Bristol Pre Season (Kebe Rested!!)

[rabidbee]

On the whole, that was a bit shit.

[Rex]

Good. Workout. Poor first half with Somks particularly at fault and bailed out time and again by Boris. Jem stood out but tweaked a hamstring.

Different class when cavalry came on. Jordan will be quality, but for me Jake Murphy was very good. Morrison impressed, too.

Special mention for Griff - composed and wound up the left winger. Shoulx have clattered him harder.

Other highlighs - playing in semi darkness and the lady getting her baby changed at half time.

'greed + the other highlight was Reading subs having to use the gents on the away terrace.

Jay Tabb went in at the same time as Trolis' son. I am sure they had a who could piss the highest competition in there.

[NR_Royal]

Jordan will be quality, but for me Jake Murphy was very good

Who the oxf*rd is Jake Murphy?

[rabidbee]

He's a professional footballer, currently plying his trade with Championship outfit Reading FC.

[Dick Habbin's hairdo]

Jordan will be quality, but for me Jake Murphy was very good

Who the oxf*rd is Jake Murphy?

Oooops. Well, he looks like a Murphy. My excuse was 9 cans of Stella and a couple of pints in Brizzle and the jiggling of the chuffer on the way back. Flagellate me.

[ZacNaloen]

Jordan will be quality, but for me Jake Murphy was very good

Who the oxf*rd is Jake Murphy?

Oooops. Well, he looks like a Murphy. My excuse was 9 cans of Stella and a couple of pints in Brizzle and the jiggling of the chuffer on the way back. Flagellate me.

Did you mean Jake Taylor by an chance?

[Mr Angry]

An interesting night out!

Started with a visit to the Wellington, a 5 min walk from the ground; very nice range of ales and the food was ok as well.

The ground is a mix of ramshackle and reasonable, with the highlight being the away end and its tattered net aimed at preventing balls from disappearing towards Bristol City Centre. The net failed....

Goal down after 3 minutes, as Torquay (sorry, Bristol Rovers) attacked down our right flank, the ball got fed into Kuffour who finished well giving Andersson no chance.

Sonks didn't look anywhere near match fit, and nearly let Kuffour in for a second with a trademark lunge and miss (and which so often resulted in penalties). Then, following a corner, Andersson made a superb save. As has been said, Boris was the best defender by a country mile, with Cummings being ineffective (all the danger seemed to come down his flank) whilst Williams looked a bit of the pace (although he did make a couple of good attacking runs, linking with Jobi and Howard well).

We looked threatening going forward without any real chances; the keeper made one good save from Antonio low down to his left, whilst Manset (who has lost what looks like 3 stone from the end of last season!!) having a couple of good snap shots.

Some banter with the home keeper, as well as a dreadful rendition of "Please Don't Go" to Shane as he warmed up (cheers TROLI) kept things amusing.

Second half started with an excellent chance from kick off, as Howard strolled through the middle, squared it to Antonio who crossed for a good headed chance that was too close to the Rovers keeper.

After that, we saw some agricultural challenges, mainly from the Rovers 26 (or 25.......in the dark of the floodlight failure I couldn't see clearly enough!) including one hack of Legs that would have been a straight red card even in a Sunday League game, but "cos its a friendly" the ref only gave a yellow.

When the mass substitutions occured after 62/63 mins, the whole tempo changed and HRK scored from an Obitta cross within a minute, and from then on - bar a couple of quick Rovers free kicks (one of which resulted in Andersson making a point-blank save that he knew very little about) it was all us, and the winner when it came (an excellent finish from Obitta from the left hand side of the box) it had the added bonus of being "controversial" so wound up the wurzels (apparantly the lino on the right put his flag up then immediately put it down again, making Pual Buckle jump up and down like a 8 yr old who has been told he can't have a Power Ranger toy for Xmas)

By then the floodlight failure had occured - utterly bizarre having a quarter of the ground in gloomy semi darkness with a game going on!

Still, a good runout but what did we learn?

Andersson is someone I would have confidence in between the sticks.

Sonks isn't match fit and from the 60 mins he was on, I'm not sure I would favour him over Morrison (who looked pretty good to be fair, even having a cracking shot that just went wide near the end); full back position could be an issue - Cummings and Willams, versus Harte and Griffin....both pairings have pro's and cons and none of the 4 are 100% nailed on - so I suspect we will start with the Harte/Griffin combo.

Upfront, it all depends still on whether Long stays or goes; with Church and Hunt injured, and Williams nowhere to be seen, at the moment the starting 2 will be Long and Manset. HRK could come in and partner Beast but I wouldn't see that as anything other than an emergency measure.

Obitta and Taylor looked impressive, but will they really get much 1st team action? I'm not sure for this season. Antonio didn't do a vast amount imho and didn't track back much, exposing Cummings a few times.

[sandman]

I remember a certain Northern Irish ex-manager of ours failing to take pre-season seriously.

He'll never make the top flight with that attitude.

Oh.

Maybe that experience was something he learnt from and improved at his next club.

[rabidbee]

Obita and Taylor certainly did more in their 25-minute cameos than Jobi or Antonio managed in the rest of the game. Obita is quick, Taylor appears to have quick feet. A couple of times, I thought Taylor could have played an early ball to a player running through, but opted to take it on and was stripped of the ball. Hopefully, that awareness will come with experience.

Sonko was at fault for the goal, but I thought he grew into the game as the match went on. Nevertheless, Bryn was far and away the better of the two. Mind you, his first start in 6 months, so a bit early to judge, really. Morrison looked comfortable when he came on, but then he was about two foot taller than their strikers. Anderson made a great save, stop a point-blank header, although to be fair he may not have known anything about it until afterwards.

On the whole, m'eh.

[bennno]

Difficult to judge the 2 pairs of centre backs last night as bristol swapped their entire forward three at half time, it went from 3 tall, dangerous and pacey attackers to 3 much shorter and slower players. In addition Griffin and Harte both came on and covered their flanks better than Willams and Cummings, as a result Morrison and Pearce looked like a Terry and Ferdinand eque combination in comparison to Gunnarson and Sonko's first half performance. Gunnarson is a classy player mind and did well.

[reading_fan]

Agree with all of what Mr A wrote, spot on match report.

Morrison deserves a mention - first time I've seen him and was impressed by what I saw, looks to be a good addition to the squad.

I thought Bignall and Antonio looked quite tricky as well in the first half when they were attacking our end - give them another season in the reserves, with occasional first team appearances and they look like they could become permanent fixtures in the first team eventually.

Looks like we've got a good crop of youngsters coming through the youth ranks

[brendywendy]

Difficult to judge the 2 pairs of centre backs last night as bristol swapped their entire forward three at half time, it went from 3 tall, dangerous and pacey attackers to 3 much shorter and slower players. In addition Griffin and Harte both came on and covered their flanks better than Willams and Cummings, as a result Morrison and Pearce looked like a Terry and Ferdinand eque combination in comparison to Gunnarson and Sonko's first half performance. Gunnarson is a classy player mind and did well.

i <3 bryn

[reading_fan]

i <3 bryn

+1

[Bristol Royalz]

I was at the game.

Sonko struggled and lacked match fitness, but the praise for Gunnar I think is a bit misplaced, yes he got some vital blocks in, but throughout the first half Harrold had him in his pocket and Gunnar lost every physical battle. I like Gunnarsson, think he's a great player and servant but I have never thought he was a centre back.

We did look a lot more solid with Pearce and Morrison, but again that might be due to the Roverz strikers at that time.

Karacan was the best player in the first half (not sure about the beard tho).