There are a number of things that irk Nigel Pearson in a press conference, many of which you’re now accustomed to as the Bristol City manager approaches his first-year anniversary of being in charge of the Robins.
One particular theme of questioning that continually fails in provoking an answer from the 58-year-old is when his playing career is referenced in the context of modern events and his profile as a coach.
During his time at City, he has rarely romanticised about his 17 years with Shrewsbury, Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough, outside of a few polite and well-meaning statements.
Perhaps it’s due to his desire to not be seen as a one-dimensional football-obsessed bore (when he describes life at a club as “work”, that carries more than one meaning) or that it slips into his own characterisation of being a “miserable bugger” or because he’s simply not someone who dwells on the past, for whatever reason.
A recent case in point being when he sat in the press conference room at Craven Cottage after Aleksandar Mitrovic had demolished his defence, on land, air and probably sea, had it been raining in west London that day.
Bristol Live asked the question, “how would you have defended against him?” to which came back the reply, “that’s not relevant”.
Pearson’s not wrong, it isn’t relevant given he retired from playing 24 years ago and we really should have known better; the defenders at Bristol City are very different from him in terms of characteristics, personality and approach. The passage of time determines that anyway: Tomas Kalas was five, Zak Vyner one and Cam Pring four months old, when Pearson made his final appearance for Boro.
However, as much as the manager dismisses it, these things are relevant because we are all ultimately shaped by our past, as much as we either choose to move on from it, or wallow in nostalgia. Our experiences, direct and indirect, define who and what we are.
To use a pretty crude example, Pearson is a football coach in-part because he was a professional footballer, and those years spent rising through the ranks, his 547 senior appearances and various in-game experiences plus his interactions with so many different managers, teammates and football figures, have, as much as he might not always acknowledge it, have indirectly and directly moulded him.
There is another aspect to this, and perhaps addresses the previous point as to why Pearson chooses to slightly brush over his past as a player, and it’s one of perception.
For those unfamiliar with Pearson during his pomp - and this won’t come as a huge surprise - he was as a centre-back, precisely as you’d imagine: tough, committed, fiercely competitive, unfussy, loyal, consistent and dependable - a defender’s defender.
At the risk of stating the obvious here, with the exception of the loyalty part, you’re probably muttering under your breath, “everything the City team isn’t right now”.
As much as he won’t want to admit it, how the Robins are defending has to cut him deep, beyond the frustration of the result because what is absent is every fundamental of what has made him as a player, and subsequently a coach.
When a man is left unguarded at the far post, the defensive shape resembles a waveform rather than straight line or someone is comfortably beaten in the air, it must resemble something close to a personal attack on his very soul.
Granted, this is doing him a slight disservice because he has shown himself to be considerably more than just a defence-first manager but his reputation, and one he has also promoted, is of an organiser.
That concept isn’t strictly limited to defending but of all the areas on the field that require the utmost sense of structure and understanding of roles within that, is at the back.
You need it in other areas, of course you do, but the characteristics of playing in the final third and through midfield also require an ability to go off-script and improvise when required otherwise you become all too predictable, and easy to play against.
But predictability is welcome in defence. That reassuring movement of three, four or five individuals in unison, aware of their surroundings at all times, and the situation and the relevant counter-measures required to ensure the ball doesn’t go near your own goal.
Likewise, your understanding of your teammates strengths and fallibilities, and adjusting your own game to fit within that collective to maintain your manager’s desire to keep the goals against column as low as possible. You want to make the opponents do all the thinking and problem-solving, not the other way around.
More than just mistakes
It’s pretty clear by now, and has been for much of the season, really, that City are not playing like an organised unit in defence: 58 goals conceded, the third most in the Championship and three clean sheets - the last being on December 4 against Derby County who were, at the time, the league’s weakest attacking side.
In fact, since that 1-0 win over the Rams, the Robins have conceded 48 per cent of all their goals this season, inside just 11 fixtures.
That statistic should, hopefully, slightly temper some of the reaction to Sunday’s loss at Swansea in which, following their 3-1 defeat, Pearson let fire at certain individuals in his team, without naming them, with the implication they were lacking the requisite desire to keep the ball out of the net.
By extension that accusation, supported with evidence in the preceding 90 minutes, also then means in a subconscious sense, to a frustrated fanbase, those individuals may lack the requisite desire to play for the football club.
Logic therefore dictates that the reason City are shipping all these goals is that the players simply aren’t good enough, whether that be in ability or character. “League One standard at best” being the familiar cry.
Maybe that is the case, and time will ultimately bear that out, but it’s also an admission of defeat and also overlooking the fact that City have had an okay defensive record at certain points in the season with many of these individuals involved.
After the first 10 games they ranked seventh overall for goals conceded, after 15 they were 16th and following their 20th game they were 20th. You have to say it’s a deeply worrying downward trend.
There is context, of course. Injuries to Nathan Baker and Rob Atkinson haven’t helped, with the latter also experiencing a loss of form after his illness in October.
Plus the absence of in-game managers Andy King and Matty James has had an undeniable impact on just the general sense of organisation on the field.
But to deride the players culpable at Swansea as simply not being good enough because of their very obvious individual and largely unforced errors, also overlooks other aspects of what constitutes being a “good” defensive team.
Because while you can lambast and lampoon Vyner and/or Jay Dasilva for switching off or Max O’Leary for not commanding his penalty area adequately, they are valid observations but these incidents don’t occur within a vacuum, they are often the result of other influences, most notably the Robins inability to play without pressure.
Only Reading and Peterborough concede more shots per game than City’s 14.1 (it was 14.5 last season), and only the Royals and Posh allow more crosses than the Robins 21 (they ended with 23 in 2020/21).
City have also now overtaken Peterborough for the most goals allowed from open play with 42, while they top the charts - so to speak - for penalties conceded with six.
To deepen the misery, they have conceded 58 goals from an expected goals against of 51.84 - that doesn’t reflect too well on Dan Bentley or, more specifically given his lesser save percentage, Max O’Leary - but even if City had regressed to the mean, as most analytics folk will tell you happens over time, they would still possess the 22nd worst defence in the Championship.
All they’ve done really is the parallel opposite of sugar-coating their numbers; a phrase that probably doesn’t belong in a family newspaper.
These numbers aren’t purely the result of individual mistakes and embarrassing faults, yes, it contributes to the sheer volume of pressure on the City goal, but it’s much bigger than just that.
We’re written a lot of words to reach the conclusion that, irrespective of your opinions of the appropriate tier of the football pyramid [insert applicable player] should be existing, the Robins are currently just a really, really bad defensive team, but ultimately what message does that carry.
Please don’t read between the lines of any subtext around the need for a change of management and all that, that’s not what is being said. But nearly a year into imposing his methods on the squad, admittedly with a sizeable change in personnel five months into his reign, City should be improving as a defensive team, not worse.
The methods of a manager’s desire for organisation tend to be illuminated in a team’s defensive acumen. It’s simplifying it a little, but if the message from the dugout is getting across and being understood, then it’s replicated in how things are going at the back.
Attacking efficiency often takes a little more nuance, and often time, because the chemistry between players is a little more erratic, that’s just the nature of the position. It's cliche, but scoring goals is hard.
In short, if the players aren’t displaying the necessary characteristics of what he wants, is the problem directly and completely with the individuals... or the message itself?
As it stands, it would seem it’s with the individuals and for all that has been mentioned above, it’s hard to offer too much of an argument against that, given the horrors that have been witnessed at Luton, Blackpool and Swansea in recent weeks. People ultimately need to take some responsibility and start to do their jobs.
But there are still 14 games to go before those individuals can be changed, and new ones brought in - if that is the intended solution. And that is a long time for the above numbers to continue to trend downwards.
City are on pace to concede around 83 goals for the season, that would be worse than any of the 24 teams in 2020/21 and 15 more than the Robins allowed in what was viewed at the time as a dismal campaign.
The last time they were in that realm of defensive awfulness was in 2012/13 when under Derek McInnes and Sean O’Driscoll they allowed 84 and finished rock bottom. The previous time to that when they had conceded 80 or more goals in a season was the 1998/99 season under John Ward and Benny Lennartsson when the Robins also finished 24th. It would also constitute their joint seventh-worst season of all time.
What has dug them out of trouble this season, of course, is the attacking record - something that didn’t seem possible through those first 2-3 months of the campaign in which the Robins were tough, obdurate but frustratingly so and seemingly at the expense of other areas of the field.
Pearson therefore deserves significant credit for the development in the final third, a facet of the team’s play that does chime with the concept of incremental progress as a manager’s methods begin to permeate into the squad. It’s been noted by several fans that, for the first time in at least two seasons, City have an element of adventure and fun to their play.
Perhaps that’s why he is so loath to be typecast as a “defender” and why that stereotype shouldn’t be seen as relevant to his management style. But, at the time, you feel it’s a reputation that has also been earned to an extent, and has helped him get to where he is in the game.
And for all the considerations about potentially planning for next season and individuals playing themselves out of a future at the club, definitive improvements, or at very least the signs of such, need to be made in the short-term to avoid further concerns and doubts about the medium to long-term.
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