Not a good night

As soon as i saw the team listed i had my doubts. chanigng to 4-5-1 when 4-4-2 has leads to goals seemed to me to be negative and was a mistake. Seeing Nyatanga brought in for J.Wilson also looked poor judgement as it is now the third person Fonts has partnered and still mistakes after mistakes so who will he partner next game? DM needs to learn that Fonts is the person he needs to change even if he is the captain. Now with fans shouting and getting on his back it may make his judgement worse. He needs a break from the team to get some confidence back.

In fairness if Pearson, Albert and Davis had taken their chances which were sitter we would have won. If fonts had not been ball watching we would have won. To me this was 2 points dropped.

Dropping Taylor seemed a mistake as Sam struggled playing against their defenders tonight as at time there were three on him as with no left sided player their right back played as a third centre defender, when Woolford came on we looked more balanced (though he didnt play well after coming on), this also stretched their defence. Changes possibly made too late.

M.Wilson looks like he needs more time as he was doing a Bradley Orr of punting every ball forward and communication between him and Albert was missing.

With the international break coming up hopefully this will give DM the opportunity to sort things out.

 

Should have been 4 or 5 baldock sent his shot wide, Albert missing from 3 yards Pearson not hitting the target and Davies missing another sitter, as for there goal I actually said to my cousin as the ball was delivered, goal! And he looked at me and said I jinxed us but was so obvious

Adomah had a good game another day he would of scored, well its a point............ although we now have 2 very very hard away games which I cant see us getting a point from unless a new defender is brought in

 

Thank God Skuse played tonight, without his contribution we'd have been beat no doubt.

Can't believe that 99% of our goal kicks were launched straight at ****tu, earlier this season Heaton was throwing the ball out and we tried to play from the back. It was bordering on farce when Fontaine and Tangles had the opportunity to pass forward, 90% of the time they played it 30yards BACK for Heaton to launch. By the way Del, putting Fonts right side to accommodate Tangle just makes matters worse.
I've been bleating on about our non tackling midfielders and tonight it came home to roost again with Pearson allowing his man inside to cross for their goal. Woolford was dropped and I wouldn't pick him or Kilkenny again. Anderson must be useless if he can't get in front of Woolford.

We have a decent keeper, Cunnigham, Elliott and Skuse in midfield, Albert and 4 decent strikers.
I wouldn't give tuppence for the likes of Fonts, Tangle,Woolford and Kilkenny.

And Del, against the worst side seen at AG this season your tactics were from the dark ages. It was bloody dire.

 

I thought Fonts was lucky in the second half made two mistakes that should of been punished lucky for us Millwall were just as bad.

Going to disagree with the forward line, thought Davies was fantastic and Sam Baldock ran his socks off. Replacing those two was a mistake but could see what DM was trying with Taylor. I would off taken Pearson off too many times this season he is ball watching and gives sloppy passes away.

Kilkenny I would be happy never to see him in a city shirt again. How many times did he slow the ball down, but worse was when we broke away at pace he slowed it down and passed backwards.

Skuse probably too soon back you could see not 100% fit, M Wilson also started brightly but ran out of steam. But in fairness to him the times he had the ball in first half Albert just stood there like a spare part can someone please point out that if you run without the ball you are faster get behind the defender ball over top job done its simply football that works, also as much as I love those fancy tricks you don't need to do it all the time.

Woolford restricted Foster meaning he had to do all the work down the left, Davies gave him outlets.

We lost to a stupid goal, Pearson allowed their player all the time to pick out a cross with no defender covering Henderson.

On a bright side. Tanglefoot played better than I have seen him do for a while. So he has improved from awful to just getting rid of it as fast as we can. But in all honesty he has never been the footballing defender so he done what we wanted to do just hoof it away. Maybe with someone marshalling him he would have an idea what to do with it. But Fontaine needs to organise himself better let alone try and organise the rest of them. If your not going to drop Fontaine at least take the arm band of him. Because he is not a captain. A captain needs to lead but he does not.

Mom for me Davies never in a million years Albert.

 

One of worse performances i seen under del fonts needs to go need a tackler in midfield so either del or Marv and a left winger to force em wide where is Anderson Sam can't play upfront on his own

 

Anderson has not made the bench for a few games now, could be injured or something. Not heard anything but surprised he is not making the bench.

Even more so when that useless bag of ****e Kilkenny gets on the pitch.

 

There's no movement for him to pass the ball and he keeps it too long cos he doesn't want to lose it but ends up doing it

 

Crazy league and more surprising results last night

The three teams to go down will do so with about 60 points at this rate

 

Negativity on this forum feels right somehow...

That optimism and happiness from earlier just looked out of place here. Last night was bad and with such a performance should come some harsh lessons, let's see how Del handles making the changes that need to come.

 

Ok so we had a bad night.....poor performance, poor atmosphere and poor result.

But come on guys, its early in the season yet...what are we, 6 off a play off spot? Surely this is better than the last 2 seasons?
We say it every year without fail......"this is a tough league this season, where anyone can beat anyone and pick up points where not expected"..blah, blah, blah....ect, ect, ect....we all say it, then when it happens, we can't believe it!

We are Bristol City....we are NOT Man United or Barcelona.
Del is in the process of turning this club around, and it wont happen overnight, but I am confident he will do it eventualy.
We are going to see some worse results than this along the way thats for sure....we always do. We will also get some amazing results, again, we always do.
We have had a few dire seasons back to back and I am as desperate as the rest of you to put that to bed, but I know it will be a tough season and will take the rough with the smooth.
The oh so obvious issues at CB will be addressed sooner rather than later I am sure, as will our midfield woes, and then we will be looking much much more polished.

Just trying to put a little light into the dark tunnel guys!...

 

'what are we, 6 off a play off spot?' - And THREE off a relegation spot.

Del, whilst you are unable to find a 'suitable' CH you should forget about Carey's age. Obviously nowhere near his best but he still our best defender and watching Fontaine and the oh so confident Tangle last night confirmed it. Those 2 clowns are utterly useless but together they're frightening, if you want a real giggle imagine Tangle playing rightside - Chaos.
Carey always wants the ball, genuine footballers do but those 2 treat it like a hot potato.

Del, if for nothing else play 1 of the clowns with Carey - the balance will be so much better.

However I don't hold out any hope of an improvement in results until Skuse and Elliott play and give much needed steel to CM.
We have more than enough threat going forward, we need those 2 to provide the platform.

 

"WE ARE NOT BARCELONA or MAN UTD as mentioned" but we are also not a sunday league pub football team which is how our defence looks at the moment.

DM has done wonders getting our forwards scoring goals (and then ruined it up by changing the formation last night)but all of this hard work will get over looked if he cannot get the defence playing well.
No one is expecting the best defenders in the world but we do expect players not to make mistake after mistake every game.
I'm sure if you did a survey most fans would say that they couldnt do any worse in a City shirt than what Fonts is at the moment and he gets paid more a month than anyone does in a year in their job.

I really hope DM can learn from his mistakes which everyone makes and goes back to 4-4-2 and drops Fonts for everyones sake.

4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1 only works with the right players which we do not have. The two teams which have made it work were Chelsea with Drogba up top with Lampard behind and Liverpool with Torres up top with Gerrard playing behind. Last night we had Sam up top with Kilkenny playing behind, at times. Teams like Man Utd play 4-4-2 as it suits their players but it seems that there is this thing now that teams must try and play 4-2-3-1 because it is a european style of football.

 

Listening to the match on Radio Bristol yesterday reminded me of many previous seasons when I have wondered why I bothered but it was plainly evident over the airwaves that we were not up to the task. Over the last years since I started listening to the games I became very used to hearing the evident despondency of the crowd and unfortunately the commentators went along for the ride. Last night seemed to take me back to those bad years when you knew that we were going to throw away somewhere between 1 and 3 points in the last 15 minutes or so of the match and rarely show that we were in with a shout.

Reading the somewhat negative postings on here has not made my day any better and unless we improve in formation, desire and and player skills we are surely going to read more of the dissention on 606 as well as from the seats. We can use all the excuses that we can muster but it still points to the fact that we have not quite arrived yet at the consistency required to compete at this level. Early season performances promised better than what was on display last night and it appears that cracks are starting to appear in the pre-season lustre and the questions need to be answered soon if we are not to go back to days of total dissatisfaction by all concerned.

Now I don't think we are even close to the dismal days of yesteryear but the symptons are starting to show and the treatment needs to start with the next 2 away games with more positivity and points. I really have a hard time believing that we have still not addressed the CM problem despite the obvious need for that type of player to settle the squad down. I know I don't attend games in person and don't see the overall picture but when I saw the teamsheet for last night I must confessed I winced in surprise, if not horror, when I saw certain personnel getting a chance again.

Ah well who would want to be a manager with all us moaners, so come on Del sort it out and let's all move on to something better.

 

"There's no movement for him to pass the ball and he keeps it too long cos he doesn't want to lose it but ends up doing it"


Aaahh, that old argument, they used to use that one to say our forwards couldn't score goals! it was bullshit then too...

 

Did your bladder hold up last night mate

I don't buy that there was no movement for Killkennny to pass too, Baldock ran his bollocks off also Davies was often there. I saw plenty of opportunities to pass and the one in particular where we broke out in the first half, he got the ball slowed it down allowing Millwall to get back. So he decides then to pass back.

The bloke has got the ability to pass but he wants to be a magician which he ain't.

Really want to go on Saturday but I'm in two minds as I don't want to drive all the way to see him again that's how strong I feel about the player. I have no time for him with all his pointing, moaning can't be arsed to tackle attitude.

 

100% spot on from Redprintt completely agree.

 

"Did your bladder hold up last night mate"


I managed to meander along the Dolman walkway as slowly as I could half a dozen times, stopping in front of any couples sat in the first couple of rows around B block, making myself as big as possible! I hope I didn't wake you!!

BTW I feel exactly the same as you about Kilkenny, to the point I don't want to go see him.

 

this time last year peterbro were top 10 ! Amazing isnt it they could win their next 2 games and be above us!!!!

However certainly looks to be like teams to go up might be only about 35 pts higher than those relegated....54 needed !