Bristol City Women

[Eco]

42 minutes ago, Erithacus said:

Another win and another performance that hints that there is a better team in there. There will still be a fresh feel under Steve Kirby and so it will be too early to make any substantial assessment, but a few clues are showing.  Today he started with an unusual selection: three at the back, a free-wheeling midfield, and Woolley and Ward getting starts over Thestrup and Harrison (who were both on the bench). For the most part it dealt with Portsmouth quite easily and had the finishing been a little better we would have wrapped the game up before the break.

Morgan's pace against a flat back four was a constant threat and so it happened early on. She could have made it two shortly after but chose to chip instead of driving. Other efforts could have made the real breakthrough but we didn't quite have enough finese. Struck had a great chance with a header from a corner but was narrowly wide; Harrison wanted to get on the scoresheet with two speculative efforts and Napier will want to have a second chance with a few moves down the left.

But as with the Blackburn game, going one up early doors did not produce a dominant performance. Chances were left begging and slowly the visitors gained confidence, even if they didn't give Bentley much to worry about. But a single goal lead is never solid enough and a simple moment could have spelled trouble - and gained Portsmouth's first point of the season.

I thought Amy Rodgers covered box to box and did lots of hard graft in the middle, stopping opposition raids and making herself available for teammates going forwards. Syme was busy and put herself about well, often being the link player in the middle. With an different front line, there were a few moments when the attacks might have gone in a better direction, but the Pompey back line were clearly set up to be resolute. Later substitutions seemed to cause more disruption in the balance and at the end of the game both sides were guilty of some rash passes and broken play.

But the bottom line is, as ever, a W in the column. That moves us up closer to the top of the table - and the top is pretty congested! I think this team is getting to grips with the new gaffer but there are still a few 'experimental' approaches still to come. If Kirby can read this team properly there could be an exciting run-up to the season. Just wished a few more than the 1,800 crowd turned up.

Struck should have struck with that header. Sorry, I'll get my coat...

[Phantom]

10 hours ago, Erithacus said:

Another win and another performance that hints that there is a better team in there. There will still be a fresh feel under Steve Kirby and so it will be too early to make any substantial assessment, but a few clues are showing.  Today he started with an unusual selection: three at the back, a free-wheeling midfield, and Woolley and Ward getting starts over Thestrup and Harrison (who were both on the bench). For the most part it dealt with Portsmouth quite easily and had the finishing been a little better we would have wrapped the game up before the break.

Morgan's pace against a flat back four was a constant threat and so it happened early on. She could have made it two shortly after but chose to chip instead of driving. Other efforts could have made the real breakthrough but we didn't quite have enough finese. Struck had a great chance with a header from a corner but was narrowly wide; Harrison wanted to get on the scoresheet with two speculative efforts and Napier will want to have a second chance with a few moves down the left.

But as with the Blackburn game, going one up early doors did not produce a dominant performance. Chances were left begging and slowly the visitors gained confidence, even if they didn't give Bentley much to worry about. But a single goal lead is never solid enough and a simple moment could have spelled trouble - and gained Portsmouth's first point of the season.

I thought Amy Rodgers covered box to box and did lots of hard graft in the middle, stopping opposition raids and making herself available for teammates going forwards. Syme was busy and put herself about well, often being the link player in the middle. With an different front line, there were a few moments when the attacks might have gone in a better direction, but the Pompey back line were clearly set up to be resolute. Later substitutions seemed to cause more disruption in the balance and at the end of the game both sides were guilty of some rash passes and broken play.

But the bottom line is, as ever, a W in the column. That moves us up closer to the top of the table - and the top is pretty congested! I think this team is getting to grips with the new gaffer but there are still a few 'experimental' approaches still to come. If Kirby can read this team properly there could be an exciting run-up to the season. Just wished a few more than the 1,800 crowd turned up.

Like you say the important thing was getting a win, but a 1-0 victory against the whipping girls in the league wasn't a great result

In the early stages the balls to Ffion was creating so many problems but then all of a sudden she went deeper and deeper, Bull puts in some real quality crosses from the right but there seemed a real lack of desire to attack the crosses.

For me we play too many defensive midfielders, especially in a game like this, we seemed to be more intent on sitting back on the one goal lead

In the second half Ffion was playing almost as a 5th defender at right back, yeah we had chances but Portsmouth were not far away from creating chances and for some reason Fran doesn't seem as dominant as in the past, we were not far away from making the same mistakes against Blackburn, but this week we were not reliant on a Symes wonder strike.

During the game I was sat with mum of one of the players, I remarked about why our keepers seem to go down so often with muscle injuries, she reckoned we use it as a ploy to take the sting out of the game....interestingly they believed we made a big mistake in letting Yanez leave.

I'm not going to name her, but I was chatting with a couple of the players after the game, and one of them was very open in that the team have no confidence after last season, this was really clear to see on the pitch

Talking to the Pompy Manager after the game he was really frustrated as he believed they should have got at least a point from the game as City played into their hands sitting deeper and deeper into the game.

The league table is starting to look much better and winning our game in hand will be massive, one thing there doesn't appear to be one team that will run away with it this season, but I do have massive concerns about the way we line up etc

One thing it was great so many players enjoyed playing and were all excited about going off to play for their national teams in the coming weeks

[Phantom]

I meant to add, it was a really enjoyable afternoon, I chat to anyone so made some great new friends before, during and after the game 

Two things that I thought the club got wrong, before the game for the majority of the time only one person was serving in the sports bar, whilst he did brilliantly on his own this was poor and a number of people gave up in the queue, only about 30 minutes before kick off did he get any help and by then many people had bought their last drinks before going into the ground 

The other let down was only one kiosk was open at half time, I went down at about the 41st minute, and was surprised how few people were waiting at this point, but as soon as the half time whistle blew it was chaos with so many people queuing, I've never seen queues so long even at a mens game, again people were walking away due to the wait time 

[Eco]

8 hours ago, Phantom said:

Like you say the important thing was getting a win, but a 1-0 victory against the whipping girls in the league wasn't a great result

In the early stages the balls to Ffion was creating so many problems but then all of a sudden she went deeper and deeper, Bull puts in some real quality crosses from the right but there seemed a real lack of desire to attack the crosses.

For me we play too many defensive midfielders, especially in a game like this, we seemed to be more intent on sitting back on the one goal lead

In the second half Ffion was playing almost as a 5th defender at right back, yeah we had chances but Portsmouth were not far away from creating chances and for some reason Fran doesn't seem as dominant as in the past, we were not far away from making the same mistakes against Blackburn, but this week we were not reliant on a Symes wonder strike.

During the game I was sat with mum of one of the players, I remarked about why our keepers seem to go down so often with muscle injuries, she reckoned we use it as a ploy to take the sting out of the game....interestingly they believed we made a big mistake in letting Yanez leave.

I'm not going to name her, but I was chatting with a couple of the players after the game, and one of them was very open in that the team have no confidence after last season, this was really clear to see on the pitch

Talking to the Pompy Manager after the game he was really frustrated as he believed they should have got at least a point from the game as City played into their hands sitting deeper and deeper into the game.

The league table is starting to look much better and winning our game in hand will be massive, one thing there doesn't appear to be one team that will run away with it this season, but I do have massive concerns about the way we line up etc

One thing it was great so many players enjoyed playing and were all excited about going off to play for their national teams in the coming weeks

If the Pompey manager thought they should have got a draw he's deluded! We did back off a tad but still had plenty of good chances 2nd half, can't recall any they had.

I can see last season's results at AG must have shot their confidence but now with consecutive wins they should be more confident and build on it. 

I'd like to see Amy Rodgers get forward a bit more, she has a great shot and scored six goals in each of her last two seasons before joining us. I think Syme & Rodgers are getting a good little partnership going though.

You can spill the beans on which player you talking to, I won't tell anyone   Are the initials AH by any chance?

[Phantom]

33 minutes ago, Eco said:

If the Pompey manager thought they should have got a draw he's deluded! We did back off a tad but still had plenty of good chances 2nd half, can't recall any they had.

I can see last season's results at AG must have shot their confidence but now with consecutive wins they should be more confident and build on it. 

I'd like to see Amy Rodgers get forward a bit more, she has a great shot and scored six goals in each of her last two seasons before joining us. I think Syme & Rodgers are getting a good little partnership going though.

You can spill the beans on which player you talking to, I won't tell anyone   Are the initials AH by any chance?

I think it was more the fact there was only one goal in it 

Wasn't Abi, I'll message you 

[shahanshahan]

On 20/10/2024 at 13:10, Phantom said:

I like the way they put their squad numbers on the team sheet, helps identify the players 

Something the men could learn from 

Ha, I didn't even notice the numbers at first!

[shahanshahan]

9 hours ago, Phantom said:

Two things that I thought the club got wrong, before the game for the majority of the time only one person was serving in the sports bar, whilst he did brilliantly on his own this was poor and a number of people gave up in the queue, only about 30 minutes before kick off did he get any help and by then many people had bought their last drinks before going into the ground 

The other let down was only one kiosk was open at half time, I went down at about the 41st minute, and was surprised how few people were waiting at this point, but as soon as the half time whistle blew it was chaos with so many people queuing, I've never seen queues so long even at a mens game, again people were walking away due to the wait time 

Thanks for raising. I do recall @JerrySLOsaying at the last SC&T meeting about certain staff shortages in regards to bar staff, but I've never seen anything like the examples you have mentioned 

[Kid in the Riot]

Interesting to see the WFC have published a 3 year strategy, which was presented to fans before Sunday's game. I've given it a quick skim read. 

Whilst it's far from comprehensive or perfect, it does at least explain how the club intends to improve and grow.

There are goals, objectives, measures of success, and actual explanations of how they intend on getting there. 

I don't think I've ever seen a document like this for the men's side...

Strategy: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/68944467/bristol-city-wfc-strategy-2024 

 

[petehinton]

“Our maverick and progressive values”. 
 

Kill me. 

[Kid in the Riot]

1 minute ago, petehinton said:

“Our maverick and progressive values”. 
 

Kill me. 

Ha - I did laugh at "maverick". Suppose Gav has to keep the boss happy... 

At least it's something tho. We just getting meaningless, contradictory word salads from BT and JL. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Kid in the Riot

[Phantom]

1 hour ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Interesting to see the WFC have published a 3 year strategy, which was presented to fans before Sunday's game. 

 

Out of interest where and when was it presented? 

[Midlands Robin]

Oooh, a 3 year strategy on how to build and develop. 

Interesting how we waited until we were back in the Women's championship to come up with that. I mean it's not as if they should have had a strategy in place when we were a WSL side. 

Nah, I much preferred watching us getting our arses handed to us on a plate week in week out. 

Great to see we've been picking up wins now but in a league this tight every match is pretty much a 6 pointer. 

As you may be able to tell, I'm still fuming about how the Club let the women's team down last season.