So, Bristol City fall at the first hurdle in this year’s Emirates FA Cup after a narrow 2-1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers. It was narrow in terms of the scoreline but in truth, Wolves were well worthy of the win and their place in the Fourth Round.
There are only eleven places between the two sides in the football pyramid, with Wolves sitting 17th in the Premier League and City eighth in the Championship. However, for a good portion of the game, the gulf in class between the two sides was evident for all to see.
Hindsight as they say is a wonderful thing, but I wonder if we set up too defensively to start with. We showed our Premier League opponents too much respect, allowed them too much time on the ball and let them dictate the tempo of the game. I felt that playing Marcus McGuane alongside Jason Knight in the middle was a little negative and I would have kept Max Bird in the eleven. If Liam Manning felt that Max needed a rest, I would have gone with George Earthy.
I would have used the pace of Elijah Morrison in the left wing-back role and played Haydon Roberts in the back three alongside Luke McNally and Zak Vyner. Finally, I would also have gone with Nahki Wells up front rather than Fally Mayulu. It’s easy to say after the game and following a defeat but we just didn’t seem at it.
Wolves were at it from the off, moving the ball quickly to create space and Max O’Leary had to make a smart save early on from wingback Rayan Ait-Nouri. Ait-Nouri got his own back just minutes later when he opened the scoring for Wolves. Mayulu headed a corner to the edge of the box but we were slow to react as only George Tanner attempted to close the ball down and with two men to mark, Joao Gomes was afforded the space to curl in a low cross which Zak Vyner didn’t cut out. With Scott Twine and Luke McNally not alive to Ait-Nouri’s run, he bundled it over the line. The second Wolves goal was a quality move cutting through City and Rodrigo Gomes finished smartly over O’Leary, although defensively we were again found wanting.
We were off it and at 2-0 after just twenty minutes I feared the worst and wondered just how bad it would get. To be fair, we rode out the early storm and Twine scored a wonderful free-kick right on the stroke of halftime to give us belief for the second half.
At half time, having been given the lifeline by Twine’s free-kick, I expected Manning to make some changes and really try and take the game to Wolves. I fully expected Bird and Wells to come on and maybe even Mark Sykes for Anis Mehmeti who struggled to make an impact. The Wolves players, the referee and his assistants were out on the pitch waiting for the home side, but this wasn’t because of any changes to formation or personnel by Manning. We took to the field with the same 11.
There is no doubt that we improved in the second half, but we had set the bar low in the first. We huffed and puffed without ever really looking like we would get back level. Yes, we hit the bar, but Wolves struck the woodwork twice themselves and missed a couple of other gilt-edge chances.
We played some decent football in the second half but as I said, never really threatened Sam Johnstone in the away side’s goal. To a man, the Wolves players were comfortable receiving the ball, had a picture in their mind of the next pass and moved the ball quickly. There were some good lessons to learn from.
A lot of the talk walking away after the game was of the side’s need for a striker in the January transfer window. Manning stuck with Mayulu, but it just isn’t working for the youngster. Fally was substituted after 77 minutes and when his number was held up by the fourth official, it was met by cheers from some fans. When asked about it after the game, the City head coach said, “I don’t want to be presumptuous but if it was aimed at Fally, it’s really poor. It’s a club that’s got a history for providing a platform for young players to progress and I think it’s one of those.
“He needs support, everyone needs support. Unfortunately, anything can happen inside a football stadium now. It seems it’s the only place where you can get away with doing anything. If it was aimed at him, I think it was really poor. He’s one of ours, we should get behind our own, and we should support each other. He’s trained well, he’s shown bits, he’s turned it over a couple of times naturally which everyone does but some of his movement was good.”
I agree with Manning, that ironic cheers even if from a minority will do nothing for Fally’s confidence but I also think that the head coach must recognise that at this moment in time, he is not at the level needed. The way that we want to play doesn’t suit Fally’s attributes, he seems to have only one pace and can’t press in the way that is needed. There were times during the game when he made some intelligent runs, but his teammates opted not to play the ball to him, which speaks volumes.
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I think those who cheered were showing more frustration with the situation and Fally just not being ready as opposed to not wanting Fally to succeed. There is no doubt that if we want to achieve anything in the second half of the season, the position must be addressed. Wells only tends to play 60 minutes in games and with Sinclair Armstrong out injured, having not yet hit the heights consistently when he was fit, we are short in one of the key positions.
Fally wasn’t the only one not at the level needed. Vyner had his poorest game in many a while and while Roberts showed some nice touches and passes going forward, he got caught out defensively on several occasions. McGuane looked laboured and couldn’t find his passes and whilst I admire Ross McCrorie’s commitment and attitude, we have to get more quality into the forwards. Both the Wolves wingbacks scored. It is also important to recognise the amount that Wolves have invested in their Premier League squad and clearly, their team is full of talented players, but at minimum, you have to compete and for the first twenty minutes we failed to do that.
Our 3 Peaps In A PodCast player ratings were: Max O’Leary 6, George Tanner 5.5, Zak Vyner 5, Luke McNally 6, Ross McCrorie 6, Haydon Roberts 5.5, Jason Knight 6, Marcus McGuane 5, Scott Twine 7 *MotM, Anis Mehmeti 5.5 and Fally Mayulu 5.
For the substitutes who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time), we went: Max Bird 6, Yu Hirakawa 5.5 and George Earthy 6. A game average player rating of 5.71.
For Liam Manning, it was 5.5. I think he set up a little defensively and should have made changes earlier.