Help Needed - What do we do Next?

[054123]

By either mismanagement or foolishness, this is the squad we have. We are unlikely to add to it in any major way due to the financial pickle we have created for ourselves.

Irrespective of who the manager is, what do they have to do with this threadbare squad to create a turnaround?

I’m no expert in the field of modern day tactics, but I can see a team lacking application. Whether there is a plan or not, it clearly isn’t being executed.

Lots of bright people on the forum (plenty of dullards like me), so what could be done to help sort this out?

Its not a Pearson thread as I personally believe the challenges are deeper and any incoming manger will probably struggle.

Positive and constructive posts if possible

[054123]

I’m spoilt for choice on ways to save our season now

In summary nobody knows the answer?

[redsocks]

Get rid of vyner bakinson martin get in smith from rotherham stop getting rid of players like smith and patto then we might stand a chance of staying in this league.

[LondonBristolian]

This season is going to be a struggle and going to be about picking up enough points to stay out of trouble.

I do honestly think that the absence of Williams and Semenyo and the fact that Massengo is perhaps not yet ready to start again is hurting us a great deal and getting those three players back will make a difference. I also wonder if Conway is going to be another option up-front once fit. Those four players plus Baker's return will make us better than we are now.

It's easy to say we should ship out x or y but I think it's a massive misunderstanding of where the market is. I don't think Vyner, Bakinson, O'Dowda, Palmer, Wells or Martin are being sold for cash fees in January and letting them go on a free means we need to replace them for free too, which may not be realistic.

What I would try and do in January - if any budget exists at all- is see if we can get a holding midfielder and maybe a winger with pace, perhaps on loan or a free. It might be we don't get the best players in the world but it might give us a bit of structure and more options in the squad. 

[sludge]

Surely we could get a couple of nasty ba$tards in January without breaking the bank?

[GrahamC]

Let’s start by going back to 4-4-1-1, we were in games then.

We do need a number of those injured players back, especially in midfield.

We need to be prepared to try something different up front, either Wells & Weimann or one of these two with the likes of Semenyo, Bell or Conway.

We need to be far harder to break down & score against.

[Davefevs]

4 hours ago, 054123 said:

I’m no expert in the field of modern day tactics, but I can see a team lacking application. Whether there is a plan or not, it clearly isn’t being executed.

I’ve said for a good while we have players that press without intelligence.  Some make that doubly worse by not actually engaging, whilst someone like Massengo can do it without discipline.  We lack intensity, we need a few more “George Tanner” tackles.  We need to make our opponents feel uncomfortable.  I suspect a lot of sides accept we might have a “few” moments in the match, but currently they know it’ll peter out and they’ll get more opportunity.

Thats the worrying trend, and as @GrahamCsays above we need to stay in games.

[Ska Junkie]

Can anyone honestly say, results withstanding, that they've seen 1, let alone 3, worse sides than us this season? I'm not sure we can TBH.

Through ifollow, I've managed to watch pretty much every game away, and in person at home and I can't think of 1 TBH.

I can take players being poor, what I can't take is the lack of heart / ease in which we give up, it's infuriating! 

[054123]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I’ve said for a good while we have players that press without intelligence.  Some make that doubly worse by not actually engaging, whilst someone like Massengo can do it without discipline.  We lack intensity, we need a few more “George Tanner” tackles.  We need to make our opponents feel uncomfortable.  I suspect a lot of sides accept we might have a “few” moments in the match, but currently they know it’ll peter out and they’ll get more opportunity.

Thats the worrying trend, and as @GrahamCsays above we need to stay in games.

I think what many find disappointing is that of all the candidates post Holden, I thought Nige would bring this.

I know that rebuilds take time, but the things we are talking about are not born, technical gifts as such. You should be able to coach into pros 

Edited November 3, 2021 by 054123

[chinapig]

1 minute ago, 054123 said:

I think what many find disappointing is that of all the candidates post Holden, I thought Nige would bring this.

I know that rebuilds take time, but the things we are talking about are born, technical gifts as such. You should be able to coach into pros 

Yes, what I expected from Nige was motivation and organisation. I am seeing less and less of each over time.

[KegCity]

Go back to 4-4-1-1. Bring in at least one winger in January. Considering we've used it for 5 years or so the squad look clueless in a 3-5-2, just pump the ball up the pitch to watch it come straight back. Our best passages of play yesterday came from playing the ball around with short passes in triangles. Focus on keeping the ball on the floor would be a good start.

[Davefevs]

19 minutes ago, Ska Junkie said:

Can anyone honestly say, results withstanding, that they've seen 1, let alone 3, worse sides than us this season? I'm not sure we can TBH.

Through ifollow, I've managed to watch pretty much every game away, and in person at home and I can't think of 1 TBH.

I can take players being poor, what I can't take is the lack of heart / ease in which we give up, it's infuriating! 

Yes.  Because 1) we’ve not been this bad all season 2) I’ve watched a fair bit of other games and I’ve seen some tripe from other teams too.

For example.  Some might play pretty football, but they can’t defend, e.g. Peterborough - so that makes them worse imho.

Albeit, if we carry on the standard of our more recent performances then it’s a tougher shout

That’s why I continue to review, react, adjust, etc.  I don’t take a point in time and base everything off of that.  It’s all fluid.

[RedM]

I know it’s easy to say, but I find myself asking ‘what the hell do they do in training?’. Especially when it translates to the pitch and looks like a group of players who have never met before. Very few are making partnerships or understandings which produce much quality. 

As I said elsewhere, I would have thought Pearson with his experience had the management nous to get more out of this group than he is getting at the moment. 

[ray savino]

In very simple terms. We need to treat from now that we’re in a relegation scrap. So we’ve got to scrap for every point. Backs to the wall mentality, full on commitment, make us hard to beat even if we find it hard to beat. Decide on the best system of play to both do this and is the simplest that most of our players can understand or have a chance to execute. Stick to it as much as is possible. Don’t confuse. May not be pretty, but might be better than where we are now.  Then in the transfer window at Xmas, get in some effective loans. May not be the greatest, but loan players with the physicality and mentality to attempt the goal of keeping us up. SL is an accountant, so this is where with Richard Gould he has to be creative with his numbers. Lets not kid ourselves we are firefighting at least until Jan Window at the minute.

If we stay up then hopefully keep as many of our best players we can. NP will have bought the time and resource to build the team. If not... then SL has to seriously consider what he’s going to do with this football club, because real fresh ideas will be needed. Maybe not sell up, bit drastic and not on his radar yet. But at least get some fresh football knowledge on the Board (sorry no more chancers ala Mr Ashton). I heard that Stuart Webber at Norwich (and previously Huddersfield) may leave soon, maybe to bigger club. Heard some interviews with him, tells board members and owners exactly how it is. Okay, may have a good line in bullshit as well, seems to go with the territory in football and often business, but he’s succeeded with clubs at our level and type - and with all respects to SL, it would appear he needs someone to tell it like it is - at board level.

Or he recruits another manager and we all have our fingers crossed that this will be the one this time... again. You never know we might get lucky.

It would not surprise me though if the likes of Palmer, has been instructed to have a chat with his agent to get a move and vice versa. Gould and recruitment must be working now to see if we can shift the deadwood and not wanted players in the next window to be able to massage the numbers enough to get a few loans to freshen things up in January - if indeed this is possible. We’ll see...

[Ska Junkie]

14 minutes ago, ray savino said:

In very simple terms. We need to treat from now that we’re in a relegation scrap. So we’ve got to scrap for every point. Backs to the wall mentality, full on commitment, make us hard to beat even if we find it hard to beat. Decide on the best system of play to both do this and is the simplest that most of our players can understand or have a chance to execute. Stick to it as much as is possible. Don’t confuse. May not be pretty, but might be better than where we are now.  Then in the transfer window at Xmas, get in some effective loans. May not be the greatest, but loan players with the physicality and mentality to attempt the goal of keeping us up. SL is an accountant, so this is where with Richard Gould he has to be creative with his numbers. Lets not kid ourselves we are firefighting at least until Jan Window at the minute.

If we stay up then hopefully keep as many of our best players we can. NP will have bought the time and resource to build the team. If not... then SL has to seriously consider what he’s going to do with this football club, because real fresh ideas will be needed. Maybe not sell up, bit drastic and not on his radar yet. But at least get some fresh football knowledge on the Board (sorry no more chancers ala Mr Ashton). I heard that Stuart Webber at Norwich (and previously Huddersfield) may leave soon, maybe to bigger club. Heard some interviews with him, tells board members and owners exactly how it is. Okay, may have a good line in bullshit as well, seems to go with the territory in football and often business, but he’s succeeded with clubs at our level and type - and with all respects to SL, it would appear he needs someone to tell it like it is - at board level.

Or he recruits another manager and we all have our fingers crossed that this will be the one this time... again. You never know we might get lucky.

It would not surprise me though if the likes of Palmer, has been instructed to have a chat with his agent to get a move and vice versa. Gould and recruitment must be working now to see if we can shift the deadwood and not wanted players in the next window to be able to massage the numbers enough to get a few loans to freshen things up in January - if indeed this is possible. We’ll see...

Not sure our lot have an ounce of fight in them at all Ray let alone be prepared to scrap for 7 months to survive.

[redapple]

Firstly Chris Martin needs a rest as he’s not contributing and has looked knackered the last 2 games. 
There’s  a few short-term options to replace him  (Wells or Weimann and hopefully Conway and Semenyo soon). 
Secondly we need some width. In the short term play O’Dowda but look to get in a winger in January. Barnsley had a decent left winger on Saturday. 

Need leaders on the pitch. I don’t see or hear anyone encouraging or advising out there. 
Get Williams back in the team when he’s ready. That will help . 
Most importantly need to do whatever is required to buy a forward, a winger and holding midfield player. If that means selling Bentley so be it. Ideally Brownhill will be sold by Burnley for big bucks and allow us to use the ‘sell-on’ money. 
 

[JamesBCFC]

2 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

This season is going to be a struggle and going to be about picking up enough points to stay out of trouble.

I do honestly think that the absence of Williams and Semenyo and the fact that Massengo is perhaps not yet ready to start again is hurting us a great deal and getting those three players back will make a difference. I also wonder if Conway is going to be another option up-front once fit. Those four players plus Baker's return will make us better than we are now.

It's easy to say we should ship out x or y but I think it's a massive misunderstanding of where the market is. I don't think Vyner, Bakinson, O'Dowda, Palmer, Wells or Martin are being sold for cash fees in January and letting them go on a free means we need to replace them for free too, which may not be realistic.

What I would try and do in January - if any budget exists at all- is see if we can get a holding midfielder and maybe a winger with pace, perhaps on loan or a free. It might be we don't get the best players in the world but it might give us a bit of structure and more options in the squad. 

Feel like for us to bring in a centre mid in January we will need to move 2 on.

Considering we have quite a small squad, we're actually bloated in that position.

Massengo, James, King, Bakinson, Palmer, Scott and Williams can all play there (admittedly Scott and Palmer suited in different roles more).

But convincing a CM to join when there's already 7 players who can go in that place won't be easy.

That's before considering a central O'Dowda too.

[ooRya]

Every single team seems to be able to play straight through our midfield, and they also seem to pick up a lot more second balls than we do. Which suggests to me that we need an extra body in midfield, so just play the one striker.

[underhanded]

Bar Atkinson, Kalas, Baker and Tanner (and occasionaly James) our players are regularly out-muscled and on the losing side of fifty-fifties and loose balls. For a team that can't pass the ball around very well, we don't seem to be able to counter-balance this with an ability to collect and utilise loose balls, and seem to rarely turn the ball over in the middle third.  J.Williams could be a partial solution to this if ever fit (James tries his best but I don't think is industrious enough to truly play a disruptor type role). We are also woefully short of pace, against Birmingham it was actually mind-boggling, it looked like players were running through treacle, against the likes of Harlee Dean and Gary Gardener ffs (not exactly known for their pace). I think Semenyo can help with this, when fit, but I would be prioritising a loan forward with pace in January.

As Fevs said above, we press very inefficiently too. It was mentioned on Sky a couple of times - we so rarely double up on players - I can only presume this is through fear of gaps opening up elsewhere.

We also seem to have problems with shape (with and without the ball worryingly), but especially with the ball when moving into the opposition half - too narrow, and the lack of a ball carrier in the middle of the pitch (this could be HNM, but positional indiscipline tends to see him in all sorts of strange place when we turnover posession).  

How you resolve all the above - no idea!

[Gillies Downs Leeds]

1 hour ago, redapple said:

Firstly Chris Martin needs a rest as he’s not contributing and has looked knackered the last 2 games. 
There’s  a few short-term options to replace him  (Wells or Weimann and hopefully Conway and Semenyo soon). 
Secondly we need some width. In the short term play O’Dowda but look to get in a winger in January. Barnsley had a decent left winger on Saturday. 

Need leaders on the pitch. I don’t see or hear anyone encouraging or advising out there. 
Get Williams back in the team when he’s ready. That will help . 
Most importantly need to do whatever is required to buy a forward, a winger and holding midfield player. If that means selling Bentley so be it. Ideally Brownhill will be sold by Burnley for big bucks and allow us to use the ‘sell-on’ money. 
 

Whilst I agree that Martin does need a rest, the issue then is who does his job at defending set pieces? He has take on the Famara role at defending set pieces. He wins so many headers in our own area.

[Red_Alligator]

We stay up this season and hope that NP, between now and the end of the summer 2022, gets the opportunity to bring in a few new players AND offload a few. The latter may well mean letting some leave for nothing, in which case SL will need to take the financial loss incurred as a result of poor recruitment in recent years.

I believe that this scenario would apply irrespective of any potential managerial changes in the interim.

What we mustn't do, under any circumstances is get ourselves into a Reading/Derby situation. That would be disastrous. The mess we're in is more than enough to have to turn around.

I'm happy to be corrected though, as I'm no financial expert.

 

 

 

[Engvall’s Splinter]

If Williams is out longterm then I agree some additional bite in midfield is required. With money tight, I would like us to certainly purchase a winger (preferably left side). Revert to a flat back four, with Pring or Baker over Dasilva whilst persisting with Wells and bringing in Palmer/Scott in behind. Our set up does not currently suit Wells. He needs balls in behind rather than pumped to his head. 
 

It’s going to be a scrap and therefore I’d prefer height and physicality over anything else defensively. Johnson stumbled upon this playing Wright & Mags as his full backs. 
 

Injuries aside…

                  Bentley

Tanner Kalas Atkinson Pring/Baker

    Weimann James Williams LW

                  Palmer

                    Wells 

Harsh on Massengo as I do think he’s one of our better players but prefer the nous/experience of James and the drive and determination of Williams. 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Engvall’s Splinter

[Red_Alligator]

3 hours ago, sludge said:

Surely we could get a couple of nasty ba$tards in January without breaking the bank?

Well there's a few on OTIB for sure Sludge!

[brad blit]

1) Drop 352 and persevere with 433/4231 (this is dependant on whether Williams, Massengo and James are all fit - if so then 433)

2) Do not start with a target man (Martin) and encourage team to keep ball on floor where possible. 

3) Continually coach and teach players to be happy receiving ball in tight spaces, and work on player movement so everyone always has an option to pass to, rather than panic passes into the corner flags. 

4) Adopt a high pressing, high intensity game which suits our fit squad (so Pearson tells us)

5) DO NOT ALLOW KALAS LONG THROWS 

[Red_Alligator]

I would add to my earlier post that I also think that now is the time for SL to take a step back from the "Bristol Sport" portfolio model and concentrate on the original plan/pledge to make Bristol City Football Club a top tier team. That's what he came to do, and it needs to be done. First and foremost.

An equally successful rugby, basketball, cribbage, tiddlywinks team can duly follow if desired. 

[sludge]

45 minutes ago, Red_Alligator said:

Well there's a few on OTIB for sure Sludge!

Can't take the keyboard on the pitch though 

[Harry]

Let's start with what we shouldn't have done.

Given the finances, we shouldn't have given Weimann another 3 years, we shouldn't have re-signed Baker and we certainly shouldn't have signed King & Simpson.

But that's the fault of the total lack of a recruitment team with any savvy.

Onto what we possibly ought to do.

We need a system and players which create width, keep the ball and get down the channels.

I'd play a 4-2-3-1

                    Bentley
Tanner - Kalas - Atkinson - Pring
             Williams - James
Semenyo - Massengo  - Scott
                     Wells

Allow James & Williams to keep a solid base, allow the full back to push on, keep Wells central and making darts in behind rather than coming deep for the ball, allow the 3 AM's (Sem, HNM, Scott) to be fluid and switch positions regularly - and have Benarous/Pearson backing them up.  Have Conway backing up Wells in the 'last shoulder' role.

We'll still lose plenty of games (but we're going to already anyway) but at least we might have something interesting to watch up front.

[fluffy]

The thing that concerns me the most is we have a total lack of movement on the field. No one moves to make an angle or different option for the player on the ball, no one moves to receive the ball from a throw in, no one moves for the second ball when a move breaks down and on the odd occasions when we break no one is busting a gut to get up with the player on the ball.

All this should be coachable and something that they practice again and again at the HPC, so that they can repeat it at will on the pitch. 

Instead I shudder to think what they are practicing each day at training, as it's certainly not improving our performances or coaching out the same basic errors that we see over and over again.

We're stuck with an unbalanced squad, low in confidence and seemingly motivation, so I would focus on a few basic shapes to adopt with or without the ball to make us hard to play through and pick players who want to earn their wage by showing some fight from here on.

[Banjo Red]

4 hours ago, sludge said:

Surely we could get a couple of nasty ba$tards in January without breaking the bank?

I was thinking just the same real nasty horrible in your face complete shit houses.

[sludge]

11 minutes ago, Banjo Red said:

I was thinking just the same real nasty horrible in your face complete shit houses.

Have we ever had one of those? I mean seriously, in the last 20 years there hasn't been many. I can't even think of one?!