Head coach pulls no punches after Brighton defeat. Lee Johnson pulled no punches after seeing his City side beaten for the first time under his stewardship as promotion-chasing Brighton & Hove Albion showed their clinical edge at Ashton Gate. The high-flying Seagulls scored four times without reply, twice in each half, to condemn the hosts to a first defeat in five games. A tough night for City was compounded by a stoppage-time penalty miss from Kieran Agard, who picked himself up after he was fouled in the box only to hammer his spot-kick against the crossbar. “It was a poor game for us,” Johnson told Bristol City Player HD. “The players have been fantastic in the last three games, worked their socks off and stayed compact, but Brighton have done to us what we’ve been doing to other teams. “The important thing is that we don’t veer from the game plan when we concede a goal and I saw that from a couple of them today, which was disappointing. “It’s disappointing to concede four goals at home, but I thought the supporters were good. They didn’t turn on the players and that’s really important if we’re going to move forward. “They (Brighton) were clinical. They set their stall out to concede possession to us and break, and once we ran out of ideas it became a really frustrating night for us. “They administered their game plan better than we did – it’s as simple as that. We had too many players off it today and I’m not going to give any excuses for that. “Even at the end with the penalty, I thought that was a bit amateur. The penalty taker (Lee Tomlin) should take the penalties – it’s not schoolboy rules where whoever wins it picks the ball up. That’s something I’ll address. “If you look at the table it’s not a disaster because the bottom three all lost, but we shouldn’t be looking that way now. “We should be looking up, but to do that we need characters in the dressing room so that if adversity comes, they can dig themselves out of it on the pitch.” http://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/article/no-excuses-johnson-2969992.aspx
Don't let us forget who selected the team, set up our game plan and is there to control the teams actions, having said that it is our first defeat in 3, results went for us, I don't like getting thrashed let alone losing but it's still early days in our new head coach rule. I don't care what anyone says we are still desperate for a striker, certain people should get off their well paid asses and sort one out, we should take control of our own future and not depend on other teams losing for our salvation.
In fairness to Johnson he wanted to look at the squad and gauge it properly. He's probably seen for his own eyes we need that forward and he can now concentrate on filling the last loan spot. Just because it's obvious to us he still needed to give them all a chance. One thing I did notice and not that he had a particular bad game but winning team Pack chases the ball like man possessed but at 3-0 down he allowed their midfield to run though him easier than they were already. Maybe he's a confidence player who lets his head down. Glad he's addressing that penalty debacle as that was embarrassing.
I think the result doesn't entirely reflect the balance of play - we had more possession, more shots on goal, more shots on target; but you know what they say: 'lies, damned lies and statistics'. Yes, a striker should be high up the list of priorities, though I'm not convinced there are many suitable candidates out there that are an upgrade on who we've got - who's going to be willing to loan out a striker good enough to score regularly in the Championship in late February? If anyone has suggestions, I'd be interested in hearing. Is there a Premiership player whose contract is running down and can't get in the team who might want to put themselves in the shop window? I think a strong defensive midfielder is a slightly higher priority - we've conceded way too many goals this season and I feel a lack of protection for the back line is at least partially to blame. In the short-term, again I think we'd struggle to get someone in. It's looking like we're going to have to limp to the end of the season and hopefully we can stay up and have a really productive summer to make up for last year. I think we've shown regularly that we can play, but there are too many individual mistakes made to concede and not enough chances taken to score. Whilst I largely applaud the ethos in wanting to sign young, talented players, I think there's still a place to sign a few more experienced players to form a solid spine - one central defender, one midfielder & one striker for me.
I don't care what is needed but when will somebody do something to address the problem? How many more managers do we have to employ to get one of them to have the balls to tell Steve Lansdown what we need and then look him in the eyes and say that unless he listens for once we are a lost cause. I won't hold my breath this time around, just to make a change.
Maybe what we need is not out there at the moment, no point in just loaning in players if they are no better than what we've got.. We may have to ride it out with what we've got and pile into the market in the summer.. Lets not panic over one result, in all fairness, LJ has only been here for 5 minutes, how do we know what discussions he's had with SL??
4 wins and a few draws or 5 wins and a couple of draws will see us safe. Have to hope that the 4 below us continue to struggle. Then I hope the idiots in charge apologise (fat chance) for the mess they created last Summer.
