[The Earl of Chesterfield]

Yesterday I saw why Bristol City are Champions.

Any thoughts of them somehow easing off were put well and truly to bed as they played with a tempo and purpose matched by no one else I've seen this season. Whilst all the time cajoled by a manager who demanded nothing but perfection, I noticed. Freeman ran the show, part of a team who to a man allied non-stop effort with obvious quality. That's what you get with a billionaire backer, I guess. For ourselves I couldn't understand why we played with no out-and-out striker, a strange sort of formation with Roberts middle of a front three. It didn't work, and when we did enjoy possession there was no outlet, no one making runs beyond defenders.

Yeah City's first goal came as the result of a slip-up, yet it was nothing more than they deserved.

Second half Cook changed it to a more recognisable system with Clucas up top. We had a positive twenty or so minutes, then, creating several half chances. However in contrast to the sharpness of the visitors we pondered too long on the ball and squandered them.

Lee served up a genuine howler for their second, leaving his goal for a cross, getting nowhere near to it, so allowing their lanky centre back to nod into an unguarded net. That was tangibly game over, with Town looking to have settled for second best probably in the knowledge Rochdale were getting beat. And that's not any sort of condemnation, just a recognition of reality.

MOTM? Well no one really stood out, though Ryan's efforts caught my eye more than most. On the other hand Banks did nowt to ingratiate himself to the eight thousand home fans present. (By the way, I thought only sixteen hundred was a poor turn out from a big club who'd just won the league.)

Strange afternoon, really. The scoreline at Spotland confirmed our place in the L1 play offs, a truly remarkable achievement. But there was almost a sense of anti-climax at the Proact, a mood created partly by the defeat and partly by the impending departure of our most successful manager.

Just another day as a Town fan, I suppose.

This post has been edited by MDCCCLXVI: 26 April 2015 - 09:56 AM

[dim view]

MDCCCLXVI, on 26 April 2015 - 09:55 AM, said:

Yesterday I saw why Bristol City are Champions.

Any thoughts of them somehow easing off were put well and truly to bed as they played with a tempo and purpose matched by no one else I've seen this season.

yep. At this level, if you can afford to get the right players for what is a very effective system, you can play teams off the park. Goalie with excellent distribution. Defenders who are hard but can't wait to step into midfield. Plenty of men in midfield. Two strikers who can save their energy for attacking. All eleven super fit, aggressive, physical, confident.

[firedodger]

I agree with the comment on banks, doesn't seem to be offering much.
Also on their following, I would have expected a sell out from them.
At the moment there only seems to be ariyibi who is capable of coming off our bench and making an impact on the game, although having said that, I noticed flint doing a little double take on Harrison after their only coming together, he seemed surprised to have actually had a bit of a physical tussle.

[Town_Fan]

I got nervous when i saw the thread title.

[h again]

MDCCCLXVI, on 26 April 2015 - 09:55 AM, said:

Yesterday I saw why Bristol City are Champions.

Any thoughts of them somehow easing off were put well and truly to bed as they played with a tempo and purpose matched by no one else I've seen this season. Whilst all the time cajoled by a manager who demanded nothing but perfection, I noticed. Freeman ran the show, part of a team who to a man allied non-stop effort with obvious quality. That's what you get with a billionaire backer, I guess. For ourselves I couldn't understand why we played with no out-and-out striker, a strange sort of formation with Roberts middle of a front three. It didn't work, and when we did enjoy possession there was no outlet, no one making runs beyond defenders.

Yeah City's first goal came as the result of a slip-up, yet it was nothing more than they deserved.

Second half Cook changed it to a more recognisable system with Clucas up top. We had a positive twenty or so minutes, then, creating several half chances. However in contrast to the sharpness of the visitors we pondered too long on the ball and squandered them.

Lee served up a genuine howler for their second, leaving his goal for a cross, getting nowhere near to it, so allowing their lanky centre back to nod into an unguarded net. That was tangibly game over, with Town looking to have settled for second best probably in the knowledge Rochdale were getting beat. And that's not any sort of condemnation, just a recognition of reality.

MOTM? Well no one really stood out, though Ryan's efforts caught my eye more than most. On the other hand Banks did nowt to ingratiate himself to the eight thousand home fans present. (By the way, I thought only sixteen hundred was a poor turn out from a big club who'd just won the league.)

Strange afternoon, really. The scoreline at Spotland confirmed our place in the L1 play offs, a truly remarkable achievement. But there was almost a sense of anti-climax at the Proact, a mood created partly by the defeat and partly by the impending departure of our most successful manager.

Just another day as a Town fan, I suppose.

Good one again, maestro. We're in the play-offs, so why do I feel so flat this morning?
Well, for one thing, it would have been nice to get there in some sort of style, if only be earning a point off the Champions, or at least scoring to give us summat to cheer, but we were well off the pace, compounded by playing our lone striker as an extra left back for most of the first half. What on earth was that about - I hope it wasn't a trial of something we might do in the play-offs.
Brizzle played like we usually do, and we played like most other teams play against us, but it finally came down to them wanting it more, which is curious as they had nothing to play for and we had a lot. My only hope is that PC was playing with one eye on the play-offs and told them to go steady, but only Morsy, Ryan,Roberts, Evatt and Darikwa earned their corn, whilst O'Shea has had his three good games for the season and packed up and Banks must surely be on his way and mistakenly subbing him on just showed us again that he isn't tough enough.
Perhaps just a bad day all round, but we could do with something to boost confidence at SheffU, whereas a good display and a win today would have meant we could rest a few whilst keeping the momentum.
And they supped the Tup out of cider. So now some of them have discovered proper beer. A winning day all round for them.

[Westbars Spireite]

I was astonished to see Jones and Clucas to be almost stepping on each other's toes for a while in the first half.

[aspire2inspire]

Think it's unfair to criticise banks being subbed on as basically a sweeper Infront of the defence. He's been unfortunate in being brought on in such roles when he has featured this season which has compounded town fans opinions of him. Yet when he had that run of games at the head of the midfield (HIS ACTUAL POSITION) he showed his class. Particularly his passing which I feel is what let's Jayo down. Our play just seems to slow down when the ball goes through him which was frighteningly apparent yesterday.

Playing Banks for 43 games and letting O'Shea come in for his 3 good games every season would satisfy my tastes hahaha.

[h again]

aspire2inspire, on 26 April 2015 - 11:41 AM, said:

Think it's unfair to criticise banks being subbed on as basically a sweeper Infront of the defence. He's been unfortunate in being brought on in such roles when he has featured this season which has compounded town fans opinions of him. Yet when he had that run of games at the head of the midfield (HIS ACTUAL POSITION) he showed his class. Particularly his passing which I feel is what let's Jayo down. Our play just seems to slow down when the ball goes through him which was frighteningly apparent yesterday.

Playing Banks for 43 games and letting O'Shea come in for his 3 good games every season would satisfy my tastes hahaha.

I take your point, and yesterday was certainly no time to bring him on against a tough and fast side like Brizzle, but he never looked to have the belly for it, which isn't a good thing no matter where you play.
He can look quite classy at times and certainly moves the ball a lot better than O'Shea, but he has to impose himself on the game and not be bullied out of it.

[Skywalker]

h again, on 26 April 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

I take your point, and yesterday was certainly no time to bring him on against a tough and fast side like Brizzle, but he never looked to have the belly for it, which isn't a good thing no matter where you play.
He can look quite classy at times and certainly moves the ball a lot better than O'Shea, but he has to impose himself on the game and not be bullied out of it.

He seems to perform better in the 'Number 10' role off the front man. He tends to get bypassed when in a central midfield 2.