* The Unofficial "Official" Boro v Bristol City Match-Day Thread *

Our defence is picked for our attacking play and defensively are being found out. They have played on that fine line of success and failure since Carrick came in, they have lost that fraction of concentration/confidence and we've been royally punished for it.

We are not alone in that, but that rub of the green just hasn't gone our way either, unlike say, Sheffield United who have had huge slices of luck recently that have gained them at least 8 points.
 
On The Bob said:
It was a calamity of errors, absolutely.

McNair once again though, can’t / won’t put in a tackle. It’s not the first time this season either. He should have just wiped the whole lot out when he sensed the danger. Instead he reverted to his usual approach of fannying out of a challenge.
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Sorry Bob, but I remember reading Paolo Maldini’s autobiography (greatest defender ever) and he reckoned that he made very few tackles in his illustrious career because he reckoned that defending was all about positional play and intercepting.
Perhaps Paddy has Italian blood in him ?
 
Lottowyn said:
Sorry Bob, but I remember reading Paolo Maldini’s autobiography (greatest defender ever) and he reckoned that he made very few tackles in his illustrious career because he reckoned that defending was all about positional play and intercepting.
Perhaps Paddy has Italian blood in him ?
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Maldini! Get your foot in you fanny!

Sorry, just imagining a wonderful alternate reality where the great man joined the Robson revolution...
 
dribble said:
We have conceded 50 goals in the league , along with the Mackems ,the most in the top 10.
Teams find it easy to get through our defence and we just don’t have any bite at the back.
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Yep.

Yet by the same rationale we're only two goals scored behind Burnley now and fourteen in front of the Blades in third? The rate we're going we could well end up the league's top scorers, despite being in Wilder $hit mode for a third of the campaign?

It's been a crazy season, but what entertainment!
 
So we have a world class defender as one of our assistant managers, is it the system we play or are our players just not good enough?
 
Cannot understand why Smith keeps getting flack on here. He was our only defender covering the whole of the right side with no support from Forss or McNair (who just follows the ball). He even has to come across into the middle to cover McNair. At one point in the second half he intercepted in the middle with two players free behind him. Oh, and he also found time to put in the cross for Ramsey’s goal!
 
I couldn't believe what I was reading re Ramsey.
He played Giles into so many crossing positions, who did not deliver. Let's not talk about Giles' defending...
Ramsey is a class player who scored a great goal and his creation of the equaliser was absolute genius.

Our full backs are defensively inept and are targeted, McNair and Lenihan can't cover them and we ship far too many goals. Fry simply has to play, it is crazy.
Our front 4 options are the best in the league and just keep scoring goals.
 
sambaDTR said:
Cannot understand why Smith keeps getting flack on here. He was our only defender covering the whole of the right side with no support from Forss or McNair (who just follows the ball). He even has to come across into the middle to cover McNair. At one point in the second half he intercepted in the middle with two players free behind him. Oh, and he also found time to put in the cross for Ramsey’s goal!
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I agree with this, whenever a team attack us, this is all I see of McNair...
 
Lottowyn said:
Sorry Bob, but I remember reading Paolo Maldini’s autobiography (greatest defender ever) and he reckoned that he made very few tackles in his illustrious career because he reckoned that defending was all about positional play and intercepting.
Perhaps Paddy has Italian blood in him ?
Click to expand...
I’d be tempted to agree with you but I’ve not seen a great deal of good positional play or intercepting from him either.

Paddy himself doesn’t even want to play CB as he sees himself as a midfielder - he plays no. 10 for his country at times.

He has just never really mastered a position and made it his own.

Noticed Fry wasn’t on the bench today. His return cannot come quick enough.
 
Interesting thread this. I thought we were the better side throughout. I think we were quite sluggish in the first half but still the better team. The thing about being ‘dodgy’ at the back is - in my opinion - to do with our style of play.

We’re an open front-foot side, we take risks to score goals and if it’s not quite clicking for us we can be got at quite quickly, and/or look quite exposed. I mean, people are quite quick to criticise Smith but he gets no real defensive help from whoever is in front and the defender next to him isn’t really a centre back. He’s much better next to Fry.

Anyway, I enjoyed the game. I think we came back very strongly and that sort of feels like a win really. Now we go into Friday full of confidence and we can really get at them. I am a bit confused as to the level of criticism we’ve seen over the past few days though. Huddersfield did a job on us for 20mins after half time, Burnley have won the league at a canter - their first offside, Chuba missed a sitter at the death - and today we were below our best for an hour but came away with a 2-2 draw and could’ve pinched all 3 points. So is there actually a problem there, really? There’s another team playing as well you know, I think it’s easy to forget that or overlook it. We won’t pump everyone 3-0. It just doesn’t work like that.

I think we’re doing absolutely great.
 
Sorry there Chutters
Just Imagining the game as it might be played or did I just imaging Jununho et al.
 
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