‚ö? Bristol City v West Ham - Official Match Thread

[charleyfarley]

"V Ashton Gate Stadium 16th Jan 19:45 GMT NO VAR Darren England: (3) - 19 0 O‚ÄôLeary, Tanner, Vyner, Dickie, McCrorie, Williams, James ¬©, Pring, Gardner-Hickman, Mehmeti, Conway Subs: Bajic (GK), Knight-Lebel, Roberts, Knight, Nelson, Cornick, King, Bell, Wells Fabia?Ñski, Coufal, Mavropanos, Zouma ¬©, Cresswell, Emerson, Souƒçek, Ward-Prowse, Benrahma, Cornet, Ings Subs: Areola (GK), Anang (GK), Johnson, Ogbonna, Casey, Mubama, Marshall, Scarles Bristol City 16/5: Draw 13/5: West Ham 17/20"

[Gaffer58]

"The way Moyes has approached the last 2 cup games I would assume his season end bonus is bigger for a decent league position than for winning a domestic cup. As for Tuesday, I just think a lot of premiership players are so protected by refs, where tackling etc is now basically forbidden that when a premiership plays a physical championship team they haven’t the guts to stand up to the challenge. The old adage that “ you have to win your physical battle first to earn the right to then play skill fully” was lost on our lot Tuesday."

[Any Old Iron]

If the manager gave a shit then there’s half a chance the players would as well. Unfortuntely it was clear from Moyes depressing pre-match interview that he couldn’t give a monkey’s if we lost. It must be demoralising for the players having to listen to such negative garbage.

[Lato]

"Moyes has to be applauded for getting us into Europe for 3 consecutive seasons. However, the manner in which we have rolled over and died in the 2 domestic cup competitions is criminal. Is it Moyes and his tactics or the players not giving a shit? I really don't know!"

[El Scorchio]

"Yeah, much as I hate that Krusty the clown looking cսnt who the media would have you believe is bigger than all the rest of African football combined, selfishly it would be handy to have Kudus back as soon as is possible, although apparently not fully fit anyway. Big concern if they play him tonight in desperation and he gets more hurt."

[Tomshardware]

"The praise for Bristol City was way over the top. Agree were pretty poor but not as awful as some are suggesting, I've seen far far worse over the years. We created a few chances and should have taken at least one of them. Obviously the sending off didn't help, but I'm in agreement with Moyes's poor man management, how can you expect players to come in and hit the ground running when they're out of position or barely playing."

[Sniper]

"After a couple of days digesting the nonsense that was Tuesday night (and I’ve had plenty to reflect on given that I live outside of Bristol and have to endure city fans on a daily basis anyway!) there’s a few issues that are very clear: - we didn’t ‘outplay’ city in both games in the classic sense of the word (we didn’t play them off the park or dominate them) but we created enough chances in both games to win. Fornals and ings should definitely have scored in the first game, we wasted other good opportunities and on Tuesday Ings stuttered when in a good position and neither created a good pass or shot, cornet could have done better with his chance, Mavropanos should have taken advantage of their keeper fumbling etc. they’re all chances that should have given us enough to score more than City - City are being lauded for a brilliant display on Tuesday. Let’s be honest about it, they were awful. We gifted them one chance (crap from Mavropanos, also rubbish from Zouma who didn’t even try to track back and chase the guy he was marking until after he’d already rounded fabianski). They had one shot of note I think apart from that. Their focus was purely on ‘rattling’ us in both games, but with a better (ie not totally limp and appalling) referee they would have been called up and had someone booked inside the first five minutes in both games and that would have stopped. They injured Mavropanos and Coufal in the first game and could easily have had 2 players sent off in both games. They defended well especially on Tuesday, but… - moyes’ mismanagement of our reserve players constantly undermines however improved the first team is. As others have noted, benrahma was a key figure last year (and im not his biggest fan and I think he’s hugely overrated by some as he has virtually no end product) but not he looks like he doesn’t care and can’t kick a ball; it’s the same as what happened to fornals last year, who is one of the most committed and enthusiastic players you could wish to have in a squad and spent three years playing his socks off out of position, but now looks utterly broken. Fuck knows why we even signed cornet, but a regular starter, goal scorer and key player all down the left for Burnley (who also has champions league experience) now occasionally comes in to play on the right when he’s rusty and clearly can’t play on the wrong flank. That’s on moyes. - we’ve also seen kehrer basically forced out (I’m not sure what happened there, he finally seemed to be finding his feet towards the end of last season); cresswell barely plays; Johnson has hardly been used and seems to be being frozen out due to contract demands but we don’t have the luxury of that with a small squad - so every time we chuck the reserves out there, they look rusty and the team looks disjointed. It’s not surprising. We shove square pegs in round holes and on Tuesday had no in form outlet to give the ball to. (I’ll caveat this by saying that if other teams had the same injuries as us, the likes of klopp or arteta would be whinging on about it - it would be like arsenal playing without saka, Jesus, martinelli, odegaard and rice) - we should still have enough in reserve to beat lower league teams but the poorly managed second string players look it the Roy clueless - our midfield also looks terrible without Alvarez. Soucek and ward prowse lack pace and skill but also don’t offer the defensive cover either. We have no creativity on the middle, which should come from paqueta normally but now he’s shoehorned in on the left because moyes has broken fornals and benrahma isn’t consistently up to it - we still need a lot of new players to compete. Despite our low block we loom defensively shaky all the time, relying on last minute blocks rather than restricting the opponents play. If Johnson goes, we have 3 full backs, one of whom can’t seem to last 90 minutes at the moment and one of whom barely plays now. We have no cover for Alvarez and no flair in the centre. We have one actual left winger that Moyes plays on the right, no right footed right winger, and no recognises striker. Still. - moyes’ achievements with us in terms of league positions and the trophy soeak for themselves. At times we okay excellent football. And counter attacking is superb when it’s incisive, quick and has our normal front theee firing. But it doesn’t work when the front 3 (or 5 including the midfielders) have no lace and limited skills. And we have no plan b. On the rare occasions we try to take the game to opponents, we seem to get cut open so easily. We obviously have an over reliance on a few key players, but most teams do outside the champions league sides. Our issue is that we don’t seem to have players on reserve capable of stepping in for a few games to do a job - individually they seem to not be good enough, collectively they look woeful. FFP seems to mean we can’t just buy players but I suppose at least there’s a few we can lose without having to worry too much about it. But if we don’t bring in reinforcements in more areas than just up front, this season could Peter out like a couple of years ago when the europa league cost us a few places domestically. We need to learn our lessons As for moyes, it’s fair to say he won’t change. Those fully anti and bemoaning him need to remember just how poor we have been under pellegrini at the end, bilic in this third season, grant, zola, pardews last 6 months, most of allardyces tenure. The last time we regularly played swift attacking passing football was under Harry really (and roeders first season) and even then we were just as likely to lose 5-0 as we were to win by a few. And we still lost lots of cup games to shitty lower league teams. Rant over, no idea what point I’m trying to make, but here’s hoping we can bring in a few fresh faces, keep where we are in the league and get a good draw to push on in the europa (Also, no offence to Ghana, but please get thumped by Egypt and go out and just send kudus home)"

[El Scorchio]

"Takashi Miike 11:45 I’m sure I heard them say in the Beeb that both were not available, unless they were misinformed but I cannot believe even Moyes wouldn’t have had them on the bench if they were available. Especially knowing the type of game it would be."

[GBHammer63]

"Possibly again, but sure as eggs is eggs it’s down to the manager to inspire dreams of players and not just keep on with the same dreary game plan , training, set up time after time, even when he sees it’s not working and persists."

[Matthew Holmes]

Another problem here is the motivational aspect of if you lose you go on warm weather training somewhere hot. You wouldn't put it past some players who don't have the work ethic to fancy a few days off rather than forest in the cup.

[GBHammer63]

"I don’t know him or anyone to do with the site, he just shares the same frustration as me, maybe a lot more than me."

[GBHammer63]

"Maybe Nick just loves the club, and he sees that the way to get back to a brand of football that we all want is to have rid of Moyes, maybe gets a bit ranty but so do I when I’m watching us, don’t make me not love the club ( albeit it’s a fucking hard watch for the last 2 seasons) but feel like I’m not part of the family, our club family anymore, still want us to win or at least try to win every single game in a more pleasing way for the long time support."

[Manuel]

"David L 2:08 Wed Jan 17 ''Claret and Booze was a good watch last night as you can imagine'' it's very clear now that Nick loves it when we lose, which for me makes him a prick, he also talks a lot of shit. Gary, however, is a good bloke and pretty subjective and knowledgeable."

[Side of Ham]

"In fairness Russ, Moyes isn't doing too badly on the hair managing front......at least there's some there..... :-)"

[Russ of the BML]

Mloyes hasn't got a fucking clue about hot to integrate youth players nor how to rotate and manage a squad properly. End of. All his shortcomings in those two areas are now coming home to roost. The squad has also been baldly managed by way of depth. We are wafer thin once four or five of our first team are out That is down to Moyes because he has not managed the squad effectively and not used the transfer windows wisely. The blokes a fucking moron.

[Eerie Descent]

wd40 3:22 Wed Jan 17 Are you saying the players are not listening to Moyes? That's encouraging.

[Gaffer58]

"Moyes pre match interview on BBC was so defeatist, every question was met with a negative, if that’s how he talked to the players just before they went out then no wonder they played like they did."

[zico]

"Have to say Johnson looked decent when he came on last night as he did against Liverpool I seem to remember. Confidence back maybe and from what I've heard the club wants to move him on with no sight of a new right back coming in. Kehrer gone, Johnson going?> that's leaves and out of form Coufaul who isn't happy with the contract he has been offered.... Madness."

[Sir Alf]

"Soucek is netter good or bad in a sense is true because the game , okie so many for him , passes him by. Doesn’t get noticed for doing much wrong last night because he hardly touches the ball. Imo of course Lovely fella, not a Premiership level footballer other than in a team that plays without the ball mostly. A Moyes team where he can offer valuable aerial strength and score 5 - 7 goals in a good season"

[Jasnik]

What I hate is Moyes is so slow to react. After the sending off he only went to a back four later when it was obvious what we needed to do. I was also saying at 60 mins s he needed something else he waits till he 80th minute to governor youth a chance .

[RichyP]

"wd40 3:22 Wed Jan 17 So in your working life, how would you feel if you had a Line Manager who constantly over looked you for his favourites no matter how hard you tried or how ell you performed. You were frozen out to the point you are not invited to meetings and when you are invited it is only for the closing minutes to be a bum on a seat because someone had to leave early. On the rare occasion you are asked to contribute you are not up to speed with the work so you are unable to perform as well as you know you can. Would you be prepared to put yourself out and go the extra mile? How would you feel if this was all against a backdrop of being voted the second best performer in the team the year before by the client base you support? I'd hazard a guess that you would be pretty fucked off, you wouldnt be massively engaged with your Line Manager and what they were asking you to do and you'd be looking for a new job. Just because footballers earn more money than the rest of us can dream of doesn't mean they don't experience the same feelings and emotions when it comes to being excluded. You could argue that the feelings manifest themselves much stronger when you are a multi millionairre footballer with fuck all skin in the game when it comes to needing a job and needing to perform"

[wd40]

"Yep Moyes is the sort of manager that tells his players not to get stuck in not to run back, not to show passion and not to run run and run till they drop every single match do me a favour! that what he tells them week in week out if the players cant be arse to do the basic its down to them not Moyes. They not Moyes need to taken to task on not giving a fuck . What ever you say about Moyes he does give a fuck and that's ok by me compare to them players last night ."

[wd40]

"Yep Moyes is the sort of manager that tells his players not to get stuck in not to run back, not to show passion and not to run run and run till they drop every single match do me a favour! that what he tells them week in week out if the players cant be arse to do the basic its down to them not Moyes. They not Moyes need to taken to task on not giving a fuck . What ever you say about Moyes he does give a fuck and that's ok by me compare to them players last night ."

[RichyP]

"Eerie Descent 2:49 Wed Jan 1 Spot on! No one is expecting us to be in the same bracket as some of the more wealthier clubs who have 2 trusted players for most positions but with our net spend over the last few windows i would expect us to have a more than a core 13-14 players who are 'trusted' because we literally have fuck all depth behind that. The depth we do have, as Eerie says has been mismanaged to the point of what we saw last night. Benrahama, Fornals (although he wasn't available last night), Ings, Cornet should all be capable of stepping in. But they now look disinterested, rusty as fuck or not suited to our system (if you can call it that) and thats down to one person and one person alone."

[HammerFan43]

"Eerie Descent 2:49 Wed Jan 17 ""There really is some shit being posted on here."" You are right! :)"

[Lee Trundle]

"I'm struggling to think of a time Muhammed Ali was knocked out by an opponent that you could compare to Bristol City. Any takers, for those who think we play like Muhammed Ali?"