Lee Johnson

[Roger Red Hat]

One thing we did lack today was a Tommy Doc, I almost said it while I was at the game but we really did miss someone like him to infulence the team, my old man put it better "There was no leader out there" that was true.

What, somebody to throw up and not be able to play for ninety minutes (although that would'nt matter because he'd have been sent off and we'd have ended the game with ten men and not got back in it).

[BristolCity1992]

What, somebody to throw up and not be able to play for ninety minutes (although that would'nt matter because he'd have been sent off and we'd have ended the game with ten men and not got back in it).

I was going to say excpet for not quite like Tommy but thought people would get my point anyway.

[The Fat Controller]

I have two issues with Johnson on reflection, on than the passing one, which IMO was just a blip today, he has shown in the past that he can be an excellent "passer".

Firstly, LJ seemed to bottle out of challenges, seemed to afraid to put his foot in where it might hurt.

Secondly, (And yes, i know his height is against him with this one) but why does he jump at the man in aerial challenges. Maybe if he went for the ball instead of the man he'd have a bit more luck.

[red-or-dead]

So gamon, red-or-dead, cider head, dollymarie etc;

Do you still think he shouldn't be in the team?

He should not be in the team,

Today yet again he was dreadful, giving the ball away countless times,

At times he cant seem to beat the nearest man to him with the most basic of pass.

I really don't give a monkeys if he is the gaffers son , I'm judging him on his overall performance.

He was seconds from being taken off for Noble whem he finally contributed to todays game, A fine pass it was!

I still don't think he is all that his reputation made me believe!

[Roger Red Hat]

He should not be in the team,

Today yet again he was dreadful, giving the ball away countless times,

At times he cant seem to beat the nearest man to him with the most basic of pass.

I really don't give a monkeys if he is the gaffers son , I'm judging him on his overall performance.

He was seconds from being taken off for Noble whem he finally contributed to todays game, A fine pass it was!

I still don't think he is all that his reputation made me believe!

And what is that reputation?

[red-or-dead]

And what is that reputation?

What i heard-

A man who can run the show from the middle of the park.

Likes to have strong forward runs to assist the front men.

Has a decent shot at goal a couple of times a game. ( scores 10 goals a season ).

To sum up - A capable attacking midfielder, good on the ball, see's the pass and scores goals!

What ive seen so far-

A short arse who gives the ball away far too easy & too often,

Has a shot but rarely scores,

Kept in the team when obviously should be dropped to the bench.

To sum up - Not living up to his reputation.

[bcfcred]

I thought Johnson was awfull for 60minutes and I don't see how people could say he didn't! After that he was excellent! Great goal and a super ball for Murrays goal.

Hes a class player on form but lately hes been poor and I was shocked that Skuse came off and not Johnson, Also Noble should have come on for Johnson alot earllier to be honest and everybody around me booed when Skuse came off because it was blatent that Lee was our worst player by a mile at that time.

If he plays 90mins of great football then brilliant, but he needs to be on form for 90mins and not 20!

[beau45]

I thought Johnson was awfull for 60minutes and I don't see how people could say he didn't! After that he was excellent! Great goal and a super ball for Murrays goal.

Hes a class player on form but lately hes been poor and I was shocked that Skuse came off and not Johnson, Also Noble should have come on for Johnson alot earllier to be honest and everybody around me booed when Skuse came off because it was blatent that Lee was our worst player by a mile at that time.

If he plays 90mins of great football then brilliant, but he needs to be on form for 90mins and not 20!

Were people booing Skuse or were they booing the substitution?

Thought Skuse was 1 of our better players today!

[xerox6060]

You lot are on something LJ is bloody awful, i counted around 14 missed pases and his first touch is not good. His delievery is shocking and rarly finds a red shirt, he does not win the ball in a tackle and is simply not good enough. i dunno where you lot sit but eveyone round me was slagging him off left right and center.

I presume this is a joke mate,

LJ up to 75 minutes had a poor game today but he's still the most pivital midfielder we've got.

[OmegaSnake]

You lot are crazy why cant people knock him when he clearly isn't good enough? yeah he set up a goal and sliced one into the back of the net but what else did he do? give the ball away 20 times and not make one tackle!

Ok i see, LJ was the only player to have a bad game today? Because that's what you seem to be making out.. Alot of people around me was slagging him off, their was even 2 idiots slagging him off before the game (saying he was useless, should be dropped, is only playing because he's the managers son etc etc) But, I can only think of 1, maybe 2 people who had a decent game by their standards today. Brooker was clearly not match sharp, but games will contribute to that so lets not get on his back quite yet. Russell was far worse than LJ today, and i would like to see noble come in for him. Skuse is NOT a wide player and shouldnt be playing their, but that's not his fault either. Jevons had a pretty poor game today, and Mccalister didn't have the greatest games either. The only 2 that had a decent game by their standards was Mccombe, and carey. And even carey made a few mis judged passes. So all in all, LJ wasn't the only player to have a bad game today, infact, because the rest of the team didn't play to the standard we know they can play, he was probably one of the better players today. What it seems to me, is when a few players play badly, it rubs off on the rest. But it doesn't help with 'fans' like yourself critisizing(sp?), moaning, and genuinly having a go at the players at every opportunity you get. it does nothing nor their confidence to know the fans are on the backs, and will do nothing for their confidence. If they know the fans are on their side they will perform better.

[OmegaSnake]

Were people booing Skuse or were they booing the substitution?

Thought Skuse was 1 of our better players today!

They was booing the substitution, alot of people felt we should of took out one of our central midfielders out instead of subbing one of our better midfielders. I presume switching skuse to the middle and putting williams on the left.

[beau45]

They was booing the substitution, alot of people felt we should of took out one of our central midfielders out instead of subbing one of our better midfielders. I presume switching skuse to the middle and putting williams on the left.

Cheers, thats what I thought!

[Andy Horsman]

Well the sanctimonious brigade are out in force on this thread. Johnson was crap before he set up Murray, his dad was about to take him off and bring on the far better Noble. What peoplke fail to acknowlkedge about him and Russell, is that its like Ken Dodds in our central midfield, too small too lightweight, and that contributed to the 0-2 scoreline as it stood. Admittedly he did score a screamer, but his overall contribution to the team since he joined is not good enough IMO.

[wilts green]

The problem with Lee Johnson is his surname, not him as a player. A very bad idea to work for your Dad, I know! Either he is unjustifyably too hard, or is is so soft that the rest of the workforce accuse him of favourtisim. GJ never subbed Lee, and never will, next in line is Weale, another of Johnsons favourites, and come hell or high water, Johnson always plays his favourtites however it affects the rest of the team. It works sometimes, but perhaps at City it could be a cause for resentment from others in the team, pre-Johnson days.

[cider head]

fair play to him yesterday, he set murray up and also scored.

however i watched him yesterday and he was at his most dangerous when he got

down the channels and the flank, mabe a rethink on his position is needed,

he would do a far better job than skuse on the wing with noble, russell or brown

in the middle, i still think the lad is ok going foward but he deffo' needs a tackler

along side him if he keeps playing in the middle.

[Topbuzz]

I believe that skuse should be playing alongside johnson as the ball winner not out wide

Agreed

In this division we need some steel in there and if its Skuse,Brown or a new signing if we are going to play Johnson long term push him up a bit and play the diamond

[citynut54]

The problem with Lee Johnson is his surname, not him as a player. A very bad idea to work for your Dad, I know! Either he is unjustifyably too hard, or is is so soft that the rest of the workforce accuse him of favourtisim. GJ never subbed Lee, and never will, next in line is Weale, another of Johnsons favourites, and come hell or high water, Johnson always plays his favourtites however it affects the rest of the team. It works sometimes, but perhaps at City it could be a cause for resentment from others in the team, pre-Johnson days.

I was right by the dugout yesterday and GJ was about to sub LJ when he scored. Noble was stripped and ready to come on but immediately put his tracksuit back on !!

[leepeacock's50phead]

I was right by the dugout yesterday and GJ was about to sub LJ when he scored. Noble was stripped and ready to come on but immediately put his tracksuit back on !!

spotted that too.

had the 'twelfth man' had his way, LJ would have been off to a chorus of cheers.

[bransonmo]

Agreed

In this division we need some steel in there and if its Skuse,Brown or a new signing if we are going to play Johnson long term push him up a bit and play the diamond

About 6 weeks ago GJ said that Artus was very close to selection. How close is very close I wonder. Many good judges say he's not only good, but the best we've got. He is indeed 18, so was Cotterill when established, so is Williams. Parental and Academy posters have mentioned he is the best midfielder in the first team training squad.

So when talking about central midfielders, its not just Noble , Skuse, Russell, Brown and LJ, IMO we should include Artus in the mix, not just talk about a signing. Again imo, we did not need to sign LJ, we already had 4 center midfielders with Artus coming through. We had a midfield that gave us the great form in the second half of last season. Noble and Skuse were tested and well performed with Russell, Brown and Artus now available. Since LJ has been here and the other players have been dropped or shuffled around we have not had control of the midfield.

LJ is indeed a talented footballer, performs well when allowed the latitude, thats tough in this division. IMO, he has good skills, but plays well only in patches instead of being a 90 minute goer. Tough tackling, heading, scoring have all been mentioned as short comings, so with good cover, why was he signed. A left and right winger were our priorities, and yet at the start of the season, when asked, GJ said a left winger had not been one of his considerations. So no wingers, but sure lets sign another unnecessary midfielder. Now if you believe our main BCFC site, it stated that signing LJ was SL's suggestion. Absolute bloody cobblers. The same SL that would not intercede with the bleeding hearts Marcus Stewart/ GJ fiasco, found it easy to suggest an unnecessary signing to our manager who wanted control of the entire club. If you believe these fairy tales you will believe that Atyeo played for the Sag.

Its another smelly affair, and I don't mind any club trying media bull shite, the insult is they think the fans are all deaf dumb and stupid enough to believe their nonsense. As BB said last week when are they going to stop the nonsense with Skuse, the kid must be chewing his nails to the knuckles.

[cider head]

Agreed

In this division we need some steel in there and if its Skuse,Brown or a new signing if we are going to play Johnson long term push him up a bit and play the diamond

the problem is also we have no wing outlet, strikers are suffering for it and creative midfielders will suffer to

as they got no one to spread the ball wide, as soon as the ball gets put out to skuse he cuts back inside with it

putting prussure on the middle 2 as they expect skuse to go foward and not check back inside

and thats why we get ran at in the middle, thats why johnson hits stray passes as he is not expecting that return pass,

skuse should be taking it foward, this is why jevons is suffering as service to him he likes from the wings,

he will score goals from a poachers angle and at his feet face on goal, he can't hold it up with his back to

goal, the point is we are not playing to each others strengths.

johnson got some skill with passing why not give him the tinnion role on the left

it made tinnion a legend and he never had to beat a man just pass it,

johnson should be given more freedom to attack and not get bogged down in

a midfield hard man battle that he just can't win, i can see the tinnion in lee johnson but

not a tommy doc and i don't see why lee johnson can't do that on the left and we sign

a tough central midfielder, we have all seen johnson dow well going foward, play making

passing but defending he is not so hot on, so free him up to play on the left or mabe

on the right, as murray is adaptable on both flanks.

as also i bet murray is just waiting for that tinnion 40 yard ball

to reappear.

[grifty]

One thing we did lack today was a Tommy Doc, I almost said it while I was at the game but we really did miss someone like him to infulence the team, my old man put it better "There was no leader out there" that was true.

Yeah I agree. How many times (in the 1st half anyway) did we see Tommy get back, knock 3 people over, win the ball and chip the ball over the full back for Murray top run onto.

Not only do we not have a leader, we havn't got any bite as I think only the defence go into tackles with any real vigour.

[Chappers]

All I want is to see LJ treated like any other player - Substituted when poor, dropped when justified and no guaranteed automatic recall following injury.

[RedTop]

Overall I think LJ is our best playmaker by far. But I thought he started poorly against Bournemouth and deserved to be taken off. Personally, at the time rather than with hindsight, I think GJ would have been perfectly justified in taking off LJ and switching Skuse to the middle, because Lee had done little to deserve to stay on. He misplaced plenty of passes, was caught in possession and was generally off his game, in my opinion. If I were Skuse I'd have been pretty peeved at having to come off while Lee stayed on.

But football is, as I believe Greavsie may once have mentioned, a funny old game. There is no doubt that at the time when we got our first goal, GJ was right to be preparing to substitute Lee. He deserved to come off at that point. But, of course, had he done so we would not have got the two goals.

Which just goes to show:

( a ) I must know naff all about football,

( b ) The difference between success and failure is very slim. If the ball had gone out in the seconds before Lee laid on our opener, he'd have been subbed.

and

( c ) It's going to be very difficult to justify subbing Lee even when things are going badly from now on, as you never know when he's going to turn a game around, even if he's apparently having a shocker.

I just hope Lee is now officially back on form, because when he is on his game he can open up defences in a split second. And I'd like to see us playing the ball through the middle more rather than reverting to Route 1 football quite so often.

[City_pete1]

Overall I think LJ is our best playmaker by far. But I thought he started poorly against Bournemouth and deserved to be taken off. Personally, at the time rather than with hindsight, I think GJ would have been perfectly justified in taking off LJ and switching Skuse to the middle, because Lee had done little to deserve to stay on. He misplaced plenty of passes, was caught in possession and was generally off his game, in my opinion. If I were Skuse I'd have been pretty peeved at having to come off while Lee stayed on.

But football is, as I believe Greavsie may once have mentioned, a funny old game. There is no doubt that at the time when we got our first goal, GJ was right to be preparing to substitute Lee. He deserved to come off at that point. But, of course, had he done so we would not have got the two goals.

Which just goes to show:

( a ) I must know naff all about football,

( b ) The difference between success and failure is very slim. If the ball had gone out in the seconds before Lee laid on our opener, he'd have been subbed.

and

( c ) It's going to be very difficult to justify subbing Lee even when things are going badly from now on, as you never know when he's going to turn a game around, even if he's apparently having a shocker.

I just hope Lee is now officially back on form, because when he is on his game he can open up defences in a split second. And I'd like to see us playing the ball through the middle more rather than reverting to Route 1 football quite so often.

I agree, the amount of wasted balls 'lofted' up front was shocking. If Enoch is on as well as brooker I can understand a bit more, but I would much prefer the ball on the grass a bit more.

[x3widRacin]

Cracking goal today.

I've been backing Lee to score the past 2 months in the predictions league, Finally he pulls through for me!

Every game it seemed like it was going to finally be the time he gets one in himself.

[beau45]

I've been backing Lee to score the past 2 months in the predictions league, Finally he pulls through for me!

Every game it seemed like it was going to finally be the time he gets one in himself.

I've been saying the same for ages, when he scored I screamed so loud!

I think the same about Skuse aswell!

[x3widRacin]

I've been saying the same for ages, when he scored I screamed so loud!

I did more of the banging of the fists on the ceiling, but either way I was equally enthused that he'd come through Now do I keep backing him to score or is it going to be another 20 games before he nets one for himself!

[beau45]

I did more of the banging of the fists on the ceiling, but either way I was equally enthused that he'd come through Now do I keep backing him to score or is it going to be another 20 games before he nets one for himself!

Keep backing him!!!

[Nibor]

Overall I think LJ is our best playmaker by far. But I thought he started poorly against Bournemouth and deserved to be taken off. Personally, at the time rather than with hindsight, I think GJ would have been perfectly justified in taking off LJ and switching Skuse to the middle, because Lee had done little to deserve to stay on. He misplaced plenty of passes, was caught in possession and was generally off his game, in my opinion. If I were Skuse I'd have been pretty peeved at having to come off while Lee stayed on.

Spot on IMO. LJ gave the ball away in our own half far too much with over elaborate passes and unnecessary clever little touches. It seemed to me that he was trying to get on Showboat not win a game.

Giving the ball away trying to put someone in behind in the final third is one thing - that's a ball with a big payoff if it works and if we lose possession we're not immediately under pressure - but doing some sort of clever turn inside your own half to skip a tackle you should have seen earlier and then mishitting crossfield balls under pressure you should never have been under is too wasteful.

But football is, as I believe Greavsie may once have mentioned, a funny old game. There is no doubt that at the time when we got our first goal, GJ was right to be preparing to substitute Lee. He deserved to come off at that point. But, of course, had he done so we would not have got the two goals.

I do rate him and I don't subscribe to the predictable nepotism arguement, I think GJ keeps him on when he's having a shit game because he can turn one - the problem I have with that attitude is that if he wasn't having a shit game in the first place the game probably wouldn't need turning.

Yes it was a great ball for Murray and yes it was a great goal, but had he been less wasteful in the other 3/4 of the game then they would have earned us 3 points not scraped us one.

[Tunley Legend]

Whether Lee Johnson is part of the problem or not, our midfield as a unit must be the worst of all the sides in the top 8 of this division. What we have to remember is that for two successive games we have played poor sides and found ourselves TWO GOALS DOWN and not able to get our foot on the ball for long periods. If that continues to happen we will start losing games regularly. We are in a great position in the league but we have a glaring weakness which Gary Johnson has not yet found a solution for (our midfield unit). There is no doubt that Lee Johnson can play football as he showed in the last 20 minutes on Tuesday but for 70 minutes he was poor in my opinion. As was Alex Russell, Scott Murray and Cole Skuse (although not his fault at all). As a unit they were a very poor second best to the midfield of a bottom four team - fact. Ditto Cheltenham for 50 odd minutes. We cannot have a midfield that is "missing" for the first 45-70 minutes every week otherwise we will find ourselves sliding down the table. I think changes are essential.