City v Bristol City 1st leg post match

[Sparkz76]

Hi Bristol City fan here

I’d like to thank you for a fantastic game the other night it was an amazing experience a game full of suspense and drama. Really pleased with Bristol City’s performance and we have a manmouth task now at Ashton Gate after the late Ageuro strike. How good is KDB what a player everything went through him he was magnificent. Good luck with the return leg and other competitions this season.

P.s Bristol Rovers fans are bitter as their light years away from us

 

[supercity88]

Tha

That is exactly my point said another way. Weaker team= not as strong a squad as we think. First team out would have made Bristol look shit. The reason they gave us a game is because we had some very average squad players giving poor performances.A couple of further points, Bernardo.. posters saying we need to give him longer to adapt WTF, he was not signed from Salford City. Some of the posters slagging off anyone who dares say anything negative about anyone. Yes we USEDto be shit and that WAS part of our istory, this is a great improvement. The bar has now been reset and mediocrity will no longer do , we have have to have the best to stay at the top. If the squad players are not good enough they have to be moved on, not given a season to “settle in”whatever that means. Sentiment wins fuck all.

We actually picked a strong side v Bristol City but the performance was not good enough from many players. I think the issue was that our play is so much about passing out from the back under pressure and we had Bravo, Mangala and Yaya failing to do it as well as Ederson Otamendi and Fernandinho do.

There will always be a drop off between first 11 and squad. Our squad is incredible. You cannot have world class players happy to sit on the bench other than for league cup games. This season we have fielded several younger players and given them a chance to improve and still got to the semi final where Pep will use more first team players to try and secure the trophy.

You can criticise players but Bernardo set up the winner and will only improve when he has a season under his belt. The level of football in the league is so different to Ligue 1 that it always takes time to settle. Otamendi is better this season, Sane is better this season. Rarely does a player sign and play incredibly well first season in. Most are inconsistent. Positively those players are young.

Mangala may have had a bad game but he played well at old trafford when we needed a physical presence and arguably was the reason we won the game defensively.

We still won despite an off day. The record we have this season speaks for itself. We cannot have a shit squad if we have lost one game all season to a team that had to win to be sure of qualifying, in am eastern european country prior to a derby away from home, with a changed team.

 

[OB1]

Eh?

Angles!

The angle to Sterling from Mangala's position is relatively narrow. Get your protractor out :-)

Mangala might even have been trying to pass to Sterling; I can't tell. However, Manga should have done better. I think he should have been able to run wide and round the oncoming Bristol player but whatever he could or should have done, he got caught out because his opponent did well by closing Eli down very quickly and forcing an error.

 

[OB1]

They did well on the whole without the ball & also had a few decent attacks, but it's bizarre reading some of the so called 'experts' view on various games as 'the way to beat City' as we have had it said about every method used so far. Pressing us is 'ths way to beat City' sitting back & parking the bus is 'the way to beat City' & the only team to actually beat City, was Shakhtar, who did it by playing better than us, on the night.

These dickheads in the media are desperate to find a secret formula that renders us impotent & there is not a chance in fucking hell of that happening. We will slip up here & there by a team grafting it out or luck or bad reffing or sometimes, someone will play better on the day than we did.

But that doesn't mean some other fucker can just do the same & beat us the week after.

Exactly. No one has a special formula to beat City, no one has "found us out" and Guardiola will keep develop how we play and constructing effective game plans for any trends that appear in how teams take us on.

The only formula I can envisage for regularly getting the better of City is to have better players than City. At the moment I believe we have the best squad in England and the most able coach.

 

[Rolee]

Angles!

The angle to Sterling from Mangala's position is relatively narrow. Get your protractor out :-)

Mangala might even have been trying to pass to Sterling; I can't tell. However, Manga should have done better. I think he should have been able to run wide and round the oncoming Bristol player but whatever he could or should have done, he got caught out because his opponent did well by closing Eli down very quickly and forcing an error.

It's not narrow at all? Odd.

 

[halfmist]

We actually picked a strong side v Bristol City but the performance was not good enough from many players. I think the issue was that our play is so much about passing out from the back under pressure and we had Bravo, Mangala and Yaya failing to do it as well as Ederson Otamendi and Fernandinho do.

There will always be a drop off between first 11 and squad. Our squad is incredible. You cannot have world class players happy to sit on the bench other than for league cup games. This season we have fielded several younger players and given them a chance to improve and still got to the semi final where Pep will use more first team players to try and secure the trophy.

You can criticise players but Bernardo set up the winner and will only improve when he has a season under his belt. The level of football in the league is so different to Ligue 1 that it always takes time to settle. Otamendi is better this season, Sane is better this season. Rarely does a player sign and play incredibly well first season in. Most are inconsistent. Positively those players are young.

Mangala may have had a bad game but he played well at old trafford when we needed a physical presence and arguably was the reason we won the game defensively.

We still won despite an off day. The record we have this season speaks for itself. We cannot have a shit squad if we have lost one game all season to a team that had to win to be sure of qualifying, in am eastern european country prior to a derby away from home, with a changed team.

 

[halfmist]

You make some very valid points which I would find very difficult to disagree with. I suppose my fears arise from the fact that if we rest more than 3 first team players we seem to struggle beating very average teams. Whether it is due to a drop in skill or a mentality thing. What I do find in these cup matches is that the fringe players should jump at the chance to prove themselves and few seldom rise to the challenge.

 

[OB1]

It's not narrow at all? Odd.

Well, I'd say it is less than 45 degrees and anything less than 90 degrees is a narrow angle. It is much narrower, for example, than if Sterling had been level with him.

 

[Rolee]

Well, I'd say it is less than 45 degrees and anything less than 90 degrees is a narrow angle. It is much narrower, for example, than if Sterling had been level with him.

We've a differing view on what's a narrow angle on a pitch mate, the pass out wide to Sterling is a relatively simple one if you ask me.

 

[Newtoncc]

Hi Bristol City fan here

I’d like to thank you for a fantastic game the other night it was an amazing experience a game full of suspense and drama. Really pleased with Bristol City’s performance and we have a manmouth task now at Ashton Gate after the late Ageuro strike. How good is KDB what a player everything went through him he was magnificent. Good luck with the return leg and other competitions this season.

P.s Bristol Rovers fans are bitter as their light years away from us

Yes it was a great game, so much better than last nights!

I am hoping we have David Silva, Fernandinho and Otamendi back too as we need to respect how well Bristol played the good news for us is we have an FA cup game at the weekend following so can afford to do that. It will still be close and hopefully as exciting , but in a nice way!

If we could play Ederson too that would help but can't see that the cup games are the only games Bravo gets.

As Pep said Bristol were a lot better than the majority of prem team we have played this season so that should give you confidence for League progression.