Bristol City (A) | Schumacher's Reaction
Argyle lost 4-1 at Bristol City on Tuesday, with a performance which manager Steven Schumacher declared ‘not good enough’.
City raced to a 2-0 lead with goals by Sam Bell and Matty James inside the first ten minutes, and although Adam Randell halved the deficit, a Mark Sykes goal put the home side 3-1 up at half-time. Harry Cornick added a fourth in the second period, and save for brief periods of the game, Argyle never really look in contention.
Schumacher felt that not performing some football fundamentals was at the heart of the defeat.
He said: “It was not good enough from start to finish. In the first minute, the first tackle, they won and that continued throughout the whole game. I thought our whole performance, with the ball, we looked shaky and nervous. Without the ball, we just didn't compete.
“If you don't compete and don't do the basics, then you get turned over - and that's basically what's happened. They wanted it more than us tonight and did the basics better than we did, so we got punished.
“It's not like it's rocket science. It's just simple things like competing for second balls in midfield. They won every second ball bouncing anywhere near our centre backs.
“If you don't perform, if you don't compete, if you don't win your battles, don't win 50-50s. then you don't get anything from the game. It's a waste of time playing good football. Forget all that. You don't do the basics properly then you get beat.”
After a hard-fought, narrow 2-1 loss at Preston North End at the weekend, in which his side played very well but just lost out, Schumacher made seven changes to his starting line-up at Ashton Gate.
Nearly 3,400 members of the Green Army had filled the away end, and saw a performance rather not in keeping with the high standards they have set thus far in the Sky Bet Championship season.
Schumacher apologised, saying: “I’m sorry. It was a terrible performance, but a brilliant support again. I don't know what happened. They were shouting: ‘it's embarrassing’ - and it was embarrassing.
“I felt like saying the same thing. In fact, I did say the same thing at half-time.
“The whole performance was poor and didn't get going. We asked for a fast start; we freshened it up to get fresh legs in there. Saturday took a lot out of us, but they looked fitter than us and they made no changes, so it had nothing to do with that either.
“I understand that seven changes sound a lot, but four of the changes are [regular] starters. Dan Scarr’s played nearly every game since being here, Joe Edwards, Adam Randall, Callum Wright the same.
“There should be no drop off there. The three young lads having their first Championship appearance, I'll take it from them if they have a tough night, but the other lads who have played all the time, then no, it's not good enough. It’s no excuse that we have made seven changes. The players that are on there should be able to perform, and they didn't.”
