Well, I am back on the bus! Call me fickle, but after a good performance and a more than deserved point away at automatic promotion chasers Sheffield United was followed by a great victory at home, under the Friday night lights, against an attacking Norwich City side, what’s not to like? We must enjoy the ride and see where head coach Liam Manning and his Bristol City team can take us this season.
Let’s be positive, if we perform as we have in the last two games, we have every chance of extending our season. I was slightly negative last week, following the draw against Hull City but that was down to feeling it was an opportunity missed. Now that we are right in the mix, I don’t want us to miss the chance.
We had more bad news on the injury front on Friday, learning that defender George Tanner had undergone surgery on a knee and would most likely miss the remainder of the season. It’s such a shame for George who has played well in recent weeks. In the warm-up, the defence lined up in a back four but as we kicked off, we were in the normal three. Perhaps surprisingly, Cameron Pring lined up as the left centre-back, with Haydon Roberts deployed as the left wing-back. Scott Twine was rested with Max Bird picked as the number 10. Joe Williams retained his place after his man-of-the-match performance against the Blades in mid-week and there was a recall for Nahki Wells up front in preference to Sinclair Armstrong.
The Canaries may be in 13th place in the league and possibly Hoff Thorup’s side has too much to do to make the play-off places, but they are still a very good attacking side and in Josh Sargent and Borja Sainz they have two of the best forwards in the league.
With big games like this, it’s important to make a bright start and we did just that, taking the lead through a brilliant left-footed curling shot from Mark Sykes in the sixth minute. Rob Dickie intercepted the ball and brought it out before finding Bird, who in turn fed Sykesy out wide. Sykes cut in and brilliantly executed his left foot shot, curling it beyond a helpless George Long in the Norwich City goal.
Bird gets an assist but in truth, it was all of Sykes’ own making. That’s two big goals in two games from the popular Irishman. Max O’Leary made two big saves from Callum Doyle and Emiliano Marcondes, and we were lucky to see a Sainz shot hit the post after a poor pass from Zak Vyner. I like Zak as a player, but he has these lapses of concentration and it could so easily have cost us.
Wells showed, once again, why he is still our number one striker when he extended City’s lead in the 23rd minute. This was all about the team press. Bird put Jose Cordoba under pressure, winning the ball back out wide before feeding Jason Knight. Captain Knight showed great feet to make room and played the ball to Williams. Joe spotted Nahki’s run and Wells dragged the ball back before swivelling and sending a low shot past Long. It was a cracking goal.
Norwich were still in the game and the impressive Sargent so nearly got them back into it. The American brilliantly controlled the ball before bringing it back inside Dickie and firing a shot arrowing towards O’Leary’s goal. Thankfully, for us, it was just the wrong side of the post.
For all my plaudits of Nahki, only he will know how he failed to score our third. Bird shot from the edge of the box, which was great to see. We want to see more shots from Bird, Knight and Williams. Long made a bit of a pig’s ear of the save and the ball popped out to the onrushing Wells. Nahki’s first-time shot was somehow turned away by the recovering Long and Wells looked to the assistant referee on the side, hoping to see the off-side flag raised to spare his blushes. The flag wasn’t forthcoming and Nahki held his head in his hands.
It was an entertaining game, and City created several good moments in the second half but couldn’t find the final ball or finish. On a couple of occasions, Anis Mehmeti made a good break but ended up going down a blind alley when he should have got his shot off. Sykes saw an effort cleared and substitute Armstrong sent a drive into the side netting. The Canaries were still creating and O’Leary made another good save from Sargent.
I have praised Manning for his subs in recent weeks, but I think he got them wrong on Friday or at least a couple of them. Bird was withdrawn on the 80th minute for Marcus McGuane and Sykes, who looked to be complaining of a tight calf, was taken off for Sam Bell. Bird was controlling the game and linking so well with Knight, Earthy and Sykes. With an international break, there was no real need to rest Bird. McGuane was too tempted to go sideways and backwards, and we lost some of our impetus going forward.
I’m going to keep saying it until I am blue in the face, but Sam Bell isn’t a wing-back. We are limited in options and whilst I don’t think Yu Hirakawa is a wing-back, he is a better option than Bell. Sam is too attack-minded and struggles defensively. That proved to be the case with Sainz’s goal. A long ball over the top found Doyle and he whipped his cross in for Sainz to control and finish with aplomb. Bell had switched off momentarily and that allowed Doyle the necessary room.
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Hearts were in mouths right at the end of the game, with Dickie perhaps fortunate not to pick up a red card. From the resulting free-kick Nunez’s shot flashed wide.
There were hugely impressive performances from O’Leary, Dickie, Williams, Bird and Knight, with captain Knight just shading Man of the Match for me.
We finished the evening in fifth place but with results on Saturday, we dropped to seventh. But we’re still very much in the mix. Beep, Beep, there’s room upstairs. Let’s all get on the bus and ride this baby to the play-offs.
Our 3 Peaps in A Podcast player ratings were: Max O’Leary 8.0, Mark Sykes 7.5, Rob Dickie 8.0, Zak Vyner 6.5, Cameron Pring 7.5, Haydon Roberts 5.0, Max Bird 8.0, Jason Knight 8.0 *MotM, Joe Williams 7.5, Anis Mehmeti 5.0 and Nahki Wells 7.5.
For the substitutes who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time), we went: George Earthy 7.0, Scott Twine 6.0 and Sinclair Armstrong 5.0. A game average player rating of 6.89. That’s an overall season-to-date average player rating of 6.20.
For Liam Manning it was 7.5, up into fifth place on the night and playing some lovely football, what’s not to like? The late substitutions killed us a little but overall another good night for the head coach. I really enjoyed the game against a good attacking side in Norwich City.