Kal Naismith insists he won’t compromise his playing principles even after a number of high-profile mistakes have blighted what has been an encouraging start to life in a Bristol City shirt.
Assessing Naismith’s first 10 games for the Robins is a complicated process; the Scot has brought so much to City’s build-up play, added creativity in the final third, especially from set-pieces, and brought significant communication and leadership at the back. But that’s been tempered by four major mistakes that have directly led to goals for the opposition - all of which have cost City points. Six in total, that could have elevated them all the way into the automatic promotion places.
There’s no secret to why it happens. Naismith’s high risk-reward approach of getting on the ball and trying to play through the lines, rather than instinctively hitting aimlessly into the channels, or clearing into the stands, opens up the possibility for unforced errors to occur.
By the 30-year-old's own admission, in an interview on BBC Radio Bristol's Sound of the City, it’s left him annoyed, but also slightly perplexed because he wasn't committing such blunders during his brilliant season for Luton Town last term.
“My start has been very frustrating, I’ve made a few mistakes that have led to conceding goals and that’s not something I want to do,” Naismith told the BBC. “People are looking at me now and saying, ‘he’s a good player but he takes a lot of chances and can give one or two goals away’. That was never the case last year because I never really made the mistakes I’ve been mistaking, so that’s frustrating for me.
“It’s not so much for the fans - I know they’re understanding - or myself, it’s after games when I’m sitting in the changing room and I’m seeing how much the lads have put into that game and I feel I’ve let them down by making an error.
“Norwich for example, we were outstanding but I just gave us a mountain to climb, I gave us two goals to come back from. We tried our best and we should have got something from the game, that’s how excellent the lads were. That was disappointing for me.
“In possession, I just want to enjoy it. It’s what I’ve done since I was a young kid, always wanting to get on the ball and express myself. I believe that’s when I’m happy so I never want to get away from that. I’ve seen that happen before in my career with players, and maybe they’ll shy away from the ball and not want the ball; if that ever happened to me in my career, I reckon it’d be time to hang up my boots.”
Watching each of his mistakes back - at home to Sunderland and then away at Blackpool and Norwich City - and applying a huge helping of hindsight, obviously taking the easy option of clearing his lines would eradicate such risks, and while Naismith knows he has to bring the percentage down, it’s not going to impact or affect his approach to the game.
It's testament to Naismith's mentality that, as he touches on, even after contributing to the opposition scoring, he's immediately then gone back about his business for City, not letting it affect what he's been brought to the club to do.
The Scot meticulously studies his game, even if in the moment he tries to immediately forget any aberrations, and given how late he's come to the position - having been converted from a winger to centre-back in his late 20s - has so much to learn and improve on.
Naismith also touched on his on-field relationships with his teammates and how, given his understanding of playing in advanced areas, he knows attacking players want their defenders to distribute the ball into feet, rather that ignoring them for an easy out-ball to try and alleviate pressure.
“It’s disappointing at the time,” Naismith added, when asked how he deals with the mistakes. “Being at my age now, footballers make mistakes, I’ve made plenty and my last mistake at Norwich probably won’t be my last one. But I know how to process and deal with it, I just go into a mode, ‘right it’s happened, it’s done, how are you going to perform now?’ And the manager is massive on that, it’s players being men and stepping up.
“Every mistake I’ve made he says to me, ‘do not worry, we brought you to the club to be a man, to be a leader, mistakes happen’. He’s been outstanding with me so knowing I’ve got him with me at the side of the park.
“It’s never for me, feeling sorry for myself, I always feel bad on my teammates for putting so much into the game. In terms of dealing with it, it’s gone straight away.
“I can’t just keep making mistakes and not willing to learn from them, sometimes you have to take it into your own hands as well and assess that - right, why did I make that mistake? Maybe I was a bit too relaxed there? Maybe, in the first 15 minutes in the game, in terms of the Norwich goal, just put it into row Z, we’re away from home, let’s get a solid base.
“Curt (Fleming) is brilliant for that. He’ll pull me in and he’ll say, ‘maybe in this situation do that’. He loves it, he always says, ‘they’ll never score from row Z, the ball being in there’. They don’t want to take away from the fact I play and take chances and I play but maybe the right times in the game, first 15 minutes, last 15 minutes, assess the danger and go from there.
“That’s the way it goes. At the end of the day, I might make 10/15 passes a game that break the lines and get us three or four chances.
“I used to play right wing or No10, and I used to hate when my defenders would never look for me in the pockets. I used to love it when I could get a relationship with a centre-half or a left-back and they’d always look for me, I loved that.
“So now I’m trying to build relationships with Andi Weimann, who pulls into the pockets, Joe Williams, Matty James, in midfield. If I can fire into the striker’s feet, if I can look for the little clip over to Andi Weimann. I want players to enjoy playing with me. There’s been mistakes early on that I need to improve but I’ll never stop trying to play like that.”
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