12:16pm Thursday 11th March 2010
FOR the second time this year City were humiliated at Ashton Gate as Doncaster Rovers took full advantage of an abject and largely clueless display by the home side.
An impressive looking Donny side took full advantage of a porous City defence and ran out comfortable 5-2 winners.
If shipping six goals at home to your fierce rivals in January was somehow forgivable then to concede five a few weeks later against a mid-table team most certainly is not and it seems lessons have not been learnt. Chairman Steve Lansdown said after that humbling by Cardiff that ‘this will not be allowed to happen again’ and he will now have to begin the enquiry into how this has happened again.
For starters the line-up was very similar to the one against Cardiff, a very attacking set up with not a lot of bite in the centre of midfield. Before the game manager Gary Johnson appeared to correctly pre-empt the type of game that City were in for, ‘Doncaster make games open’, only then for him to complain afterwards that ‘the game was too open’. The question has to be asked then Gary, why start with such an open, attack minded team?
Just as concerning as the managers seeming lack of tactical awareness was the players’ total lack of effort and concentration from the off. This was another haunting similarity with the Cardiff performance.
However, just when it all seemed to be doom and gloom we went to Crystal Palace and pulled off an impressive 1-0 win over a side we share a lot of recent history with. The game between the sides earlier in the season made the headlines for the wrong reasons with Freddie Sears seemingly scoring a good goal only for it to be mysteriously disallowed, but no-one could have any doubts about Chris Iwelumo’s fine volley on Tuesday night.
City travel to in-form Reading on Saturday (3pm) where they must keep things tight and try and grind out a result.
Do you agree with Will’s views? Have your say below.
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