BRISTOL CITY: "We've come a million miles" claims manager Steve Cotterill. BRISTOL City boss Steve Cotterill reckons his team has "come on a million miles" in the Championship this season. Promoted as League One champions last May, the Robins initially encountered difficulty in adapting to life in the second tier. A meagre return of one win from their opening eight games consigned City to the foot of the table in September, at which point some supporters feared a season-long battle against relegation. But Cotterill's charges have shown a marked improvement since then and, defeated just once in their last five outings, the Robins have moved off the bottom and risen to 19th in the table. And back-to-back home games against Fulham and Wolves now offer an opportunity for the Championship newcomers to move clear of trouble and establish themselves in mid-table. Cotterill described his side's performance as "magnificent" after watching them dominate eighth-placed Cardiff City in Monday's Severnside derby clash in the Welsh capital. Although disappointed to be held to a 0-0 draw, City's manager correctly argued that his team are improving with every game in the second tier. The Robins had 20 shots at goal compared with Cardiff's nine and 53 per cent of possession. Recalling Monday's game at the Cardiff City Stadium and the previous fixture - a narrow 2-1 defeat at leaders Brighton - he said: "We may have only taken one point, but it could so easily have been six. "We've gone away to two of the better sides in this division, played some fantastic football and given them a scare. "To dominate the (Cardiff) game like we have is real credit to the players. They've come on a million miles and I'm delighted for them. It was a good point for us, but we should have had all three and it was a shame we didn't get the winner we deserved." "But there is improvement in us all the time, we are getting better and, if we keep playing like that, the results will come." A habit of conceding soft goals was at the heart of City's problems during the first two months of the campaign, but that problem has largely been eradicated in recent games and the Robins have kept two clean sheets in their last three outings. Although Cotterill has retained the 3-5-2 system that terrorised opposition defences last season, he has made adjustments in a quest for defensive stability. Cotterill explained: "We've been burned a couple of times this season and we've made a few tweaks to the way we play. "We've cut out the silly errors by adjusting a couple of things and I'm not sure Cardiff looked like scoring. "You have to make sure you get those blocks in and that was something I felt we needed to do better. "We knew that Cardiff would look to play off (Alex) Revell and get the ball up to him quickly and we knew they would be a threat from set pieces. Those are things we worked on in training and I'm pleased with the clean sheet." http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTO...claims-Steve/story-28061095-detail/story.html
Now I really don't want to criticise after a great performance on Monday but please Cotts , why resort to more clichés, just give us some more good results and let the football do the talking.
"We've cut out the silly errors by adjusting a couple of things and I'm not sure Cardiff looked like scoring." ... oh yes they did Steve - and they SHOULD have scored - Ameobi's effort was uncharacteristically crap - and a let-off for us. I like some of the football we are playing, but we look dodgy when the opposition play more 'direct'. At 0-0 - or even 1-0, we know that the opposition can come back and bite us far too often. We MUST begin to start putting some of our chances away. A comment by Hilts24 in response to mine, on the Cardiff board summed it up quite well for me: http://www.not606.com/threads/cardiff-city-v-bristol-city.314455/page-2 This observation in particular was interesting from the opposition: 'I very much doubt you will hammer someone soon. Marshall made one outsanding save. Other than that your failure to score was down to wasting good positions time and time again. A real lack of quality in the final ball. Our midfield was so bad I thought last night was defensively a good work out for our back 4 If a better side are in the amount of good positions your side were in last night we get hammered even with Marshall who should be in the PL.'
The unnecessary comments continue tp spout when sometimes you just need to shut up. I fear he doth quote too much.
"I very much doubt you will hammer someone soon" I think he should be more concerned about them getting a hiding from someone rather than us giving one to someone. They were woeful.
