Bristol City Vs Swindon Matchday Thread

[Stef Troll]

In a weird way i have come out of that game a lot more positive.  We went to supposedly the best team in the league (they are top of the league) and pretty much dominated them from start to finish.  Only difference is they were a bit more composed in front of goal.  We have 7 games to cement a top 4 finish and get the advantage of playing at home in the second leg.  As long as the strikers start firing goals we should be ok.

[Batch]

Coops:

- All about putting the ball in the back of the net at key times. If you don't do that you leave yourself open
- Can't do more than that in terms of possession, making chances.
- Don't know where clinical edge has gone.
- Not settling for getting beat or drawing...
- (13 points from ?? games, fair relection?) Possibly not
- Williams and Smith up front - looked sharp as a pair, just that finishing touch not there.
- Yasser played well, but he and Rafa now out for 2 games. We have Rickets who can play centre back...will be fine
- Tofolo still not right, Gladin in middle did well.
- That's the difference between the two teams, when you have multimillion pound squad then you get that quality (something like that anyway)
- (Nervous for run in) - Got to take confidence in performance.
- Tofolo has hip injury while with England - awaiting results of scan.
- Play like that and add a finishing touch and we won't be far off.

[suttonred]

In a weird way i have come out of that game a lot more positive.  We went to supposedly the best team in the league (they are top of the league) and pretty much dominated them from start to finish.  Only difference is they were a bit more composed in front of goal.  We have 7 games to cement a top 4 finish and get the advantage of playing at home in the second leg.  As long as the strikers start firing goals we should be ok.

Yeah agree with that, We've too many good players not to at least get near.

[Flashheart]

Oh, a Yasser pirouette on about 63 minutes.... sheer class.

[suttonred]

Flint will be raped in the championship

Nah, he always makes one fuck up a game, but normally gets away with it, but does makes good blocks and interceptions, and scores key goals. Way more pluses than minuses, as it was when he was here.

[Samdy Gray]

Am I disappointed we lost to City? Yes. Am I disappointed we threw away a chance of automatic promotion? Yes. Am I disappointed we'll be in the play-offs? Well, in the balance of the start of the season yes, but in perspective of our budget and relative inexperience the play-offs is a fantastic achievement and I'd have snapped your hand off for that back in August.

The result was gutting, but the performance was just what I wanted. We took the game to them and created chances. We bossed possession and we kept playing football. If we could defend we'd be lethal, but that's ultimately been our downfall this season - that and not having the experienced heads to know how to win when under pressure.

Of course it annoys me that City have had such a good season, but if they finished anywhere else but 1st it would be a bad season for them. Yes they've got the players but ultimately it's Lansdown's money that will have bought them the title. I'd love to be up there competing with them on footballing terms, but in financial terms I'm much more comfortable with Power's approach.

Trailing off in the latter part of the season has been hard to take but with the budget we have and the footballing philosophy and players we've got we've done fantastically well.

[Batch]

I'm not sure I can stomach the playoffs, I don't want to go to watch, but can't not watch. Humph.

[Langers]

Never deserved to lose that 3-0, just sloppy mistakes and poor finishing cost us.

Town fans were decent, there were apparently over 1000 of us there despite only being given the 900 odd tickets. Not sure what happened to the 'welcome to hell' hardly heard from city fans until they scored.

Oh well, they are the best team in the division and will win the league, we just need to concentrate on making ourselfs harder to beat.

[DMR]

Some superb sour grapes ref Flint. I hate fake sentiment - fair fucks to him for telling it how it is. He's not a Swindon boy or fan. Just an ex player - a good one at that who provided one of the great Town moments against Brentford in the PO's a few years back.

Back to the game - we've lost it and will get demolished by whoever has the balls to take the game to us in the semis.

[paddieu]

Well that was the most one sided 3-0 ive ever seen  

other than the defending it was wayyy better than against MK, thank God...
i was seriously wondering if we could recover from that...




Something i wanted to say on saturday and thought it again tonight was about forward play.

do we even coach/train that ?

as it seems when we go forward there is no clear plan of movement, other than pass it back out to the wing.

everything is tentative and made up on the spot, whereas for MK for example, the word that came to mind was
incisive - they knew what they were aiming to do when they went forward.

i dont see hardly any diagonal runs being made
[eg the one that created their 3rd goal, apart from the fact that branco shud get an assist of course...]

swift looks for them [sometimes] and willo makes such runs [sometimes]
but other than that they dont seem to do it, so we play at 'right angles' and thus is easily defended against.




Other things

poor obika - that wud have been a really superb goal..

when are we gonna unleash the beak properly ??




And is cooper training them to hold other players back - I'm sorry I'm old school and I absolutely hate it





Oh, last thing.... when we talk of style and tactics we refer mostly to cooper.

but i watched brighton a little bit in recent years, and this 'crap from the back' and 'few ideas up front'
was very much their style


and i also noticed that Poyet didnt take that style to Sunderland with him, nor did Brighton continue to use it.

so

maybe we need to turn the spotlight on the Luke man instead....

[adje]

Nah, he always makes one fuck up a game, but normally gets away with it, but does makes good blocks and interceptions, and scores key goals. Way more pluses than minuses, as it was when he was here.

 

Agreed,in this league.

[Levi lapper]

I'm not sure I can stomach the playoffs, I don't want to go to watch, but can't not watch. Humph.

I'd almost prefer to get knocked out at the semis than go to wembley again, used to love the play offs. Still as others have said would have snapped your hand off if offered play offs in August.

[PetsWinPrizes]

Feel the threadbare squad/ big run of games has come back to haunt us, with Harry Toffolo and Louis T fit and available maybe it's a different story for at least one of the two televised matches.

But here's the positive, we aren't chasing an auto spot that's probably Prestons any more, we can re group, get everyone fit and prepare for the POs. It's shit or bust of course but at least we know what we have to do..

[Abrahammer]

Love the honesty from Flint there tbh, makes a change for a player to say what they really think.

[Nomoreheroes]

Some superb sour grapes ref Flint. I hate fake sentiment - fair fucks to him for telling it how it is. He's not a Swindon boy or fan. Just an ex player - a good one at that who provided one of the great Town moments against Brentford in the PO's a few years back.

Back to the game - we've lost it and will get demolished by whoever has the balls to take the game to us in the semis.

I think he was upset by the abuse he was getting from the Swindon fans. That's why he was so sour. Still, a good player, we got a good price for him, but I would have rather kept him that sold him.