Robins need more intensity to sort out problems at home

BRISTOL CITY VS QPR, CHAMPIONSHIP Talking points from Bristol City’s defeat to QPR at Ashton Gate, by Gregor MacGregor

AN unwelcome club record was set at the weekend when Bristol City slipped to a fifth consecutive home defeat in the league.

Three players subbed off by the 37th minute indicates that the breaks were not forthcoming for the home side, with Tyreeq Bakinson’s withdrawal later clarified as a “tactical” change.

As the campaign fizzles out into mid-table malaise, there remains the need to build momentum for the next campaign, however, and for Nigel Pearson to show his credentials and earn that longer-term prize. We must see improvement, less it seeps into the summer and even the next campaign, too.

Saturday was deeply uncomfortable viewing, as QPR won at Ashton Gate for the first time since a 3-1 success in September 2012.

Pearson’s analysis afterwards was that his squad are too “passive”. The manager said City are fit enough to play game after game but lacked the will to make Mark Warburton’s side “work hard to score” at Ashton Gate. We completely agree: more intensity is needed. Get in their faces and stay there. They shall not pass and so on.

QPR were afforded time and space in the Robins’ half, and picked out their forward players all too easily.

Casepoint one. QPR were named as the sixth most reliant side on crossing in the second tier this week and the Robins seem to all too quickly forgot the training sessions put on ahead of facing Swansea City aimed at stopping crosses, with Warburton even explaining after the game that his side’s tactic was to get early crosses into the box. So, when Todd Kane was not shut down quickly enough by Steven Sessegnon, or helped out by Nahki Wells, as happened against Bournemouth, what happened next was little surprise. Ilias Chair, the smallest player on the pitch, headed in.

This City squad has conceded the third most goals in the league and that needs quickly rectifying. A genererosity to allow visitors to play in BS3 has been a problem for too long.

This “low-maintenance” side - as the group was assessed as during the week by the manager - is not short of application and is accepting of what is needed. But the right attitude off the pitch is not being being reflected on it: the players are also too accepting of the opposition. More aggression is needed. More physicality, too.

Two more injuries were added to the stockpile here as Zak Vyner and

Adam Nagy suffered head knocks which would have allowed City to make a “concussion substitute” at half-time, according to Pearson after the game.

City have been ravaged by injury for much of this season, but they have had enough about them to win of late elsewhere, if not in south Bristol. Home comforts? This side averages 1.3 points per game on the road, and 1.28 at home.

“We didn’t take the game to QPR enough and make them work hard enough,” said Pearson, after losing to QPR for just his second time in nine meetings with the west London outfit as a manager. “I want us to create a winning mentality that allows us to win games when we’re not playing at our best.”

SET-PIECE ERRORS AGAIN THE Robins had worked on their set-pieces in the run-up to this game, after conceding twice from