Bristol City (a) - League - 11th February 2005

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Preview now on line. Predictions anyone?

[Stu]

Bristol City fan that I used to play footy with said the following;

"I honestly wouldn't be too worried if I were you. Our home form is dreadful at the moment. We've won 1 out of the last 6 at home. And after quite a few rumblings, it seems there has been a massive player fall out. One thing I can guarantee you is that Tommy Doc won't be playing.

Last week Tinnion had clear the air talks with the players & placed Danny Coles on the transfer list (we turned down £500k for him in the summer!) & stripped Doherty of the captaincy. Last season we had the best defence in the league. We've managed to get Carey back from Coventry but have listed Coles, sold Hill to Preston & gave Butler away to Blackpool yesterday. And we wonder why we ship goals! And it's public knowledge that Doherty hates Tinnion. He has played like a plank for most of the season & wasn't even selected in the squad to travel to Hull. Then Tinnion said he was playing for his future and took him off at half-time in a reserve game! Wouldn't be at all surprised to see him leave. We're a total shambles at the moment. Tinnion conducts everything through the media to ensure he looks good - he said the Coles decision was joint & then Coles announced his shock at it a day later! I really don't know what to expect these days, it totally depends on what team turns up & we couldn't have any complaints if you beat us after the game at yours."

My response was "can't be too bad if your 7th place despite all that turmoil."

[Shad]

2-1 Walsall- Jorge & Wrack- just got a feeling that we will win.

[saddlerken]

2-4 loss I'm sorry to say

Can't see how we are all of a sudden going to change our awful away form :cry:

[Shad]

2-4 loss I'm sorry to say

Can't see how we are all of a sudden going to change how awful away form :cry:

So were going to change there awful home form then. :D

[Magic Man Fan]

I've read all the comments like above and on their sites about Bristol City but the fact is they score goals and have two excellent strikers in Brooker and Lita so whatever turmoil is going on they will still score against our defence.

The key as has been with all away games this season is how many we can limit them to and how many of our chances we take which hasn't been good enough away.

I find this really tough to predict. I'd love to say we could win or scrape a draw but I can't see it. I think we might lose by a couple of goals. :(

[PerStener]

If you combine Walsall's bad defending with Litas goalscoring you will se there will be at least 1 or 2 goals for Bristol.
If we put away our chances we also will score 1 or 2 goals..

I predict a 2-2 score.

[Gomez]

I thought we may, lose but looking at their home form, i am certain we will lose, how many times have we ended oppositions losing runs and such. Don't get your hopes up, you'll only get dissapointed. 3-1 to brizzle.

[WSOne]

2-1 Bristol City. Lita and Carey for them, Surman for us.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

The latest in the Express and Dingle is that we will play a "five man midfield". I presume that's really 4 4 1 1 with Merson playing off the striker. If that's the case, Matty would start on the bench.

[derbysaddler]

My response was "can't be too bad if your 7th place despite all that turmoil.

my thoughts exactly. But hopefully we can expose their defence, they dont seem the tightest at the back.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Just found this:-

"Brian Tinnion is expected to name an unchanged side for the visit of Walsall to Ashton Gate. That will mean a first home start for midfielder Scott Brown, who impressed on the left wing at Hull City last weekend in his full debut".

Impressive? Winger? Oh S***!

[Bristol Fan]

4-0 to Bristol City. This is very much a "red alert" game for them and they will be really up for it. We saw how good Lita was earlier in the season and he'll be even more fired up after playing and scoring for England U21 on Tuesday. I can't remember the last time I went to a game dreading it quite so much!

The only way we can get anything is if we play a "proper" 4411 and not the 4411 we've played away on occasion (of having four central midfielders!) The best way of countering their attacking threat from the flanks would seem to be to cancel it out with an attacking threat from our own flanks, and hope Merson can conjure up something from the middle, but given how well they dealt with him at Bescot it's got to be a pretty long shot, especially given our best attacker won't be starting the game.

Presumably

Murphy
Wright Emblen Roper Aranalde
Wrack Osborn Taylor Surman
Merson
Leitao

That's probably our strongest possible team for this game and probably the one we'll play, but I bet Wrack and Surman will both play too narrow.

To scrape a draw or even win we need Merson playing out of his skin, the defence to cope with Lita during open play and Brooker from set pieces and the wingers and full backs to link together well enough to both prevent Bristol's wingers doing to us what they did at Bescot, and create something for us as well. And we need Jorge to put away one or two of the gilt-edged chances he's bound to have (since he has them every game) instead of putting them into the stands.

Simple really.

[Bristol Fan]

I've just realised with horror that the "five man midfield" promised in the E&S might mean we play

Murphy
Wright Emblen Roper Aranalde
Leitao Wrack Osborn Taylor Surman
Merson

I hope not

[Stu]

I'm not sure why, but I've got this strange feeling about tonights results.

Hence, I'm making two predictions as I can't tell if the feeling is positive or negative.

Its either Bristol City 5-0, or its a Walsall win 3-2.

[Stonnall_Saddler]

C'MON YOU SADDLERS

[Neil Ravenscroft]

If we play anything like, we'll get something - a balanced side at last!

[KJC]

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!


GET EFFIN IN THERE!!!

SURMAN!!!!

[WarsawPact]

RA!

[cal's a saddler]

Whooppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :D :D

[Andy]

nice little result there, and without merson too :D

[barnetbrian]

flocking hell yes [magic merse]

[Stonnall_Saddler]

this as proven to me that we still have the hunger and desire to get that play-off place, if we can keep this run going (7 points out of 3) then i see no reason why we can not have one last go a promotion.

[SheffieldSaddler]

Excellent result tonight. Without Mers when playing away from home, just the job. We are much more organised then.
Not sure about play offs Stonnall, we need to string a decent run together that involves around 10 matches, and probably winning7 or 8 of them.
But who knows!

[Neil Ravenscroft]

A proper formation, a proper left winger, some width in the side and not leaving gaps all over the midfield. Told you it wasn't rocket science. A few more now, please.

The whole thing was only spoiled by the bloody ref booking Surman for over celebrating his first ever league goal. Typical!

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Just thought - that's buggered me up on the prediction league, though!

[sj]

It's one of those "Crunchy Fridays". I love um.

[rushallsaddler]

Don't worry Neil, it also didn't do me any favours either, still I'm glad I got it wrong, cos if I had predicted us to win we would surely have lost.

[simcity47]

brilliant. :D

i must be honest i thought we would get battered tonight.

Perhaps if results go for us tomorrow, we could stay in that "page one of teletext" on the tables..

And to think Standing is to come back into what was a sterling performance from the midfield tonight.

Merse, stay on the bench!! Keep this formation..

[Bristol Fan]

What a result! And WHAT a performance!

It may have taken him six months but at long last Merson got the tactics absolutely spot on for an away game. Our five man midfield was great, completely nullifying Bristol's attacking threat. Mark Wright had his hands full with Leroy Lita but apart from two or three times, had him in his pocket! Zigor had his second excellent game on the bounce. Roper did very well against Brooker (got to keep his place). Our defence was solid and played as a unit. Who'd have thought it possible.

In midfield Wrack gave the ball away a lot (really, really a lot) but otherwise it was a solid unit which knew what it was doing and stuck to the task admirably (if Osborn played like that all the time he'd be the most popular player in the team instead of the least popular). Inevitably we were under the cosh at the end but there was no doubt we deserved to go in front when we did (in fact, beforehand, with Leitao missing another absolute sitter - must be about his tenth unbelievable miss of the season) and we defended well enough to deserve the points. Joe Murphy didn't really have an awful lot to do.

IF ONLY we'd played like that before and the play off talk might be on the money but surely, surely we've left it too late now. Haven't we..?