Sam Bell will quite rightly take a lot of the plaudits after his two brilliant goals and excellent display in the FA Cup fourth round victory over West Brom but Nailsea's finest, unbelievably, wasn’t my man of the match. That went to our Magnificent Seven.
I witnessed a performance from Alex Scott that belied his years and was one of the most impressive displays that I have seen from a Bristol City player in more than 45 years of watching the club.
Scott’s dribbling of the ball, his passing, his composure and his all-round play was simply sensational and quite rightly all sides of the ground rose as one to applaud him as he left the field on 86 minutes. Even a couple of the Baggies players shook his hand as he made his way off.
For the first time ever since doing player ratings in our 3 Peaps In A Podcast, Scott was awarded a 10, the Holy Grail of our scoring. Some will feel it’s over emotional but let’s not forget this is a 19-year-old who was up against a West Brom midfield that included Okay Yokuslu who completely dictated and dominated the game in the Baggies' league victory at the Gate a month ago.
So much of what I have seen on social media was about Scott. The little back-heel flick that he pulled off in the second-half was worth the money alone.
Nigel Pearson won’t get carried away and neither will Scott himself, he just loves to play and clearly, as I said about Antoine Semenyo, has a great family and support network around him, but boy is this lad special. We have seen periods of games last season and this where Alex has been very good but not for the full game (appreciating he came off seven minutes before the end).
He won the midfield battle and was the best player on the pitch. I will be amazed if we don’t receive bids for Scotty before the transfer window closes but, unlike with Antoine, we don’t have to sell. He is under contract until 2025 and so we don’t have the worry that his value will decrease by the summer and in fact on Saturday's showing, it will only increase. Alex has set the bar and now needs to string this type of performance over a consistent period of games.
I saw a post on social media where someone commented about some people not thinking Scott is worth £25m. A post that saw Brian Tinnion respond with £40m and a thumbs up emoji. Tinns knows.
While Scott and Bell were superb, this was very much a team performance. From back to front every player contributed and we deserved the victory against Carlos Corberan’s side. There were no surprises in the starting line-up with, as expected, Bell coming in for Semenyo (who we all wish well on his Premier League adventure) and Jay Dasilva earning a recall for the suspended Cameron Pring.
Bell loves the FA Cup it seems, after his third round heroics away at Swansea City, Belly was at it again. A short corner routine looked to have come to nothing as Matty James returned Bell’s pass into the area but the West Brom defence failed to react and Bell raced onto the ball before firing a curling right footed effort into the roof of the net. It was a fabulous finish.
Bell and Nahki Wells were combining well with Scott pulling the strings behind. Just as the 30-minute mark approached City doubled their lead with Scott getting his first goal of the season after some fine play by Wells feeding Mark Sykes whose perfect cross was fired home by a sliding Scott.
The Baggies looked shell-shocked but aside from a couple of nearly moments the City back line, superbly marshalled by Zak Vyner, stood firm.
The best was yet to come in the second half with Bell’s second. Sykes again did well to feed George Tanner on the right, who took a touch and spotted Bell’s run and sent over a perfectly weighted cross which Sam controlled superbly with his left before dinking the ball over David Button in the Baggies goal with his right. It was a finish of real class.
West Brom threw everything at it, but Max O’Leary was in impervious form, making a couple of top class saves to shut them out. With Daniel Bentley departing for Wolves, Max is the No1 and now has the chance to be that for years to come. Bentley was superb for City and it’s shame to see him go but again finances will have played a part and we all wish him well.
There was more good news with academy players Omar Taylor-Clarke and Marlee Francois coming on to the pitch, with Francois playing in his first game in over a year following injury.
The club receive a welcome £120,000 in prize money for getting through and have the mouth-watering prospect of a fifth round tie against one of the big boys. A place in the quarter finals beckons and is long overdue for City.
The last time we made it was back in March 1974 after beating Leeds United in a replay at Elland Road after a 1-1 draw at home. Government regulations demanded that all but ‘essential’ industries switched to a three-day week, while homes were regularly hit by power cuts and so the game against Leeds United kicked off at 2pm.
Donnie Gillies scored the winning goal in the 73rd minute, making national headlines and helping City achieve the impossible, beating a Don Revie team regarded as one of the best in the world. Sadly, we went on to lose to Bill Shankly’s Liverpool, the eventual winners, in the quarter-finals.
We have two days left of the January transfer window and I would be really disappointed if we did not see a couple of new additions to the squad. The sale of Semenyo will allow some wiggle room with financial fair play and, with a number of injuries, it’s clear that we are down to the bare bones.
It’s imperative that we remain in the Championship and a striker, midfielder and centre half will be important to ensure the end of the season that we all want.
All of that said, it isn’t just about bodies and so the players have to be an improvement on what we have and provide real competition and quality to the squad. In Tinns and Nige we trust.
“Oh, his names Alex Scott and he is so wonderful, he gets the ball, oh it’s beautiful, magical. When he runs down the wing, he’s as fast as lightning, it’s frightening, and he makes all the City sing. Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah”….
Our 3 Peaps In A Podcast Bonus show ratings were: Max O’Leary 8, Zak Vyner 8, George Tanner 8, Rob Atkinson 7, Jay Dasilva 8, Kal Naismith 8, Alex Scott 10 *MoTM, YES 10, Matty James 8, Mark Sykes 8, Nahki Wells 8 & Sam Bell 9 (subs have to have come onto the field before the 60th minute). A game average of 8.18, the highest of the season. For Nigel it’s an 8, arguably the best 90+ minutes performance in his tenure.
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