The Journalist

15 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I posted this two months ago:

He’ll be in League One this time next year without a significant mentality shift IMO.

Which, by the way, would be a huge, huge waste of natural ability.

Seems we might be getting there?

Remember when one of our fans actually thought the manager who took us closer to the top flight than any other man in the past 40 years did just as good a job as the manager currently boasting one of the worst records of any Bristol City manager in the past 40 years?

Tins doesn’t deserve the inevitable abuse the role would bring.

My all-time favourite player and an absolute Bristol City legend still doing great things for the club. I’d rather it stay that way.

I don't get the obsession with even playing two up top, let alone three.

There's a good argument for going five across midfield and properly trying to get hold of the middle third of the pitch, something we've not done enough.

Something like...

Bentley

Tanner - Kalas - Atkinson - Dasilva

Scott - Massengo - James - Bakinson - Pring

Weimann/Wells

You're obviously asking Scott to come inside off the right and get involved in the play, and you possibly play Bakinson slightly more advanced given he's one of/if not our best forward-passing midfielders.

Not sure how popular it would be though given how defensive that looks. Need to get more control of the ball, though, IMO.

20 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Did this at Reading away and both of them did play well. 

I'm at a complete loss why we haven't really done this more often. Presumably niggles/issues in the background we don't know about?

Just now, woodsyred said:

A game very low on quality

Yep. Still absolutely winnable from here though.

1 minute ago, Red white and red said:

Maybe to string 2 or 3 passes together and a bit of movement? Not much. 

Which is what we’ve done a few times, just lacking a bit of end product.

We’re an average-to-poor Championship team playing another average-to-poor Championship team. The game is panning out that way.

I think we’ve been alright since the goal. Don’t know what more people seriously expect.

On 27/10/2021 at 09:16, GrahamC said:

Good post, also stepped in after Coppell walked out unexpectedly & stabilised the club.

I also liked that he knew that he needed to go completely outside the club for his assistant.

Not saying he was ever going to be the long term answer but also think unlike McInnes & LJ, he was sacked as soon as he had his first bad run of results.

Got a lot of time for him.

His last game in charge - a 5-0 loss at Blackpool - was one of only two Bristol City games I've ever watched that I was absolutely convinced the players threw the towel in collectively. They 100% sacked it in.

The last 20 minutes of that game was an absolute disgrace and the players made sure the manager was sacked there and then. Winds me up to think about it now even, because Keith's a genuinely good man and didn't deserve that.

Remember when some people didn’t think Massengo was any good?

On 06/10/2021 at 23:06, David Brent said:

Almost as frightening as Gary Johnson’s office

Apparently it’s OK as long as you pretend to be someone else.

Delighted for Chris Martin.

He’s no world beater but also clearly didn’t deserve the pelters received this week.

One ******** even calling him lazy. Ridiculous.

2 minutes ago, CliftonCliff said:The BBC website always shows the teams in a certain formation, whether it be 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or whatever. I often wonder who decides that and where they get their information from, if indeed they have any. Or is it pure guesswork by some anonymous, minor sports  journo? More interested to hear what a better informed BBC RB commentary team make it out to be.)

It’s generated automatically via Opta. All the match information (stats, scores, line-ups etc) comes from them.

35 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Martin works as hard as he can. He just isn't performing to the levels he was earlier in the season.

Wouldn't disagree at all. He was the best player on the pitch at Cardiff.

The international break will do him good, but more generally I do wish we weren't so reluctant to hook him after an hour occasionally.

I guess that's the lack of forward options for you...

22 hours ago, Bazooka Joe said:

We'd have a  lot more pace and goals if we simply stuck Atyeo's statue on the pitch in place of Martin or Diedhiou.

They are two of the laziest/disinterested/slow strikers we have ever had.

Glad we got rid of one of them. It's now time to get rid of the other.

 

 

 

To call Martin lazy/disinterested is incredibly harsh. Slow/immobile? By all means.

The guy, at nearly 33, needs a rest instead of us running him into the ground for the second season running.

10 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Good balanced response Joe.

My view was that he didn’t do enough on or off the ball for the team (others didn’t too), but I was annoyed at some of the simple passes that were short, didn’t find their target etc.

Even the pass to Palmer running forward into space caused him to check and then Palmer has his options closed down and gives it away.

His off the ball / ball-watching was unacceptable today, too often players ran off him.

Will be surprised if he starts Saturday.

Having slept on it, this is what’s really irking me with Tyreeq.

The bits he keeps falling short on - concentration, awareness, defensive effort - are all absolutely controllable.

Players giving 100% but having a bad game/dip in form I can live with, but the above I just really struggle to tolerate - especially when, as a central player, those things are absolutely his job.

He’ll be in League One this time next year without a significant mentality shift IMO.

Which, by the way, would be a huge, huge waste of natural ability.

I thought we were OK from the start of the second half until they scored. Completely lost our way after the goal, though, and played into their hands from that point onwards.

I think we’ve won/drawn with the same level of performance so far this season.

30 minutes ago, Cardy said:

Ohhhhhhh the dooby dooby do!! That was an absolute classic in the 80’s & 90’s.

The fact that so many of our decent players  don’t even have a song is really poor though. The next generation of the East End really need to up their game from the constant Jay Dasilva & HNM efforts.

Im thinking Kalas, Martin & James in particular should have recognisable chants by now.

Would love to hear the Baker song more often aswell.

I think I heard ‘Oh Robert Atkinson’ on Saturday which has potential though to be fair. 

C’mon you Reds.

During my home and away days during the early to mid 2000s, EVERY first-teamer had their own song and when the players ran out pre-match you’d go through the entire XI and get a clap.

Mad that now our record signing doesn’t even have a song after three years with us!

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Exactly….we have a system that makes us competitive.  In 5 of 7 games we’ve been exactly that, if not better in some cases.  Boro we were poor bar 20 minutes second half.  Tonight we allowed Luton to have 3 or 4 spells where they created decent chances at will.  We were still able to take a point.  We actually looked pretty solid in spells, dealt with Luton’s changes second half, and almost got an undeserved 3 points. Matt Withers on twitter said perversely it was a point earned, which it was because Luton were the better side.  I just don’t think we were as bad as many people made out tonight.

Fans expectations of dominating games, hammering the likes of Luton, Preston, Millwall, Blackburn, etc is cloud cuckoo land.  We are very much a new team, staring from a low base, and we’ve picked up 9 points from 7 games.

 

As I said in another reply, fans would be broadly happy with 12th but can’t accept the inconsistency that lands you in mid-table (ie losing as often as you win!).

Ultimately, the bigger picture here is that at the moment it’s all about slowly building towards something, creating a better culture and togetherness, putting in an infrastructure on and off the pitch, building foundations to push on.

And all of the above has to be bigger than just a desperation to win any individual game. It has to be.

It was that very desperation that caused Lee’s downfall - he stopped trusting his own beliefs, forgot the bigger picture and, though he talked a good game about identity, in practice sacked it off for short-term success.

To give an example now - I don’t think for a second playing four centre-backs  at home to Luton would be Nigel’s preference. No way. And I suspect he’s knowingly not picked his “best” team there. But that back four has also just kept a clean sheet off the back of a good display at Cardiff - what message does that send to an entire group if you’re going to just tear it up?

Because this isn’t about beating Luton at home - this is about putting us in a position to get promoted in 1/2/3 years.

I do understand fans being frustrated with that, when you’re forking out for tickets and travelling miles. It’s not cheap and I forgive anyone for wanting it to happen for us right now. But personally I’m glad the club are no longer thinking like that - because IMO that’s what almost ultimately got us relegated.

Sorry, got a bit waffly, but hopefully you understand my point.

9 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

What happened to all the conversations on these boards in pre-season about the fact the best we could realistically hope for this season was painfully slow progress? Why does everyone tip us to struggle and then shit the bed when we draw at home to a resilient side? 

Not scrolled any further so apologies if this clashes with other replies but this is exactly it.

My impression is the vast majority of fans “say” they would be happy with mid-table - given the context of last season and the state of the squad - but are unable to accept the process of achieving such a finish.

Ultimately, coming 12th means losing roughly as many as you win and drawing a fair few too. Sometimes you’ll play well (Swansea home, Cardiff away) and sometimes you won’t (Boro away, Luton home). You’ll have good runs and bad runs. Etc etc.

But I think anyone who can’t see overall we’re on the road to recovery (and maybe those who can’t don’t truly realise what a mess we were in in terms of both the squad and our FFP position to fix it) is short sighted and probably brought hang ups from last season into this.

I'd definitely agree with those who've said Semenyo would benefit from playing alongside Martin or Wells more than Diedhiou.

Incidentally, I actually thought on Saturday we'd have been more dangerous as a team across the whole game if Martin had played the first 60 minutes and was replaced by Diedhiou for the final 30 than it was the other way around.

2 hours ago, Dynamite Red said:

Agreed, some posters have been made to look rather foolish with their statements in hindsight.

And probably less so the statements themselves but the sheer arrogance with which they were made.

We all have 20/20 vision when looking with hindsight, but it does serve as a good warning to think twice before posting on a public forum.

As I said on page four, the number of self-appointed experts at that point was pretty staggering!

11 minutes ago, davidoldfart said:

Drive a coach and horses through the rule book ,spend like its gone out of fashion then get a let off by the EFL ..

It is because big billy bollocks (Wayne Rooney’s Derby ) is a bigger club than Wednesday so we have to be lenient .

Wonder if S/Weds will start legal action against the EFL and seek to have their points rescinded.

 

Just to be clear, it's not the EFL who've let them off. I suspect the EFL will appeal the decision.