Bristol City (H) | Page 3 | Vital Football

Bristol City (H)

SwindonLatic said:
We can’t afford a striker like him that’s the problem. We can only afford to shop in the League 1 market which is hugely overinflated anyway so I can’t see how we are going to solve our shit attack by buying more of the same. We need a proven scorer at this level not another gamble on someone we think might be able to do it. You watch, we’ll end up with someone like Madine who is hardly prolific and we’ll go back to the lump it to the target man tactics! That would be absolutely laughable by the way but nothing is surprising me anymore the way this season is going.
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We had the money alright - sadly spunked it on Moore and Lowe -
 
I thought we played as well today as we have played for 18 months, for 80 minutes and until we got to their 18 yard box. The lack of strikers apart from powder puff Windass was appalling and it was clear we could not score in a brothel. Bitterly disappointed with what was served up, yet again
 
The reality is that the current squad isn’t good enough at this level and is going to be relegated unless drastic changes happen this month. The possession stats are better, it seems as though all this is doing though is stopping the opposition from having as many chances. We aren’t creating many chances ourselves and the ones we do create are wasted anyway. I though Lowe was very poor today and the same for Williams. He isn’t a no.10 and didn’t look fully fit to me. It seems inevitable that we’ll go down again after seeing the game today, I actually think us and Luton could be cut well adrift over the next couple of months.
 
Utter shite once again. Plenty of sideways passing, no one looked capable of beating a man and despite a swirling wind no one willing to put their foot through it and test the keeper. Front players mainly out of position doesn’t help, nor does the fact we didn’t start with a centre forward.

Sad thing is I was sat there and no longer felt arsed. I accepted the inevitable weeks ago, relegation is a certainty with this clown in charge. Just wish he’d fuck off along with the Royles. I think we’ve probably enough in the players to stay up, but not under the current coaching structure.
 
I agree we was shite no cutting edge got done over of an average side again the midfield 3 what do they offer going forward we are as good as down all round really poor still with this tool in charge dismal viewing
 
We have good players. The problem is Cooks over cautious tactics.
No movement and no runners willing to gamble.
The players aren't allowed to express themselves.
Because Cook would rather play not to lose than be offensive.

As someone else said Bristol played us today. Let us have all the possession knowing we're over cautions until later in the game then make a few offensive substitutions and tactical changes. Then bang bang 2 goals.
Other teams teams have done it to us this season as well.

I don't know what plan IEC and the Royles have for is but with Cook in charge we won't achieve it.

We don't need a team full of Championship/ Premier League players.
We don't need a Championship proven manager. Though it would be nice.

We need a manager who's willing to let the players express themselves and take the cautious shackles off them.
 
Hampton said:
We had the money alright - sadly spunked it on Moore and Lowe -
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Yes we may have had money to spend on those two but you combined the two fees to buy a Dhueudou or whatever his name is you then have to fork out the wages for a £6m striker. We are not going to spend that kind of dosh when we have a wage structure
 
Greater possession is all well and good, but you have to do something with it. It was like a defensive training session for Bristol City, particularly in the first half. They just maintained shape and concentration and we created absolutely nothing. Stayed in the game knowing they’d inevitably get chances late on. Textbook really.
 
Playing Morsy and Evans seems to stifle Williams, who is much better when able to play more box to box. I'd look to drop either Evans or Morsy, move Williams back, and then play Windass or Joffy a the 10 when Moore is back.

I thought Dowell showed some good moments but faded quite a bit. Lowe started pretty poor and got worse and worse - when a ball was going for a corner and he inexcusably decided to touch it, I burst out laughing. Still like that he does try to make something happen, unlike the hapless Windass.

Frustrating that we looked pretty solid for 70 mins (yet again) but then throw it away by being caught on our heels. Naismith had another excellent game however.

As a team we just overplay and overplay we just end up not moving or pulling the defence around. So often the balls falls to Byrne or Robbo for the 2nd or 3rd time and they decide to put the ball into the box, but we all know that neither of them have a great final delivery. I'd to see us be a little more incisive and really have a plan to get the ball to Lowe outwide and him take the responsibility to get it into the box, and Robbo Byrne should be looking to get to the byline and drilling their deliveries across. Naismith and Evans can both play balls from deep and the team should be prepared for that. It's crazy we're over half way into the season and we still don't have much of an attacking plan, it's just so much effort and results in so little.
 
Three in midfield DOES NOT FUCKING WORK! Grow a spine you fat bald prick and drop either Williams or your captain. Williams is shit, out of puff again after an hour. Embarrassing fitness for a Championship footballer.

Sign some proper fucking wingers who can cross the ball to our 6 foot something striker and maybe just maybe we might score a few goals. Playing players in their actual position might help as well.

First goal was offside but I’m not even arsed. We should have had at least one chalked off at Birmingham. We’re fucking shite and we’re on our way down. End of story!
 
Just got home to leafy Berkshire and plenty time to think on drive home, have to say I found today's performance quite embarrassing!
I expected us to come out with all guns blazing, sadly we came out and played at a pedestrian pace, taking touch after touch, all sideways whilst Bristol sorted their defence out, tedious in the extreme and totally ineffective! Our only pace was Windass and he was taken off whilst the (has to be said) waste of space Lowe was kept on after showing himself once again to be one of the worst players I have seen in a latics shirt! All in all a skocking display showing no spirit, no guile and no pride!!!
 
Hampton said:
Christ could we do with a striker like Bristols 9 today.
We are literally crying out for a focal point like that - amazing strikes - out of nothing.
Mind you 🤡 would find a way to pick Jamal or Massey in front of him
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Could help matters if Cook actually played a striker up top. Bloody idiot!
 
Before a ball was kicked today it was set up to fail as it is every week.

We all know:
- Windass isn't a striker
- Williams isn't a number 10
- Dowell isn't a left winger
- Lowe hasn't been performing
- our full backs can't cross
- Gelhardt is our biggest threat
- without Garner or Moore we have no hold up play or focal point to aim for
- playing zero strikers doesn't work

I bet not a single Latics fan would argue any of that - not at all controversial just common sense - but things Cook hasn't seemed to notice and acts as if the complete opposite is true.

We have stopped lumping it which is obviously a step in the right direction but if you pick the wrong team and system then it undermining it and that is exactly what Cook does again and again.

We inexplicable play 2 def mids and a narrow attacking 3 to allow all the width and crossing come from 2 full backs who can't cross and we wonder why we can't create anything! Why not change the system to have the full backs less aggressive so you only need 1 def mid so you can have another attacking mid or striker and allow the wingers to get wide and add the width - it can't be less effective at creating chances.

We've got a def midfielder playing in the no10 role who is a good player but offers nothing in that role. Yet we have 2 no10s on the pitch one up front and on the left side of midfield being less effective and our wonder kid no10 sitting on the bench. Inexplicably stupid. And to cap off the front 4 we use one of the most out of form players we've got yet Pilkington doesn't even get on the bench! And again we wonder why the attacking midfield trio and striker doesn't work - it's square pegs in round holes by choice every week.

We always look better when Garner is on the pitch yet we opt for zero strikers again and leave our summer signing out of the squad all together - to play Windass up front who is physically not strong enough to lead the line. This is not clever stuff it's bog standard common sense and Cook seems hell bent on taking what I still maintain should be good enough squad to comfortably stay up and working out how to get the absolute least out of it and drag us into relegation through his terrible choices.

You play your best players in their best positions and play to your strengths it's not even something we should need to discuss it's so basic - yet we do every week as Cook hasn't worked it out.

As already mentioned by other posters Bristol played us like a fiddle - they were not great and you can see why they have been on a terrible run themselves - yet they let us have the ball in front of them knowing if they sat deep we wouldnt play through them so had to rely on crossing from full backs that is useless and we had no one capable of winning a header even if a rare decent cross came in. Lee Johnson must have laughed his head off at our team selection - zero threat. But through all our huffing and puffing they knew we would leave gaps and they hit us every time like lightning on the break. Even in the first half they had probably 30% posession but they had 2 or 3 breaks that we were lucky to not conceed from and they generally created better opportunities than us despite us having the ball twice a much. Every time they broke there was method to their play and runners - it wasn't a haphazard sucker punch but a deliberate tactic. While our build up play is utterly void of any real method and the lack of a plan to create openings is glaring. Even when we break occasionally we are so slow to support Windass by the time he gets support all the Bristol players are back and the opportunity has vanished.

Taking off Windass who was the only one really giving Bristol anything to slighly worry about with his pace but leaving Lowe on who was doing nothing and looked dead on his feet was redicolous. But at least when Garner and Geldhart came on we started to create threat but it was so late in the game - why not start with them? If we had Gelhartd and Garner on and we had the ball as much as we did in that first 45 our chances of scoring would've been drastically higher. Why does every other team in the league try to use their best goal threats for 90 mins but Cook only uses ours in the last 20 odds mins if we are lucky?

We dominated posession today but didn't do anything with it. Bristol came into this in dreadful form and we didn't even make their keeper make a meaningful save - our team selection was illogical and totally counter productive. Can't fault the effort of the lads on the pitch they gave you what they had but we keep minimising our chances of success by picking systems that dont suit us and picking categorically the wrong players in the wrong positions - why can't Cook for once do the straight forward thing and pick the most obvious team and tweak the system to play to our strengths more than our weaknesses.

That's 1 jammy win thanks to a Kipre hand ball, an own goal and opposition players tackling each other to give us a goals against Birmingham in 16 games! Home form and away form both diabolical and as expected the Birmingham win was another false dawns. We've got a dreadful manager immune from the sack and a board who don't even seem to notice or care how badly this season is going and have zero ambition to try and change our fate. It was horrible going down the last 2 times but at least those occasions Whelan and Sharpe tried to shake things up and do something different to try and save us - they made bad calls on the replacements (yet Joyce and Malky had better win ratios than Cook this season) that came in but at least they could say they tried rather than just sat back and watch us sink without even trying to avoid it. We aren't even sleep walking into relegation we are wide awake and running towards it. This mess has been obviously coming and no one in a position of power was willing to see the writing on the wall in the summer, or the 1st, 2nd or 3rd international breaks, they turned down a gift from God when Sunderland would give us money to take Cook off our hands - totally avoidable and dereliction of duty. Whoever makes the call on keeping or sacking him or turning down Sunderland needs to be removed from that responsibility - their judgement is not up to it.
 
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Disappointing yesterday.We had no cutting edge whatsoever in the final third for all of our possession.Is it any wonder though when Cook plays with no natural striker,a number 10 on the left,a defensive midfielder in the 10 and an out of form Lowe on the right.Also Williams was playing on the right for the last 20 mins of the 1st half.
Bristol although they weren't great did a job on us.They let us have the ball in non threatening areas and sat deep with men behind the ball to create less space through the middle and stop the pace of Windass in behind them.They counter attacked us at pace and unlike us were clinical in the final third with their chances.
I thought our back 4 played well in general.We passed the ball too slowly for me in the midfield and attacking areas with not enough purpose and it made it easier for Bristol to keep their shape.We needed to get the ball wide quicker to stretch them,run at them and cross it into the box more.Our 3 behind Windass were too narrow at times instead of using the width of the pitch which meant it was too congested in the middle which suited Bristol.
Garner or Moore should of started.Windass and Gelhardt could of played out wide to run at the defence and stretch them and put crosses in the box for the striker as well as cutting in and shooting on goal,with Dowell in the number 10 pulling the strings.
It's obvious to me and a lot of fans,especially at home we don't need Evans,Williams and Morsy all in the team,we only need 2 of them.
Personally I would of taken Lowe off who was poor instead of Windass and pushed Windass on the right,had Joffy left and Dowell in the 10 when Cook made the subs.We did look better going forward with Garner and Joffy on.
Cook needs to get Garner or Moore,Joffy,Windass and Dowell on the pitch with Pilks in contention as well before we get cut adrift from safety.Furthermore we need to sign a good winger or 2, possibly a striker and move on 1 or 2 who haven't been good enough this transfer window.
 
Come on folks. What's wrong with you. It reminded me of prem days. Passing from the back. forward forward, sideways, back forward forward ....... give the oppo 4 mins to get 9 behind the ball ...... then try and dribble it into the 6 yard box. Oh soddit, lost possession, rely on either a cock up from them or hard work from defence. Naismith & Kipre MOM. Repeat. What ever you don't don't shoot. No one shoot. Prem days we always ended a game with most possession, just like today. There is only one stat that counts!!
But hec!! I enjoyed myself. Good chips, great people, good beer and a laugh. I can't remember much about football, it's becoming irrelevant.
Get a marauding charging rhino like Yanic back to charge straight at goal.

So, what was good? A reasonable and not disappointing ParkRun on one of the hardest courses in the country (were you there Lazysid)? Some good beer, 'Hope & Glory' was deliciously optimistic, some great laughs, meeting with the good people, a good outcome after complaining to a solicitor - a healthy refund and admission of being rubbish, oh and some impressive passing and match stats. What was no good .... can't think of any thing right now!
 
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