Ian M

59 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I think we've conceded 15 in that time, perhaps 16 but while since I've totalled that bit up in depth.

Remember this is League only, Cup figures may vary it a bit...we got one at Millwall in 2021 for a start.

During the 1 in 90 spell, the only cup games were a 1-0 loss against Fulham and this year’s League Cup games.

2 hours ago, GlastonburyRed said:

Looks like he's turning up at the local refuse centre for his first day at work, nice plumbing mind you!!!

Jesus! They’re coming for us

What is it? 1 pen in 91 games now?

13 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Everton being linked now..

All I see is Fulham giving up and Everton signing Gueye and Garner

What I want to see in this thread is confirmation that Brereton-Diaz is bought by someone. Please and Thank You.

16 minutes ago, BCFC11 said:

What on earth gives you that idea? From the outside looking in he's been nothing but professional and gives his all whenever he plays. Nige has even said (last season) when Wells wasn't in the side how great he is around the place, ie helping the young ones, getting his head down working hard and waiting for his chance.

Plus listen to his interview last night, he's very aware the he "owes this club some performances". I wouldn't be averse to seeing him receive a contract extention.

2 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

Amen. 25mil and add ons and we’ll listen. The 10 supposedly offered by Bournemouth borders on derisory.

Better than the £5m Forest offered.

Suitors need to carry on with doubling the previous offer and we might get somewhere.

3 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Im still not sold on James tbh, he doesn't do it for me at all. He's had odd good games but is increasingly losing influence, part Naismith with set peices, and part not always quick enough. I'm not sure what he brings and get that I may be missing 'it'. 

Williams blows hot and cold when he does play.  More consistency would be phenomenal. 

Massengo and Scott are my preferred pairing, but understand why, especially re Massengo contract situation continues to rumble on, that it doesn't float everyone's boat. 

Looking forward to Benarous and Kadji and Owers development tbh. 

King decent emergency back up. 

I think James' performances are a bit deceptive. He doesn't tend to do anything flashy so doesn't catch the eye so much but I tried to watch him a bit closer last night and he was often either in a good position to cut passing lanes or involved in the press that saw us overturning possession. He may not be pacey and chasing people down left, right and centre but I think he makes up for that by almost ghosting into good positions defensively. In possession I think he just keeps us ticking over.

6 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

I think the club are trying to get Bell a loan at a decent level.

If they have arranged one, it makes sense to ratify that deal as late as possible in case we do lose Semenyo today. Bell would then be our 5th choice striker.

Whilst I agree with those who say if he was Vyner he'd be torn to shreds for passes like that, that's because Vyner doesn't bring the amount of positives that Kal does to the team. (And this is said by someone who is very happy with Vyner's contribution to our team this season )

5 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Yeh, the overall improvement is naturally going to be a result of improvements in many areas of the pitch. That's what I was trying to set out, within the defence only, when I say that I don't think it can all be attributed to Naismith.

Pressing is interesting. I don't have the data breakdown for blocks of games, but just looking at our passes per defensive action (PPDA) we see that last season, as a whole over the entire season, it was 13.3, and so far this season it is 12.5, So we are allowing our opponents one pass less before we win possession back. Suggests a slightly more intense, or perhaps better enacted, press.

The other interesting one, and perhaps this is more relevant if we are trying to figure out if our strikers have improved their press, is high turnovers. Last season we had 293 across 46 games - 6.4 per game. In these first seven games alone we've racked up 55 - 7.9 per game. So an improvement there.

Tricky with the pressing stuff as you're comparing 46 games to 7, but the indication is that yes there's been an improvement in the pressing. I agree, that should help alleviate pressure on the defence. High turnovers should result in us attacking them rather than the other way round (saw a fair bit of that last night didn't we).

There was that double press in the second half that was really great viewing. First we pressed and won the ball, unfortunately (just as at Blackpool - which I believe was the reason for the equaliser!) the attempted through ball bounced off the heals of our attacker and we lost possession, only to immediately press again and win the ball back

Two chances for a counter snuffed.

At Blackpool we did win the ball back too but then did our unforced error to gift them the third goal. Had we not got the pass wrong/been unlucky with the ball catching the heals, we aren't even in position for Nais to put that pass to Vyner.

8 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

I swear only city fans can turn a good thing into a negative

It is his second full season as a CB. His first playing in the middle of a 3 as a playmaker. We look so much better in possession now with him. Van Dijk, Dias, Thiago Silva and Sergio Ramos have all made mistakes passing the ball or spending too much time on it. Relax and enjoy us being comfortable in possession. 
 

For a converted winger, I think he is outstanding back there. Only going to get better with more minutes. His pass last night I think was a moment where he thought he could get away with it and did not. Lesson learned and we move on. 
 

We are 7th. We have had 3 straight 2-0 at home. We look a threat not only as a countering side but much better in possession and more of a set piece threat. We have had the lead in every game on top of all that. The positives are everywhere and they have been hard to find the last 3 seasons and yet we are getting threads like this. 

Not just that but I have used the excellent Transfermarkt website and found that Luton only used him as the centre of the 3 for about half his games at CB last year. He was shunted around the team at LB, DCM, LCB & RCB for the other games. 

If he was the sort whose confidence looked affected after a mistake, I might have more of a concern but it clearly isn't and I believe that the more we play him consistently in that central position the better his decision making will become.

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

I think he's well worth the price of the odd individual error.

I've just run some rough numbers comparing the general state of our defence this season to the state it was in over the closing 10 games of last season. I'd normally say that it's a little early to do this but the discussions on this thread got me wondering.

Signs are good. Beneath the headline figure of 3 clean sheets and a GD of +4 we see that shots on target against per game are down from an average of 4.5 over those final 10 games, to 3.3 this season, that's a 27% reduction in the number of times that Bentley is being forced into making a save. That is huge. 

That is reflected in the xG against. There we see a decline of 25%, from an average of 1.6 per game to 1.2 per game so far this season. A significant reduction in the overall likelihood of conceding.

I'm not saying Naismith is the sole reason for this improvement, we've gone from a back 3 of Klose/Atkinson/Cundy in the closing stages of last season to one of Atkinson/Naismith/Vyner at the start of this one, but he's really the only truly new recruit in defence (yes Sykes plays a role but the RWB position as we play it is that of a part-time defender). If he's not the sole reason then it's a fair supposition that he's influential on these improvements.

Combine this with the continuity of good form in attack, and you cans ee that the numbers support our good form so far this season. We aren't fluking games, we aren't relying on fortunate or better-than-expected performances. We're getting what we deserve.

I think a small contributing factor is also the switch to Wells/Conway up front who combined do more effective pressing than Martin/Semenyo did in the final 10 games (this isn't a slant on Antoine who I believe would have pressed as much, he just hasn't been available).

Combine that with us keeping possession better as a whole team and that gives the opponents less ball to shoot with. Plus we've now been using this system for getting on for half a season and players are becoming more an more familiar with their roles within it (and the ability/preferences of their teammates).

Yes

3 hours ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Interestingly, Pearson was rather critical of the way we saw the game out during his post-match interview on Radio Bristol.  Says we needed to show more authority, and acknowledged how errors had put us in trouble on occasions.  
A good three points considering we didn’t play particularly well for periods of the game.

He's always at his pissiest when we win 

....

Despite their position, we are only the second team this season to stop Huddersfield scoring, the other being Burnley.

2 hours ago, GrahamC said:

When he came on he was pretty rusty, miscontrolled the ball twice but after that they were absolutely petrified of him, he has it all, quick, strong, strikes the ball hard with both feet.

If you give him space he runs at you, if you mark him tight, he’ll leave you for dead with his pace & he’s too strong if you try the physical game

Just a top player, who will score a load this season if he stays.

I said in the Summer, if he stays, this will be his Ollie Watkins season. We either go up off the back of that or he joins a top half Prem team as a starter.

The point about "at 30 he's unlikely to improve if he hasn't already", you have to maybe give some weight to the number of positions he has played in his career? Of his 380 senior appearances, 71 have been at CB. I do think there is some credit in those who believe he can improve with experience in the position and relationships with his defensive partners.

That said, we are on our longest unbeaten run under Nigel and have just secured our first run of 3 clean sheets at home since 2015 and the first time we have won 3 in a row at home to nil since 2010. So, the argument that the good outweigh's the bad must have some merit.

1 hour ago, pongo88 said:

Remember David Cotterill?  He had a great game on TV one night and was sold to Wigan (then a Premier League club) the following day. Tonight’s match wasn’t on TV but a lot of people must have seen Somenyo’s goal. Thought I’d just throw in a cheerful comment 

But Antoine would do well to avoid David's example. Now a fully paid up member of the tin foil hat brigade and stories about pyramid schemes 

Humans can't yet move fast enough to stop that shot from Antoine

Just in time

9 minutes ago, The Journalist said:

This has died for me

Working again btw

1 minute ago, Samarkand999 said:

Yep. Calmly as Vyner is playing so far today, I must admit I'm worried about him matching-up with Haaland next year.

We have 14 out-of-contract players in the Summer. I think Nige will be given the budget to bring 2 or 3 in.

2 minutes ago, Samarkand999 said:

Anyone got a stream, for those of us stuck at home with the kids?

BB8 Bristol City vs Huddersfield Town - ALL SPORTS DAILY

I have edited the title to rid us of the word "Update".

I don't want any updates.

I want the Summer Transfer window to meander to a close with no activity of any note.

4 hours ago, Davefevs said:

agree…post mainly for the benefit of others who think we have to sell a “big-un”!

Before the start of the season I estimated we were somewhere in the region of being £2.5m shy of complying.  @Mr Popodopoloushas a slightly wider range, think he’s in the £2-4m ballpark.

We’ve since had a number of “transactions” in and out and I think we’ve brought that deficit down, but not by a huge amount.  We have to comply by the end of this season, although projections submitted in March might prompt action from the EFL.  So we’ve got 6 months to sort things out…we still have January window, hence why no panic.

That deficit might be covered by additional Covid allowances, and therefore we are currently satisfying EFL.  If Stoke and Forest were putting in tens of millions in, surely we can exempt enough?

Hence why I think we are complying, but with a very prudent outlook until the EFL formally confirm the “rules” and also new rules from next season onwards.  We don’t want to do something now that will hamstring us in future.

Its very much guesswork, and I can re-baseline my figs when 21/22’s accounts come out.  They might come out earlier this year by the sounds of it.

 

Dave, in your £2.5m shortfall projection, did you account for increased attendances?

So far we are 2k up on last season and if we could maintain that by challenging higher up the table with attractive,  attacking football, it could be good for £1m extra revenue through ticket sales then add a bit for matchday spend, replica shirts etc. We also went out of both Cup competitions at the first attempt so could bring a little extra through that too. 

A little saving here, a little allowance there and a sprinkling of additional revenue and we could get very close to meeting our target?