HIGHLIGHTS | Bristol City 2-1 Barnsley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fArw8xtrpD4 View on YouTube...
Those goals.... 1. Bristol have the ball in midfield with limited threat, they have 3 players up front all looking to make a run in behind. The defence needs to drop back to negate this threat. Instead they do the opposite. Helik bizarrely and completely ineffectively decides to push into midfield, leaving Andersen marking two players. Defending 101 here is you drop off and don't commit, make the attackers beat you. Instead Mads chases the ball and gets stuck in no mans land, eventually turning like an articulated truck. 2. Again Mads pushes up into midfield trying to push a man Gomes has covered, leaving acres of space behind as Brittain is caught too high. When you have no support it's suicide to press like that. Mads here either needs to stop the pass or give away a foul. He does neither. The Bristol player plays a great ball, but from here it's all on Gomes, he doesn't react right away when Mads pushes to close down the space left behind, then after the ball is played he criminally jogs back. Helik has to go to the ball, Kitching has to mark the striker, a midfielder (Gomes) has to cover the cutback - but he's switched off and Bristol are in acres of space. Last year the go to was to push everything as we bypassed midfield and rarely lost the ball there. Trying to press after losing a ball in midfield is suicide. Instead players need to funnel back and regroup.
That suicidal high line yet again has killed us How is it every single person with eyes can see this but the one person with the ability to change it can't?
If we want to play a pressing game there has to be a high line. The issue is the players have to know when the press is on and when it absolutely isn't. Both their goals came from centre-backs getting it wrong and pressing, leaving huge holes behind. As it has happened so much this year, you'd have to hold the coach accountable.
Surprised they bother taking the cameras to our games any more. They could just replay the goals we conceded last week. They're exactly the same. It's becoming very difficult not to really dislike Callum Brittain. Every week he's out of position and barely summons the energy to break into a jog as he quarter-heartedly "attempts" to get back as the man he should be covering has the freedom of the park to pick out a pass for the opposition to win the game. Not once or twice Callum lad, every single game.
I agree, however if Brittain hadn't been asleep and had stepped up with the rest, the first goal would have been offside
