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Bristol City Swansea
Bristol City v Swansea, Sunday 10 March, 12:30 kick-off.
It was another second-half slip up in the draw at out of form Watford on Wed night after dominating the first-half, scoring, but then missing chances to put the game out of sight. Watford bounced back, equalised and could have won it in the end, We must learn to manage these games after going ahead if we are to avoid a disaster.
There are only ten games left and just five points separating us and the eight other teams below us involved in the relegation fight (the ninth one being bottom club Rotherham, discounted on only 19 points).
The Robins of Bristol up next then. No easy games are there. They beat us 1-2 in the reverse fixture last Sept, another game lost after taking the lead. They have lost four of their last six home games, their latest a 0-1 defeat to Cardiff last Saturday.
After Nigel Pearson was sacked, Liam Manning of Oxford Utd was appointed in his place on 7 Nov.
His league record since then W6 D5 L10.
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Starting line-up, Allen, Naughton and Cullen return, Darling, Fulton and Yates benched -
Swansea City: Carl Rushworth, Ben Cabango, Joe Allen, Matt Grimes (c), Jamie Paterson, Josh Tymon, Przemysław Płacheta, Liam Cullen, Nathan Wood, Kyle Naughton, Ronald
Subs: Andy Fisher, Josh Key, Jay Fulton, Harry Darling, Jerry Yates, Jamal Lowe, Charlie Patino, Ollie Cooper, Azeem Abdulai
Bristol City: Max O’Leary, Ross McCrorie, Cameron Pring, Joe Williams, Harry Cornick, Anis Mehmeti, Jason Knight (c), Tommy Conway, Rob Dickie, Taylor Gardner-Hickman, Zak Vyner
Subs: Stefan Bajic, Scott Twine, Andy King, Mark Sykes, Nahki Wells, Haydon Roberts, Jamie Knight-Lebel, Dire Mebude.
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HT 0-0
FT: Bristol C 1 (Dickie 73’) - Swansea 0
A bore fest to put it mildly.
One of the worst football matches I’ve seen, both sides not interested.
Walking football from Swansea, no idea how to break Bristol down, misplaced passes, foot on the ball slowing momentum - Wood and Cabango passing back and fore and repeat, yawn, yawn.
Ronald and Placheta couldn’t cross a decent ball if they tried, both nullified and should have been subbed.
It was 0-0 at half-time, surely things had to change?
No, it was more of the same until about 67’ and Bristol suddenly woke up and started to play and had their first two missed shots of the game, third time they scored, poor marking by Cabango for centre-back Dickie to head home.
For us not a shot on target throughout, what tactics were these?
We are staring relegation in the face and these players are strolling around, going through the motions and losing the game, still passing back and fore in our half with two minutes of the match left, no urgency, no fight, no idea.
Williams has to take some of the blame for coaching and setting us up to play like this, clueless comes to mind.
Not one of our players came out of this with any credit.
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We were beaten by a poor and out of form team, what does that make us?
The excuses before were that we had a tough schedule playing the top teams, but now we are playing teams around us in the table we are just as bad under Williams.
Ronald epitomised what we’ve become, the National Press highlighting that corner where he kicked it sideways into touch, as the worst ever seen. Then his foul throw and where he couldn’t even cross the ball. The sideways and backwards passing by defenders, the goal kicks straight to the opposition or straight out of play. I could go on but it’s so depressing.
