Bristol City 3-3 Barnsley: Entertainment at all Costs

Anybody want to complain about our attack now? Thought not. I was as happy as the next guy to criticise how ineffective we’ve been up front so far but, man, was that overturned yesterday. And yes, I know that Bristol’s defence gave us a big hand with that, but it was 3 goals, and it could have been a lot more.

Goran Lovre had recovered from his head injury, and so we played exactly the same team as last Saturday. This includes Kieran Trippier, and unsurprisingly this meant that Hassell was totally safe all game, covered by a winger who knows how to defend.

I have no explanation for why City let the game start how it did, and I hope some Robins fan can help me out. They sat back, didn’t press hard, and didn’t try to interrupt us. In short, they let us play, and, boy, did we take that. We played the ball low, fast and accurate, with the result being total dominance of possession and the creation of attacking moves.

Arismendi was controlling the passing, acting both as a deep lying playmaker and a midfield sweeper, drawing comparisons in style to Patrick Viera (not as good, clearly, but a similar type of player). Lovre was causing chaos, because none of the BC players seemed capable of dealing with his position. He was playing too high to be marked by a midfielder (besides, they were needed to try and watch Colace/Arismendi) and his habit of drifting wide and deep meant that a centre back could follow him.

No surprisingly that the first goal came when Lovre created space on the left wing. Ultimately Hammill got it back to Colace at the top of the box, who skinned a defender and was crudley hacked down(a pattern that would be ironically repeated on 60 minutes). Gray converted the penalty calmly, sending Afroman the wrong way.

I thought Bristol might take the incentive now and try to get some possession, but the game continued in the same vein. More passing from us, and it took a further 8 minutes for another stone wall chance. Gray flicked it out wide to Trippier, and then made his run. The right back-come-right winger delivered a world class low cross, to find the run of Gray, who from 6 yards stuck the ball past David ‘calamity’ James with ease.

At this point the Reds fans were in disbelief that we could possibly be two whole goals up away from home. The players could have taken their eye of the ball, and did eventually. First though we got a further 8 minutes of dominance, characterised by two golden chances for Hammill and Gray, and a half chances for Colace. In all honesty, someone should have buried the game for us before a quarter of the time had passed.

What follow was the most inexplicable two minutes I could have watch. We just seemed to implode at the slightest sign of pressure, first conceding a corner, which we were punished for thanks to another display of world class incompetence from Steele. Our keeper came for the ball, and reached it with ease. He then (a) attempted a catch when most goalies would have punched and (b) managed to drop the ball that he’d just caught as he fell over the hapless Shackell. It was Chistmas come early for the waiting Elliot.

Walking back to the half way line afterwards, the team seemed to be in a state of shock, almost disbelieving that Bristol could possibly be coming back into the game like that. Particularly the defence looked surprised, and took their eye off the ball, so to speak. Bristol came right back at us, and it took just 21 minutes until McEveley kind of flopped at Ivan Sproule as the pacey attacker went to the byline and cut an easy ball back under no pressure to the arriving Adomah, who side footed home. Luke Steele was nowhere near.

Thankfully, the attack got back on it’s feet again now, and we began to play a bit. Arismendi reclaimed the midfield, and the Barnsley attack picked holes in the spineless City defence for the rest of the half. We could have had more goals then, chances falling to Trippier, Colace and Shackell.

However, there was something different now to before the equalising goals. Bristol’s attacking players had got the scent of blood, and our holey defence was their prey. The rest of the opposition’s team, particularly the defence, was as woeful as ever and that meant we had the best of the game, but the Robins posed threat too now, chances falling for them to Adamoah and Elliott.

So, at half time Barnsley had seen the best of a fantastic game of football, with many more chances than we had scored. The major question now was how the teams were motivated at half time. If Mark Robins could get his team to sustain a storm of pressure on Bristol’s weak back line then his team could get a goal or two early and have the game buried. But, Millen could also turn the game around, if he could get Sproule to exploit McEveley (who was having a particularly bad game) more.

After half time, the game seemed to be more careful than before. Colace for us was sitting further back, presumably in an attempt to prevent another collapse.

Bristol’s defence was sitting deeper and desperately trying to not let wingers get down the side of them, a problem that Trippier, McEveley and Hammill had exploited previously. It would have worked, but for Hammill’s excellent ability to cut in field. He was involved in all the good moves in the first 15 minutes of the half. Several times the Scouse winger opened up space for Trippier or Lovre, and eventually for himself.

Sure, our 3rd goal had a big element of luck in it, with a deflection as big as the afro playing in goal for City, but that kind of thing will happen when we are given as many shooting opportunities as occurred during the first 10 minutes of that half.

The same attacking impetus from Hammill which got us a goal also left the already struggling Jay McEveley open to attacks with no winger getting back to cover him, particularly from the live wire Ivan Sproule.

In most games, this one small, innocuous weakness would have just gone away, but yesterday was not the day for that. Inevitably a goal came from it, with our left back performing a trip similar to that which earned Colace his penalty. With inevitability, it was converted.

There could have been more, perhaps a 4-4 or 5-5 draw. The last half hour was different to the first hour because the chances were less frequent, and fell to both teams. There were also no real golden opportunities. Akinde got a shot off for Bristol once, but it was only on the turn, and Sproule had the ball in the net, despite a flag being raised 5 seconds before.

Almost in an attempt to symbolise the whole game we had the better chances and played with more dominance. There were chances for Gray, who by now was finally tiring, and the constantly dangerous Trippier. Most notable was our late passing move, which started on the half way line and with a degree of inevitability moved towards the goal, finishing with McEveley skying a right foot shot from 18 yards.

There can be no doubt that this was a hugely exciting game. Even for the half hour goalless end to the game there were chances for both teams. Both sets of fans just seemed to enjoy the game, and it’s always good to see the competing supporters agreeing with each other whilst leaving the ground.

The main points of agreement were that the two attacks were both excellent, and good enough to beat any team in the league. The defences meanwhile were the opposite, and for whatever reason, you won’t find worse defending around the Championship this week. 3-3 seemed to be a fair result, although if one team had to take the win it should have been Barnsley, and as such the away fans had some justification for feeling a little hard done by. Bristol fans felt that our increased number of chances was because City’s defence was worse than ours, I felt that it was because our attack was better. Whatever, the game was certainly not boring.

Looking at our team’s performances, then. No doubt, the defence is an issue. Steele makes so many mistakes that we’d have an off game if he didn’t. Worse was how poorly the defence rallied after the surprise first goal. Foster’s footwork was worrying, and our ex-captain got worse in the second half. Our current captain, meanwhile, got better and better. Arismendi also looked confident when asked to defend. The issue is that while the individual defenders are good, they seem to make mistakes as a unit, frequently not picking up on men or leaving gaps.

Arismendi and Colace made for an excellent partnership again and they meant that Bristol never got through our middle. The Uruguayan showed good passing range again and, most importantly, was really calm and made really good decision. It’s his ability to pick up on loose balls and restart the attack that is most valuable to us.

The best thing about this match was how efficiently the front four worked. Trippier was smooth and his crossing is unparalleled in our squad, while Hammill showed more of that precious pre-season form, and got a scrappy goal. Lovre was the main asset really, because he is so difficult to mark properly. The Serbian showed some great bits of footwork, however he almost doesn’t need to do a lot with the ball. He’s a very strong player, and is able to scrap for and win the ball in unusual areas. A player like him is important to making a 4-2-3-1 work in the Championship.

Andy Gray simply played the best he can, posing the question…who says we need a new striker? After all, there is not a single player we can sign who will make a better centre forward than the one we played yesterday. The question is, can Gray achieve that consistently?

Bristol City were an enigma. The attack could take them far (as could the fans, friendly and very supportive) but that defence needs sorting. Robins fans, give your team some time to get it right because I think they’ve got what it takes.

Ratings

Steele: 5 – Almost made up for his error with a world class late save to stop a late Shackell own goal.

McEveley: 5 – His worst game for us, partly to blame for two goals.

Hassell: 7 – The partnership of him and Trippier is brilliant, so long as Trippier keeps up his attacking quality. With those two, we need fear no left winger in the league.

Foster: 5 – Edgey…

Shackell: 7 – Solid.

Arismendi : 8 – Great control, flawless decision making and accurate passing. Oh, and apparently he now speaks decent English.

Colace: 7 – Getting back to the Hugo we know.

Trippier: 8 – See Hassell. I’m constantly surprised by his accurate crosses and good pace.

Lovre: MOTM 9 – His best game for us yet, deserves a goal soon.

Hammill: 8 – That goal means a lot. Since his signing, Hammill’s problem has been getting goals..they’ve been very few and all spectacular. I hope to see the lad getting more of the scrappy goals this year.

Andy Gray: 8 – Fits this formation perfectly on his day.

Before the game I mentioned a worry about goal scoring (you know, 1 shot on target in 18 shots). That seems pretty ignorant now.

Transfers to come this week by all accounts, possibly loan moves. Lots of talk about a striker to come in, although I remain doubtful that a forward is that urgent. Just look at how fragmented our defence was…I regard a new centre/right back as more urgent, and then maybe a new forward.

Robins is consistently making the point that the 20 goal striker people so automatically and senselessly ask for costs a lot of money, and we just don’t have that kind of money. I say we should stop pushing for anything and trust Robins to fill the gaps with whatever he wants to when he needs to. Oh, and stop talking about Adam Le Fondre. He is not a Barnsley player yet and we actually have no reason to think that’s about to change, so just concentrate on our own strikers.

This game will be memorable and was certainly enjoyable. There was the major positive for all Reds fans of our 4-2-3-1 finally offering up really effective attacking, which is a big load of my mind at least. Bring on Middlesbrough, and I can see no reason we can’t beat them at Oakwell with some better defending.

Category: Match Reports