We Can Play Well All The Time

[Bristol Boy]

But wouldn't some of the time be nice?

Looking back at our home games in particular, I think it's really easy to understand why there is great nervousness and a lack of belief amongst some quite large sections of our fans.It's very handy to talk about a few moaners but, let;s get real, it's a lot more than that and the collective groaning is a as loud if not louder lately.

It's a fact that the vast majority of the 13,500 crowd on Tuesday night rarely watch the team away so they'll only have anecdotal evidence of how well City played at Oldham, Chesterfied, Blackpool & Brighton.....and that's a major part of the problem.

Looking at our home games and going back to three months:

Bradford 2-3 Some nice stuff in the first half that didn't hurt them and poor in the second.This is a side battling relegation.

Brentford 1-0 Average fair but not very entertaining.

North 1-0 Didn't go but I'm told we should have been 4-0 up and then we panicing in the last fifteen minutes.

Rovers-0-0 Abysmall.

Hudd-1-1 Poor

Chelt 0-1 Abysmall

Midd 2-2 Decent throughout and apart from a couple of unforced errors we could even have won

BHA 2-0 Good

Tran 3-2 Poor first half-Good second

Vale 2-1 Average-not great entertainment

Bmth 2-2 Poor first half-Good fightback second

Millwall 1-0 Good first half, but had to defend to much after not taking advantage of that dominance-That's a very familiar picture that started with our first home game against S****horpe.Anotherexample would be Doncaster when we went 1-0, won 1-0 but could have lost 4-1 if it hadn't been for Basso second half.

So, whilst those games were interspersed with some cracking away trips, one can see how the ST Holder who attends home game can have the view that we're flying by the seat of our pants and the performances don't add up to an automatic promotion team or yield good entertainment.

Getting to the play offs will be viewed as a dispapointement by City fans & players alike from where we are and that won't help us going into those games irrespective of our travelling support and larger home attanedances.

[Nibor]

The common theme is not killing off sides, and that's because we lack the goalscorer we need. It's been obvious for a long, long time, and the summer acquisitions of Jevons and Showunmi haven't fixed it.

Showunmi has his uses and adds an extra dimension but he's the definition of inconsistent, is easy to put off his game by clobbering him and he's injured half the time. Jevons doesn't get on the end of enough in the box and doesn't threaten. Of course we're missing Brooker too.

I believe we either need to bring in a proven goalscorer that will cost money, someone who we _know_ will score goals, or a striker who has genuine pace and will run at teams, get in behind them and open them up. We could do this now via the loan system a la Noble but it seems that either GJ doesn't recognise it as a problem or he doesn't want to unsettle the side. That's fair enough if we actually do go up.

I was disappointed in January that we failed to add a striker. Just as the January before, we spent most of the month pursuing a target and ended up with plan C - a relative unknown who doesn't look like scoring. GJ really needs to do more work before January starts, and needs to go after several targets at the same time instead of waiting on the first one. Although he's signed some great defenders and midfielders I'm not impressed with what we've seen him bring in up front, I hope that's indicative of not being able to get the ones he wants rather than his eye for a striker - but the attempt to sign a player like Reddy who is frankly shite for £300k scares me a bit.

[bcfcchris2016]

looking at that. At the start, We have always seemed to play better in the second half than the first. But in our last 4 games we seemed to be up and at them very early on in the game and fad out in the second half

If only we played the first halfs like City 1:0 Northampton and City 3:2 tranmere in the second half.

[Bristol Boy]

The common theme is not killing off sides, and that's because we lack the goalscorer we need. It's been obvious for a long, long time, and the summer acquisitions of Jevons and Showunmi haven't fixed it.

Showunmi has his uses and adds an extra dimension but he's the definition of inconsistent, is easy to put off his game by clobbering him and he's injured half the time. Jevons doesn't get on the end of enough in the box and doesn't threaten. Of course we're missing Brooker too.

I believe we either need to bring in a proven goalscorer that will cost money, someone who we _know_ will score goals, or a striker who has genuine pace and will run at teams, get in behind them and open them up. We could do this now via the loan system a la Noble but it seems that either GJ doesn't recognise it as a problem or he doesn't want to unsettle the side. That's fair enough if we actually do go up.

I was disappointed in January that we failed to add a striker. Just as the January before, we spent most of the month pursuing a target and ended up with plan C - a relative unknown who doesn't look like scoring. GJ really needs to do more work before January starts, and needs to go after several targets at the same time instead of waiting on the first one. Although he's signed some great defenders and midfielders I'm not impressed with what we've seen him bring in up front, I hope that's indicative of not being able to get the ones he wants rather than his eye for a striker - but the attempt to sign a player like Reddy who is frankly shite for £300k scares me a bit.

In fairness, GJ didn't agree to pay those amounts for Reddy & Hayter and thank God for that because I'd be concerned about paying £150k for either today.Pospisil wouldn't come so one wonders why he even bothered to talk to us because one thing that was certain is that we were a League One team when the discussions started and we would be when they finished!!

Holt would have done a similar job to Brooker for us.......that's if Brooker ever played.Signing Smith was never going to excite and it's a real long shot.We won't see Wayne Andrews in a City shirt again.

We're now left with two injury prone, out of form, inconsistent target men in SB & ES.One of whom GJ can't decide whether he's better on the left wing although he can't defend.

Jevons who is lightweight, lacks strength & pace, but does score the odd league goal and can take pens.

Smith who's never scored an English league goal.

JMW who's got pace but lacks strength and, who once again is more of a winger, although can't defend.

Betsy who's obviously a right winger despite GJ wishing otherwise.

As I said earlier IF we are promoted GJ may have to ditch all of our strikers and start again.If we stay down I fear we are stuck with them.

[Will Rollason]

As I said earlier IF we are promoted GJ may have to ditch all of our strikers and start again.If we stay down I fear we are stuck with them.

i think this might well be an option. Brooks has yet to prove himself to GJ and Enoch seems to have done himself no favours either, Jevo is one of GJ's boys and picks up the goals.Apart from Plummer who is very small and i presume not ready for the league we don't have anything from the academy ergo....... new strikers.

GJ has made no secret of trying to get one in any way so we must wonder who would have been demoted if , for instance, Holt had arrived.

[citytop22]

But wouldn't some of the time be nice?

Looking back at our home games in particular, I think it's really easy to understand why there is great nervousness and a lack of belief amongst some quite large sections of our fans.It's very handy to talk about a few moaners but, let;s get real, it's a lot more than that and the collective groaning is a as loud if not louder lately.

It's a fact that the vast majority of the 13,500 crowd on Tuesday night rarely watch the team away so they'll only have anecdotal evidence of how well City played at Oldham, Chesterfied, Blackpool & Brighton.....and that's a major part of the problem.

Looking at our home games and going back to three months:

Bradford 2-3 Some nice stuff in the first half that didn't hurt them and poor in the second.This is a side battling relegation.

Brentford 1-0 Average fair but not very entertaining.

North 1-0 Didn't go but I'm told we should have been 4-0 up and then we panicing in the last fifteen minutes.

Rovers-0-0 Abysmall.

Hudd-1-1 Poor

Chelt 0-1 Abysmall

Midd 2-2 Decent throughout and apart from a couple of unforced errors we could even have won

BHA 2-0 Good

Tran 3-2 Poor first half-Good second

Vale 2-1 Average-not great entertainment

Bmth 2-2 Poor first half-Good fightback second

Millwall 1-0 Good first half, but had to defend to much after not taking advantage of that dominance-That's a very familiar picture that started with our first home game against S****horpe.Anotherexample would be Doncaster when we went 1-0, won 1-0 but could have lost 4-1 if it hadn't been for Basso second half.

So, whilst those games were interspersed with some cracking away trips, one can see how the ST Holder who attends home game can have the view that we're flying by the seat of our pants and the performances don't add up to an automatic promotion team or yield good entertainment.

Getting to the play offs will be viewed as a dispapointement by City fans & players alike from where we are and that won't help us going into those games irrespective of our travelling support and larger home attanedances.

[citytop22]

But wouldn't some of the time be nice?

Looking back at our home games in particular, I think it's really easy to understand why there is great nervousness and a lack of belief amongst some quite large sections of our fans.It's very handy to talk about a few moaners but, let;s get real, it's a lot more than that and the collective groaning is a as loud if not louder lately.

It's a fact that the vast majority of the 13,500 crowd on Tuesday night rarely watch the team away so they'll only have anecdotal evidence of how well City played at Oldham, Chesterfied, Blackpool & Brighton.....and that's a major part of the problem.

Looking at our home games and going back to three months:

Bradford 2-3 Some nice stuff in the first half that didn't hurt them and poor in the second.This is a side battling relegation.

Brentford 1-0 Average fair but not very entertaining.

North 1-0 Didn't go but I'm told we should have been 4-0 up and then we panicing in the last fifteen minutes.

Rovers-0-0 Abysmall.

Hudd-1-1 Poor

Chelt 0-1 Abysmall

Midd 2-2 Decent throughout and apart from a couple of unforced errors we could even have won

BHA 2-0 Good

Tran 3-2 Poor first half-Good second

Vale 2-1 Average-not great entertainment

Bmth 2-2 Poor first half-Good fightback second

Millwall 1-0 Good first half, but had to defend to much after not taking advantage of that dominance-That's a very familiar picture that started with our first home game against S****horpe.Anotherexample would be Doncaster when we went 1-0, won 1-0 but could have lost 4-1 if it hadn't been for Basso second half.

So, whilst those games were interspersed with some cracking away trips, one can see how the ST Holder who attends home game can have the view that we're flying by the seat of our pants and the performances don't add up to an automatic promotion team or yield good entertainment.

Getting to the play offs will be viewed as a dispapointement by City fans & players alike from where we are and that won't help us going into those games irrespective of our travelling support and larger home attanedances.

It will be his achilles heel, no striker and no left sided player maybe will come back to haunt him, for all his good points I cannot believe that this season he has signed Barry Corr and Andy Smith. Hindsight is wonderful, but if we had signed a good striker in Jan we could be more relaxed. Having said that, if you gave me the option of being 4 points clear with 9 games to go at the start of the season I would have bit your hand off. Going to be interesting and not for the faint hearted.