No win at Ashton Gate since 1965 - a record that was rarely threatened as the South West big spenders lifted their game after their poor start to the season and saw the Tigers off in impressive style.

Bah. Frustration on a grey afternoon of drizzle in the Western port made grand through slaving and tobacco and its football club lately laid low by the avarice of ambition. Bristol City looked a neat and well-organised passing side with occasional injections of flair going forward, but they looked closer to the humdrum model that sat below mid-table before this fixture than the turbo identified pre-season as warm favourites to lift the Division 3 title. The frustration was that the Tigs looked so feeble. Had we unveiled the confidently incisive style of football that greeted this August’s early season sunshine, then we would have got some reward from this game. Instead we looked half-hearted and proved second-best all over the pitch. And lost – deservedly.

We lined up:

Myhill
Joseph Cort Delaney Dawson
France Junior Keane Green
Elliott
Facey

Well, no we didn’t, not really. It emphatically wasn’t a 4-4-2, because poor Facey was left all on his lonesome up front, and scarcely got a peek at the football all half. But nor was it a 4-5-1 as I understand it, because in that sort of set-up the midfield five are supposed to combine, compose and create, and we didn’t get a sniff of that. Elliott was the furthest forward of the "people in our team who weren’t Facey", but never seemed to settle into whatever role had been concocted for him, France was woeful down the right – he carried no threat going forward and was left haplessly scrambling for defensive position as often as not – while Keane, at least, continued his admirably consistent vein of form. Yup, he gave the ball away lots, took up poor positions to receive the ball, tackled with minimal conviction and looked criminally unfit.

It was almost as if the team didn’t really understand the fundamentally defensive formation that had been imposed them. As if, say, the manager had not been around much in the last few days to talk them through it on the training pitch because he’d been off somewhere else instead of doing his well-paid job as manager of Hull City.

As if, say, I walked glumly out of Ashton Gate at 5 to 5 yesterday and didn’t reach my home less than 100 miles away until quarter past 10, thanks to spending only a few minutes shy of three hours stuck fast in a jam between junctions 17 and 18 on the A4.

Yeah, I’m not feeling in the best of moods as I share my thoughts on yesterday’s action with you, but, really, the absence of Ashbee as leader should not result in such an insipid display by those that remain.

Yesterday, it did.

A cagey beginning gave way to a cagey first half. Not much to report, not much between the teams, though what there was had to be swallowed unpalatably as Advantage Bristol. If our odd formation was designed to provide the basis for midfield to link with attack, it was startlingly ineffective. If – as seems more likely – it was designed to squash Bristol’s attacking ambition through sheer suffocation of numbers, it had some merit, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent the home side’s patient passing game slowly getting the better of the play. A low shot tested Myhill to his right. Murray, arriving at the back post, headed over our bar from a cleverly chipped pass, and his momentum took him off the turf and into the hoardings in front of the 700-or-so City fans grouped under cover behind the goal. Murray grinned. Nervously. We growled. I tell you, football’s gone soft. Time was, we’d’ve strung up an opponent for less. Remember 1936, the burning of the New Brighton ‘keeper? (subsequently immortalised in the Wicker Man). The elephant trap that saw off the entire Glossop North End team in 1907? (Zulu). Roary getting a thorough and generous penetration at Macclesfield five or so years ago? (Confessions of a Nurse).

Bristol are plundering gold down the flanks, especially on our right side where France is toiling and too much is asked of Joseph as cover. On 33, Bell scoots clear of France and a low shot flashes across the face of the goal and out beyond the far post. We are strictly second best, and only Green, skilful and eager for possession, looks likely to bring us any joy.

We’ll be fortunate to get in at half-time level, and we don’t. A neat little chip leaves our defensive cover agape, and Brooker, newly signed from Port Vale and already on the mark for them against us earlier this season, leaps high and heads the ball deftly down into the ground and just inside the far post, with Myhill helpless. Delaney lost his man, and that’s disappointing, but it was slick attacking and a brilliantly executed piece of finishing.

I sneer at those whose first reaction to a couple of bad games is to demand new signings. That’s the way football used to be. That’s the way to perdition in the style of Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United. The proper way to progress is to spend money you’ve got. No more. Mr Pearson knows this. Mr Taylor spent his attacking money on Wilbraham, Barmby and Facey and that’s his lot: that’s what he’s got to work with. But I can’t deny that as I watched Brooker yesterday, the very model of the bustling, honest, thoroughly competent lower Division forward, I reflected again that though our manager’s record at the club is hugely in credit, he really did not have a good summer’s shopping.

The second-half. An immediate change. France off, Allsop on.

Not-very-super-at-all-this-campaign Dan heads off up front to join the friendless Facey, and we have settled back into a comfortable old 4-4-2. It suits us. On 50 an intelligent Dawson cross is met by Facey, who heads the ball firmly back across the face of the goal. Phillips, in the Bristol goal and possessor of an uncommonly peculiarly shaped head, hesitates and is

lost: the only question is whether Facey’s header will enter the net directly or whether Allssop will swoop to bundle it the last couple of inches over the line.

Neither. The ball eludes the agonised Alsop and then trundles away shaving the wrong side of the far post.

It’s a sign we’re livelier, and it’s soon followed up by an equaliser. Green prods a hopeful ball forward and Facey’s muscle takes him clear of his marker. Keeper Phillips obligingly goes to ground woefully early and Facey joyously lamps the ball over him and into the roof of the net. 1-1, the exultation of relief, and a sense of good luck.

For we didn’t deserve to be level on the overall balance of play.

So what now? The home side will attack with renewed vigour, and we will defend sturdily, hold onto the point and see if we can hit them on the break later on.

That’s what the textbook says. And Bristol did their bit. We didn’t do ours.

A couple of minutes later a ball is knocked to the back of our box where Brooker rises powerfully to head the ball square. Wilkshire, deep inside our box, has time to control the ball, with his back to our goal, then turn and fire a firm shot past the exposed Myhill. Shockingly sloppy defending at any time, but doubly lamentable coming at a time when we’d just clawed our way back into a game that was slipping away from us.

It’s slipped away from us now, though we certainly have enough possession to think periodically about a second equaliser in the half-and-hour that remains to play. Only, however, after a horror five or so minutes that follow Bristol’s second goal. A goalmouth melee – we narrowly survive.

Delaney passes confidently across the face of his own box straight to the surprised feet of Lita, who is slow to accept his gift. Then Brooker sprints clear, squares unselfishly to Lita who forces a magnificent diving save from Myhill. Our defence seems to have lost its collective nerve (our splendid goalkeeper aside), and there must be a strong case for re-connecting Joseph and Delaney in the centre. That, I suppose, depends on whether Thelwell is fit or Hinds judged good enough to risk again at right-back.

We’ve not given up. A Keane cross is nudged on at the near post by Alsop, but Junior, arriving at the far post, is flagged offside. Even though the flag was waved behind his back and about two seconds after he’s made contact with the ball, Junior, a wily old professional and arch showman, shows he is well aware of the infringement and instead of tucking the ball into the net prefers instead to entertain the City fans with his celebrated comedy "how to miss horribly from a yard out" routine. How we laughed!

Price comes on for Keane and, in an unrelated incident, Bristol make it 3-1.

A corner, a header. It loops into the net. It’s rotten defending.

We finish rather brightly, but that’s come too late to matter. Green was the only player who took real credit from the first half. Myhill and Dawson were fine over the 90. Alssop looked livelier than of late when he arrived for the second half, and Facey perked up when got a bit of company. The rest ranged from "maybe just about OK if you were feeling generous" to "poor, really poor". Someone will doubtless produce statistics to demonstrate whether I am right in suspecting that our results – and our performances – deteriorate the closer our games fall to England U-21 games, but our manager’s contradictory workload doesn’t look to me an arrangement that can endure indefinitely. So we will need a new manager. Surely we should hire an experienced old hand and a young up-and-coming manager who can be groomed for the top job. That’s the way it’s always done in football, isn’t it? How about John Bond/ Tony Cottee? Or Danny Bergara/ Scarlett O’Hara? Tony Jacklin/ Colin Montgomerie? Ron Atkinson/ Theodore Whitmore? Terry Dolan/ Mark Hateley? How bad were your nightmares last night?

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Joseph, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; France, Lewis, Keane, Green; Elliott, Facey.  Subs: Allsopp (for France, 45), Price (for Keane, 78), Walters, Edge, Hinds.

Goals: Facey 54

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

BRISTOL CITY: Phillips, Coles, Butler, Hill, Bell, Murray, Orr, Tinnion, Wilkshire, Lita, Brooker.  Subs: Fortune (for Wilkshire, 72), Brown (for Tinnion, 86), Amankwaah (for Murray, 88), Heffernan, Gillespie.

Goals: Brooker 38; Wilkshire 58; Butler 85

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: R Olivier

ATTENDANCE: 12,011