Chill your beans...!

[AshtonGreat]

28 minutes ago, chinapig said:

It does but the problem is defensively shit happens every week. Is it unreasonable to expect that Nigel might have delivered some improvement in that by now? It's the one area where he is having no impact at all.

Considering he used to be a defender himself, it's disappointing

[Lanterne Rouge]

13 minutes ago, weepywall said:

Absolutely no chance that we will beat Reading on Tuesday !!

I expect it will be yet another game where City fail to turn up.

[City1970]

31 minutes ago, Alex_BCFC said:

We might already have enough such is how poor the bottom 3/4 are with those points deductions thrown in.

I hope you are right. I have been a City fan for 52 years. I have seen a lot of ups and downs but 34 points is something I have not seen to survive.

Edited February 5, 2022 by City1970

[Bris Red]

53 minutes ago, PFree said:

Why get so annoyed when we play the odd bad game and things don’t work? We aren’t going up, we aren’t going, we are a team in transition with a badly balanced, small squad? We have turned a corner generally speaking, haven’t we..?

We were all aware what we were signing up for this season, okay, yes it’s frustrating on times, but this is season one of the three we have been told it is going to take before we start looking upwards again.

Our finances are in a shocking state and it stops us signing quality players.

There are lots of positives if you care to find them, and whilst it’s disappointing, there really is no need for knee-jerk reactions when things don’t go our way.

I enjoy listening to NP’s honesty and am prepared to support his longer term aims...

We’ll get there!

It has all been so annoyingly  very predictable. A poor performance was inevitable and was due at some point and the real annoyance for me and I’m sure Nige and the coaching staff is that we didn’t capitalise on the good performances we had against Luton and Preston.

Let’s be quite frank we should have been coming into todays game off the back of 6 good away points and a loss and poor performance would have been a lot easier to swallow today had that been the case.

Defence needs a major overhaul in the summer, i like Pearson but still a major concern that he can’t get what he has at his disposal more organised and resilient. He has had long enough and as @Andy082005 said on another thread we really aren’t going to get better quality in terms of personnel, some of them full internationals with 100s of championship games between them. It’s a worry.

Edited February 5, 2022 by bris red

[Alex_BCFC]

8 minutes ago, City1970 said:

I hope you are right. I have been a City fan for 52 years. I have seen a lot of ups and downs but 34 points is something I have not seen to survive.

I don’t think 34 is enough but it might be. Unlikely to be much more and we will get around 50 anyway so no worries.

[ExiledAjax]

We will finish on just over 50 if we keep playing as we are.

[chinapig]

36 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, agree…I do go on about it but I honestly don’t think City are great with a back 3 and I don’t think Kalas is as good in back 3 as he is in a 2 either.

I don’t think we defend as a team well enough.  Not saying we should go 442 per se, but we need to learn how to defend in two banks, however you want to construct those two banks, number-wise and shape-wise.  We don’t get enough double-ups, it’s us that gets overloaded or 1-on-1 too often.

I think there is a false logic in thinking having a third centre back means you will defend better. The opposite may be true in that all three may unconsciously think that the others will do their job for them.

[Numero Uno]

2 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Im very probably wrong, but I think that we're nearing end times for NP. 

Sad as it will be to many on here, I think the win vs Cardiff will have given some leeway, but today's performance is just like multiple other performances we've had this season where defensively we've fallen to bits. 

I loved last week, genuinely awesome game to see, however its not enough its not good enough and were getting beaten by 2 or 3 goals sometimes far to often. Changes dont happen and the same mistakes tactically are repeated over and over. 

I understand the whole it's a project and but, we're skint discussions. However with the window shut and showing a loss of form again. It maybe time to act, especially considering relative safety. 

As we come up to the anniversary of Dean Holdens departure also following a home game to Reading then it may well be win or bust. 

We were 13th when Holden was sacked https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11726/12220411/dean-holden-bristol-city-sack-head-coach-after-six-months-in-charge-of-championship-club. 

We're 17th and in a poor run with Reading to come. 

Must Win Wednesday then. I fear 

You are very probably wrong. Steve isn’t dipping his hand in his pocket to sack another manager.

[PFree]

1 minute ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Im very probably wrong, but I think that we're nearing end times for NP. 

Sad as it will be to many on here, I think the win vs Cardiff will have given some leeway, but today's performance is just like multiple other performances we've had this season where defensively we've fallen to bits. 

I loved last week, genuinely awesome game to see, however its not enough its not good enough and were getting beaten by 2 or 3 goals sometimes far to often. Changes dont happen and the same mistakes tactically are repeated over and over. 

I understand the whole it's a project and but, we're skint discussions. However with the window shut and showing a loss of form again. It maybe time to act, especially considering relative safety. 

As we come up to the anniversary of Dean Holdens departure also following a home game to Reading then it may well be win or bust. 

We were 13th when Holden was sacked https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11726/12220411/dean-holden-bristol-city-sack-head-coach-after-six-months-in-charge-of-championship-club. 

We're 17th and in a poor run with Reading to come. 

Must Win Wednesday then. I fear 

Completely understand your views, I just feel NP will be given time to change things - he is the level head we need. We need new players but can’t afford them. The fault (I.e. squad) here is mostly the failings of previous coaches and the previous leader sadly.

I find NP refreshing in many ways, but like many, if we are in a similar place in 12 months time, I might well feel different...

[ExiledAjax]

9 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Im very probably wrong, but I think that we're nearing end times for NP. 

Sad as it will be to many on here, I think the win vs Cardiff will have given some leeway, but today's performance is just like multiple other performances we've had this season where defensively we've fallen to bits. 

I loved last week, genuinely awesome game to see, however its not enough its not good enough and were getting beaten by 2 or 3 goals sometimes far to often. Changes dont happen and the same mistakes tactically are repeated over and over. 

I understand the whole it's a project and but, we're skint discussions. However with the window shut and showing a loss of form again. It maybe time to act, especially considering relative safety. 

As we come up to the anniversary of Dean Holdens departure also following a home game to Reading then it may well be win or bust. 

We were 13th when Holden was sacked https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11726/12220411/dean-holden-bristol-city-sack-head-coach-after-six-months-in-charge-of-championship-club. 

We're 17th and in a poor run with Reading to come. 

Must Win Wednesday then. I fear 

This is just kneejerk stuff.

We've provably and indisputably improved a great amount in a year, despite having piss all in the bank to invest in the team. Therefore if the improvement hasn't come from signings, it must have come from coaching and tactical development. You say you understand this...but do you?

Beaten by 2 or 3 too many times? You're kidding right? Of our 14 losses this season, 3 have been by 2 goals, 2 by 3 goals, and one by 4 (Fulham). The other 8 have been by a single goal. So more often than not, if we lose, its by 1 goal.

Our defence needs improving, but you're inflating the negatives to build a case against Pearson.

I wasnt his biggest fan when he signed on, and I doubt he'll get us promoted, but sacking Pearson now would be madness.

Edited February 5, 2022 by ExiledAjax

[YCbrs]

How bad were we really today, have been busy all day wasn’t able to follow the match at all. IIRC they were one place above us in the league so was expecting a close game tbh, pretty surprised when I saw the FT score.

[IAmNick]

Hard to see how people can compare this to the end of Holden's reign.

We were clearly on a hugely downward trajectory then with no signs of improvement, quite the opposite in fact. Decent table position thanks to our (fortunate) wins right at the start.

Pearson we're largely on an upwards trajectory. Most people have said this last month has been good on the whole, and the best since he arrived. One or two poor performances doesn't change that however much some might want it to.

[Davefevs]

God, I’m so glad there’s an ignore button on here.  Agenda galore.

Eff me.

[Bedred31]

I wasn’t going to post this evening. I don’t consider myself a fair weather fan after exactly 50 years supporting City, but this constant, debilitating crap, week after week, is starting to leave me genuinely depressed. I agree with all the positive assessments of our young talent and attacking potential. But there really is nothing positive or remotely supportive to say about our car crash defending. We’ve now conceded 54 goals in 30 league games. If it continues like this, it will be 80 ish for the season. Honestly, can any statos reading this name a worse season for goals conceded? 

[Davefevs]

3 minutes ago, YCbrs said:

How bad were we really today, have been busy all day wasn’t able to follow the match at all. IIRC they were one place above us in the league so was expecting a close game tbh, pretty surprised when I saw the FT score.

My view, we were poor because we never got to grips with competing and winning those individual battles.  A poor spell before half time and just after, gave Blackpool a cushion that flattered them a bit (not their endeavours / competitiveness mind you), that meant they could see out the game.

We huffed and puffed, even when we got a goal we never looked like we might have a late surge.

Was it that bad?  No.

Does it warrant “Nigel’s time is nearing an end”?  No, unless you’ve always wanted him out.

Does he have work to do?  Yep, loads of it.  Today will be helpful to his future thinking.

Is the work to do constrained by finances?  Yep and by injuries, but Nige isn’t using that as an excuse.

FWIW Connolly did a job on Alex Scott.  Chris Martin never got into the game.  Massengo, Dasilva and Pring can come out of today with credit…Massengo especially.

Thats my view anyway.

[City1970]

33 minutes ago, Alex_BCFC said:

I don’t think 34 is enough but it might be. Unlikely to be much more and we will get around 50 anyway so no worries.

I like your optimism CTID

[ExiledAjax]

4 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Mate, with shoulder issues and the rest of it had a heck of a lot of 'free time' to watch us recently. 

Your presentation of stats there shows that 42.8 % of our losses are by more than two goals 

That's scarily high. We get tonked, often. Is a fair statement, whichever way you want to look at it and though the rest of the post is fair and balanced though clearly you disagree. 

Big game Wednesday. 

Is it scarily high? I've not compared it to the loss stats of the other teams in our position, so I don't know if it's scarily high, or if you are just telling me that it is. It's only scarily high if it is drastically higher than other teams who lost a dozen players in the summer, and have signed only free agents and lower league players since. If its not then it might be about what we should expect of a Club in our position. 

We're not a good team. We're also not as bad a team as we were 12 months ago. We consistently generate a moderate amount of goal threat,  but we also consistently let ourselves down in defence. We will have bad games, we will have unlucky games, but we will have good games as well.

This season continues to pan out as I expected it to. Badly, but not so badly as to panic and change manager for the 3rd time in two years. From where we were on Holden's last day we're trending upwards and at this point in time, for me and many others, that is satisfactory.

I humbly suggest that you are being blinded by the sparks from the axe you are grinding.

[Street red]

1 hour ago, PFree said:

Why get so annoyed when we play the odd bad game and things don’t work? We aren’t going up, we aren’t going, we are a team in transition with a badly balanced, small squad? We have turned a corner generally speaking, haven’t we..?

We were all aware what we were signing up for this season, okay, yes it’s frustrating on times, but this is season one of the three we have been told it is going to take before we start looking upwards again.

Our finances are in a shocking state and it stops us signing quality players.

There are lots of positives if you care to find them, and whilst it’s disappointing, there really is no need for knee-jerk reactions when things don’t go our way.

I enjoy listening to NP’s honesty and am prepared to support his longer term aims...

We’ll get there!

Can't disagree with this we have to be positive and if we can afford to get to the gate then we should lift those attendances it will only help Pearson signing players to get us to the place we want to be. At the minute we have to be patient and put up with the inconsistency.

[ExiledAjax]

2 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

If you mean we are provably better now than we were a year ago, then we were 9th this time last year. We are now 17th.

Oh come now Jon..you're intelligent enough to know that league position in early February is an unreliable indicator of a team's overall quality and potential. 

[IAmNick]

17 minutes ago, Tafkarmlf said:

Mate, with shoulder issues and the rest of it had a heck of a lot of 'free time' to watch us recently. 

Your presentation of stats there shows that 42.8 % of our losses are by more than two goals 

That's scarily high. We get tonked, often. Is a fair statement, whichever way you want to look at it and though the rest of the post is fair and balanced though clearly you disagree. 

Big game Wednesday. 

But he posted we'd lost 3 times out of 14 by more than 2 goals, so that's around 21%? You've got more double that in your post.

[Andy082005]

47 minutes ago, bris red said:

It has all been so annoyingly  very predictable. A poor performance was inevitable and was due at some point and the real annoyance for me and I’m sure Nige and the coaching staff is that we didn’t capitalise on the good performances we had against Luton and Preston.

Let’s be quite frank we should have been coming into todays game off the back of 6 good away points and a loss and poor performance would have been a lot easier to swallow today had that been the case.

Defence needs a major overhaul in the summer, i like Pearson but still a major concern that he can’t get what he has at his disposal more organised and resilient. He has had long enough and as @Andy082005 said on another thread we really aren’t going to get better quality in terms of personnel, some of them full internationals with 100s of championship games between them. It’s a worry.

Thank you for seeing the point I was trying to make 

I don’t expect us to be top 6, but with the squad of players we have at our disposal we should be doing so much more. Organised and resilient are to perfect words to describe something we just are not

I refuse to believe ability wise we have the weakest team in this league when it comes to defending. Yet on paper we almost have 

My biggest frustration is when we start showing a few small signs of improvement everyone starts coo-ing that ‘Nige’s’ plan is starting to come to fruition ….yet when we have days like today “it’s not his fault “

At some point he has to start taking accountability for these defensive shit show. He’s been coaching them for over a year ffs 

[Southport Red]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Overall poor today, didn’t really stand up to the physical battles, not enough of our players won their individual battles.

Thought HNM came out with real credit today.  That’s about it though.  Pring and Dasilva fought hard I thought.

It will provide Pearson with food for thought.  Can Williams start on Wednesday?  Does Bentley come back in?  Do we go to a back 4?

It’s a disappointing result and performance.  Shit happens.

Agree with all that Dave, would only add that Williams came out on the positive side too. Had forgotten Wiemann was playing until he got subbed off. 

[Davefevs]

Just now, JonDolman said:

If you mean we are provably better now than we were a year ago, then we were 9th this time last year. We are now 17th.

Though I do agree with the opinion we are better than last season, just that I can't see how it's provable!

It’s not provable Jon, one way or the other.  Too many differences both on and off the pitch.

There are lots of stats that show progression, and are useful in identifying change, some show worse performance.  Understanding the root cause is the hard bit when the two bits are so different.

We are a team that has to scrap for every point.

How many times have I said we aren’t good enough to win a game convincingly?

Yes, we have a number of deficiencies, exposed when we don’t have a near full squad to pick from.  We can’t afford a squad that gives us “two genuine first teamers for every position within multi-systems”.  Therefore we have to take pragmatic solutions.

I do think we need better player availability, but I also think we have better availability than last season…last season we had a bigger squad to cope with it.  Without digressing from today, there have been a couple of poor recruitment decisions.  In the past spaffing £1.5m of Engvall and him not playing, didn’t impact the first team, just the finances.  At least we aren’t blowing that sort of money, it’s free transfers, cheaper wage free transfers in the main that haven’t worked out.

 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Southport Red said:

Agree with all that Dave, would only add that Williams came out on the positive side too. Had forgotten Wiemann was playing until he got subbed off. 

Yes, Williams good too, was focussing on the starters.

[spudski]

Anyone know how many goals we've conceded from crosses into the box?

I've never seen a defence so weak at defending crosses.

22 goals conceded in 9 league games is shocking.

It's so easy to score against us...just cross it in, and win your header easily. It's dire. 

For all the good work we do going forward and ' progressing' for the future, there is no point if you can't defend properly.

It'll make it even harder to keep our younger players when others come calling if we continue in this vein.

You can try and persuade the likes of HNM to sign and stay, and give him reasons to stay, but it's a lot harder when you are running your nuts off every game and being let down so often. Why stay?

You can give all the reasons under the sun for giving NP a lot of leeway, but when it comes to defending crosses he needs to sort it...unforgivable at the moment...these players are capable of defending better than that imo.

 

[YCbrs]

27 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

My view, we were poor because we never got to grips with competing and winning those individual battles.  A poor spell before half time and just after, gave Blackpool a cushion that flattered them a bit (not their endeavours / competitiveness mind you), that meant they could see out the game.

We huffed and puffed, even when we got a goal we never looked like we might have a late surge.

Was it that bad?  No.

Does it warrant “Nigel’s time is nearing an end”?  No, unless you’ve always wanted him out.

Does he have work to do?  Yep, loads of it.  Today will be helpful to his future thinking.

Is the work to do constrained by finances?  Yep and by injuries, but Nige isn’t using that as an excuse.

FWIW Connolly did a job on Alex Scott.  Chris Martin never got into the game.  Massengo, Dasilva and Pring can come out of today with credit…Massengo especially.

Thats my view anyway.

Okay doesn’t sound too bad, I’m not in the Pearson out camp whatsoever - his record in this division is too good and he’s been heavily hampered with finances. 
 

As long as he keeps us up which is looking a lot more likely than a couple of months ago then I think a proper pre season and hopefully get some money for Wells and Palmer which gives him a bit of flexibility in the transfer market, combined with the young lads that have come through this season and cemented themselves (obviously hoping we can keep hold of Semenyo and HNM as well) then a much fairer judgement can be made about his future as our man. 

Thanks for the analysis anyway Dave always helpful from your perspective

[AshtonGreat]

49 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

This is just kneejerk stuff.

We've provably and indisputably improved a great amount in a year, despite having piss all in the bank to invest in the team. Therefore if the improvement hasn't come from signings, it must have come from coaching and tactical development. You say you understand this...but do you?

Beaten by 2 or 3 too many times? You're kidding right? Of our 14 losses this season, 3 have been by 2 goals, 2 by 3 goals, and one by 4 (Fulham). The other 8 have been by a single goal. So more often than not, if we lose, its by 1 goal.

Our defence needs improving, but you're inflating the negatives to build a case against Pearson.

I wasnt his biggest fan when he signed on, and I doubt he'll get us promoted, but sacking Pearson now would be madness.

How have we provably improved?

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, spudski said:

Anyone know how many goals we've conceded from crosses into the box?

I've never seen a defence so weak at defending crosses.

22 goals conceded in 9 league games is shocking.

It's so easy to score against us...just cross it in, and win your header easily. It's dire. 

For all the good work we do going forward and ' progressing' for the future, there is no point if you can't defend properly.

It'll make it even harder to keep our younger players when others come calling if we continue in this vein.

You can try and persuade the likes of HNM to sign and stay, and give him reasons to stay, but it's a lot harder when you are running your nuts off every game and being let down so often. Why stay?

You can give all the reasons under the sun for giving NP a lot of leeway, but when it comes to defending crosses he needs to sort it...unforgivable at the moment...these players are capable of defending better than that imo.

 

Bring selective, let’s remove Fulham.  Why?  Because I want to!

Hear me out though!

16 goals from 8 games against a range of teams and team styles….is not good enough.  So I agree.

We don’t defend as a team.  Pure and simple.

Have we defended as a team this season?  Yes…early on this season in the main, where we ground out results. But lots of fans thought they were boring.

I used my Peterborough analogy, do you want to get 0-0s, 1-1s the odd 1-0, 2-1 win, with similar scoreline defeats….or do you want to try and play football (too much football???) and leave yourself exposed.  Because that’s what Peterborough have done.  When they shut up shop v Bournemouth they got a 0-0.  Got cocky against shitty City and lost 3-2…imho it should’ve been 4/5 for us…they scored two worldys.  And it’s what we’ve done too.  Albeit our Achilles heel since Xmas has been set pieces, having been so good up until then.

There is a balance.  We haven’t found it yet.

Lookimg forward to seeing a game live on Wednesday.  

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

Apparently the last time we had a longer run of consecutive matches conceding two or more goals in each was 1962…

[tin]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I’d say we are 6-8 months into the project in reality.

Splitting hairs a bit there, Dave. We’re in year one of a three-year project and we’re ahead of where I expected us to be both in terms of league position and cohesive performances.