Steve Cotterill: Disappointed with draw. Steve Cotterill was disappointed with his side following a 2-2 draw with Bradford, despite extending their unbeaten run to 14 games. please log in to view this image The gloss was taken off of the evening for the Robins manager by Christopher Routis' late equaliser as Bradford twice came from behind with set-piece goals to earn the stalemate on their record-breaking night. Cotterill said: "I'm glad for the lads that they have broken the record because it will stay with them - at least until next season! "But I am disappointed. We work hard on set-pieces, yet have conceded twice from them by making mistakes we hadn't made in previous games. Bradford came for a point and got one. "I was happier with our second-half performance and give the lads credit for trying to win the game right up to the 94th minute. That is how we like to go about things. "We couldn't get the tempo of our game going in the first half because Bradford kept slowing things down, but fair play to them for that. "A win would have given us an eight-point cushion at the top of the table, rather than six, which I would have liked. But I prefer to have points in the bag and the chasing clubs have to win three to overtake us." Routis volleyed in off the crossbar after substitute James Hanson had headed down a Filipe Morais corner. The goal came three minutes after Aden Flint had grabbed his second of the game for the hosts, firing in from close range following a Luke Freeman corner, which was spilled under pressure by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Flint had headed the home side in front on eight minutes, rising unmarked to power home Freeman's free-kick from the right. Bradford's first equaliser also came from a free-kick, Billy Clarke's glancing header at the near post from Mark Yeates' 20th-minute cross taking a deflection past Frank Fielding. Bradford boss Phil Parkinson disagreed with Cotterill's assessment that his team were set up to take a point: "We came to win because we felt we would get nothing from sitting back," he said. "If anything we created the better chances and could have nicked all three points. The lads showed great character in twice bouncing back against a very good side. "We lost centre-back Andrew Davies in the first half. He has a problem with a nerve in a calf muscle and we need to sort that out. "We felt our goalkeeper was fouled for the second Bristol City goal. But the players deserve great credit for overcoming that setback and emerging with something from what was always going to be a very tough game." http://www.football365.com/news/20784/9528763/-
THINKS LIKE ME!..ITS NOT SO MUCH POINTS ITS r e s u l t s and what are we doing when they are winning their 3 hope fully winning 1 or more to make it 4 they need.............
Again, hats off to SC. He knows the shortfalls and rather than gloss over them is determined to put things right On paper it's a game we should have won at a canter, but when is football ever predictable, especially as far as we are concerned ?
We didn't get, in my opinion, to the byeline enough yesterday, that is one of our strongest areas of attacks, coming from crosses.
He was right, the pace was slow. That said, I did think two or 3 looked jaded. Squad rotation might need to come into play more. Bryan has done so well lately but was out of touch and a straight swap for Cunningham freshened things up. Wilbs has been terrific but might benefit from a rest. That said, JET didn't exactly offer much when he came on.
If we were expecting any easy wins based on our form then I think our enthusiasm is slightly misplaced. The games we are supposed to win at canter are the ones in which we will be the most vulnerable because that's just the way things work and we are fast approaching the time of the season when all the ducks must be lined up in the right rows. Although we can't carry the bench of a lot of the top teams it is the responsibility of SC to ensure that he has sufficient capable players to get us through the long winter months without blinking an eye at the perils of the time of year. All players must step up with their best efforts when asked without complaining about their lot in the overall scheme of things and until we are fully confident that we have all the pieces, and their substitutes, in the right place we don't have the right to expect success without the necessary commitment to the task.
Brutal but correct SC must find a way of exploding his team into action when the opposition try to slow the game down. There the talents of our explosive players (chiefly Freeman, Bryan, Agard and JET) must grasp the nettle and make things happen to speed up our game. Its obvious that going toe to toe at this level few teams can live with us so they will try other tactics to unsettle us. On Tuesday it worked
