ERRORS PROVE COSTLY
THIS was not the Stoke City home performance we had come to expect under Michael O’neill.
The manager went for continued solidity by sticking with a back three but saw his side pretty much concede more chances than in their three previous matches of this season combined. There were individual mistakes too.
Nakhi Wells, just before half-time, and Andi Weimann, just before full-time, scored two perhaps deserved goals for a Bristol City team that has now won four out of four; two in the league and two in the cup.
At the other end, Stoke couldn’t create enough problems, couldn’t build up pressure and never really looked like scoring.
Bristol City defended set pieces well enough and bar from watching a deflected shot from Tommy Smith nip just over, keeper Daniel Bentley could have had the afternoon off.
“We’re very disappointed with the result and we’re disappointed with some aspects of the performance as well, particularly in the opening 15 to 20 minutes” said O’neill.
“We didn’t start the game well and the opposition did. They were definitely the better team in that period.
“We got to grips with the game from 20 minutes on but then concede a really poor goal just before half-time – we lost the ball in our own half, it leads to a cross from the opposite side, we don’t win a header at the back post and it ends in the back of the net.
“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb which ultimately in the second half we weren’t able to do.
“Probably a little better game management would have helped us. If we’d have got in at half-time at 0-0, if we had the ascendancy we had then it would have been different searching for a way to win rather than to get back level.”
O’neill made seven changes from the side which beat Wolves or, perhaps more pertinently, one change from the league game at Millwall.
In came Jacob Brown after two impressive cameos to take the place of Tyrese Campbell and start alongside Sam Vokes. But Stoke were warned from the first minute that