WFC 2-3 Bristol City CCup 22/08/17

I am glad that the biggest team in Bristol won though. It just shows the rest of the footballing world that there is some top quality football in Bristol. Congratulations Bristol Rovers for your amazing victory against Fulham and for being the biggest club in Bristol.

 

Deeney, Mariappa, Hughes, Success, Watson - plus Amrabat who has struggled for form just didn't inspire any confidence when I first saw the sheet. Not necessarily poor players, just a lot of rustiness through the team.

 

Amrabat's good form is becoming like an urban myth. At this stage last year he really wasn't that good at all.

 

Well perhaps not a year a go to the day, but he was our best player for about 3 months.

 

No he wasn't. People were just excited because he ran with the ball sometimes, so they failed to observe he ran into cul de sacs, relied on fouling to beat his man and never crossed it to anyone.

These shortcomings have become more apparent by constant repetition. I suppose he did have that game where he beat a 14 year old, 9th choice left back for toast against, was it Hull?

 

I would add Kabasele to that list. He was poor last night. Lazy passing and positional awareness nonexistent.

 

Mariappa is nowhere near good enough to be starting games and Bristol City ran rings around him for the whole game.

Hughes needs more time, he slowly improved as the game went on but hasn't done his chances of starting leagues games any good at all.

Deeney was worse than useless; but for balance he is a couple of weeks behind in terms of fitness etc. He is not as lean as you'd like either.

Richarlison is an absolute star in the making. He oozes class. A couple of his long range balls were sublime and he was unlucky not to score.

At the end of the day, if you asked me which game out of this and Brighton I'd rather lose and the answer is obvious. Hopefully Silva has a stern word and we see a reaction on Saturday.

Finally well done to Bristol City - they had a gameplab, stuck at it, and thoroughly deserved the win. Could go well in the Championship this season considering they put out a mixed bag of a team.

 

I googled them and it said "do you mean Bristol Rovers."

Seriously have no idea who just beat us.

 

We went into it with a very poor attitude, thinking they could walk over Bristol City. No point looking too much into the performance, but what I will say is that Deeney looked like a player on the way out, trying to avoid picking up an injury before the transfer window closes. Richarlison is simply brilliant, hopefully he's not too shattered on Saturday.

 

That's just completely untrue. He was creating a lot of space for himself and whipping some brilliant balls in which Odious Ighalo kept scooping over the bar, I can't be arsed to do this debate again as I think it's a case of agreeing to disagree. Also it's only a foul if the ref calls you up on it

The 14 year old 9th choice left back was indeed Hull. TAKE NO PRISONERS NORDIN!

 

Dougie had been around a bit recently was in Bournemouth Saturday as well.

 

Unlucky Watford!

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I think that's a little unfair. Due to his injury, Deeney has had no pre-season meaning last night was, in effect, his first run out of the new year. He did look clunky though

 

I've not always agreed with what you say but I would say that is spot on. I really felt, with our squad, that this year would be different. Not sure we will see Mariappa again and Deeney looked miles off the pace. I would think he is second choice at best but probably third

 

The one being sold for £20m you mean?

 

I don't often give my two penneth about games but last night was one of the few times I've left early. I was just bored stiff after 15mins or so and had to force myself to stay past half-time. I eventually left with plenty of others when their third went in.

As a team we played too slowly but that was fine at 0-0 as BC weren't troubling us at all unless we gifted them a chance to break with a misplaced pass.

The way we reacted - or didn't - after going 1-0 up frustrated me no end. We seemed to get slower! With BC then having to push on a little more it meant we looked absolutely static.

As for individual performances I think they're best viewed as pairings.

Prodl and Kabasele looked fine on the ball but often were too far apart when we didn't have the ball.

The two full-backs were fine (mostly) in the first-half because Amrabat and Richarlison helped defensively. In the second half I thought Mariappa was exposed by Richarlison not covering enough and to some extent the same went for Holebas and Success. This meant that a centre back would be pulled wider to help, leaving his partner adrift in the middle as mentioned above.

Watson and Capoue in the middle just doesn't work as a partnership. Offensively they're not dynamic enough or able to commit opposition players and defensively are too slow if caught out of position. One or the other with Doucoure or Chalobah maybe, just not paired together.

Richarlison looks a dream of a player in the making and considering it was just his 3rd appearance it's hard to be too critical. Communication will be difficult both to and from him and when that improves I think he'll improve further.
Amrabat was Amrabat. Often early on he'd get the ball in a good position or even once or twice worked himself free of his marker but he'd then either pass backwards or simply play an atrocious ball - either misplaced or trying something impossible.

Hughes looked sluggish but I think he generally did when I'd seen him for Derby. His first start in a competitive game and he looked rusty but improved as he went on but either his positioning is bad or other players weren't good enough to find him as passes went sideways or backwards instead of into his more attacking position.
Silva said after the Villa friendly he needs to move the ball quicker and when he did last night the team had an urgency going forward. He also linked well with Richarlison several times in the second half which was pleasing to see and enjoyable to watch.

Deeney just looked like what he is right now - a bloke barely off the treatment table.

 

Thing is with Deeney, he is not a naturally fit guy, he has to work hard at it and as we have seen before if he doesn't he goes pear shaped pretty quickly. But we all know not to write him off, in a month I think we will see the other Deeney!!

 

This match proved that if silva suffers the sort of injury crisis that mazzarri did then we will be just as stuffed. That performance was identical to a mazzarri performance and it coincided with the usual **** suspects on the pitch. What I'm trying to say is, maybe mazzarri wasnt quite as bad as we think. Yes he was an awful ****, but **** players are **** players no matter who is sat in the dugout.

 

As much as I'm not an Okaka fan, it should have been him starting last night and Deeney should have been playing against Hull U-23's the previous day to build up his fitness. His first game back since last season should not have been a competitive game.

But I will say that those writing him off and saying he is nowhere near the level of Okaka right now - that was effectively Deeney's first pre-season kick about. Did any of you witness Okaka's first pre-season game?! Truly awful.

 

Okaka is better than deeney in every regard. And okaka is bog average.

I reckon.

 

I thought Hughes had a decent game personally. Most of what we did well started with Hughes finding a pocket of space and playing a 1-2 or moving the ball out to the wingers.

 

For me the biggest positive from last night was Silva's post match comments. He completely nailed where we went wrong and correctly identified the weak mentality and ponderous approach of some of the squad players as the cause.

http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co....-future-more/story-30492581-detail/story.html

 

I was in the Upper GT and heard the Rookery once. How many people were singing?

 

When's the 2nd leg?

 

All of them when we were winning. Not many when we were drawing or losing.

 

Sometimes as a coach players do not follow the game plan and sometimes as a player you know you haven't but can't quite explain why.
When Watson signed for us Mr IBB said he was a very creative player. I have yet to see this. I think his role now is to come on to secure a win.He seems too ponderous for attacking play. Someone earlier said he and Capoue don't work well together.That seems a decent assessment.

 

That's Famara Diedhiou you're referring to, he cost us 5 million from Ligue 1 side Angers.

The reason why some our fans aren't happy about the start of the season (5 pts from 12) was that after a great performance against Barnsley and a good first half against Birmingham, we had returned to our ways of last season against Brentford and Millwall (but still, last season I reckon we may have lost those two games, Brentford were all over us and we fought to get a 98th minute equaliser and we kept a clean sheet against Millwall).

Bobby Reid is an absolute sensation right now! Due to injuries, we have moved him from CM/CAM to ST (the position he played in the youth setup) and he can't stop scoring, he just oozes class! So good to see someone from the academy playing so well!

Regarding aiming for promotion, that's the ultimate aim (and staying up there!) but the plan is within 2-4 years.
Whilst we have spent some money, we aim for young players with potential so they have a resale value whilst improving our side (we reinvest the money and gradually improve the side). With Mark Ashton (who I'm sure you're familiar with) and the setup we have, we make sure we get good value for money on sells.

 

Yes, but not to be used as an emergency left back as he was that day

 

If you don't put 100% in you can get beaten by anyone, it's as simple as that.

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Well deserved win mate. Our first eleven is decent, but scratch the surface and we have a lot of players who would only be average in the championship. The likes of amrabat, watson, deeney, mariappa, gray, gomes wouldnt improve your team. I always hope we go out to a team who goes on to win it, it's a small crumb of comfort if that happens. So I guess now I'm rooting for you lot.

I wont pretend I dont care we lost, because I do. I am not one of those whoppers who think "it's only the league cup". We have won precisely **** all in our entire history. We're a beggar who is in no position to be a chooser. I'm gutted another opportunity has gone.

 

The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Amrabat was probably our best player during that period. He worked hard, did hold the ball up to bring others into play, occasionally tried to get past the man and worked hard defensively. Also showed he cared like Holly last night. The bit about his crossing is the urban myth. Admittedly he crossed well against the Muffins...but ask yourself how often does he do that. Like many others don't dislike the 'Bat but seriously his time must be up if we get in another winger. Last night proved we need some more mobile defenders. Too late in the window to do more than get two players in I reckon.

 

Amrabat is a decent all round player, he works hard in midfield, never shies from the ball, tracks back and helps defence out, always puts in 110% effort... but, and it's huge big but, he doesn't have the tools (skills, technique, brain.. whatever) to be a creative winger in the premier league. Period.

What is frustrating is most of the fans had came to this conclusion long before last season ended and yet he's still here and he's still (right now) first choice right winger.

 

Thank fck for that, now we can concentrate on CL qualification unhindered.