My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Actually, he is no commander but boy did our own Max give a Gladiatorial performance, that saw Bristol City claim a hard earned point away at Middlesbrough.
I’d picked up a similar influenza bug that had swept through the club and I’ll admit to having woken up on Saturday morning not looking forward to the four-and-half-hour-plus drive to the Riverside. After reaching Teesside, we stopped for some light refreshment on the way to the ground and after the teams were announced an hour before kick-off, all the talk in the pub was of formations.
With Jay Dasilva and Mark Sykes dropping to the bench, how would Nige set up? Surely, after his man-of-the-match performance on Tuesday night at home to Sheffield United, Alex Scott wouldn’t be deployed as right wing-back. In the warm-up, we were defending in a flat four with Cam Pring left, Zak Vyner and Timm Klose in the middle and indeed Scott right.
When we kicked-off, Matty James dropped into the back, and I was even more confused. As it was almost immediately, we settled into a back three of Pring, Klose and Vyner with Andi Weimann at left wing-back and Antoine Semenyo right wing-back.
It was a bold move, lining up in an attacking formation but for me despite the point it didn’t work. Make no mistake, had it not been for the heroics of Max O’Leary, we would have been on the end of a heavy defeat. Semenyo was all at sea in a position I doubt he has ever played, and he afforded Vyner very little support. That said for some reason, Zak was constantly narrow and was playing more in the centre of the three than the right. The back three all got pulled across and that left gaping holes in the back, that Middlesbrough exposed time and time again.
Zak had a poor afternoon but let’s be honest he has been arguably our most consistent defender, and Klose didn’t cover himself in glory. Thankfully, Pring was at the level needed. I just couldn’t understand why it wasn’t being addressed. Why wasn’t the message coming from the manager and his coaches?
Why didn’t the experienced pros in the team, the likes of Klose, Weimann and James, not pick up on it? Why didn’t Zak have a word with Antoine? In the end three-quarters of the way through the first half, he swapped Weimann and Semenyo and it did improve ever so slightly.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom; we opened the scoring with a brilliant pacy counterattack. Scott won the ball and went on a typically mazy, driving run and fed the ball out wide to Weimann. He took the ball inside and found a screaming Tommy Conway inside right. I expected Tommy to shoot but he showed his maturity and football intelligence, playing a through the eye of a needle pass back to Weimann who just had to control his shot into the net. It was a great goal.
Boro kept driving forward and Max was like a one-man wall. One save in particular was brilliant, throwing a right hand up and pushing the ball over the bar. This performance was very like his heroics away at Aston Villa a number of years ago.
At half-time Chris Kamara, a local Boro lad was introduced to the crowd. ‘Kammy’, the former professional player, manager, and Sky Sports football analyst is suffering from a condition called speech apraxia and was applauded from all sides of the ground, and it’s a measure of the man that he called out a special wave to the travelling City fans, citing that we had come a long way. Class, Kammy. Boro also showed their class, highlighting the great work that our club does in providing meals for the homeless. The club dropping over meals from the team’s hotel dinner to RiversideUK.
Having recognised the need to swap Weimann and Semenyo, unbelievably we started the second half with the original formation. Within a couple of minutes, Boro were level. It was our throw-in and as we seem to do so often, we just threw it up the line to Nahki Wells who had next to no chance of winning it in the air.
James got caught the wrong side and the ball was swept wide. Vyner was narrow again and when he did get out, his attempted block deflected the ball into Chuba Akpom who got to the ball in front of Klose and swept it past the helpless O’Leary.
To their credit, City didn’t fold, and we stayed in the game, on a number of occasions we got possession back but gave it away and so we were constantly defending. Dasilva replaced Semenyo and with less than 10 minutes to go, academy youngster Joe Low made his debut for the side. Max O’Leary had to make another couple of good saves, but we held out and got a good point.
Our 3 Peaps In A Podcast Bonus show ratings were: Max O’Leary 9 *MotM, Zak Vyner 4, Timm Klose 5, Cameron Pring 8, Andi Weimann 7, Antoine Semenyo 5, Alex Scott 7, Matty James 6, Joe Williams 5, Nahki Wells 6, and Tommy Conway 7 (subs have to have come onto the field before the 60th minute).
A game average of 6.09 and a season average of 6.20. For Nigel it’s a 5, the attacking line-up didn’t work and defensively we were suspect, and it didn’t get addressed.
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