Bristol City may not feel wholly comfortable taking their lead from Cardiff City, and Callum O’Dowda for that matter, but the Robins’ Severnside rivals may have helped provide a pathway to success against Stoke City this Saturday.
Stoke drew 2-2 with the Bluebirds last weekend, having led 2-1 at half-time, with the visitors' equaliser finished by Callum Robinson having started from outside their own penalty area after a Potters attack broke down. O’Dowda won the ball, advanced his way towards halfway through a weak press, before Mark Harris, Kion Etete and Romaine Sawyers helped the ball on for Robinson to finish.
It was a fine counter-attacking goal, as Stoke looked deeply vulnerable in transition, and the sort of moment that should enthuse Nigel Pearson and his squad given how potent a force the Robins can be in that department.
With Nahki Wells, Tommy Conway, Cam Pring, Alex Scott and, hopefully, Andi Weimann in the side, plus Antoine Semenyo off the bench, City’s offensive strengths often lie in how quickly they can move the ball from front to back, before utilising the pace of their frontmen.
According to Whoscored, they are the joint league leaders - along with Coventry City - with four counter-attack goals this season. And, based on Stoke boss Alex Neil’s comments in the build-up to Saturday’s contest at Ashton Gate, it’s an area of defending they urgently need to work on but is based on attitude and awareness more than anything else.
“The fact is, when that happens and we gave the ball away, we’ve got every player behind the ball,” Neil said.
“It’s not a structural issue in terms of where we find ourselves on the pitch, we’ve not over-committed. It’s what we do from losing the ball to where the ball ends up in our box. We’ve probably had three or four opportunities to stop the player on the ball going past us, and we don’t take any of them.
“When that happens, and it happens continuously, then it’s going to be an issue. I’m hoping, obviously, that’s going to improve and I’ve spoken about it at length.
“I thought there was one in the first half which is sort of what you want in those moments; we’d just been denied a penalty and they played through us - the only time they had done in the first half - because we started to get a bit frustrated and run after the ball, and Harry (Souttar) left Callum Robinson in a heap in the middle of the pitch and got a booking.
“I’m not asking anybody to go around kicking people but the problem you’ve got is, when they break on you, and you can sense there’s a danger, the ball and man can’t get the wrong side of you. If the ball gets past you, the man stays there, and vice versa.”
Neil has first-hand knowledge of how to beat City this season having been in charge of Sunderland in August when they claimed a 3-2 victory, and 22 days later he left the Stadium of Light to join Stoke.
The Scot is likely to still be without midfielders Josh Laurent and Sam Clucas, while D’Margio Wright-Phillips has been ill, with Neil also pointing towards a bug in the camp, similar to what City experienced last weekend when Jay Dasilva and Zak Vyner couldn’t play against Rotherham United.
"It will be a tough game. I played against them earlier in the season, down there. It was a good game, a really open match. We managed to win 3-2 but it was a proper game," Neil added.
“They open the pitch up, they make it big and they will use the ball well, so we have to make sure that defensively we are sound but equally we carry a threat. I think that was the difference in the game the last time when I played them at the start of the season. It was the fact that we arguably carried the bigger punch than they did.”
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