Bristol in August…..
Our promotion thankfully spares up trips to Portsmouth, Plymouth and Exeter, a trip to Bristol is about as arduous as it gets, not being midweek is another bonus.
The M5 South in August is a nightmare, never seen so many bloody caravans….
Stopping st Service Stations is one of my main sources of pleasure in life, SAFCBlog even wrote an award winning** article on service stations back in 2019, https://safcblog.com/best-service-station/ . Yesterday we stopped at Gloucestershire Services, bit of a game changer if I’m honest, SAFCBlog is a football publication, so I’m mindful not to go off topic, but…..
It’s the first time I’ve been to Bristol City and my first visit to the City itself in ages, it’s a strange place, akin to a game of Minecraft on Acid, just a real random, ecliptic mix of buildings. There’s more graffiti than I’ve ever seen, (I blame Banksy), and there’s a really high proportion of folk wearing oversized flowery clothing and off their tits.
We take a different route out of Bristol after the game and it’s a completely different City.
The Match
It’s got to be a fairly feisty challenge to get booked in the first 5 minutes of a game. Corey Evans got booked after 12 seconds yesterday, it didn’t look a great challenge?
1-0 If you don’t shoot you don’t score. Keeper should save it but he doesn’t
1-1 Sloppy defending, only about 10 minutes gone
1-2 Another ball into the box not dealt with, hard to see what happened from where I was stood, looked soft purely on the basis it seemed trickle over the line rather than hit the net?
2-2 Sublime pass from Stewart, great finish from Simms
3-2 Great cross, great header, exactly what we deserved.
Just a great game of football, (we aren’t going to see many goalless draws on the road this season?)
Player Ratings
Patterson Gets better with every game, never looks like dropping a cross. We played a lot of long balls onto the head of Simms yesterday, he won pretty much everything, but Patterson’s ability to pick him out was pivotal
Full Backs Both goals came from what looked like fairly average balls from the flanks. I’m not a fan of hanging players out, and to the credit of Gooch he’s been good under Alex Neil, he’s obviously been told to cross the ball, rather than fuck about with it, ultimately this level requires full backs playing a full back
Centre Halves Good, very good, makings of a really solid partnership
Dan Neil He’s only 20 years old, he wasn’t great first half, he had 3 poorly misplaced passes and didn’t really impose himself on the game. Second half, he was brilliant✅ 20 years old man
Corey Evans He does the ugly stuff well, he is the engine room of this team, he had a great game
Alex Pritchard We know how good he is, if fit he’s as good as anyone else in this division, he did a lot of good stuff yesterday, nothing better than the cross for the winning goal
Jack Clarke Brilliant, his link up play with Pritchard was class. for about 25 minutes in the second half he was totally unplayable. Magic in his boots✅❤️⚽️
Ross Stewart As usual he was very good, took his goal well, set up the 2nd goal
Ellis Simms He had a fantastic game on his debut, scored 2 goals, was denied a hat trick by a fantastic save and was denied a nailed on penalty. A striker who scores goals can be excused a free pass from not doing much else. Simms did his job and scored twice, further to this he won everything in the air, he uses his body and physicality well, which meant Stewart didn’t have to come so deep. His performance today was sublime, added to this strikers thrive on confidence, he must feel 10 feet tall today
All roads lead to Wednesday on Wednesday – See you there. Great yesterday, 3 goals > 3 points > Magic
