When you don’t feel comfortable or at home when you’re at home, and you feel very much on edge and unwelcome on the road, where does it leave you? In a state of confused limbo, unsure what to expect day upon day, or in Bristol City’s terms week upon week.
It’s the same inconsistency-labelled backdrop that has provided the uncertain foundations all season for this team.
Nigel Pearson is now referring to what he’s said all along this season, the "I’ve told you befores" are joined by "like I said last week" and the underlying acceptance that this season has only been consistent in its pure and maddening inconsistency.
In one sense it has been normal to see the team start poorly and then proceed to engage in a game or trying to make the pendulum swing as many directions as possible within 90 minutes. Does negatively normal mean consistent? Because if so, that’s still not what the manager is looking for.
He’s looking for the back-to-back wins, the month long mix of good performances and the results that they deserve. The golden scroll that gives the magical end to frustration at Ashton Gate.
It hasn’t been for the want of trying and the sight of Tomas Kalas sprawled on the turf at full time with his head buried in his knees tells the story. The consistency is yet to come for Bristol City, it only took 120 seconds to realise that it probably wasn’t going to happen against Birmingham either.
Here are the moments missed on Saturday…
Unity with Ukraine
Football is a reflection of society. It’s powerful and incites emotional togetherness between fans. It demonstrates its position in the world without too much seriousness, accepting the real-life tragedy in Ukraine and taking on its role as an inhibitor of support and good will.
Where politicians are quick to score cheap points and PR praise is aplenty, football plays its own understated role as a chance to applaud and recognise those dealing with the consequences of war in Europe.
In the wider scope it doesn’t count for much, the banners, statements, hashtags and flags don’t change the lives of anyone in turmoil. But to remember and appreciate, to show togetherness and unity, to be strong as a whole, that is important and does have a place.
Bristol City, like many other teams around the county, did their bit. The players of both teams sported white tops with the message ‘No to war’ emblazoned in simple black writing on the front. The hashtag ‘FootballStandsTogether’ underneath a cartoon robin.
It doesn’t change the world, but it does demonstrate solidarity. That’s all a lot of people can do at this point. That’s enough.
Nobody kids themselves into thinking this is enough for the world to do, but as life in England and Bristol continues, football provides its own shelter from life for 90 minutes.
Surround that with good will and gestures on shirts along with the Ukrainian flag on the giant screens in the ground and there’s enough to feel positive about.
An early shower
With the return of Matty James to the starting line-up, City were afforded a luxury that they haven’t had in a while. Their squad finally felt like it had the early signs of developing even a touch of depth to it.
With Nahki Wells, Rob Atkinson, Cam Pring, Han-Noah Massengo and Ayman Benarous all on the bench the Robins had a good set of varying plan B’s should the circumstances require it. As it happens, it needed much more than a plan B.
Just 13 minutes in and Pearson might have wished he had mastered the ability to travel back in time. If he could then his decision might not be to save the world from alien invaders, much more simply it would likely have been to change his starting team.
Despite saying before the game that, “I would always prefer to be in a position where players are disappointed to be left out,” his own personal anger towards the worst start to certainly a home game all season left the manager reeling in the decision he made.
Barking out to Atkinson to get himself warm less than 25 minutes into the match. The big centre-back will have had to take his time to dry off before coming on though. There was an unexpected shower for him and some of the others during the warm-up.
As the starting 11 and coaches exited the pitch to get changed the grass sprinklers sprung on to the surprise of the remaining players. Atkinson wore most of the initial burst, wearing the ark of water on his short blonde hair.
Around him, Wells and Benarous were both greeted with similar shocks from either side as the remaining two sprinkles turned on to do their job. As the first half demonstrated, it looked like the whole of the City squad had been effected and the only real answer to being soaked through is the hairdryer, this one was courtesy of Pearson raging shouts.
Formation fluctuation
If there’s a play or a phrase that sums up the cultural change in English football then going from full-back-to-full-back transitioning into wing-back-to-wing-back might just be that.
Although in all but a few extra metres width it means the exact same thing, the movement to natural three-man defences with attacking wing-backs is something that even a manager as stubbornly British as Pearson hasn’t avoided adding to his repertoire.
He's used Pring as a ball playing left-sided centreback, Zak Vyner as a free passing third defender and almost everyone in his team as a makeshift wing-back at some point this season. We count nine players that have tried out for that position.
Pearson’s consistent use of the system has been massively helpful to a team that do look suited to using expansive attacking measures and creativity.
City’s fundamental lack of that, and most other important ingredients which help to win a football match, were missing in its entirety for the first 45 minutes.
As Sam Bell struggled to deal with an overload on his side and provided only misplaced passes and poor touches in his more natural area of the pitch, City’s amalgamated four-man defence with only two out-and-out defenders failed the task without so much as leaving Lord Alan Sugar’s boardroom.
That changed at half-time. It might have been a perfectly angered storm of bellowed annoyance mixed with some exotic spiced tactical changes, but Pearson’s substitutes worked. Jay Dasilva’s ball from the left side travelled along the six yard box behind a wall of invisible glass which stopped the Blues defence from clearing it, only for Alex Scott at right wing-back to pounce in at the far post and score.
From wing-back-to-wing-back, as they say.
Half-time boos
It goes without saying, conceding two goals inside 13 minutes at home to a team that did sit four places below you in the table isn’t a way to get supporters onside. They’ve had a positive month or so when visiting Ashton Gate but some of the old problems and away issues have started to peep their head into the fabric of home performances now.
Drab first-half displays and looking shell-shocked, out of ideas and confused with players holding their necks cradled towards the turf aren’t pictures that fans want painted on the pitch for them come three o’clock each Saturday.
It was as Dan Bentley screamed his anger at his team shortly after conceding to Nico Gordon’s header that the feeling of terminal worry should have started. The captain had senior players in front of him this week, they didn’t respond or even glance back at him. All of them were glassy eyed and focused on trying to become invisible in front of the home fans.
It wasn’t just Bell that needed reassuring and needed protecting, it looked like the entire team were waiting for half-time but they’d only just kicked off. It was nowhere near the scared and fearful displays that became commonplace during the barren home winless run, but the quiet shrink after just two minutes wasn’t the same defiant tone of game that had seen City overcome their struggles at BS3 in more recent times.
That meant that come half-time, the boos that accompanied the players down the tunnel were justified. There was a similar backing track to the full time whistle too, but given the much improved second half, the resentment had somewhat dimmed during the closing stages.
The team still has the backing of the fans, but the opening period against Birmingham was no way to convince anyone coming to watch Bristol City that there are positives despite the lowly league position. Ultimately that comes with watching the team develop throughout the season as this squad has, but it did feel like not too long ago the demons were well clear of Bristol.
That hasn’t completely changed just yet, but with away games at Blackburn and Barnsley next up and City’s weak run on the road, the fans will need more than two points coming back to Ashton Gate in a fortnight’s time if they’re to turn those boos into something more deserving of positivity.
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