1st half like watching tippy tappy paint dry. 2nd half got lucky by having one decent player who can actually kick a ball and scraped through another match. Comical defending. Manning is the worst defender I've ever seen and Adams is absolutely pointless. It's going to be a long painful season.

-1

Awful first half. But for Bazunu we could have gone in 2-0 down. Two great saves and they also missed two free headers.

An improved second half with a great goal. Controlled things more and defence restricted City to no serious efforts.

A hard fought win against a tough side. We woke up enough to scrape a win. Russell did change things enough for us to take control.

Unbeaten in ten and won most of them. Can't argue with that even if they've put us through the ringer at times.

Cardiff will be tough on Saturday.

3

Moved back up to 4th in the league, unbeaten in 10, clean sheet and a lot of SFC fans still appear very very unhappy. Struth.

6

It wasn’t a classic but it was a disciplined performance and one where we increasingly got on top of a difficult opponent.

In the first half Bristol City nullified any ability to play through the lines by holding a very high line, effectively squeezing the space for the likes of Stu and Charley to operate. That’s why the Saints play appeared without any forward ambition. At one point the two back lines were less than 25 yards apart.

Credit Russell Martin who adjusted things at half time by pushing the full backs higher up the pitch and asking Che and Arma to repeatedly make runs in behind. This forced the City back line back and allowed more space for Alcaraz in particular to influence more going forward.

Credit to Bazunu for a couple of great saves in the first half and a sublime goal from KWP.

Some Saints fans need to realise that RMs tactics require the team to control the match and at times that needs to be earned by working out the opposition and tweaking the approach. We will not see the wide open all out attack of the first few games of the season which might have been more entertaining but was less effective at getting results. Ten games unbeaten speaks for itself.

8

Deserved, even if not fully convincing.

Best game I have seen Gavin play.

6

Saints dominated and outclassed a poor, 'agricultural', Bristol, who defended with two narrow lines. Despite this they should have scored from two free headers at the far post and a break. Our defending down the wings, especially on the right-hand side is pitiful at times. KWP may be excellent in going forward but he's a poor defensive right-back and can leave us horribly exposed.
Bazunu also made two two terrific saves one from one of the headers and the second from a break. The latter was focus and braveness personified, reaching low to his left to whip the ball away from the attacker's foot. As someone else said, it was the best game I've seen Baz play, although, to be honest, he didn't have anything else to do.
KWP scored a great goal cutting in from the right, as he does, unleashing an accurate curling shot beyond a diving keeper into the left-hand side of the goal.
The two central defenders played well and were covering well for each other. Manning went off injured but his performance was uneventful. Sulemana also went off with what looked like a pulled achilles tendon, again up to this point he flattered to deceive. I thought there were good performances from Downes and especially Adam Armstrong - always running, trying to pierce the defence and he laid off the ball to KWP for the goal. Stuart Armstrong wasn't as threatening as in recent games and so it was left to Adam and Karl to be the creative inspirations. In fact, AA was my MOTM.

2

Agree with pretty much everything said with the exception of Mannings performance being "uneventful".
He gave the ball away twice leading to breakaways that could easily of resulted in conceding goals. it was only brilliant defending from team mates that baled him out.

1

I don't understand the abuse that Manning receives. Although I would prefer to see Bree at left back I thought Manning played really well last night. I recall one misplaced pass (they were all guilty of that) and some great last ditch defending, especially just before he went off when he ran the length of the pitch to cover for KWP. Give the bloke a break FFS.

1