Riding our luck a bit, if Blackpool had their shooting boots on we would be struggling.. Palmer defo been our best player..
Sorry guys but you can't dominate a game like you did and make a typical City mistake. Nigel Pearson will be fuming and rightly so in my opinion because there were 3 points in the bag and sloppiness cost us dearly. We looked so good at times, and that included some notable performances, but fell afoul of late game indifference and threw away 2 points. Overall I liked what I saw, when we were in the ascendancy, and the back line looked very secure and comfortable with some tidy work in the middle to show us a well balanced approach but who went to sleep to create their unwanted goal. Take the positives, and there were many, to the next match and see what Nigel does with the formation and personnel away to Middlesbrough. We need to keep up all the good work we did in this game and tighten up right to the end. P.S. I enjoyed the commentary on Robins TV but I have no idea who they were except one of them is Brian (Tinnion?). They did a good job during the match and seemed to have good local knowledge and I also enjoyed some of the insight in to the good things sponsored, or done by Bristol City.
The pluses = Scott who is a huge talent already for his age. Defence looked sound enough with Atkinson excelling. We controlled midfield for most of the game and we are not going to be bullied, we kept them at arms length for most of the game and forced them back and at long range. There were some crunching tackles and the odd glimpses of great one touch football. The minuses = Whilst acknowledging his great effort/engine, Weimman has zero composure in front of goal and missed two golden opportunities one in the first half where he was hide, wide and not very handsome with lashed shot, when he should have hit the target at least and in the 2nd half with another great cross similar to the cross for the first goal, where he for some unknown reason decided to try glance it at the near post and not bury it with power at the far post ala Martin in the first half, again didn't even hit the target. For the last half an hour he was breathing out of his arse and dropped back into midfield, IMHO he is and will never be a midfielder and in fact he proved that by being far too weak in the build up for Blackpool's equaliser, for me better as an impact player. ODowda's touch that led to his injury was shocking, he should have scored. Late on Blackpool brought on 2 pacy players and put them both on the right to prevent DaSilva from linking up with our midfield/attackers, at this point somebody needed to back DaSilva up but nobody did and he was left terribly exposed, trying to single handedly deal with 2 players. But here is my real issue, there was 3 minutes of time added on and we had more than successfully seen off at least half of that amount and we get a free kick on the halfway line next to the dug out's, the ball should have gone backwards and eventually to Bentley who could have eaten up precious seconds bringing it down to less than a minute to play. But for some inexplicable reason Vyner I believe hit the ball forward with not a BCFC player within 10 yards of the kick and it trickled into to touch from the resulting throw they broke forward, Weimann was weak far too weak and they scored, it was shocking game management by as I say I believe Vyner. We should have won but you cannot miss 3 golden opportunities and have crappy game management for the last 90 seconds as we did when you are only 1 up.
Let's just hope that NP has spotted the problem areas and will make changes to address the issues. I was late getting in to the game and so missed the O'Dowda injury but I hope it's not too serious and he can return soon. The Weimann misses were shocking and we need to create and score more goals because I believe that if we had scored the second goal then Blackpool may have folded. My first impression on Alex Scott was very good and I believe he will turn in to a good player given more playing time, and the new man from Oxford Rob Atkinson also put in a full hard working shift looking well at ease alongside Baker. Missed chances could spoil this squad and so they need to step up the ante by hitting the back of the net more often but I believe there is another issue up front where we urgently need a true well proven striker to put games to bed but not go to sleep. Overall I liked most of what I saw yesterday but old habits die hard but we fell victim to our usual late game apathy and got the predicted loss of points. Incidentally the commentator during yesterday's match pointed out that we were set up to fall foul to a long ball over the defence down the flanks and the subsequent cross in to the box and guess what? He was spot on and the question remains as to why the bench was not aware of that potential leak in the dam?
Disappointing to concede in the 93rd minute but it's hardly unusual for us is it ?!! It would have been a confidence builder to have got 3 points from the opening game with so many tough ones to come, but at least we didn't lose. I guess ! On to Middlesbrough
I agree with the composure piece for the early chance for Weimann, he had enough time to bring it down and shoot. A bit harsh on him for the header though, it was a far harder chance than the one Andy King headed wide in the first half, that was an awful miss... Hopefully, it was just first game of the season rustiness. I don't know why Palmer was taken off late in the game? Unless he had a knock, he can feel very aggrieved at that. Scott was also tremendous, but for me he was left on 15 mins too long as he was clearly dead on his feet at 70 mins. For me, Pearson didn't get the 2nd half subs right in terms of timing or personnel, why bring on Sam Bell? I also thought Baker looked rusty, his headed clearances were very poor and put the midfield under pressure every time. Again, I hope these are issues that will get ironed out as more games get into the players legs over the coming weeks.
You are correct about the King miss, but at least he absolved himself with the terrific cross for the goal, the Weimann headed miss was worse because he was under absolutely no pressure he was free like Martin was for the first and why he tried to glance it god only knows. I have sympathy for your view reference the subs, Palmer was either feeling something or he is going to play tomorrow night, Bell was brought on to inject some pace to try to relieve the pressure that was building but sadly it never worked. I cannot come even close to agreeing about Baker, I thought especially considering his injury woes of recent season he was terrific. Yes the subs never really worked but we dropped 2 points because of individual mistakes, 3 misses that never even hit the target that should have put us out of sight, Vyner's absolutely ridiculously amateur decision with 90 seconds left to go to lump a free into no mans land and not within 10 yards of our players instead of passing it back to Bentley and from the subsequent thrown in Blackpool breakout and Weimann was no where near strong enough on the edge of our box.
The best thing was at least I saw all 11 players + the subs actually giving 100%, something I didn't see very much over the past 2 seasons.
I probably have to agree with that, apart from the first quarter of last season which was enough to keep us up!!
I agree, sadly our history for several years has been littered with those false dawns that promised so much and delivered so little, especially with effort, quality and excitement.
I wouldn't get too carried away just yet, We drew at home against an injury-ravaged, newly promoted side. Yes, there were some positive signs, but as Onefor said, we started last season winning our 1st four league games, with no clue of what was to come..... Let's evaluate at the end of Sept and see how the team are doing!"
I am not and never would get carried away with anything BCFC related. As for last seasons start, we got incredibly lucky in our first match against newly promoted Coventry, we played well at Stoke (although I remember a few comments saying Stoke were crap), we were solid at home to Wednesday and actually took our chances that day and we rode our luck at Forest. It's all too easy to get carried away with a start like that, but in truth we never fully bossed the midfield in any of those games. My point is I saw all 11 players + subs put in a shift, only let down by some bad misses and crappy game management at the death and a midfield that bossed the game for at least 60 minutes (when the game should have been over).
