MATCHWATCH : Bristol City (h)

[CountryRoyal]

I have a horrible sinking feeling that the tables have turned for us and it’s downhill from here.

Would love a reaction but it concerns me that Pince thought the Swansea performance and game plan was good.

[Zip]

I have a horrible sinking feeling that the tables have turned for us and it’s downhill from here.

Would love a reaction but it concerns me that Pince thought the Swansea performance and game plan was good.

It's why Saturday is so important. We have to play on the front foot. We mustn't drop deep.

[Snowflake Royal]

I have a horrible sinking feeling that the tables have turned for us and it’s downhill from here.

Would love a reaction but it concerns me that Pince thought the Swansea performance and game plan was good.

It's why Saturday is so important. We have to play on the front foot. We mustn't drop deep.

How much would you like to bet we sit deep and have less than 40% possession?

[Zip]

I have a horrible sinking feeling that the tables have turned for us and it’s downhill from here.

Would love a reaction but it concerns me that Pince thought the Swansea performance and game plan was good.

It's why Saturday is so important. We have to play on the front foot. We mustn't drop deep.

How much would you like to bet we sit deep and have less than 40% possession?

I hope not. I don't think Brizzle are up to much so it's,an opportunity for us.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I have a horrible sinking feeling that the tables have turned for us and it’s downhill from here.

Would love a reaction but it concerns me that Pince thought the Swansea performance and game plan was good.

It's why Saturday is so important. We have to play on the front foot. We mustn't drop deep.

How much would you like to bet we sit deep and have less than 40% possession?

We only had 35% possession against Blackburn. I agree we probably "should" have more than we do, but we have to apply ourselves in the right way. Part of the reason as to why we only had 26% against Swansea was because we couldn't string 3/4 passes together, especially in the first half, and we were consistently and cheaply giving the ball back to them so we were nearly never not under pressure until their 3rd goal.

It's how we apply ourselves on Saturday, can we be better when we have the ball, can we be more effective, can we look after it more and have more quality when we go direct rather than just sloppily giving it away or just knocking it into areas and playing percentages. Playing percentages is fine, considering the quality into the attacking players is of sufficient quality. Can we be stronger in both boxes as well would be big question for me. We've been pretty rock solid from crosses or set pieces for a lot of the season up until recently, we need to try and get that back (although don't doubt missing big CB's like Sarr and Hutch doesn't help) quickly.

I do think we need to lay more of a glove on BC though, going back to that press from the front. Yes we have a few players missing and players are playing consistently at the moment, but that's why good/early use of subs (in some scenario's) is important to get the most from our squad. Trust the players we have. We can now make 5 changes, if we have a bench like Tuesday, we "should" be looking to use 5 subs where possible.

[Royal_jimmy]

Definitely crucial we get 3 points here. Another defeat and then with the next 2 looking tough after, if we lose 6 on the trot then questions will be asked about Ince's future again.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

I cant see Ince changing formation as he didn't midweek whilst we being battered. So need to use the academy CB- Clark looked good in his cameos.
I just cant see us not starting Joao. Ejaria does do his fair share of defensive duties and I think he would be better used a bit further back and pick out space between the lines.

Lumley
Hoilett Holmes McIntyre Clark NGW
Ince Loum Ejaria
Meite Joao

Bouzanis, Baba, Fornah, Hendrick, Carroll, Long + random youth

[Snowflake Royal]

I hope he'll change formation, failing that I hope he'll use Clarke. Sadly I expect him to stick to his formation and use Mbengue.

[CountryRoyal]

The difference with Blackburn is that we surrendered possession to them in their defensive third. We held a very high defensive line and then would periodically press their back 4 too (which yielded fantastic results), then once we won the ball back we all pressed up and saw passages of play with extended pressure, which again, yielded results.

Ever since then we’ve really, by and large, let the opposition free reign to waltz into our half before engaging them, that often being deeper and deeper. This is problematic on two fronts; it goes without saying that the more possession a team has closer to your goal, the more probable they will get chances to score. Additionally, if we win the ball back deeper, we have significantly more pitch to get through to get to theirs, often with more defenders, pressing with more intensity. You have to be accurate and quick, or fortunate with a long ball to bypass the midfield. As we’ve seen recently, we aren’t doing it successfully.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

The difference with Blackburn is that we surrendered possession to them in their defensive third. We held a very high defensive line and then would periodically press their back 4 too (which yielded fantastic results), then once we won the ball back we all pressed up and saw passages of play with extended pressure, which again, yielded results.

Ever since then we’ve really, by and large, let the opposition free reign to waltz into our half before engaging them, that often being deeper and deeper. This is problematic on two fronts; it goes without saying that the more possession a team has closer to your goal, the more probable they will get chances to score. Additionally, if we win the ball back deeper, we have significantly more pitch to get through to get to theirs, often with more defenders, pressing with more intensity. You have to be accurate and quick, or fortunate with a long ball to bypass the midfield. As we’ve seen recently, we aren’t doing it successfully.

Yeah that's what I'm saying really, it's not so much of an issue what we are doing now as the principle of, soak up pressure and look to be hard to beat, it isn't exactly new, it's just one or two key elements, when we have the ball, that has been killing us. The quality up to forward players hasn't been good enough and the pressure in the opposition's half of the pitch hasn't been there (just pressing the opposition in general really).

There didn't seem to be an engagement to ever press the player with the ball, we seemed to let Swansea knock it about freely. Yes, they didn't create much, but always looked to threaten and were constantly 30 yards (or closer) to our goal. We need to set up some form of pressing traps somewhere, which we just didn't do against Swansea.

[Snowflake Royal]

The difference with Blackburn is that we surrendered possession to them in their defensive third. We held a very high defensive line and then would periodically press their back 4 too (which yielded fantastic results), then once we won the ball back we all pressed up and saw passages of play with extended pressure, which again, yielded results.

Ever since then we’ve really, by and large, let the opposition free reign to waltz into our half before engaging them, that often being deeper and deeper. This is problematic on two fronts; it goes without saying that the more possession a team has closer to your goal, the more probable they will get chances to score. Additionally, if we win the ball back deeper, we have significantly more pitch to get through to get to theirs, often with more defenders, pressing with more intensity. You have to be accurate and quick, or fortunate with a long ball to bypass the midfield. As we’ve seen recently, we aren’t doing it successfully.

Good post. And Blackburn was firmly the anomaly. The norm is slow start, deep defensive line and stand off until our half / third, before and after.

Key to us playing well seems to be our WBs. If they are stuck doing their defensive duty deep for the most part, we're terrible. If they are free to engage higher up the pitch with midfield and join in the attacks, we're good.

[Hound]

We tried the high press against Sunderland, did it really badly and they kept breaking through our high line with slow CBs, hence the hammering

I think that has spooked Ince or the team a bit

Generally agree though, our defence isn’t good enough to cope with extended possession near our goal at the moment. Swansea barely created a chance and ended up with 3 goals which was pretty special

The ability is mainly with the attacking players so we need them on the ball a lot more and a lot closer to the oppo goal

[CountryRoyal]

I know it won’t happen but I’d like to see a 4-4-2 diamond/4-1-2-1-2

Lumley

Yiadom
Holmes
McIntyre
NGW

Loum

Fornah(L)
Ejaria(R)

Ince

Long (L)
Meite (R)

For me that team has so much balance (on paper), the midfield all being pretty decent defensively and have a pass in them, Meite and Long to play off the shoulder breaking the line, and ability to mix it up with Meite’s/Long’s flick ons in the air and Long’s hold up play ball to feet. Issues with potentially being too narrow mitigated by the strikers’ willingness to trackback and defend.

Like I said, will never happen but it’s exciting to think about the potential.

[Royal_jimmy]

Are we not doing predictions for this game?

[Sutekh]

Are we not doing predictions for this game?

Prediction thread for this one:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=189816

[Royal_jimmy]

Are we not doing predictions for this game?

Prediction thread for this one:

https://www.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=189816

That was hiding from me

[Royals and Racers]

Rahman and Joao start

[Sutekh]

[CountryRoyal]

We’re so lucky to have a player like Hendrick, consistently putting in fantastic performances making him genuinely undroppable. First name on the team sheet, and if we could only play with 1 player he’d be the last one too. What a guy.

[Millsy]

Oh my days the defence lineup looks worrying.