What a grim day. Today, we were beaten by Bristol City and I, regrettably, made the four hour journey down to the South West of England. I have now been to seven away games this season and I have only seen them win once. In fact, we have not won since we thrashed Wigan 1-4 on 2 January 2023, which was the last time I saw them win on the road. Our last outing with The Robins resulted in us snatching the three points in the last minute, which was the opening game of the season when we had Shota in charge. Could we beat them for a second time?
My brother and I were included in the 1,000 plus away fans making the long journey down and whilst I was on the coach, I was optimistic heading into the game. We had Adama Traore available, we had a decent following and the squad have been working hard in training. But, my optimism was crushed and I am starting to think; ‘where is this exciting team that we were promised?’ I recently wrote a blog talking about how Rosenior is taking us in the right direction; however, I am starting to doubt that after watching them put on a weak performance three games on the bounce. There seems to be a lack of energy, willingness, determination and hunger within the players at the moment and it looks as if they are not trying. Even some of our strong players are lacking in quality. Ozan Tufan is too lazy as he never runs to loose balls and he rarely pressures players; Cyrus Christie is not winning his duels and for a defender he is too far up the pitch and Óscar Estupiñán is too slow. Also, other than scoring scrappy goals, he is useless at everything else. Clearly we need to drop Estupiñán and form a new front two or three as he is not good enough for a striker— you would think that he was a midfielder.
When the squad was announced at 2pm, there were some positives and negatives; Darlow replaced Ingram, which should have been the case for some of the previous games, and Malcolm Ebiowei started for the first time since joining. So, that meant that the squad consisted of: Karl Darlow, in goal; Cyrus Christie, Alfie Jones, Sean McLoughlin and Jacob Greaves, as the back four; Regan Slater, Greg Docherty, Xavier Simons, Ozan Tufan and Malcolm Ebiowei as the middle five and that leaves Óscar Estupiñán up front on his own. Rosenior went for a 4-2-3-1 formation today and on the bench for us was: Lewie Coyle, Callum Elder, Tobias Figueiredo, Ryan Longman, Adama Traore, who is meant to be a quality player, Benjamin Tetteh and Thimothée Jacques Orcel Lo-Tutala. There are some names on the bench that could have started. Nonetheless, we had some great options to bring on and I am sure Rosenior would not be scared to use them; he always uses up all of his substitutions.
In the first period, we started off very shaky. Bristol made some darting runs down the right wing and they instantly swung it into the box; however, they failed to stick it into the back of the net. And if it was not for Darlow’s excellent saves, then we would be trailing just minutes into the game. For some reason, we allowed their wingers to drive with the ball and none of their players were marked in the box. This has to be the worst defending I have seen since Rosenior was appointed as manager and if we did not switch on, it could have been a repeat of last season, when we were defeated 5-0. Thankfully, we started to get into the game and in the 25th minute Estupiñán had the best chance of the half; he received the ball on the edge of the box, turned and then shot, which went wide of the post. If he turned and got closer to the goal, he had the space, then he could have put us into the lead. But, instead, he got too excited and messed up his chance. The thing with Óscar is that when he is close to the goal, he can finish. But when he is on the edge of the box or outside, then he can never put it in the net. A striker should be able to score from anywhere that is possible. After this, they ended up coming at us and it seemed like we let them do this too easily as we just sat back. Also, when we win the ball back, we have no idea what to do with it so we just boot it or pass it backwards and get dispossessed–this is something that we always do and it needs to be eradicated. For the rest of the half, we were unable to make any more threatening attacks and it was just us scrambling in their box to get the ball cleared. It felt like we were back at the start of the season again, when we used to play like this. Nonetheless, Neither team were unable to take the lead, therefore it ended goalless at half time.
In the second period it was painful to watch; Cyrus Christie’s distribution was terrible, we seemed afraid to go near our goal and we let them have a lot of chances. It is safe to say that this was the worst performance I have seen them put on in a single half. We ended up bringing on Benjamin Tetteh for Malcolm Ebiowei, who I thought had a decent game today, and he instantly made a huge impact by having the best opportunity of the half; the ball was swung into the box from a corner and Tetteh connected with the ball well, however, it smashed the post. It then ended up being pinball in the box, but we failed to stick it in.
That was the only close chance that we had to be honest and the players decided that they had had enough and sat back. There is no hunger within the players and we never fight for a goal, it is like they have a switch saying ‘go for the goal’ that gets switched off at a certain part in the game. Now, this came at the wrong time as the hosts took the lead in the 70th minute. This goal came from a penalty after the ball was struck onto our defenders hand. Nahki Wells was put up for the job and he successfully completed it by sending Darlow the wrong way. I thought that the decision was quite harsh and I think that it was the crowd’s reaction that made the referee give it. Nonetheless, we were trailing and we needed to do something special to snatch the three points.
Later on, Rosenior brought on Adama Traore, who had his first appearance for the club, for Greg Docherty and I was very excited to see what this new player could bring to the team. I have to say he impressed me as he was winning the ball back well and he can dribble with the ball like it's on string. This was the only positive thing to take away from the game.
In the end, Bristol took the ball to the corner flag and wasted a couple of minutes to secure their victory, which they deserved.
Was the journey worth it? No it was absolutely not and I will not go this far again unless we are doing well. I am starting to regret buying the upcoming away fixture’s tickets as I do not want to be travelling just to see us get beat. Bristol have now extended their unbeaten run to 12 and they have jumped up to 13th in the table. For us we have lost two, drawn two and won one and we are now 16th in the table. How could we have more possession (52%), more shots (11 to their 10) and more passes (510) and still come out of the game without the three points or a goal? I guarantee that if it were the other way around—us completing fewer passes, fewer shots and having less possession—we would have won the game as that seems to be the case this season.
The best part of the day was when we stopped at a service station and whilst all of our fans were in the cafeteria, a few Leeds fans walked in. In future, they will check the service station before entering as they got a little bit of abuse–especially from the young hooligans, who have learned who their rivals are at an early stage. They could brush it off though as they won, unlike us.
A poor performance from us today; however, we go again on Friday night against West Bromwich, who I have never seen us beat.