Trouble at Home Millwall 0 - Bristol City 2

A lacklustre and tired performance ……

A depressing article to write after a 0-2 home defeat at The Den at the hands of Bristol City and I don't think I got off my seat once in the whole game. I certainly wasn't my usual vocal self because I knew from the word go where we were off the pace. I could just tell, so I didn't really have a lot of emotion invested in the game and I was waiting for the inevitable and it inevitably came. The reason is, to my mind, because we didn’t have a serious play maker on the pitch last night or if we did, he was in the wrong position. I think we need to start Aaron Connolly in the middle behind a front man and the reason I say that is that if the centre-mids or the CDMs can pass the ball to him, he holds the ball up well with his back to the opposition goal, he turns, he gets his head up and he passes the ball forward. It's as simple as that's its all you have to do. But having said that, its also a tricky thing to do. You need skill to do it You need composure on the ball and you need a certain amount of physical strength. You certainly need a good first touch and you need a bit of vision and those things are in very short supply it seems at Millwall. Ivanovic had one of his poorer games. Apart from being able to score a goal, which obviously is vital, he has to be more than just a finisher. He has to be an outlet. He has to give his team something to pass towards and he has to be able to hold it up. So without an effective number 9 and without an effective number 10 we are snookered we’re not going anywhere. Also defensively Crama is out of position and Tanganga is also out of position. We need Tanganga to go at right back and Crama in the centre. Crama was well out of his depth trying to run his flank. He's not a Ryan Leonard and for me Harding would possibly do a better job at right back if Tanganga needs to play in the middle. As such I wasn't entirely sure about the team that went out there last night our midfield is very ineffective it seems that we didn't win hardly any second ball and you just can't win a match doing that. You also cannot win a match if our style of play is setting up to defend and hitting teams on the break - because of our lack of composure on the ball in the midfield. I don't think counter - attacking football is the right way to play at home because if you set up like that and if you're not playing possession football, if you go a goal down, you're more or less beaten because you don't have enough of the ball to get back in the game.

When it was one - nil down, that was it for me last night. It was game over. So a very, very depressing watch but that's the life of a supporter to take the highs and lows as they come. The crowd was very low in attendance last night. One of my friends made a remark that James Berylson was at the game last night and if he saw all those empty seats (which of course he did), he'd think, well, was it time to pull out of the club because without bums on seats what are we I mean, we're nothing, are we ? We're not a premiership team, premiership sides don't really worry about seasons ticket holders because they're seen as a drain on the commodity of football they're happy to just sell their tickets to anyone who wants them supporter or not, but we rely on season ticket holders turning up - low attendances are no good for the club and no good for the team. But it all stems from the pitch really and what fans see being played on the park. On the other hand it's not all lost, we are exactly mid-table (12th), but we do need to have a playmaker on the pitch and we need some decent coaching of our forward players, we need to emphasise the absolute basics of football play simple keep the ball on the ground stop the head tennis in the middle of the pitch - get the ball down on to the carpet play it to feet, hold the ball up - look for your team mate and pass the ball, move the ball forward. So we're going to Watford on Saturday hopefully we can produce a result there.

COME ON YOU LIONS