Will be interesting to see who plays wide on the opposite side to Asprilla. Looking for a more solid midfield I guess.
I guess? Not sure the inverted wingers thing will help Rajovic, not sure why we picked him when Bayo is back
Agreed we need crosses if Raj is playing. Maybe Asprilla on the left. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see TDB on the right.
Sorry @Klein Lust , I take it back. Because even calling that performance from Morris a 4/10 would be generous. He and Porteous spent the first 60 minutes seemingly having a competition between themselves of who could be the most sloppy in possession and give away the most dangerous free-kicks. The only decent thing he did all his appearance was just before he was about to be subbed.
Was there for the taking in the first half, just weren’t clinical or brave enough Lucky to come away with a point in the end
Decent point, although if you were watching Sky the half wit of a presenter had us winning throughout, Timmy Sherwood didn't correct him, oddly. Later,at full time,he had us losing to Plymouth. Ridiculous man. Sounds like the Asp had a chance or two,but so did they. I'm all for equality but why does every media provider delivering football insist on female commentators,reporters. Sky must have used 50% today, almost all of them average at best and also seemingly all 12. Mind you,the men are blithering idiots too!
Very mid-table performance from two very mid-table teams I thought. Hamer MOTM for us. Hard to pick an outfield player who got above 6/10 today. Easier to pick out the players that had an absolute stinker - Asprilla, Andrews, Morris and Porteous. But that’ll happen I guess. Andrews’ passing was criminal all game. Anything over a couple of yards went astray, beaten in the air multiple times and in the last 10 mins had a golden chance to cross with 5 men arriving in the box but tamely hit it straight at the nearest defender.
Notes from the front*: 1. The number of misplaced passes we play, and touches taken that are so bad we actually come under extreme pressure or even lose possession from an offensive position, is absolutely insane. Nowhere near good enough for this level; particularly for a team that struggles so much with creating chances on goal as it is. 2. What the fucck is the deal with our defence? Porteous as reckless as ever, and in general conceding a goal of the kind that we did today is just pathetic. 3. What the ever living FUCCK is happening with our set pieces?!?!?!? We expressly brought in an Italian genius to sort it out, and yet we still look utterly abysmal - at absolute sixes and sevens. Shyte corner underhit to absolutely no one at the front post after shyte corner underhit to absolutely no one at the front post. And don't even get me started on when it comes to defending them. Did Bristol City carry out some kind of marvellous act of service to us at some point in the past? Because their players appeared to have been granted the freedom of our penalty area. I'm just sad I missed the ceremony. Embarrassing to face multiple point blank headers that have to be blocked on the line or magic rescued by the ever-more-important (insanely) Ben Hamer. An away point is an away point, but for me there were so many elements of that performance, and the way we work in general, still, that are just so frustrating. More to the point, they don't seem to be getting any better or, indeed, even showing evidence of being addressed by coaching as it stands. (*I was not anywhere near the front)
I thought there were some good performances from Kone, Hoedt, Chakvetdatze, Livermore. Dont disagree with your negatives especially Andrews and Porteous.
Decent point on the road. Could have won it but Asprilla yet again deciding to take several touches and slowing things down cost us. Someone on here defended him missing a header from a yard out at Cardiff because 'heading isn't his game'. Others have said that beating a man and getting a cross in isn't his game. I'm sure someone will create an excuse for missing a sitter today that would have caused a meltdown had it been missed by Bayo or Rajovic. His first touch is excellent, but after that he seems a bit...nothing at the moment. Rajovic's hold up play more prominent - he is clearly reacting to coaching. Morris was poor, Lewis no better. Martins rightly dropped but a waste of time when he came on. We desperately need Sema back and a new winger so that Martins and Asprilla can warm the bench for a bit. Kone and Giorgi were excellent, just like Rajovic you can see they are being coached and improving week by week. Solid point against a team who spanked us less than a month ago.
A solid peformance for the most part and a good point away from home against one of the teams chasing the playoffs, will take that.
It’s getting to the point where you need to be a real football aficionado to watch our games. Just boring beginning to end. I can’t recall us having a shot of any note and once again bad finishing saves us. I’m not asking for a performance like Arsenal’s 5-0 win over Crystal Palace earlier but to call it boring at the moment is being generous.
A fairly decent point. Brining Asprilla off at half time really destroyed anything we had going forward in the 2nd half. Ismael likes a strange sub, this time it shot us in the foot as I feel we could’ve won that.
At the end of that both sides will probably be alright with a draw. But we started the game well, and it's such a shame that after having been gifted a goal by them, we (Porteous and Morris in particular) then soon after seemed determined to try and gift them an equaliser. We invited them to come on to us time and again with sloppy passing and lazy free-kicks. Kone was brilliant first half, but couldn't really get in to the game in the second. Did they start man-marking him, or was it tiredness, or that we stopped playing as many passes? Or all three. Chak keeps getting himself in to excellent positions, but then keeps on invariably seeming to do the wrong thing with his final pass or shot. Not the worst example perhaps, but with the Asprilla chance I thought the simple pass in to Rajovic looked the most obvious option. I wouldn't have blamed him for shooting either. He had to rather fire the ball in to Asprilla who was closed down by the GK by the time the ball reached him (though he could have also shot first time). Aside from that he kept getting in to good areas but just hitting the ball against the first defender (including most of his corners). As per above, Morris and Porteous were crap. In general we lost too much of our composure towards the end of the game, when there were chances there for us to counter-attack with calmer heads in playing the ball out of defence. We continue to look particularly vulnerable when defending corners. We could have done with another central midfielder on the bench as our players got more tired. Not the worst point, but there could have been more there for us with a bit more energy and composure.
Kone I’d agree did far more good than bad. I really like his turn of pace and ability to shift up a gear. Hopefully his game clicks because if it does he’ll walk all over this league. Hoedt and Livermore seemed to me to have those types of games where every good thing was soon overridden by an inexplicable error. Livermore uncharacteristically stood on the ball a couple of times, Hoedt gave away that corner at the end with a sloppy backpass. Chak just needs an end product. Running and running and running is lovely but if he offers no threat it’s to little avail. Plus I felt he could have given Asprilla an easier pass than the one he did for the chance at the end of the first half. Ended up forcing a touch to control it where a perfect pass would have been into his stride. Would still have expected Asprilla to finish it mind you.
Thought Bristol City were very poor in the first half and were extremely lucky we weren’t beating them 3/4-1 at HT. Second half they were much better but we were our own worst enemies. We always gift teams goals. Very rarely do we concede a goal because we’ve been carved open. Majority of the time it’s our idiots deciding to do something dopey/not paying attention and we concede. The mistakes we make in the back we rarely see our opponents make against us. Their goal came from Andrews being weak with the first challenge, Porteous then taking an air kick because he didn’t see the player pressing him. Hamer saves the first shot, but Livermore decides to not jump. Was a comedy of school boy errors. Also we desperately need pace in our team. The lack of it is killing us. Bristol City pressed us so high that multiple times they had all 10 players in our half and the counter was on. We have zero options to hurt teams that do that, so they knew they could press us that high and not worry. Take a point, but yet again we find ourselves saying, if only we had taken our chances we would have put the game to bed by HT. DM/CM, RB, ST and winger with pace are the 4 signings we need to make if Gino is serious about a playoff push.
Asprilla being subbed at half time was the obvious call. So obvious even I predicted it and I quite like him. He’d been booked, couldn’t get a thing right and once Andrews behind him was on a yellow too it was always going to happen.
A good point, but for the first time all season (from what I have seen), I thought we looked leggy in the second half. As a collective, we seemed to be treading water right through to the final whistle. When considering our fiendish run-in and lack of squad depth, we'll struggle to make the play-offs if we now start fading in second halves, which have usually been our forte.
We started pretty well, got a deserved pen which was well taken by TDB. Then Poerteous did what he generally does and was the main culprit for their equaliser. Rest of the half was pretty even although had the pass to Asprilla been better we might of gone in ahead. Second half was the same sort of affair although a massive thumbs up again to Hamer for making some good stops to preserve the point. Brizzle probably should of won it near the end but Hamer was our hero as the rest of the side just about held on for a decent point all things considered. We looked absolutely powderpuff in attack all game, and Raj offered very little as a goal-scoring threat due to us having nobody to swing in a decent ball. Our corners are disgustingly poor for this level. Whatever we do in set peice training needs a lot of work. Would of taken a point before the game and I'll take it at full time as we didn't do enough to win the game, and bar the final 10 or so, neither did they. FA Cup next on Sunday afternoon. Goal scoring/record breaking Southampton return to the Vic. Sema being back for that one would maybe give us half a chance. At least we didn't lose 4-1 again and we did keep the record of no side doing the double over us to date.
