A very bad day at the office.

Before we disect the defeat at Ashton Gate we should be very clear that this was a bade performance and that every side will have the odd bad performance from time to time, it doesnt mean its the end of the World or that we are a bad team, just that we have played badly, the real crime will be if we dont learn our lessons from this defeat and make a bad perfomance a bad run.

To be blunt Saints didnt look fired up from the very start, although first half they were comfortable without really threatening, there was a spark missing from the side, of course losing Richard Chaplow so early on didnt help, but we have won plenty of games with Chaplow and Morgan Schneiderlin is a perfectly capable substitute, but perhaps the real downside was that we then lacked genuine width on both sides.

There is barely a player in the side who came out of the game with any credit for their performance, yes it was a difficult afternoon, but we really should have done a lot lot lot bette respecially going forward. But as i mentioned in the preview, if we want to get promoted we have to start keeping clean sheets away from home and we just dont look like doing that at the moment.

Last week I mentioned about a replacement for Rickie Lambert for when he is injured, some got quite irate about this,but I pointed out that all our play goes through Lambert and if he is injured we will either have to try and play another way or adapt, perhaps this display emphasied why we could do with another big centre forward as understudy, when it was clear that Bristol had nullified our attacking threat, we couldnt change our style of play, so with Lambert out of sorts we rarely posed an attacking threat, someone like Jutkiewicz might just have offered another dimension to our system, Lambert has been as good as anybody all season, but he will have bad games and he does need to be rested oterwise he will burn out.  

This was very similar to our trip to Rochdale last season when we also lost 2-0 and were poor, we responded to that defeat by winning our last six games on the bounce, we now need to do something similar, if we do then this defeat will be just a blip and not the start of a crisis.

The good thing is that we have an immediate chance to bounce back and ptit all right.

At the end a section of our supporters sang the usual "were top of the league etc" perhaps this defeat will hit home that this is a tough division at the top, if we lose on Tuesday then there is a good chance that those supporters will lose a song out of their repetoire.

Photo: Action Images

SaintNick50 added 11:21 - Nov 28 Agree about the wide men. We have no devine right to win every game. We have to give credit to the opposition, I thought Bristol City played really well (perhaps this was because I had to sit with home supporters in the Williams Stand!) their recent form has been outstanding.
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bstokesaint added 12:41 - Nov 28 There's no doubt about it Bristol deserved the win. I thought we were unlucky when we lost to Leicester, but this was a whole different scenario. If I'm honest I couldn't really say that we looked in control at any given period. Our passing wasn't quick enough (including dwelling on the ball on the back), we seemed to be second to everything and we were guilty of overplaying and trying to walk the ball in. How many shots on goal did we have? I can remember only 2. I know the players will want to move on and forget this performance, but maybe we were guilty of a little complacency. It could be a lesson well received with the run of games we have coming up. Tuesday night is a win-win scenario for us if we can defeat Hull. Either West Ham or Middlesbrough, maybe both, will drop points so either the gap down to second or third can be opened up. On the note of perhaps strengthening our strike force based on Saturday I'd forget Maynard. He wasn't that impressive. Adomah on the other hand was excellent. He quite literally took the p1ss on the right wing. I'm not sure if he does that week in week out, but he was very impressive.

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arfurdent added 12:48 - Nov 28 Fox let Adomah urinate all over him. It was really plain that we were missing a fast winger to change the dynamic
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sholingred added 20:10 - Nov 28 That goalkeeping display was shocking,pee roller effort first goal hardly a wicked deflection,second was a bad deflection granted,but his handling was pathetic,then kicks the ball to their striker and then blames his defence,he is who we need to replace,crap goalkeeper.
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richardmdcooper added 22:06 - Nov 28 I'm not too worried. I've just looked it up and not including Adkins' first game in charge, we have one every single game immediately following a loss. In Nigel we trust..
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richardmdcooper added 22:09 - Nov 28 won every single game..
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