Will it be another season of disappointment for bristol city?

After watching Bristol City last season, i had regular visits to the doctors checking my heart rate and telling me that i had unusually high blood pressure. All the result of watching Bristol City.

I think its safe to say that we underachieved massively and in some respects were very lucky to stay up in the end. I refer to the win at Notts Forest in which we got out of our half once to win the penalty and the game against Coventry at home where at 2-1 up, they missed a sitter very late on in the game.

I watched quite a few of our games last season, and some on the football league show and it occurred to me that we are a awful footballing side. We do not look as though we can score and regularly look like we will concede. We struggle to string more than 4 passes together and i dont think i seen our 2 centre halves, nyatanga and fontaine pass the ball out of defence once. It just went long all the the time, and with the fact that we played regularly in a 4-5-1 formation, its no wonder our strikers did look like scoring beacause they were competing in the air against 2 centre halves.

Our midfield is very one dimensional aswell. You dont see players interchanging or making runs or movement that will cause the opposition to think and create problems.

I think the loss of Maynard was a huge blow, but after watching him at the beginning of the season, im glad he left. He wasnt interested in playin for us and had a poor stint before he left us for west ham

Im not saying that we will win the league by playing attractive football, just look at Barcelona, they didnt win anything last season. But i think we would get alot more success if we played the ball to feet more. We cant be to predictable though and do this all the time because the championship is the hardest league to get out of and teams will just try to bully us if we did so we do need to go long sometimes. But i think with the players we have, they want the ball to feet, not trying to feed off knockdowns or scraps or by playing territory football because if we do, we will be looking at another relegation fight again.

Under McInnes there was near enough a noticable change straight away in how we played our football. Under McInnes he encouraged players to keep it on the ground and pass the ball whilst keeping posession. Noticed by a chant often breaking out 'del boy says, keep it on the ground...'. Players however often paniced too quickly if this wouldn't work and resorted to hoofball. If during pre-season McInnes can drill into the players to keep it on the ground I think we could do well, and this would be a situation where Kilkenny could excell whether slightly forward or behind the midfield although I more expect him to be used coming off the bench this season when needing an extra man in the middle.

McInnes has said he wants another keeper, centre back and striker. Likely options for these appear to be Boaz Myhill, Richard Keogh/Anthony Gerrard and upfront, well I have no idea to be honest, I wouldn't be supprised to see someone like Harry Kane come in on loan.

This could give us a few formations of:

4231

..............................Gerken/Myhill
Foster.....Keogh/Gerrard......Fontaine.....Cunningham
......................Elliott...............Morris
Adomah.........................Skuse.......................Pearson
...............................Stead/Pitman

4141

.....................................Gerken
Foster........Keogh/Gerrard.....Fontaine......Cunningham
.......................................Morris
Adomah...........Skuse...............Elliott...............Pearson
...................................Pitman/Stead

442

.....................................Gerken
Foster........Keogh/Gerrard.....Fontaine......Cunningham
Adomah...............Skuse...........Morris/Elliott......Pearson
.............................Stead............Pitman

Now to me none of those look like a side that should be relegated, under the way the team performed last year under McInnes anyway. The only thing that worries me is that if we lose Adomah for a straight fee to Swansea we will need to get a good replacement on the right wing as we don't have cover there except Bolasie who isn't someone you'd want starting 35+ games in a season.

Overall I think we can expect to be somewhere between 15-19th this season and then looking to build from there next season.

Yes

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Yes

Have to say this post just oozes quality

Anyway we could be signing Akos Buszaky which would be a big bonus to the side.

:P

Buszakys good when hes healthy, just doesnt manage it too often

Though some guy from Hungary now seems to think Buszaky will sign for Forest now they have a manager.

Somehow now I don't think it will be!

Any news on whether you're signing Stephen McManus from us permanently?

I doubt it, maybe a loan but don't think permenantly

Not looking good!

good win today. A lot of teams are having poor seasons , Birmingham especially, Huddersfield are dropping quickly, think by 5 games time there will be 5 or 6 teams all in the mix, so hopefully we can just go on a good run of form.

McInnes given the boot. Not a lot of job security in managing in the Championship at the moment.

Did he ever do anything to suggest he warranted any though?

GSC wrote:Did he ever do anything to suggest he warranted any though?

Will probably need Hodge to advise us on that one!

I suggest that they barely avoided relegation last season, and that they're bottom this that it was somewhat warranted

Only just seen this, it is a shame that it didn't work for McInnes at City, everything behind the scenes with the club was heading in the right direction, the academy and youth levels of the club are the best they've been for years, he has a good eye generally when it comes to the transfer market as well. People will highlight Mark Wilson, Stephen Pearson, potentially Richard Foster as well. However Sam Baldock, Greg Cunningham, Steve Davies, Tom Heaton and recently Liam Kelly were all persuaded by his vision for the club.

However it just didn't work in the one place that mattered, the pitch. Tactically it appears McInnes is lacking and boarders on inept, his team selections were also puzzling to say the least. Tbh generally opinion, if we stuck with McInnes we would be relegated, So the change was needed.

In the last couple of days players have come out and say they have learned more in a week with O'Driscoll than a year with McInnes, I think that says enough.

hodge wrote:Only just seen this, it is a shame that it didn't work for McInnes at City, everything behind the scenes with the club was heading in the right direction, the academy and youth levels of the club are the best they've been for years, he has a good eye generally when it comes to the transfer market as well. People will highlight Mark Wilson, Stephen Pearson, potentially Richard Foster as well. However Sam Baldock, Greg Cunningham, Steve Davies, Tom Heaton and recently Liam Kelly were all persuaded by his vision for the club.

However it just didn't work in the one place that mattered, the pitch. Tactically it appears McInnes is lacking and boarders on inept, his team selections were also puzzling to say the least. Tbh generally opinion, if we stuck with McInnes we would be relegated, So the change was needed.

In the last couple of days players have come out and say they have learned more in a week with O'Driscoll than a year with McInnes, I think that says enough.

Please be kiding

Sorry I missed half of that sentance Mark Wilson, Stephen Pearson and potentially Foster should be highlighted as shocking signings, while the rest are quality signings.

hodge wrote:Sorry I missed half of that sentance Mark Wilson, Stephen Pearson and potentially Foster should be highlighted as shocking signings, while the rest are quality signings.

haha fair enough mate. I think you lot may stay up, you have a great manager in S.O.D even if you do go down, im sure he will get you a great squad to work with in League One and promotion will easily be on the cards to come back up. Whats the update with your new ground?

Well if we go down it took us 8 seasons to return to this level so we'd rather not risk it However I agree, from what i've read and listened to since his appointment S.O'D appears to be a good appointment, however just begs the question why he lost out to McInnes last time around.

The new ground...... well tbh i've lost track, pretty sure the investigator is doing another report sometime this year (around March/April I think) with a decision due late 2013, however its the same inspector as last time and they have never failed to side with voting for a village green soo....... think we're delaying so that new laws on village greens are introduced so they have to side with us. I expect us to get there eventually but its just being dragged out so far over something so small.

You're signing Brendan Maloney, decent RB. Pacey but awareness is suspect.

I've seen the rumours that he was due to join, not surprised S.O'D has dipped to players he has worked with. Just wondering what the situation with Billy Sharp is, seems to follow S.O'D everywhere.

Couldnt get out of his loan if he wanted to.

Bristol City are bottom. Tho 35 points from 35 games isn't completely disastrous (as bottom goes). Any chance of escaping?

Ill be going to the game on Tuesday night, after our good run were due a defeat and with you lot at the bottom you will be up for a win. So i can see it being a good game, but you might be able to nick it. All the best.

Definitely should have gotten the 3 points, Brighton didn't force Heaton into a save once and we had plenty of shots. Referee was atrocious in his judgement of what was a foul and what wasn't.

30 points to play for and 3 points from safety, if we continue to play like that I can't see why we couldn't survive.

Done my thoughts of the game in the Brighton section.

Beat Middlesbrough 2-0. Very tight at the bottom

S.O'D's record at home - P:6, W:5, D:1, 3 clean sheets in a row

Could need to change S.O'D to G.O.D

Billy 'Allah' Davies then? Think we both profitted from an itchy trigger finger.

In all seriousness, SOD is a top bloke and gets the most out of his teams.

thats evident,

billy 'Buddha' davies sounds better

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Beat Middlesbrough 2-0. Very tight at the bottom

Very deservedly so too...we are absolute cannon fodder at the moment.

Still, we're going to buy Albert Adomah for next season!

dyrewolfe wrote:

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Beat Middlesbrough 2-0. Very tight at the bottom

Very deservedly so too...we are absolute cannon fodder at the moment.

Still, we're going to buy Albert Adomah for next season!

Good to hear you're cannon fodder

And unlikely, if anyone is buying Albert from us it will probably be Crystal Palace as Zaha's replacement. We supposedly knocked back a bid or 2 in Jan.

One point today - but now five adrift at the bottom. Looking like odds on for relegation

Bristol City will go down sorry lads

Even though, i do really want them to stay up. S.O.D is a class manager!

We're down, pretty much accepted it now, 7 points in 6 games with the form the teams around us are in theres practically no chance now.

The answer now is: YES