THEPRESSBOX Alarm bells clang as City sink back into drop zone
MCCANN’S MEN FATALLY UNDERMINED BY INABILITY TO GET A GRIP ON THE BASICS OF DEFENDING - AGAIN
mark did throw a lifeline to a team that kept on battling until the last whistle but there was always something insufficient about City’s response. The quality, again, was missing when it mattered most.
This nagging sense of déjà vu leaves the Tigers deep in trouble with the games running out.
The current position of 22nd might be misleading given the punishment Wigan are facing once the season concludes but the Latics, Luton and Barnsley are eyeing up City as the ailing team to overtake.
And why wouldn’t they? That dramatic victory over Middlesbrough last week remains the only time City have won in 16 league games since New Year’s Day and both Wigan and Luton have the Tigers left to play.
Five or six points, taking the Tigers up to a half century, would surely be enough to safeguard another season in the Championship but City are staggering around unconvincingly as the finishing post draws into sight.
Mccann might still believe that this season will find a happy ending but his disciples have no end of doubts again.
This, lest we forget, was a date with an opponent in worse form than City. The Robins have not won in nine games to see their season unravel and bring about the sacking of Lee Johnson at the weekend.
Motivation was supposed to be in short supply for a team that has surrendered any realistic hope of reaching the Championship play-offs, aside from impressing would-be successors to Johnson and salvaging scraps of pride. Yet even Bristol City had the Tigers’ number, exploiting the defensive failings that have triggered this almighty collapse in 2020.
It was goals conceded either side of halftime that ultimately did for Mccann’s side. The first continued the pattern of making life far more difficult than it needed to be, as statuesque figures stood and watched Diedhiou open the scoring.
A cross was only half cleared to Paterson on the edge of the box and his clever pass was all it took to send Diedhiou clear to score high past George Long.
The Senegalese striker was the man to break City’s hearts in injury time when meeting at Ashton Gate last season and he was again the scourge of a defence that included Angus Macdonald as an unconvincing makeshift right-back.