Positives v Negatives

[italian dave]

2 hours ago, Red-Robbo said:

It sort of seemed like that was the plan yesterday, but the counter attacks mainly spluttered out.

I said to the guys next to me "we're playing like we're the away team". 

 

Thought the same. And to make it worse, Preston were trying to stop us playing like the away team, so it degenerated into a stalemate.

They had to change it after we scored, so that livened things up a bit. Not a lot in terms of quality though! 

[Red Skin]

17 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

I think Bells rating is coloured by the (well taken) goal. He missed a very good chance first half without making the keeper work, and when he broke second half again the effort was tame. Pring didn’t have a good day but I don’t think Sam helped him much, and he wasn’t a great outlet. Take the goal out and there wasn’t much there from Sam today.

He was obviously disappointed he didn't score but I don't think he did much wrong with his first chance.  He shot on target and placed the ball back toward the far corner, meaning a parry would (potentially) bring the ball back out into play.   Perhaps you could criticise the height of the shot.  Good height for the keeper.  

What worried me more was the lack of chances we created, and our failure to move the ball quickly.  It was almost as if that for some players the challenge was to make the starting eleven, rather than performing in the game.  

It's great we are a very fit team, but given the relatively poor quality of the team we played preseason, I wonder to what extent fitness won these games.  We have always struggled against team that sit back and that we need to open up.  I think preseason needs to test our guile as well as our fitness. 

As others have said, Vyner, Dickie, Bell, and Williams were good.  Also thought things improved when Sykes and Conway came on.   

Oxford is a great chance for others in the squad to press for a start.  

[steviestevieneville]

17 hours ago, GrahamC said:

On the plus side I thought Zak was outstanding, Dickie very good, Wells too & thought Joe Williams was better than any of the 3 that started In midfield. Good as well that Sam Bell is off the mark.

Negatives were Tanner’s distribution was poor, the midfield looked sluggish & Max made a right mess of it when he came a long way to punch the ball clear.

Fair result & with Weimann presumably unavailable now & the Scott saga rumbling on, a few things for Nige to ponder.

Preston always a tough game & came with a plan to stop us playing which they did. We need to be able to counter it. They stopped us getting down the sides of them which is our strength . I was always going to wait on Harry Cornick until after a pre season & i’m not going to completely slag him off after one game . He was really poor yesterday though . He looks like he’s running in treacle  

[Red-Robbo]

35 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Thought the same. And to make it worse, Preston were trying to stop us playing like the away team, so it degenerated into a stalemate.

They had to change it after we scored, so that livened things up a bit. Not a lot in terms of quality though! 

 

Really that was the negative. A team that a play-off bound side would've beaten, yet we were fortunate to have earned a point at home.

Can't dwell too much. The first game back may not reflect the rest of the season - but what a duff way to start off with. It would hardly have persuaded the thousands of part-timers who turned up on Saturday, to part with their money and visit AG again. 

[bcfc01]

Positives - Big crowd, got a point playing badly, centre backs played well

Negatives - A game thats probably drained a bit of optimism and tempered some expectations, but the biggest negative of all is that it looked like the worst of last season in parts.

 

[old_eastender]

4 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Positives - Big crowd, got a point playing badly, centre backs played well

Negatives - A game thats probably drained a bit of optimism and tempered some expectations, but the biggest negative of all is that it looked like the worst of last season in parts.

 

Both me and my step-son were highly optimistic before the game, but the manner of play had drained much of that, and would have even if we had held on for an undeserved 1-0 win. 

Agree at times looked like the worst of last season. My deflated step-son summed it up really "New Season Same Shit".

[Spike]

I've been going over the match, looking over the stats, the game management etc and I think the following:

Vyner - Our stand-out player, rarely put a foot out of place, his positioning has far improved since last season if this game is to go by and Dickie offered a lot more dedication in the air which are big positives but I've started with the defence for a reason. 
Yesterday in the first half Preston were a lot more productive in the middle of the park than us. They struggled in the final third but they pressed fast and hard and when they got the ball they were not wasteful with it in the middle of the pitch. Neither team looked likely to score in the first thirty minutes and they looked far more composed on the ball. When we did win the ball we would hold onto it at the back to try and get something going which is exactly why we couldn't produce anything, we would win the ball but couldn't turn the ball winning possession into an attack fast enough which allowed them to shape up and pressure us. The obvious issue here in my eyes was of all of our midfielders only one of them can receive the ball with his back to a player and manage to turn it around which is Alex Scott. We really missed that yesterday as we struggled to turn defence into attack quickly and effectively which is essentially how we're set up to play.
So with no Scott to turn defence into attack we played 30 minutes where we actually had more possession but when you look at the attacking momentum chart we literally did nothing with it until around the last 15 minutes of the first half when we managed to catch Preston making the odd bad pass, that threat then kind of snowballed in our favour and gave us a good 8 minutes of consistent attacking football and after Prestons short burst forward we countered again and looked stronger coming in for the second half. During our 8 minutes of good pressure the difference was that we'd managed to get the ball from Preston making a few poor passes which allowed us to take the ball on in a midfield area and already facing towards the goal. 
What I thought coming in at half time was that Preston had been better in the middle, they'd prevented us from turning on the ball and essentially kept us from getting anything going until the errors were forced. For me we're missing a midfielder who can do what Scott does, receive the ball, turn and make a pass, Williams was the only player who seemed willing to try and force that forward pass whilst James and Knight seemed to try and play more simple passes. Whilst on the subject of the midfield and what was lacking, between all three midfielders we only had one key pass which was from James, all in all the midfield was largely the issue yesterday. Browne and McCann were far better than any of our 3 yesterday, 4 key passes between them and a high completion of passes from them both.

Another stat that highlighted an issue for me was Pring had the joint highest tackles in the game at 5, the same as Ledson, and had 20 duels in the game, winning 11 of them, showing his defensive contribution was massive, the issue he had was when he was getting the ball his options were quickly cut out and this led to him struggling to complete a fair few passes. This leads me on to the attack and the issue we had against Preston yesterday.
Atkinson mentioned on commentary about how we felt "very spaced out" and he was spot on, Cornick, Wells and Bell were so spaced out and the same thing happened as they were replaced by their counter parts, the issue this caused was that Preston had obviously studied us, their interceptions were highest in the middle and this was because if we tried to play it to Wells/Conway they were completely alone with no options to flick on or even play it backwards if they could win it, Preston then allowed us to build up on the wings by cutting out the pass on feet to the CF and making us play down the wings where they used their wing backs and midfielders to pin us in forcing us to come back. We had no back up play for this and ended up in playing it around at the back until were pressured to play it long. Our midfielders were not showing inside passing options for the wide players early enough which meant in turn they were forced back and that we couldn't break Preston down. The 4-3-3 works great when we've got a player who can turn dispossessing the opposition into a counter attack quickly but without Scott and with Preston pinning us on the wings they nullified us completely and we had no second plan.
I feel like Pearson needs to teach them a second plan of action when this situation arrives because the players didn't adapt at all and that was our undoing coming forward, without the counter-attack our wide men looked disconnected from the game and our striker looked like he had no support at all. You only have to look at the touches of our front three to see how secluded they were, Conway had 5 touches in 30 minutes, Cornick had 25 in 70, Bell had 25 in 87 and Sykes had 12 in 30. I mean to put that in perspective Max had 56 which was also more than all 3 of our midfielders, that's how much we had to keep going back due to their gameplan and our lack of ability to adapt to it.

Looking at the match attack momentum I think it tells the story of the match:

 

During the full 90 minutes we had a single high peak (our goal) and only 3 decent peaks, Preston in comparison had 15 decent peaks and 2/3 high peaks, Preston also had 49 minutes of attacking momentum compared to our 39 which was largely boosted by the first half period where we had the ball but were not creating threat as seen by the bars. We actually came in the first half having created 2 decent chances and having had the only shot on goal but the second half, despite our stronger start and goal, was all Preston. After we scored we had a small period of control and from there one we only had one 4 minute long period where we regained control which came after substitutions which allowed us to regain composure for a 4 minutes spell only to fall back into being bogged down by Preston.

I think when we get to a situation like we did yesterday we should reshape a little, the wide men come narrower and we push up a midfielder so he's closer to our striker, this would mean if we're being forced to lump the ball forward we're giving ourselves more chance to win the second balls, something we lost all game long yesterday giving the impression that Preston wanted it more when I think it was more down to they were closer together to support each other. If we told one of the midfield "stay within range of our central striker and challenge for the second ball" and we had our wide men coming narrow it would give us a lot more chance to win those second balls and if we got the possession we'd have players all within the passing range of each other rather than being stood on either wing and not midfielders to support the striker. 

Looking again at the stats the biggest tell was that in the first half Preston had a 0.00 expected goals, they'd pinned us back well and stopped us attacking but hadn't yet really thrown themselves at us, the tactic you'd respect from an away team, but the second half they conceded and then had to push forward which changed the game entirely as once they pushed us we couldn't play our way through them at all. The defence in my opinion played incredibly well yesterday, I mean they conceded one goal in around 20 minutes of very high pressure attacks which when you boil that down to the entirety of the game is roughly 22% of the entire match, add the sustained pressure and we spent 38% of the 90 minutes under sustained pressure, for the record we managed 11% sustained pressure, 9 % being very high.  I said that the result was fair at 1-1 yesterday but looking back on the match, seeing how many times we had scares, looking at these statistics, re-evaluating and then seeing the second half stats of them having 58% possession, 11 shots, 1.32 expected goals and the fact that they dominated us in almost every team statistic just makes me think we were lucky to come away with the point.

For me the main positives were that the defence was very strong considering how much pressure it was put under, it had some shakes but it also did incredibly well to keep them down to a single goal, the attack in my opinion were not bad but were instead far too isolated and for me that comes down to the issue being the midfield. I think if Scott goes we really a need a midfielder who is good on the ball, meaning they can turn a player, beat a player, anything that allows them to face up field under pressure and make a pass to one of our attackers and do it quickly and effectively because without that we cannot use the pace and ability we have upfront as the opposition can get back and then we struggle to break them down.
The other positive for me was that despite having a really poor second half the lads heads didn't go down, after the equaliser we still managed to play a small amount of attack and the defence was still giving it their all.

I think we'll do a lot better against teams that attack with a high line but Pearson really needs to have a think about how he's going to set us up to counter high pressing, deep defensive line teams as we may be able to beat the high press with the workrate the lads have but if they can't figure a way to create against a deep defensive line we're really going to struggle with the counter attack, especially when we're slower to go from defence to attack without Scott or Weimann to make that transition.

[CliftonCliff]

Interesting and very detailed analysis. Lot of time and thought obviously gone into that, thank you.

On a much more simplistic level, I would focus on one single issue from the match and that would be physicality. I don't think it would be a huge exaggeration to say we allowed ourselves to be bullied for much of the game. Players were harassed into hurrying their passes, which were frequently misplaced as a result. Even James's customary composure was disrupted, causing him to rush things and not find his intended target, and you don't see him get flustered very often.

Someone said on another thread something to the effect that we lack a tough, ball winning midfielder. It's valid point. Many of us thought that Joe Williams would be that player when he signed: he certainly was for Wigan. That it hasn't turned out that way is not his fault and is largely down to his rotten luck with injury. I know it's not an aspect of the game that purists value highly, but the Championship can be a brutal league, as we all know. You have to be able to cope with this stuff and I don't think we did.

Preston were a big, strong side and they won't be the only ones to fit that description this season. I entirely agree about the impact that Scott's absence had. Not only would he have been able to turn players in midfield; he would also have drawn a lot of fouls and won free kicks in dangerous areas, which might well have forced Preston to tone it down a bit, for fear of incurring more bookings. That said, it would not have solved the problem altogether. We were muscled off the ball too often.

An intentionally one-dimensional take on it, as I said at the top, but I think it is worth emphasising.   

[Numero Uno]

20 hours ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

Dickie was my MOTM and the only player who seemed robust enough to deal with Preston's constant rough-housing - and was able to pay them back in kind!

What disappointed me again was the basic lack of midfield able to deal with a big, physical side.  I get that Scott wasn't there and the ref gave us next to no protection, but there was no one able to stop them bringing the ball into our final third. Preston aren't exactly a graceful side, but when you let them have that much possession in your half you just know a goal is coming eventually.

Lots of City players had below-par games and it was a bit of a blah turgid mess of a game, as it always seems to be when we have a big crowd for a league game. Was disappointed with Knight after the rave reviews he was getting in the friendlies. It didn't look like he could hold off the challenge of a primary school kid. I'm not writing the bloke off based on one game however. Much better will come, hopefully. 

Any Scott cash that we can spend would be well invested in a strong, fearless attacking midfielder. 

Agree, it is vital we have someone in our midfield who carries the ball. That player is normally Scott but if he goes we do need as close to a like for like replacement as we can get for the money we can afford.

[Roger Red Hat]

I was somewhat surprised not to see a change of shape at half time, as we constantly seemed to be outnumbered in midfield.

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 minutes ago, Roger Red Hat said:

I was somewhat surprised not to see a change of shape at half time, as we constantly seemed to be outnumbered in midfield.

Had a quick look at the sides again.

Preston were playing a slightly unusual 3-5-1-1. Their new midfielder was the first of the 1 which meant in some phases they could get a 3 v 4 going centrally. Potts can come inside too, by no means a pure wingback but let's assume he does stay wider.

Meanwhile our front 3 can be matched up to some extent by their back 3, not least by hitting it high as we did at times as they were big centre backs.

There isn't that much to exploit tactically IMO, at home even less so as you'll get more chances to counter away from home often. Scott and Naismith , plus Atkinson and his ability to carry being a natural midfielder.

Weimann or Sykes instead of Cornick may have given Tanner that bit more space or time to exploit.

[Numero Uno]

The important thing for me next week is we put in a performance regardless of the result. Bad games happen and yesterday was certainly that but to judge a season after one game as a very small minority already have is completely mental.

Given we have nutters booing the team off after an underwhelming draw on the opening day it is important we start performing sooner rather than later.

[Red-Robbo]

7 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Had a quick look at the sides again.

Preston were playing a slightly unusual 3-5-1-1. Their new midfielder was the first of the 1 which meant in some phases they could get a 3 v 4 going centrally. Potts can come inside too, by no means a pure wingback but let's assume he does stay wider.

 

We were fortunate that Potts didn't seem to be able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo. He had three free hits at goal. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

4 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

We were fortunate that Potts didn't seem to be able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo. He had three free hits at goal. 

Agreed. Potts and his finishing aside though, their shape- not the back 3 but the fact it was a 3-5-1-1 probably posed us some unexpected problems not quite sure they usually it many English clubs especially play that way.

Watch varied Serie A, Atalanta have certainly used it to good effect in the past. Here? Not so much.

[Better Red]

We lack a player(without Scott) in the middle who can pick the ball up deep and run with the ball.

Maybe Mehmeti could do that role. Has the pace ability on the ball - but can he find that pass at the right time and do the hard track back? Will need coaching.

We def need someone to feel that gap with it without Scott - if he is injured needs a rest we will struggle unless we find someone to fill that role.
 

 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

How to combat a 3-5-1-1 is quite tricky. Been thinking about it, Scott and for different reasons Naismith may move the dial but as Saturday...as might Atkinson but anyway.

4-3-3 vs 3-5-1-1..especially with varied long or high balls vs big centre backs.

Some basic matching up

*Their back 3 if 3 big CBs can pick up high balls vs a front 3.

*2 v 1 superiority in wide areas but vs a packed middle this can have its limitations too.

*Can even pose downside risks as losing the ball in congested central areas be it through running into traffic or hitting high crosses can enable a fast turnover and especially when the opposition are an away side.

*The free player, the 2nd '1' can depending on the type of player provide two functions. To help outnumber your more typical 3 in a 4 v 3 in some phases while in other phases get up to support the striker which can pin back the centre backs a little.

On point 3, watched back the highlights a couple of times, even when ahead we conceded some turnovers on the break.

This can certainly be counteracted but with yesterday's personnel it gets harder.

Few thoughts

*Scott and Naismith would help a lot for one. Atkinson too. Scott doing what Scott goes, Naismith spreading play, Knight harrying as he can and Atkinson periodically stepping up.

*Could Weimann in a wide right forward role instead of Cornick have been better? Feels more likely to get s goal and can come inside.

*Pace. Would we say not stamina but pace, that Bell-Conway-Mehmeti maybe our quickest front 3? Pace isn't everything of course but big centre backs don't much like it.

Granted I don't know whether this is so applicable as not many sides will setup that way IMO..

[B1ackbird]

+ We didn't lose..

- We didn't win. 

[Chivs]

+I waved my phone at the turnstile and got in immediately. I thought there would be an 0.5hr queue in the driving rain

+ Good debut by Dickie

 

- It was the coldest since the Millwall game in the great winter of 1946.  OK, I might exaggerate a bit but for August!?

- Pearson is still with us

- All those dinky balls over their fullbacks that achieve nothing with our players

- Pearson

- Yet another slow, unexceptional midfielder onboard

- Pearson is still with us

[real_bristol]

Despite being seemingly outplayed in terms of possession in the first half, I thought we had more clear cut chances and should have been at least 1 nil up at half time. After going 1-up in the 2nd we were inevitably on the back foot a little. On the balance of things though I think a draw was a fair result.

Vyner, James, Knight, Bell would be first names on the team sheet next week for me.

Edited August 6, 2023 by real_bristol

[petehinton]

Negatives - 

Atmosphere. Weather. Excitement. How everyone bar Vyner and Dickie played!

Positives -

Vyner and Dickie. Would he surprised if we have a home performance that slow and lacklustre again. All the negatives people are mentioning were referenced by Pearson post match, so he himself knows and wasn’t happy with what he saw. Everyone, bar the two CBs, had a bad game, and we didn’t lose it. First game of not, that’s a good thing. I’d rather start poorly and grow into ourselves than start well and fade. 
 

[petehinton]

3 hours ago, Numero Uno said:

The important thing for me next week is we put in a performance regardless of the result. Bad games happen and yesterday was certainly that but to judge a season after one game as a very small minority already have is completely mental.

Given we have nutters booing the team off after an underwhelming draw on the opening day it is important we start performing sooner rather than later.

Loads of fans when the fixtures came out - “Preston first game, that’ll be tough, they’re our bogey team, always struggle against them, do well to win that one”

Loads of fans when we don’t win - “ffs!!!!! Can’t believe we didn’t win!!!!!!”

[redkev]

9 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Loads of fans when the fixtures came out - “Preston first game, that’ll be tough, they’re our bogey team, always struggle against them, do well to win that one”

Loads of fans when we don’t win - “ffs!!!!! Can’t believe we didn’t win!!!!!!”

Was always going to be a tough game , 

no frills established championship side 

[mozo]

4 hours ago, Spike said:

I've been going over the match, looking over the stats, the game management etc and I think the following:

Vyner - Our stand-out player, rarely put a foot out of place, his positioning has far improved since last season if this game is to go by and Dickie offered a lot more dedication in the air which are big positives but I've started with the defence for a reason. 
Yesterday in the first half Preston were a lot more productive in the middle of the park than us. They struggled in the final third but they pressed fast and hard and when they got the ball they were not wasteful with it in the middle of the pitch. Neither team looked likely to score in the first thirty minutes and they looked far more composed on the ball. When we did win the ball we would hold onto it at the back to try and get something going which is exactly why we couldn't produce anything, we would win the ball but couldn't turn the ball winning possession into an attack fast enough which allowed them to shape up and pressure us. The obvious issue here in my eyes was of all of our midfielders only one of them can receive the ball with his back to a player and manage to turn it around which is Alex Scott. We really missed that yesterday as we struggled to turn defence into attack quickly and effectively which is essentially how we're set up to play.
So with no Scott to turn defence into attack we played 30 minutes where we actually had more possession but when you look at the attacking momentum chart we literally did nothing with it until around the last 15 minutes of the first half when we managed to catch Preston making the odd bad pass, that threat then kind of snowballed in our favour and gave us a good 8 minutes of consistent attacking football and after Prestons short burst forward we countered again and looked stronger coming in for the second half. During our 8 minutes of good pressure the difference was that we'd managed to get the ball from Preston making a few poor passes which allowed us to take the ball on in a midfield area and already facing towards the goal. 
What I thought coming in at half time was that Preston had been better in the middle, they'd prevented us from turning on the ball and essentially kept us from getting anything going until the errors were forced. For me we're missing a midfielder who can do what Scott does, receive the ball, turn and make a pass, Williams was the only player who seemed willing to try and force that forward pass whilst James and Knight seemed to try and play more simple passes. Whilst on the subject of the midfield and what was lacking, between all three midfielders we only had one key pass which was from James, all in all the midfield was largely the issue yesterday. Browne and McCann were far better than any of our 3 yesterday, 4 key passes between them and a high completion of passes from them both.

Another stat that highlighted an issue for me was Pring had the joint highest tackles in the game at 5, the same as Ledson, and had 20 duels in the game, winning 11 of them, showing his defensive contribution was massive, the issue he had was when he was getting the ball his options were quickly cut out and this led to him struggling to complete a fair few passes. This leads me on to the attack and the issue we had against Preston yesterday.
Atkinson mentioned on commentary about how we felt "very spaced out" and he was spot on, Cornick, Wells and Bell were so spaced out and the same thing happened as they were replaced by their counter parts, the issue this caused was that Preston had obviously studied us, their interceptions were highest in the middle and this was because if we tried to play it to Wells/Conway they were completely alone with no options to flick on or even play it backwards if they could win it, Preston then allowed us to build up on the wings by cutting out the pass on feet to the CF and making us play down the wings where they used their wing backs and midfielders to pin us in forcing us to come back. We had no back up play for this and ended up in playing it around at the back until were pressured to play it long. Our midfielders were not showing inside passing options for the wide players early enough which meant in turn they were forced back and that we couldn't break Preston down. The 4-3-3 works great when we've got a player who can turn dispossessing the opposition into a counter attack quickly but without Scott and with Preston pinning us on the wings they nullified us completely and we had no second plan.
I feel like Pearson needs to teach them a second plan of action when this situation arrives because the players didn't adapt at all and that was our undoing coming forward, without the counter-attack our wide men looked disconnected from the game and our striker looked like he had no support at all. You only have to look at the touches of our front three to see how secluded they were, Conway had 5 touches in 30 minutes, Cornick had 25 in 70, Bell had 25 in 87 and Sykes had 12 in 30. I mean to put that in perspective Max had 56 which was also more than all 3 of our midfielders, that's how much we had to keep going back due to their gameplan and our lack of ability to adapt to it.

Looking at the match attack momentum I think it tells the story of the match:

 

During the full 90 minutes we had a single high peak (our goal) and only 3 decent peaks, Preston in comparison had 15 decent peaks and 2/3 high peaks, Preston also had 49 minutes of attacking momentum compared to our 39 which was largely boosted by the first half period where we had the ball but were not creating threat as seen by the bars. We actually came in the first half having created 2 decent chances and having had the only shot on goal but the second half, despite our stronger start and goal, was all Preston. After we scored we had a small period of control and from there one we only had one 4 minute long period where we regained control which came after substitutions which allowed us to regain composure for a 4 minutes spell only to fall back into being bogged down by Preston.

I think when we get to a situation like we did yesterday we should reshape a little, the wide men come narrower and we push up a midfielder so he's closer to our striker, this would mean if we're being forced to lump the ball forward we're giving ourselves more chance to win the second balls, something we lost all game long yesterday giving the impression that Preston wanted it more when I think it was more down to they were closer together to support each other. If we told one of the midfield "stay within range of our central striker and challenge for the second ball" and we had our wide men coming narrow it would give us a lot more chance to win those second balls and if we got the possession we'd have players all within the passing range of each other rather than being stood on either wing and not midfielders to support the striker. 

Looking again at the stats the biggest tell was that in the first half Preston had a 0.00 expected goals, they'd pinned us back well and stopped us attacking but hadn't yet really thrown themselves at us, the tactic you'd respect from an away team, but the second half they conceded and then had to push forward which changed the game entirely as once they pushed us we couldn't play our way through them at all. The defence in my opinion played incredibly well yesterday, I mean they conceded one goal in around 20 minutes of very high pressure attacks which when you boil that down to the entirety of the game is roughly 22% of the entire match, add the sustained pressure and we spent 38% of the 90 minutes under sustained pressure, for the record we managed 11% sustained pressure, 9 % being very high.  I said that the result was fair at 1-1 yesterday but looking back on the match, seeing how many times we had scares, looking at these statistics, re-evaluating and then seeing the second half stats of them having 58% possession, 11 shots, 1.32 expected goals and the fact that they dominated us in almost every team statistic just makes me think we were lucky to come away with the point.

For me the main positives were that the defence was very strong considering how much pressure it was put under, it had some shakes but it also did incredibly well to keep them down to a single goal, the attack in my opinion were not bad but were instead far too isolated and for me that comes down to the issue being the midfield. I think if Scott goes we really a need a midfielder who is good on the ball, meaning they can turn a player, beat a player, anything that allows them to face up field under pressure and make a pass to one of our attackers and do it quickly and effectively because without that we cannot use the pace and ability we have upfront as the opposition can get back and then we struggle to break them down.
The other positive for me was that despite having a really poor second half the lads heads didn't go down, after the equaliser we still managed to play a small amount of attack and the defence was still giving it their all.

I think we'll do a lot better against teams that attack with a high line but Pearson really needs to have a think about how he's going to set us up to counter high pressing, deep defensive line teams as we may be able to beat the high press with the workrate the lads have but if they can't figure a way to create against a deep defensive line we're really going to struggle with the counter attack, especially when we're slower to go from defence to attack without Scott or Weimann to make that transition.

You talk about City being 'forced' to go long, but there were countless times where we chose to go long when a passing option was there. Perhaps we were trying to stretch the play or felt that Preston were uncomfortable going backwards, but it didn't have any positive impact and often the ball went straight put of play.

10 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Negatives - 

Atmosphere. Weather. Excitement. How everyone bar Vyner and Dickie played!

Positives -

Vyner and Dickie. Would he surprised if we have a home performance that slow and lacklustre again. All the negatives people are mentioning were referenced by Pearson post match, so he himself knows and wasn’t happy with what he saw. Everyone, bar the two CBs, had a bad game, and we didn’t lose it. First game of not, that’s a good thing. I’d rather start poorly and grow into ourselves than start well and fade. 
 

Pete, fair play to you! I know you're not a fan of OTIB negativity, but I don't think there's anything wrong with criticising that performance, then looking forward to the next one. I'm pretty sure we won't see that kind of output every week! 

[petehinton]

1 minute ago, mozo said:

You talk about City being 'forced' to go long, but there were countless times where we chose to go long when a passing option was there. Perhaps we were trying to stretch the play or felt that Preston were uncomfortable going backwards, but it didn't have any positive impact and often the ball went straight put of play.

Pete, fair play to you! I know you're not a fan of OTIB negativity, but I don't think there's anything wrong with criticising that performance, then looking forward to the next one. I'm pretty sure we won't see that kind of output every week! 

Not at all, I’m fully in agreement with the negativity.
 

It was woeful and I wouldn’t want to watch it every week. But I do think a lot of it is the occasion. Everyone’s looked forward to it for months, lots of expectation, then we get to the day itself and the weather is shit, freezing cold, we draw and play worse than probably at any point at home last season. That definitely makes it a lot worse. 

[mozo]

5 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Not at all, I’m fully in agreement with the negativity.
 

It was woeful and I wouldn’t want to watch it every week. But I do think a lot of it is the occasion. Everyone’s looked forward to it for months, lots of expectation, then we get to the day itself and the weather is shit, freezing cold, we draw and play worse than probably at any point at home last season. That definitely makes it a lot worse. 

Yeah true. It's also that we're setting ourselves higher standards now. We kind of expect to see the full throttle dynamic stuff that we play when at our best, but it ain't gonna happen every time. 

The lads will know they need to up their games for Millwall. 

[Northern Red]

6 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Not at all, I’m fully in agreement with the negativity.
 

It was woeful and I wouldn’t want to watch it every week. But I do think a lot of it is the occasion. Everyone’s looked forward to it for months, lots of expectation, then we get to the day itself and the weather is shit, freezing cold, we draw and play worse than probably at any point at home last season. That definitely makes it a lot worse. 

There's a lot of truth in that. This from Bristol Live, courtesy of @Jerseybean in the other thread, sums it up:

"....For all the expectation, anticipation, butterflies and hype (which we’re mostly all guilty of) that comes with the first day of the season, this was a match that was a representation of a team (BCFC) starting a new campaign, albeit eventually outplayed by the opposition in exactly the same set of circumstances.

Had this perhaps been a midweek game in October with a sub-20,000 crowd, the narrative could well be how City wrestled a point from an under-par display against a well-organised fellow Championship side. Those Tuesday night 1-1s over the years tend to bleed into one, irrespective of the other side also in possession of a “hard-earned draw”.

[Davefevs]

6 hours ago, Spike said:

I've been going over the match, looking over the stats, the game management etc and I think the following:

Vyner - Our stand-out player, rarely put a foot out of place, his positioning has far improved since last season if this game is to go by and Dickie offered a lot more dedication in the air which are big positives but I've started with the defence for a reason.

yep, based in one league game and several PSFs Dickie is gonna be an asset.  Attacks the ball well aerially.  Both were my picks yesterdays.  (Williams the other that gained any credit)
Yesterday in the first half Preston were a lot more productive in the middle of the park than us. They struggled in the final third but they pressed fast and hard and when they got the ball they were not wasteful with it in the middle of the pitch. Neither team looked likely to score in the first thirty minutes and they looked far more composed on the ball. When we did win the ball we would hold onto it at the back to try and get something going which is exactly why we couldn't produce anything, we would win the ball but couldn't turn the ball winning possession into an attack fast enough which allowed them to shape up and pressure us. The obvious issue here in my eyes was of all of our midfielders only one of them can receive the ball with his back to a player and manage to turn it around which is Alex Scott. We really missed that yesterday as we struggled to turn defence into attack quickly and effectively which is essentially how we're set up to play.

he’s not the only one, Weimann and Knight are both capable.  Weimann over many games, Knight on PSF showing.  In my article on Medium.com I discuss exactly this, albeit as you rightly say Scott is the key component.  My issue with Weimann is he wants to run beyond the ball too quickly in the phase of possesion.  That didn’t help any cohesiveness in the opening 23 mins he was on…plus he was obviously suffering from his bruised foot.  But we do have players.  James, Dickie and Vyner were marked / half-pressed 3 v3 most of the time.  James if anything semi-blocked the passing lanes into Knight and Weimann / Williams, he needed to clear himself out.  That would also have left room for Vyner and Dickie to find low passes into midfield or even Wells.

Things to work on!
So with no Scott to turn defence into attack we played 30 minutes where we actually had more possession but when you look at the attacking momentum chart we literally did nothing with it until around the last 15 minutes of the first half when we managed to catch Preston making the odd bad pass, that threat then kind of snowballed in our favour and gave us a good 8 minutes of consistent attacking football and after Prestons short burst forward we countered again and looked stronger coming in for the second half. During our 8 minutes of good pressure the difference was that we'd managed to get the ball from Preston making a few poor passes which allowed us to take the ball on in a midfield area and already facing towards the goal.

earlier on we didn’t close up the distances back to front, when we did, it made a big difference as per above.

Need to get higher every time, squeeze the pitch.
What I thought coming in at half time was that Preston had been better in the middle, they'd prevented us from turning on the ball and essentially kept us from getting anything going until the errors were forced. For me we're missing a midfielder who can do what Scott does, receive the ball, turn and make a pass, Williams was the only player who seemed willing to try and force that forward pass whilst James and Knight seemed to try and play more simple passes. Whilst on the subject of the midfield and what was lacking, between all three midfielders we only had one key pass which was from James, all in all the midfield was largely the issue yesterday. Browne and McCann were far better than any of our 3 yesterday, 4 key passes between them and a high completion of passes from them both.

Browne played a completely different position though.  He played as the inside right of their AM “box” with Frokjaer stationed more central.  It was lop-sided. City red / PNE black

Frokjaer sat on James, but able to engage Vyner, Keane split Vyner and Dickie, Browne (highlighted yellow) halfway between Dickie and Pring, with Potts covering lanes to Weimann and Bell, whilst being able to quickly engage Pring, should Dickie be able to get the ball quickly to him.

Another stat that highlighted an issue for me was Pring had the joint highest tackles in the game at 5, the same as Ledson, and had 20 duels in the game, winning 11 of them, showing his defensive contribution was massive, the issue he had was when he was getting the ball his options were quickly cut out and this led to him struggling to complete a fair few passes. This leads me on to the attack and the issue we had against Preston yesterday.

Several of those tackles were off his own poor touches either miscontrol or whilst dribbling.  He did ok defensively, but he was below par.
Atkinson mentioned on commentary about how we felt "very spaced out" and he was spot on, Cornick, Wells and Bell were so spaced out and the same thing happened as they were replaced by their counter parts, the issue this caused was that Preston had obviously studied us, their interceptions were highest in the middle and this was because if we tried to play it to Wells/Conway they were completely alone with no options to flick on or even play it backwards if they could win it, Preston then allowed us to build up on the wings by cutting out the pass on feet to the CF and making us play down the wings where they used their wing backs and midfielders to pin us in forcing us to come back.

We didn’t play down the left hardly at all, because of Browne / Potts dynamic, as I’ve posted elsewhere and on Twitter the space was down our right.  Even my little pic above shows that Tanner was the outlet.  Unfortunately he didn’t make the most of his positions on the ball. 

We had no back up play for this and ended up in playing it around at the back until were pressured to play it long. Our midfielders were not showing inside passing options for the wide players early enough which meant in turn they were forced back and that we couldn't break Preston down. The 4-3-3 works great when we've got a player who can turn dispossessing the opposition into a counter attack quickly but without Scott and with Preston pinning us on the wings they nullified us completely and we had no second plan.

in many respects other than Tanner, the other place to exploit was the 3 v 3 (Bell, Wells and Cornick vs Storey, Lindsay and Hughes). If we could’ve got some success there early on, then Preston’s game plan goes out the window.  Bell needed to stop hugging the touchline, he basically hid behind Potts. Pring could’ve pushed on and then Browne in marking thin-air.

As it was, we didn’t and it was samey!
I feel like Pearson needs to teach them a second plan of action when this situation arrives because the players didn't adapt at all and that was our undoing coming forward, without the counter-attack our wide men looked disconnected from the game and our striker looked like he had no support at all.

See point made above re Bell.  Cornick drifting infield was where we started to press the ball a bit better, hence our better spell, coupled with us squeezing up too (see above comment).  What you want then is for Tanner to push on and force Kion Best back.  Make their back 3 become a back 5.

But it’s pure supposition to say Pearson needs to teach them a second plan of action.  It’s more about execution…which we didn’t do.

You only have to look at the touches of our front three to see how secluded they were, Conway had 5 touches in 30 minutes, Cornick had 25 in 70, Bell had 25 in 87 and Sykes had 12 in 30. I mean to put that in perspective Max had 56 which was also more than all 3 of our midfielders, that's how much we had to keep going back due to their gameplan and our lack of ability to adapt to it.

for info you’ll find the touches of forwards v defenders to be massively higher for defenders. Nothing above is unusual.

Looking at the match attack momentum I think it tells the story of the match:

Is this sofascore?  I think graphically it shows the game up well.  I quite looking at when shots happen, breaking game into 6 x 15 min chunks.

During the full 90 minutes we had a single high peak (our goal) and only 3 decent peaks, Preston in comparison had 15 decent peaks and 2/3 high peaks, Preston also had 49 minutes of attacking momentum compared to our 39 which was largely boosted by the first half period where we had the ball but were not creating threat as seen by the bars. We actually came in the first half having created 2 decent chances and having had the only shot on goal but the second half, despite our stronger start and goal, was all Preston. After we scored we had a small period of control and from there one we only had one 4 minute long period where we regained control which came after substitutions which allowed us to regain composure for a 4 minutes spell only to fall back into being bogged down by Preston.

Yep, we need to find a way to take the sting out of the opposition.

Preston gambled, pushed Potts on even more.  Did Bell react and tuck-in?  Nope.  Whilst it’s great when he gets a 1 v 1 on the counter, he really is a luxury when you’re under the cosh.  Feels like I’m picking on him, but his lack of game maturity caused a lot of issues for Pring yesterday.  His goal covers up a poor  / below par performance imho.  He wasn’t alone btw, but we are talking tactical stuff here, and therefore it’s why I’m bringing him into the conversation.  As I said, only 3 players earned their corn yesterday for me.  Some hovered around earning it, many didn’t.

I think when we get to a situation like we did yesterday we should reshape a little, the wide men come narrower and we push up a midfielder so he's closer to our striker, this would mean if we're being forced to lump the ball forward we're giving ourselves more chance to win the second balls, something we lost all game long yesterday giving the impression that Preston wanted it more when I think it was more down to they were closer together to support each other. If we told one of the midfield "stay within range of our central striker and challenge for the second ball" and we had our wide men coming narrow it would give us a lot more chance to win those second balls and if we got the possession we'd have players all within the passing range of each other rather than being stood on either wing and not midfielders to support the striker.

For me, I don’t like the 3 forwards spread across the pitch.  It’s why I’d rather Cornick played halfway across (nearer to Wells), even if Bell played wide.  Or if Sykes plays wide right, Bell plays more inside left.  A bit lop-sided.

Looking again at the stats the biggest tell was that in the first half Preston had a 0.00 expected goals, they'd pinned us back well and stopped us attacking but hadn't yet really thrown themselves at us, the tactic you'd respect from an away team, but the second half they conceded and then had to push forward which changed the game entirely as once they pushed us we couldn't play our way through them at all. The defence in my opinion played incredibly well yesterday, I mean they conceded one goal in around 20 minutes of very high pressure attacks which when you boil that down to the entirety of the game is roughly 22% of the entire match, add the sustained pressure and we spent 38% of the 90 minutes under sustained pressure, for the record we managed 11% sustained pressure, 9 % being very high.  I said that the result was fair at 1-1 yesterday but looking back on the match, seeing how many times we had scares, looking at these statistics, re-evaluating and then seeing the second half stats of them having 58% possession, 11 shots, 1.32 expected goals and the fact that they dominated us in almost every team statistic just makes me think we were lucky to come away with the point.

Stats can tell us a lot, but they aren’t the whole picture.  It’s ok saying player x did this n times or player z did it less, but you have to look at why - cause and effect!  Preston’s players have a huge effect on what are players do / are able to do.  Shape in various parts of the game, e.g. build up from the keeper, on the counter, play a huge part in understanding why things happen.

Look at the above.  Pring 1v1, Bell out of the game, which means Williams has to go and help, leaving the infield ball to McCann in acres.  Our CBs are 3v3 nobody spare.  Cornick has lost Best.

This was 5 mins after we’d gone 1-0 up having already been under a bit of pressure.  Sit in, turn them around, take the sting out of them!!! Arghhhhhhh

For me the main positives were that the defence was very strong considering how much pressure it was put under, it had some shakes but it also did incredibly well to keep them down to a single goal, the attack in my opinion were not bad but were instead far too isolated and for me that comes down to the issue being the midfield. I think if Scott goes we really a need a midfielder who is good on the ball, meaning they can turn a player, beat a player, anything that allows them to face up field under pressure and make a pass to one of our attackers and do it quickly and effectively because without that we cannot use the pace and ability we have upfront as the opposition can get back and then we struggle to break them down.
The other positive for me was that despite having a really poor second half the lads heads didn't go down, after the equaliser we still managed to play a small amount of attack and the defence was still giving it their all.

I think we'll do a lot better against teams that attack with a high line but Pearson really needs to have a think about how he's going to set us up to counter high pressing, deep defensive line teams as we may be able to beat the high press with the workrate the lads have but if they can't figure a way to create against a deep defensive line we're really going to struggle with the counter attack, especially when we're slower to go from defence to attack without Scott or Weimann to make that transition.

Big effort put in there Spike, deserves a big effort in response.

I agree with a fair bit of it, even if I don’t always agree with the reasons.

 

[pillred]

3 hours ago, redkev said:

Was always going to be a tough game , 

no frills established championship side 

Not sure that's the point, we all, well most knew that, how we were mostly outplayed/muscled was the most disappointing thing about the game.  

[Red-Robbo]

2 hours ago, Northern Red said:

Had this perhaps been a midweek game in October with a sub-20,000 crowd, the narrative could well be how City wrestled a point from an under-par display against a well-organised fellow Championship side. Those Tuesday night 1-1s over the years tend to bleed into one, irrespective of the other side also in possession of a “hard-earned draw”.

 

That's fair enough, but perhaps the point is people are expecting more this season than the same fare we've been served for many a season in the Championship.  It's the realisation that we still might be facing tedious games with an unorganised, out-thought and out-played City. We hoped for better. It's the hope that kills you...

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Big effort put in there Spike, deserves a big effort in response.

I agree with a fair bit of it, even if I don’t always agree with the reasons.

 

@Spike, sorry forgot to add, my comments were embedded into your post further up.