over 50.

The problem is the movement and it always has been

Movement is definitely a problem but you don't tend to get much when you slow down play to whack a 50 yard ball every time you get possession - we seemed to be set up for a hopeful long ball.  I disagree with your count, it was many more than that.

And there it is. Jeez.

Seeing great passes isn't useful, making them is.  He was great when he came on on Saturday, and I'd love it if he played like that more often getting stuck in and distributing effectively but he was terrible tonight.  Flint completed more forward passes and contributed more to attacking play. 

all very well saying cotts should make changes sooner but look at it another way,we were not conceding or likely to either so who do you take off earlier. his el abd for pack.shows how concerned he was about us going behind,

if we had gone 1 down,i dont think we could have got back into it very easily,orient sounded quite disciplined at breaking us down.

he couldnt throw Jet on earlier,there just wasnt space for a spare player.

 

the only change i thought possible was maybe waggy for little but thats why id never make it as a manager.

Pack was awful, overhit every pass more than 10 yards in length.  He could have come off for Freeman at half time or on 60 minutes and one of Elliott or Smith took the "sit in front of the three man defence and watch the ball sail over your head" role.  Bryan was ripe for subbing too, he wasn't producing anything at all - didn't beat his man once.

Wilbraham for JET would have made sense, since all we were doing from 10 minutes in until about 80 minutes in was punting at him.  Not his fault, but that really was awful to watch and completely ineffective.

I think the key message was clear from Cotterill's interview - "we knew we had to keep a clean sheet".  Why?  We were at home against Orient, we won our last two games without a clean sheet.  Why set us up to avoid defeat rather than win?

Yes it was a committed and fairly organised performance but there was nothing going forward, no creativity, no movement, just whack it and hope for a flick on.  We can bemoan the corner which looked like it should have stood but a fluke like that was our only hope of a goal the way we set up and played.  I want to see a City side playing good attacking football at home at least.

We're going to have to be a lot more inventive this half than just lumping it at Wilbraham.

It's called irony chaps, it's often used to emphasise a point.

I guess if your best argument against good law is that in some dystopian fantasy future there might be bad law that'll do for me.

The important thing is that we make progress.

Coming from someone who tells us that we should '' ignore imaginary lines drawn on a map'' this advice is laughable.

So now you're misquoting me and ducking the point completely?

I said worrying about which side of imaginary lines on a map laws were made was stupid and it was more important that they were good.

You said mumble mumble russian war across europe conscription bullshit mumble.

Do you have an opinion on the specific article I linked yet?  

In your mind.

You don't speak for everyone - and if you look at the polls, you are speaking for less and less each week.

 

Each to their own, but shouting "Little Englander", as so many of you Pro-EU chaps do is very, very old.

 

As I have said before - the mere fact that 8 pages, and many threads involve UKIP would seem to show the depth of fear felt by MP's and the people of England who directly, or indirectly have their porky-snouts in the EU trough - show UKIP is doing something right, and the 'establishment' are running scared.

 

It speaks volumes that the most ardent critics of UKIP on here are the ones that seem to have a vested interest in the EU monster.

You said absolutely nothing in that post - learning from Farage I see.

I'm neither pro nor anti the EU.  I'm anti stupidity.

Worrying about which side of an imaginary line the law over which you have no control in either case got made, instead of how good a law it is, is idiocy of the highest order.

I pointed out a good, positive law being made by the EU.  I'd suggest there's **** all chance of the UK government having done that since they'd have sided with business and wanted leverage to increase surveillance.

You can stick to the rhetoric and fictitious hyperbole, I'll look at the actual results and act accordingly. 

'Sandy vaginas'...I had to look that one up. I have to say that I disagree completely and fundamentally with your post.

 

Just to give a hypothetical example. Imagine that the current crisis in the Ukraine blows over but the pro-Russia group in the east keeps up the pressure to such an extent that in ten years time Russia decides to act. By this time the embryonic EU army is much bigger and an EU law is passed ordering EU-wide national conscription to fight the Russian peril (who knows which unelected totalitarian monster might be heading up the EU by this time). Now there are some who would consider this to be 'good law', you might be amongst them. There might be others like myself who owe no allegiance to the EU flag who might think this to be thoroughly 'bad law'. Good and bad in this instance is largely a matter of opinion. Of course if we were a self-governing democracy then 'bad law' can easily be overturned by the next elected government if the electorate so wishes. I simply cannot understand why so many people are prepared to see the ability to make our own law handed over to a foreign power.

It's not a hypothetical example though, it's an impossible one.  

You have no more control over law made in the UK than you do over law made in the EU so the quality of that law is far more important than the illusion of control.

All this guff about allegiance to lines on a map and hyperbole is just typical little Englander nonsense.  

Be practical, concern yourself with reality not airy fairy abstracts that don't exist and imaginary situations that can't come to pass.

I think we should watch and wait for the law of unintended consequences to come into effect.

If there are any, and I doubt it, they will be far better than giving telcos who pretty much have a monopoly a means of making you pay them for everything twice without being able to blame them for it.

Let's face it, it doesn't matter who makes the law when it's good law.  Nor does it matter who makes the law when it's bad law. 

I've seen lots of sandy vaginas from people who seem to think it's important that it's our bunch of useless cretins who make laws - it isn't.  It's just important that we get good laws.