BFTG Bristol City Away

[genome]

Here's a weird observation...

Despite the problems with our defence, and that being arguably the reason we have stuttered this season, we haven't conceded more than two goals in any game.

Yet last season, we were conceding 7's, 5's, and 4's, yet we were comfortably 3rd

[Berry]

Here's a weird observation...

Despite the problems with our defence, and that being arguably the reason we have stuttered this season, we haven't conceded more than two goals in any game.

Yet last season, we were conceding 7's, 5's, and 4's, yet we were comfortably 3rd

But this season we struggle to score...I'm not even going to mention that we need a striker as it bores me

[RoyalBlue]

I think you’re massively underestimating how good the club is with the ticket pricing etc. It is exceptional and a real credit to the club. The owners appear to have stabilised the club and are investing a bit of money - no complaints there at the moment. As for the future it is just speculation

‘British’ managers who play ‘British’ football has on the whole been found out. Warnock does his thing, Dyche is doing an exceptional job (but think his style has evolved this season), but other than that the world has moved on. The successful British managers have generally moved on with it

Trying to think of the last team who got out of the championship (the right way) playing that football. Certainly not last year.

Completely agree. Plus, of course, it's not just about getting out of the Championship, it's about having the ability to stay in the PL when you get there. That's where, as we've found out to our own cost, direct//hoofball tends to fail.

You need to retain possession because if you keep hoofing it away to your opponents they will very often make that count against you. And it's extremely difficult to go up playing one style of football and change it over to another over summer, regardless of the players you manage to sign.

[72 bus]

Here's a weird observation...

Despite the problems with our defence, and that being arguably the reason we have stuttered this season, we haven't conceded more than two goals in any game.

But we have only scored more than two goals in four of our matches, that's the problem.
Any game where the opposition score first we lose
Any game where the opposition score two goals we lose.
We lack bottle, character and a team spirit.

[Crowbar6753]

Stam is not the answer. He's had a season and a half and the team is going backwards. Get a British manager who has played at this level in who will organize from the back and play a direct style. If Michael O'Neill leaves Northern Ireland, that type of manager. Maybe even Martin. We have a couple of quick wingers, get a powerful striker and play with purpose, that's how you get out of the championship.

[/quote]

100% spot on, Dutch football has had its heyday and is now in rapid decline.....i really think we missed a trick by not going for Tony Pulis when he was available...i think he's now at Boro and this will be there gain and our loss.
WBA are exactly the right club that we should be molding ourselves on, maybe even Stoke City. Bournemouth came up totally Gung Ho and playing bright attacking football, a bit like we did after the 106 season... but even now they are getting found out and are struggling. Maybe Micheal O'Neil would be a good shout, be he is unproven at club level.

[Crowbar6753]

You can find many more examples of British styles of play being successful in the championship than you can with styles like Stams approach.

Swansea and Bournemouth are probably the only two in recent memory this has worked for and at a push Wolves who have spent astronomical sums to achieve this. Stams style is not working, we are losing to crap teams or good teams who happen to put a crap performance in against us and still win consistently

. We are leaking goals and not scoring anywhere near enough. How do you suggest we fix this? If we had signs of progress it would be easier to swallow, we don't.[/quote]

Wolves have spent lots of money on quality players who are good at playing the passing style at pace, our players can pass the ball but are not good enough to do this at the pace required to cut teams open, hence the slow turgid football thats totally boring to watch with not end result except going backwards towards our own goal and then we get in all sorts of trouble, repeat....

[muirinho]

We lack bottle, character and a team spirit.

Do you think we had bottle and character and a team spirit last season (for me, mostly, yes - think both PO games, the Villa away game, the Wednesday away game for instance).
I know we've lost Williams and al-Habsi, but were they that significant in team-morale stakes?

Having said that, last season, anytime we lost a few games, you'd get posters on here moaning about lack of "bottle and character"

As if there was some mythical age when every player played every game with a broken leg, in return for a cup of tea, a cheese sandwich, and a shilling, and every player nowadays is a media-junky who falls over when touched, and would sell his grandmother for column inches in a tabloid

Personally I think that is a load of rubbish.

Most players care most of the time - I think "character" is one of those unquantifiable things, that gets shouted about a lot, but is actually pretty insignificant. It seems to me that if a team is doing well, people seem to think that the players have more "character" than if it's doing badly. An "inspirational captain" is just the guy who happens to be captain when the team is doing well. The players are the same players in a bad run as they were in a good run. They may be confused by instructions, or collectively have a crap day, or come up against better sides, or have a run of bad luck. But they don't change their innate nature.
There are exceptions - e.g. if a team have won everything, it's easy to lose the hunger. Or if there is nothing left to play for, it's hard to work up the enthusiasm to give it everything. Or if the manager is obviously a shit, that throws the players under the bus in press conferences, and inspires no loyalty whatsoever, there may be a collective "downing of tools".
None of those things apply in this case.

But we have only scored more than two goals in four of our matches, that's the problem.

To me, this is much more significant. Last season, our defence was prone to silly mistakes as well - but we scored more. We also got more penalties because we had players in the box. The Burton game was catastrophically bad, but in many of the other games I've seen, we actually had plenty of attacking chances. But not enough shots, and definitely not enough shots on target.

Kermorgant is a shadow of what he was last season
Bodvarsson is a useful player, but as an option off the bench, or as a second striker, not as the main man.

I've seen enough of Rakels and Samuels to see why they got shipped out - neither are the answer either.

WE NEED A STRIKER

(also a left back, but that's another issue)

[genome]

Here's a weird observation...

Despite the problems with our defence, and that being arguably the reason we have stuttered this season, we haven't conceded more than two goals in any game.

But we have only scored more than two goals in four of our matches, that's the problem.
Any game where the opposition score first we lose
Any game where the opposition score two goals we lose.
We lack bottle, character and a team spirit.

Yeah, true, but curiously:

Number of matches we scored 3 or more in before Boxing Day 16/17: 4
Number of matches we scored 3 or more in before Boxing Day this season: 5

Overall goals scored before Boxing Day 16/17: 33
Overall goals scored before Boxing Day this season: 29

Overall goals conceded before Boxing Day 16/17: 30
Overall goals conceded before Boxing Day this season: 32

Not that much difference, yet one team was 3rd, one team is 17th! The odd goals in those stats have been translating to narrow losses, instead of narrow wins. That's the crux of it, I think.

[3points]

Didn’t we have something like 9 penalties before Christmas last season too?