The Official Bristol City v West Bromwich Albion Match Day Thread.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

Bobby Reid has had his first two full games in months within 72 hours, he has played the league leaders and a Premiership side. He looked tired tonight understandably but I wouldn't write him off. If Burns had put the chance he created away, we might be having a different discussion.

As somebody else said he is lightweight, he was out muscled all game, the difference between him and Burns 12 months on is Burns has bulked up and can hold his own in physical challenges but Reid was eased off of the ball all night.

i'm not writing him off at all at the moment, but Wes's dad eluded to his sons bulking out as a lot of gym work and it shows he is looking much stronger than last season, Reid IMO needs to be doing the same.

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

As somebody else said he is lightweight, he was out muscled all game, the difference between him and Burns 12 months on is Burns has bulked up and can hold his own in physical challenges but Reid was eased off of the ball all night.

i'm not writing him off at all at the moment, but Wes's dad eluded to his sons bulking out as a lot of gym work and it shows he is looking much stronger than last season, Reid IMO needs to be doing the same.

Perhaps, but attempting to bulk up hasn't done Freeman any favours in my opinion, he doesn't appear anywhere near as balanced as before. Not all players are built to be muscle men, I am sure it's something the coaching staff are aware of, but hopefully they will try to hit a sensible balance.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

26 minutes ago, Londoner said:

A good effort but must remember poor league position dictates changes.

Bobby Reid too lightweight at this level, Burns shows glimpses but so so raw and could do with a loan move out...not knocking him at all but just feel some experience st league 1 would be beneficial for him 

good to see wagstaff get a run out but clearly no long term future here.

The only draw back of this new formation is that we create little, but certainly seems more stable at the back....and as my old colleague told me (studied football statistics for his dissertation)....it's not goals scored that keeps you in divisions, it's goals conceded (or lack of) that makes all the difference

Agree with your assessment, apart from Burns I think he needs to be with us for now, when he gets a chance to use his pace combined with his new found strength, he can be a handful.

 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

4 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Perhaps, but attempting to bulk up hasn't done Freeman any favours in my opinion, he doesn't appear anywhere near as balanced as before. Not all players are built to be muscle men, I am sure it's something the coaching staff are aware of, but hopefully they will try to hit a sensible balance.

I agree Freeman has been a big disappointment all season, he looks to me to be devoid of any confidence whatsoever, but going back to Reid we can't have a midfielder being bullied like that all game, that's for sure.

 

Edited January 19, 2016 by Esmond Million's Bung

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

I agree Freeman has been a big disappointment all season, he looks to me to be devoid of any confidence whatsoever, but going back to Reid we can't have a midfielder being bullied like that all game.

 

Agreed but WBA had some big players in there (seems to have been a club trait over the years) and I didn't think Bobby was out muscled on Saturday. I think that tiredness may have played a part tonight, but many on here have decided he will never be good enough  based on this game so I find myself in the minority once again.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

1 minute ago, Port Said Red said:

Agreed but WBA had some big players in there (seems to have been a club trait over the years) and I didn't think Bobby was out muscled on Saturday. I think that tiredness may have played a part tonight, but many on here have decided he will never be good enough  based on this game so I find myself in the minority once again.

Well only time will tell of course, from what I saw he was eased off of the ball far too easily all night, I am not doubting his ability and he is not frightened to put his foot in, but virtually every time he went in he just bounced off, I don't think it's tiredness but as I say time will tell, I suspect he is going to be bit part for the rest of the season with Gladwin to come in and Smith to come back and hopefully a Freeman that is more recognisable to the player he was last season.

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

Well only time will tell of course, from what I saw he was eased off of the ball far too easily all night, I am not doubting his ability and he is not frightened to put his foot in, but virtually every time he went in he just bounced off, I don't think it's tiredness but as I say time will tell, I suspect he is going to be bit part for the rest of the season with Gladwin to come in and Smith to come back and hopefully a Freeman that is more recognisable to the player he was last season.

I would love that, my daughter wasn't able to come last season but is a season ticket holder now and keeps asking me why Freeman gets in the team!

[nickolas]

Not sure if mentioned but why were we in red shorts?!

did WBA play the PL big bullies and 'forget' their change of shorts forcing us into red ( which i prefer anyway ). 

 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

2 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

I would love that, my daughter wasn't able to come last season but is a season ticket holder now and keeps asking me why Freeman gets in the team!

I see that Savage came for criticism over some of his remarks, but one thing he said was bang on, on the rare occasions we managed to work the ball wide, our wide players needed too many extra touches and the moment was lost, the one time Burns got an early cross in during the 2nd half Wilbraham got on the end of it albeit being wrestled all the way.

 

[havanatopia]

4 hours ago, CotswoldRed said:

Bolton into the next round. More fixtures to tire them out. Lovely jubbly. 

In all Carey fairness we should be more concerned about teams above us.

4 hours ago, cityexile said:

Maybe as importantly for us, MK, who hopefully will become distracted by playing Chelsea.

Much more so than Bolton.

[WTFiGO!?!]

5 hours ago, Ivorguy said:

How did Max do?

To be honest, he didn't have a great deal on his plate.

His kicking was a tad on the dodgy side and he didn't have much chance with the goal but the basics were covered competently.

No one would've known this was only his second professional appearance. 

[WTFiGO!?!]

56 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

I am bemused by comments on here, City lose 1 nil to an established Prem side, with a 12M centre forward scoring the goal. 4 days after City work their selves silly to beat league leaders Boro. Are people so completely out of touch with the real world ? Talk of players not being up to this level ? What Prem level ? We are 3rd from bottom of the Championship, not in the Prem. Players that are tired because we have a squad severely limited in options. I have been the first to say this season took a very early wrong turn in tactics and recruitment. But to read the comments here, anyone would think we had just spent 50M on the squad and should be competing perfectly with a Prem team. People want youth, then are surprised they are not match fit or street wise yet. Burns started his second game for the club, O'leary his starting debut. Madness. 

Now back to our relegation battle.

Well said.  We conducted ourselves as well as could be sensibly expected.  That was basically but not poorly.  

[Aizoon]

3 hours ago, billywedlock said:

I am bemused by comments on here, City lose 1 nil to an established Prem side, with a 12M centre forward scoring the goal. 4 days after City work their selves silly to beat league leaders Boro. Are people so completely out of touch with the real world ? Talk of players not being up to this level ? What Prem level ? We are 3rd from bottom of the Championship, not in the Prem. Players that are tired because we have a squad severely limited in options. I have been the first to say this season took a very early wrong turn in tactics and recruitment. But to read the comments here, anyone would think we had just spent 50M on the squad and should be competing perfectly with a Prem team. People want youth, then are surprised they are not match fit or street wise yet. Burns started his second game for the club, O'leary his starting debut. Madness. 

Now back to our relegation battle.

Quite honestly, some of our fans would be happier supporting Arsenal or Chelsea  

OK, maybe not Chelsea  

[BigTone]

11 hours ago, finbarr_in_z said:

I'm not big on sylables either..........

I don't even have a drum kit

[Gert Mare]

If they can change from tika taka at the back for 20 minutes followed by a useless long ball to no-one and build from the back to midfield and look for the runners inside the channels instead then we might be able to have a shot and maybe score a goal? Possession stats are meaningless. I will give Ayling his due when he came on he was looking for the short pass and probing the WBA defence. This was when we decided to wake up after we had spent 75 minutes trying to strangle the life out of the game by sideways sideways backwards lump!

[CotswoldRed]

Lots of City tapping the ball about from deep.  West Brom were happy for us to have the ball in defence quite often, but our defenders were too scared to move forward.  Flint often had acres of space in front of him, unchallenged he would look to lump it up there.

With West Brom very deep as the game went on we ran out of ideas and insisted on going down the right hand side.  Waiting for us were 4/5/6 organised West Brom players happy to defend an every decreasing amount of space.

An inability to switch the play or use the left made their life very easy indeed.

WB did a job well, but we played into their hands.  Naivety at times.

Edited January 20, 2016 by CotswoldRed

[NOTBLUE]

4 minutes ago, CotswoldRed said:

Lots of City tapping the ball about from deep.  West Brom were happy for us to have the ball in defence quite often, but our defenders were too scared to move forward.  Flint often had acres of space in front of him, unchallenged he would look to lump it up there.

With West Brom very deep as the game went on we ran out of ideas and insisted on going down the right hand side.  Waiting for us were 4/5/6 organised West Brom players happy to defend an every decreasing amount of space.

An inability to switch the play or use the left made their life very easy indeed.

WB did a job well, but we played into their hands.  Naivety at times.

As you have previously said they are good at closing down and filling in all the gaps you want to play in,a typical Pulis team,spoilers,good at stopping the opposition playing without having a lot to offer themselves.

 

[WhistleHappy]

Oh well, that's that then for the cup this year..

Personally suffering a prolonged bout of cold/flu/deathbed situation 14 days and counting bar steward keeps mutating different bloody symptoms everyday... So last night ended up sleeping pretty much through the whole match, tried listening via radio while giving the old eyeballs 'a rest'.

Had requested 'streaming' info, couple of people kindly posted suggestions so thanks! ...truth is though I didn't get round to giving it a try, the only streaming I undertook was through aching eyes and sore nose which consumed aged loads of Andrex..before dropping off missing most of everthing and awaking to Yeovils pen shootout. Nevermind just wanted to thank peeps for taking time to post 'streaming' links... I never seem to have much luck with them via my tablet tbh anyway though. 

Gamewise, doesnt sound like a classic but at least a 0-1 scoreline against Prem opposition is nothing to be embarassed about, seems we held our own over 180 odd mins.

Onwards and upwards fingers crossed our league form can continue in similar vain to our Boro performance... Come On You Reds .. You've shown you can do it, go get them points from the Yorkshire mob - watch out Leeds the Robins are about to take off!