City V Rotterdam

[mozo]

Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Bristol Boy...

Ever had a bad day at the office?

Rotherham were kept in existence this week by a benevolent consortium and were expected to be spurred on by this good news, but the scoreline belies the fact that they were so clearly a beatable side.

City started the game like the home side. They pressured, played the ball around and showed impressive movement off the ball to give the Rotherham midfield a real struggle for much of the opening half hour.

It was surprising then that City went one down. Forte was lively throughout, but his finish was an elementary result of rank bad defending. The Rotherham attack played their way round the City back-line far too easilt.

Even then, you felt that the hard-working home side were shakey enough to leak goals. So it was a major blow when Shaw got away with a handball to control the ball into his path, past Fontaine and finished cooly.

City still could have pulled a goal back before the break, Murray going particularly close after some nice passing, however his shot sneaked the wrongside of the post.

Murray was brought off due to a knee injury incurred as he flinched during a 50-50 challenge. Wilkshire came on as did Big Mac for the disappointing Savage.

You'd think City would be geared up to grab an early goal, but as it turned out they collapsed. Some of the worst defending I've seen in a 'champagne' shirt for a long time allowed a prolonged attack eventually see the third.

It was a nice finish on the half voley, but the headless chicken routine in the lead up was like the City of four months ago.

Heads dropped straight away, and City completely lost control of the game until the last fifteen minutes.

Skuse is now a goal-machine (!) and followed up a McCammon shot to tap-in the consolation goal. There enogh chances to score again, but City hadn't had the run of the ball, or the referee's decisions to make up for their unimpressive performance.

The City faithful finally found their voice in the last ten minutes and ended up applauding and singing their team off, which is always nice to see.

Millmoor looks awful, the pitch was a mess and the fans were quiet. The best team didn't win and it's a day best forgotten.

Ratings:

Basso...6

His kicking was abysmal, surprise, surprise. And he made a couple of good saves as usual. Not at fault for the goals (Gazereth will be pleased with my work there!).

Orr...5

The whole defence had a mare, Orr didn't contribute much. Bad clearances.

Carey...4

Didn't look the self-assured man we're now used to. Forte ran him ragged. At one point he ducked to let Orr claim a header, but he ball landed on the back of his head and into Orr's face. Summed his day up.

Fontaine...5

I didn't spot many errors, but they all marked badly and were disorganised.

Woodman...5

He tried to get forward but showed little quality.

Cotterill...5

Barely saw him before he came off for Brown.

Russell...6

Looked good early on in the anchor role, with nice distribution, but the midfield's organisation fell apart second half.

Skuse...7

Scored a goal so I can't fault him (his first 'proper' goal!). It was the kind of poaching that we need to see from our central midfielders.

Murray...7

The sharpest I've seen him for a while. He looked like one of the few players on the pitch early on who was on his game. He nearly scored and was involved in all the better City attacks.

Savage...4

Looked sluggish before being taken off at half-time. Barely got on the ball and gave Brooker no support.

Brooker...7

Endeavour galore as usual. Had a number of long range efforts with no joy, and somehow had a point blank effort stopped in the second half. Late on, he was back defending, he tackled the winger before beating him and playing a calm ball out of defence. Says a lot about the man, and about the lack of quality around him at times.

SUBS:

Big Mac...5

Looked very keen, but didn't do much. Bit of a Steve Jones!

Wilkshire...5

City didn't have a midfield for much of the second half and he failed to make an impression.

Brown...6

Looked very lively and started of well before dropping his game. One great cross and one terrible cross summed up his wing-play.

Not a game to write gome about, ironic really because that's exactly what I'm doing.

It's grim up north!

[dagest]

Thanks for the report mate. I'm sorry you had to go all the way to Holland for such a let down.

[Bristol Boy]

Like I said earlier-A good one to miss-See you all at AG against Yeovil!

[mozo]

I think I should point out by the way that having just read Gary Johnson's comments on the official site that his comments were pretty much spot on and there was no sign of his infamous spin this week.

[kit]

I thought Murray Brooker and McKammon were the only players that could really come out of that game with any grace. 100% effort from Brooker and was dealing only with lumps up the field. Murray looked dangerous at times. And in the second half I think the same can be said of McKammon as for Brooker.

We created some opportunities but defended terribly, it was akin to the Forest match for me fairly end to end and both teams had chances, and we did have two great ones with Brooker and Cotterill that should have been goals but were great saves. But Rotherham were able to run straight through us, our midfield was absolutely non-existant. Most of our attacking play was either full backs or wingers running the ball a long way or front men feeding off scraps.

Basso - 4. Shameful kicking (about 4 times it went along the groud and their player was stood on the edge of the box waiting for another by the end of the game) and second goal should have done a lot more cos he made it easy for him to score.

Woodman and Orr 5/6 Weren't the crux of problem but still fairly dodgy at times making a lot of errors.

Carey and Fontaine 4 Didn't win anywhere near enough of the ball and Fontaine and Carey both made a lot of errors.

Skuse - 5 Won about two tackles all game had about 5 touches, left runners never made himself available and was by-passed for much of the game as a result, only saving grace was his goal otherwise I think a 4 would have been warrented.

Russell - 5 Same as Skuse although I think he was maybe a touch better in terms of winning possession, but both were non-existant.

Cotterill - 6 was ok first half, should have scored, but had tired and was rightly substituted. He also was a bit more physical today winning a couple of tackles and one header which was a plus.

Murray - 7 made some good runs and some good crosses and was a shame to go off injured.

Brooker - 8 Almost all of our good play Brooker was involved with and didn't do much wrong although he should have scored.

Bas Savage - 5 Work rate was not as high as in previous games and without that he doesn't really warrant a place in the team cos he showed once he gets with in 20 yards of the goal he is useless, did have one or two good runs but was mostly ineffectual.

Wilkshire was non-existant. Brown did OK for a while once he came on and put in a lot of effort and some tackles plus had a good run and cross that caused some problems. McKammon was good and work hard when he really had very little service.

[mozo]

Murray - 7 made some good runs and some good crosses and was a shame to go off injured.

Was good to see Scotty in good form again, eh? His injury was a real shame.

[martin]

Like I said earlier-A good one to miss-See you all at AG against Yeovil!

I wish I'de seen your advice BB earlier I might have followed it. I haven't seen City for a while living up in Halifax and could in fact claim to be unlucky. My last 3 games away have been Oldham, Doncaster and today: 3 losses and 3 poor displays.

I thought City were poor today, despite an excellent turn out from the fans. We left massive holes in the left centre of midfield and Rotherham ran the show. The earlier report from Mozo suggests we were unlucky in the first half. I think we were lucky 'cos we could have been 4 down.

Savage, Cotteril and the defence in general were awful. Nurray and Brooker the only 2 who came out with credit.

The match was further spoiled for me by the complete 'spuds' who seemed to get great pleasure from taunting the family enclosure waving £20 notes, claiming 'we've got loads of money' ( which I didn't when I had just paid £39 for me and my 2 boys), chanting 'bankrutcy' ad nauseum and generally making me ashamed to be associated with them.

I've posted on one of these characters before after the Oldham game. He must be 50ish, is balding and is obviously a very SAD individual. He doesn't go to watch matches he goes to cause trouble. Next time I see him at a match I am going to take great pleasure in reporting him to the police before he even opens his mouth. :@

Anyway some positives: I met my mate Colin from Cardiff for the first time in 10 years.and the juvenile 50 year old got thrown out.

[Dollymarie]

The match was further spoiled for me by the complete 'spuds' who seemed to get great pleasure from taunting the family enclosure waving £20 notes, claiming 'we've got loads of money' ( which I didn't when I had just paid £39 for me and my 2 boys), chanting 'bankrutcy' ad nauseum and generally making me ashamed to be associated with them.

I've posted on one of these characters before after the Oldham game. He must be 50ish, is balding and is obviously a very SAD individual. He doesn't go to watch matches he goes to cause trouble. Next time I see him at a match I am going to take great pleasure in reporting him to the police before he even opens his mouth. :@

Complete prats whoever they are. And certainly not football fans.

[mozo]

The earlier report from Mozo suggests we were unlucky in the first half. I think we were lucky 'cos we could have been 4 down.

Interesting that you say that Martin. I was there with my brother who doesn't support City, and he thought that we were the better team up until the goal, and that on the whole, Rotherham only shaded the first-half performance wise. Plus only one of their goals should have stood.

We were clearly inferior in the 2nd half though.

I'll be interested to hear what the others think on that one.

[SE23Red]

Interesting that you say that Martin. I was there with my brother who doesn't support City, and he thought that we were the better team up until the goal, and that on the whole, Rotherham only shaded the first-half performance wise. Plus only one of their goals should have stood.

We were clearly inferior in the 2nd half though.

I'll be interested to hear what the others think on that one.

I thought only one team looked like scoring in the first half and it wasn't us. Yes we were much better first half than second but I don't remember us testing the keeper apart from the Cotterill shot he tipped over for a goal kick :@

I was very impressed with their back two and am slightly surprised that Brooker is getting rave reviews again because I thought he came up against a defence that could live with him for the first time in weeks.

One final thought is that I didn't think the pitch suited players who ran with the ball, something Rotherham didn't try to do at all. Cotterill and Savage were shocking as a result and Murray, who looked up for it, eventually found the ball bobbling around his knees at the end of many of his runs. Take the dribblers out of our game and we looked to have very little creativity.

[nofx]

It was a shocking performance but lets try and take it as a positive. I think most fans and players were becoming a little complacent, thinking that they can stroll games. However the facts are, we simply are some way from being a good side that can compete at the right end of the table. I posted on here a few weeks ago, that we need 5 players over the summer, not 1 or 2 that GJ suggests. For me, Sat was back to the bad old days prior to Christmas when we simply get rolled over. Hopefully its a one off but for me, Basso despite a couple of saves has to sort his kicking - he dropped us in it so many times & Carey got injured as a result of one of them. Orr - when is he, as a professional, going to learn how to pass to his colleagues? Fontaine had a mistake ridden game but this was his first poor performance, same goes for Carey. The midfield still isnt physical enough, bring Noble back. Unfortunately the flanks is of concern, we have been carrying Murray & Cotterill for some time now, but until we have replacements, there place is safe. As for Bas - well he still belongs in the non league as far as I am concerned - I have said it all along - he just isnt good enough!! So i still think it will be a busy summer - once we are safe of course!!

[Concrete Joe]

Rotherham had pace and movement from the midfield and front two. All we did was loft long hopeful balls in the vague direction of Brooker and Savage, I made the mistake of trying to defend Bas in the pub before the game (defence based on workrate), he then puts in a terrible performance where every ball seemed to get trapped beneath his feet or bounce 5 yards away from him.

Sure we had chances to score in the first half but in reality we never looked sharp enough.

Whilst Cotts had a poor game, ask yourself how man times he touched the ball in the 1st half - if we are to play with two wingers then at least lets try to get the ball down and use them.

GJ comments are spot on in that we looked like a team that could turn up and win.

[Southport Red]

I made the mistake of trying to defend Bas in the pub before the game (defence based on workrate), he then puts in a terrible performance where every ball seemed to get trapped beneath his feet or bounce 5 yards away from him.

It was really quite alarming to watch him go up for headers from defensive clearances, I counted FIVE TIMES when he jumped and didn't get within TWO FEET of the ball, simply out of position. Reminded me of a kiddy at school who was scared to head the ball but didn't want to let it show and so became an expert at the 'determined, heroic miss'

[cheshire_red]

Good report Mozo, there's also one here: http://www.bristolcitynet.co.uk

On the messageboard is a link to an amusing picture caption re Bas's heading abilites (daren't post it on here!)

[Swindon Hater]

The match was further spoiled for me by the complete 'spuds' who seemed to get great pleasure from taunting the family enclosure waving £20 notes, claiming 'we've got loads of money' ( which I didn't when I had just paid £39 for me and my 2 boys), chanting 'bankrutcy' ad nauseum and generally making me ashamed to be associated with them.

I've posted on one of these characters before after the Oldham game. He must be 50ish, is balding and is obviously a very SAD individual. He doesn't go to watch matches he goes to cause trouble. Next time I see him at a match I am going to take great pleasure in reporting him to the police before he even opens his mouth. :@

I think it's a good laugh, for christ sake it's a bit of banter, I'm sure ALOT of teams would do it to us.

Lighten up, what arw you going to do anyway? Report someone for chanting at football, ok then!!

[mozo]

Good report Mozo, there's also one here: http://www.bristolcitynet.co.uk

On the messageboard is a link to an amusing picture caption re Bas's heading abilites (daren't post it on here!)

Thanks mate

And of course you may advertise on my thread