September
Newsfile

Newsfile Archive

Rob Earnshaw celebrated his return from injury by scoring his third goal of the season. This time he hit an unstoppable penalty high into the roof of the next on the stroke of half time. Jason Bowen had been felled in the box and while he took some time to fall to the ground the decision was correct as Brian Tinnion had clipped his heels.

City though lost the lead 10 mins into the second half when Mickey Bell allowed to run in from the wing and see off several challenges before firing a great shot past Neil Alexander.

First half City were passing the ball all over the place. Both teams contributed to a good game of football. City were always poor with their crosses and thats something that must be addressed.

Bristol City had the first chance, a Tony Thorpe header went straight at Alexander on 8 mins. Apart from tipping a free over the bar he did not have to make one more save in the game. The next shot on target was the goal.

Phillips in the Bristol goal led equally a charmed life. A shot from Earnie went wide of the goal and the first real effort direct at goal was the penalty. City went close at the end when Earnie fired over.

Credit is due to both defences who were responsible for there being so few goalmouth incidents. Daniel Gabbidon was again superb for City.

If there were two critisisms I would make they are the tendancy to sometimes overplay the ball (that sounds ripe after complaining about hoofing it forward). The passing was excellent and a joy to watch but I felt we could have played the killer ball a little earlier than we tried.

The second thing was the quality of the crossing. High hanging balls were easily defended by Bristol when the pace of the build up was crying out for the type of whipped in cross that Andy Legg sent over for Bowen to set up Braysons goal in the Brighton game last week.

City went with Thorne, Earnie and Brayson up front but the star was Bowen. The freedom of his role meant he was causing panic all the time in the Bristol defence. They did a good job against him but he did win the penalty and apart from the defensive error that allow Bristol to equalise the Bowen creativity could have won us the match.

The atmosphere was brilliant and the rendition of Men of Harlech to support the boys after they conceeded the equaliser was heart warming.

Nice ground Ashton Gate, quiet home support though.

To sum up it was a much improved team out there. The passing game showed that Ian Atkins had no part in the tactics.

Based on the quality of football on show both teams will do well in the division. Cardiff to their credit stopped Bristol from going top of division 2 and they were in no way outplayed. The draw was fair and the football was fine.

City move up one place to 17th. A win aginst Wigan on Friday will put them upto 13th and only 6 points from 1st place. There's still hope yet.