Our season so far has been a disappointment and to be frank – an utter shambles. Below is my take on things. If you can’t be bothered to read it; here are the main points: Cotts is partly to blame for our position. It’s partly, but not entirely down to our lack of summer signings Tactics need to change occasionally – we are too easy to predict Play Cox for more than 10 minutes at the end of a game Change tactics or change manager A lot has been made of our fiasco in the summer transfer window – and rightly so. I won’t bore you by going through the details again – we all know and it has been posted and debated on here many times already. However, I am very sad to say that SC has to take at least SOME of the blame for recent results. Recent thumpings by Derby and Burnley were unpleasant, but not unexpected to be honest. They dispatched with us in a professional manner – which is what WE should be doing when facing the so-called ‘inferior’ teams around us splashing about with us in the relegation mire – and it’s not as if we haven’t had chances to do so. I have posted on other threads that I am more disappointed with the Rotherham and Charlton results than Derby and Burnley. Those were games that we could and SHOULD have won – yet we collected a grand total of ONE POXY POINT out of a possible - no, CERTAIN 6. I won’t talk about Kodjia’s goal-line ‘clearance’ or the penalty miss v Charlton – they were a painful (or laughable) embarrassment and serve as a reminder of our habit this season of shooting ourselves in the foot, instead of at goal. Cotts’ insistence on playing 3-5-2, plus his extraordinary reluctance to play Cox – and his bemusing substitute policy have also played their part I’m sorry to say. Yes, we are competing in the Championship with a largely League 1 team, but so are Preston, Rotherham, Charlton, MK, Bolton, Blackburn, Leeds even - and a number of others and I REALLY believe that we are honestly stronger than all of those, despite our lack of summer signings. Steve Cottrell needs to take some of the blame for this. Opposition managers barely have to spend any time at all researching our tactics, because they never change. They simply need to look at a random video from any of our games over the past 2 seasons that don’t feature Smith or JET to know exactly what they are facing. Cox (or any sub for that matter) barely gets 10 minutes on the pitch – which is hardly enough time to warm up, let alone make an impact, so they are not worth researching. Some people have pointed at individuals (Pack, Williams, Fielding) as our weakness – and yes, they are League 1 standard at best, but Frank especially only gets relied upon when the other 10 players have failed to do their jobs – if he is to be criticised for a mistake that leads to us conceding a goal then we also need to mention the 6 or 7 mistakes by Kodjia and others EVERY GAME that meant that we FAILED to score when we should have. No, although players can and do make mistakes (or every game would be 0-0), the blame for our poor results are not entirely with individual players, I would say it is 60% as a result of our lack of summer signings, 1% bad luck and 29% due to Cotts’ unwillingness (or inability) to change tactics and/or deploy his subs (namely Cox). We are about to take on Reading at their place – I wonder what research they (Reading) will have to do to prepare themselves? I wonder what formation we will play? I wonder which strikers will be deployed? Yeah, we all know – and so do Reading. We will be losing 2-0 (at least) at 85 minutes, when Cox is finally introduced in a feeble attempt to recover something. Is Cox the answer? To be honest I don’t know, but he would certainly be different to the impotence we have been deploying to-date - and would introduce an 'unknown' for the opposition to deal with. I love Cotts and am extremely grateful to him for last season – just like I am to GJ for 2007/2008, but it’s THIS season now – which is fast running out, and he can’t rely on past achievements to save him – we need to turn things around NOW and there is no room for sentiment. The dilemma is; do we replace Cotts now and give the new manager access to the January window, or stick with Cotts and give HIM the January window? I’m afraid it’s with great sadness that I am tending towards the former. I can’t see SC changing his ways, so I’m afraid that WE need to change HIM. Whilst he remains, I will, of course, give him my full support. I never boo the manager or the players, but we are heading for L1 at this rate and it simply must not be allowed to continue because L1 is a horrible league to escape from – just ask Sheffield United or Coventry, and if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got. Rant over - thanks for reading. PS - I'd much rather Cotts changes, than we change Cotts, but either way SOMETHING has to change.
Well argued. If SC takes any blame then I agree that we are way too easy to read by the opposition and he's stubborn with substitutions. But quite why we took Simon Cox at all if he did have an injury is a bad joke, I wonder if this was disclosed when he signed, or if not why our medical team didn't spot it ? But the blame for where we currently are, at least for me still rests squarely with the naïve owner and the silent board members, who have contrived to take a title and trophy winning squad and reduce it to a bunch of has beens and an easy touch inside just 5 months, by not bolstering the ranks in good time for this season and ensuring our survival after the massive amounts of hard work it took to get us here. So despite all of the successes of last year, we have returned to the all familiar clueless football club who talk big and cant/wont back it up.
Good Rant, apart from one scary error. Simon Cox is a Reading player and as far as I know he's not illegible for his 5 mins. I might come across as a happy clapper but I'm not. I can't stand the substitutions and to be honest never agreed with them last year. To me they either came just after a opposition goal never when the opposition is showing the upper hand. I don't think we've the players to go 4 at the back simply because the midfield is not a system of four or is it? Elliott Smith Bryan Robinson. Not what most people would pick but in fairness the options always been there but Cotts plays a system to get Freeman and Pack onto the pitch. I think Joe can play in that role and Robinson is a left winger. So in my opinion we do have options. Just the front two, three games in 7 days is to much for Wilbraham so in my opinion he should of been taken off at least 10 mins into the second half and preserved.
I have puzzled over Cox's omission since he arrived. If he was unfit when he came here then he has had plenty of time to regain fitness. I can only assume that Cotts simply doesn't want to play him - even with Agard out. Sticking with a winning team is all well and good - only right now we aren't winning! He did the same last season with JET - only last season we WERE winning. I would play Cox alongside Kodjia (although perhaps Kodjia could do with a spell on the bench after his ridiculous 'clearance' v Charlton - he may be feeling too much pressure).
Good point regarding Cox and Reading - I hadn't thought of that - but even if Reading haven't included that clause it wouldn't make any difference as he would only get 5 minutes anyway! I totally agree with you about Wilbs - he struggles with 90 minutes and we need him to remain fit as he is one of our very scarce source of goals. I would play him perhaps for the final 30 minutes of games, where he could give his all, yet Cotts opts to stick with him all game, with Cox waiting on the bench and Agard injured. Burnley, Fulham, Reading and Derby games aside, where we were truly outplayed, we are creating chances but not converting them. We should have beaten Cardiff, Preston, Charlton, MK and a number of others.
What would we do with our lives if Bristol City were doing well and we had no reason to complain? It is never nice to have to rip the team apart week in and week out but we have become very accomplished at doing that because we often wonder if there is anyone capable of running the show down in BS3. Regrettably there will always come a time when the incumbent manager starts running afoul of moaning minnies like me, and some others, more often than not in a manner that the more seasoned diehard followers like to criticise in their own way. There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism as long as it doesn't become venomous and spiteful and bcfcredandwhite is a good example of how our concerns can be aired in a well thought out way. So many points that are in the thread bear a strange resemblance to the truth in many eyes brings me to my point that if all us armchair managers know what the hell is wrong then why don't the powers that be listen? Forget what happened last season, nice and cuddly though it was, because the fight in front of us is our biggest hurdle since the last time we were in the same position only a few short years ago. Why have Bristol City been so inept at admitting and addressing the issues facing them in the past and yet today the policy coming from both SL and SC scares me to death when they have virtually told us we can't, or won't ,compete. My New Years wish for us all is that Bristol City FC will make a resolution that will tell them what they want to be, how they are going to get there and who is driving the bus, because unless they are prepared to do something positive to change their fortunes, and our sadness, then they might as well shut the door on the way out.
Think we are on our way down, but would still stick with Cotts. Cant see we could get anyone that would make our relatively small squad play any better
It is very simple SC has to change his ways, or he has to go.Simply following the same route is going to take us back to league 1.
