Revamped Bristol City showed mental and physical fatigue against Derby County Lee Johnson attributed a below-par showing from his revamped Bristol City side to physical and mental fatigue rather than a change in formation. Responding to having seen his players throw away a two-goal lead and lose 3-2 at Sheffield Wednesday, City's head coach made four changes to his starting line-up for Saturday's home game against Derby County. And he also announced a change in formation, switching from his usual 4-2-3-1 system to 3-4-2-1 against the Rams. But City lacked any real spark in a first half in which Derby comfortably frustrated their attempts to build momentum. His side trailing to Ikeche Anya's 44th minute goal, Johnson abandoned his new team shape at half time, reverting to a flat back four and sparking a fight-back which culminated in Aaron Wilbraham coming off the substitutes' bench to plunder a last-gasp equaliser in added time. Asked to explain his team's poor showing in the opening 45 minutes, Johnson replied: "I thought the players were a bit off if I'm honest. I thought the formation worked actually. What didn't work was the speed of our passing. "I just thought we looked leggy. I felt leggy and I hadn't even played. We got in at four o'clock in the morning from Sheffield, had a day off and then came back in for training. "I went to bed at 10pm on Friday, got up at 8am on Saturday, went back to bed at 8.30 and had to be woken up by my missus saying 'you've got a football match today'. And that was just me, so imagine what the lads who have run two marathons and travelled close to a thousand miles in the week were feeling. "I've played myself and I know how hard it is to get yourself going at the back end of a week in which you have had two tough away games that have drawn everything out of you both physically and mentally." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/revamp...derby-county/story-29730447-detail/story.html
8 games in and our players are already knackered and losing, god help us when we get up to 30, there was me thinking bigger squad we can cope, come on Lee, you are sounding a bit like GJ.
Maybe Cotts had the right idea about away travel. We travelled to Rotherham on Friday, played the game on Saturday and came home that evening. On Monday afternoon, back up to Sheffield, about ten miles max from Rotherham. Played a hard evening match and arrived back in Bristol at 4am. No wonder we were "leggy" against Derby. My schedule would have been. Travel to Rotherham on Friday afternoon. Stay in South Yorkshire or North Derbyshire. Day off Sunday for golf or walking in the Pennines. Monday Full training session. Tuesday Normal procedures for away game with evening kick off. Tuesday night. Stay in hotel near Sheffield Wednesday. Wednesday am travel back to Bristol. Maybe a 30 minute loosen up training session on arrival back in Bristol and then off home. This way the players get unbroken nights sleep every night. The worst thing they could do was to travel straight back from Sheffield getting home at 4am. However hard one tries to sleep on, the body clock still wakes you up at normal wake up time.
Sorry LJ but at this stage of the season that's a bit of a pathetic excuse. Man up and say we're not good enough by all means but don't make wimpy excuses. If getting in at 04.00 is an issue then change the travel arrangements and ask the owner if players can spend another night in a hotel after a distant midweek game, so they can travel back to Bristol after a decent nights sleep. Also it was Sheffield, so why weren't they back a couple of hours earlier than 04.00 ? They should have been able to be away from Sheffield Wednesday by 23.00 or so after showering etc, and it doesn't take 5 hours to get back to Bristol from there. And why are you going back to bed at 08.30 on the morning of a match day ? Shouldn't you be preparing and checking on the squad, considering tactics and a host of other things like other Managers are always saying ? Or is it just me... Frankly, he'd have been better off saying nothing.
So if you've identified that the schedule is the issue, then change it. Although the majority of Championship teams, and I'd guess all of L1 and L2 have to put up with it.
We cant be that hard up that we cant pay for a night way in a hotel can we?-Agree-Would have been better to stay away on this occasion. Coming down the M4 from London tonight is a different ball game
'Asked to explain his team's poor showing in the opening 45 minutes' Strange so far how many times we have read the above.
Sorry Lee that does not wash with me. The season has only just started and their Knackered,play the new signings then. that is what a squad is for.
Watching it today from France, they did look heavy legged. It would explain the wayward passing and mistakes, although maybe the action style of our play could explain some of the weariness. Certainly Abraham looks like he could do with a couple of weeks off. When young players get that knackered they become susceptible to serious injury, and we wouldn't want that. He hasn't had a rest since 1994. Time for the Scandinavian contingent perhaps It serves to remind us what a difficult ask winning the Championship is, and just how powerful the squad required to do it. And when you consider that 2 out of every 3 that go up come straight back down without touching the sides, it says much for the strength of the Premiership (and what a remarkable feat was achieved last season by Ranieri) "The season has only just started and their Knackered,play the new signings then. that is what a squad is for." I guess it will be easier when Johnson has an injury-free squad to work with
It was obvious to all that eventually Lee would start to take flak for his efforts because it just comes with the package and he must learn to deal with the situation. However if he thinks that statements like this will help his, or the team's, efforts then he is sadly mistaken because he appears to be rolling out the same old adages heard around most teams that are seemingly struggling. Like the rest of us he is still human and although I was a detractor of his hiring and truly did not believe he was our future nonetheless he is in the driver's seat and must accept that the current situation, although nowhere near critical, needs addressing immediately to stop the slide in form. This is where, and why, managers earn their money and excuses never answer the questions but rather creates more concern as to why the statement was made in the first place, and what it was expected to achieve. Only Lee knows the answers and I'm sure a lot of you will have other ideas contrary to his comments but after what I considered to be a great off-season in the player department I am very disappointed with the results after all the efforts made during the window. The loss of Kodjia was a great bit of business and yet his after leaving comments about us not being a big club irked me in the same manner as one Nicky Maynard, who exited stage left in a slightly similar and yet annoyingly way. With our apparent loss of form it begs me to ask are we setting up the type of club that is not on the radar of some players and will some of new boys lose their mojo and want out in the same way or will they truly stay around for the long term? Just questions not intended to upset the cider apple cart.
'to stop the slide in form' Far from it for me to defend Junior but I don't think it is a loss of form. Our 'form' was excellent at Rotherham and Sheffield Wednesday - but for schoolboy errors we would have come back with 6 points. Nobody on Earth can legislate for Flint and O'Donnell's c*ck ups in Yorkshire. Again tbf to Junior, we were pretty comfortable against Derby till Flint's latest aberration. That's not form, it's split second mistakes. What I hope doesn't happen is a loss of confidence after our last 3 fixtures. It's Junior's task to keep morale high in the dressing room, if successful we'll look back on last week as a blip.
no more than 20 PLAYERS and no more than 8 other staff = 28 persons = £3,000 for a reasonable bb hotel overnight .. could pre book a premier @ £25 a night for a room and then only need £350 and 28 breakfst's at a nearby McD OR SUBWAY ANOTHER £300 .lol so we lost 2 pts for the sake of less than £4000 !
But at least they didn't have to endure breakfasts at McDonalds. Poor misused souls and now they're knackered.
Actually there is an argument to reduce the number of teams in each league: Premier League - 20 Championship - 20 League 1 - 22 League 2 (North) - 22 League 2 (South) - 22 Perhaps that's a thread for the next International break!!
Actually the EFL have talked about expanding the league in a meeting this week - ruling out Premier League B Teams Could happen for 2018/19 season
100 Teams have been mentioned overall, to also include the top 6 or so teams in the Conference. Not sure what the value is overall though unless L1/:2/L3 become regional ? There are still some biggish names in the Conference like Tranmere, Lincoln, Wrexham, Torquay etc but it would have to make financial sense for them to join as some of them are still part time pros. Carlisle v Plymouth on a wet Tuesday night in front of 4,000 people can't be viable surely ? Likewise the likes of Macclesfield, Chester and Torquay that even in their league days were only getting a couple of thousand spectators, and in Macclesfields case particularly, sometimes less than that.
