Bristol City fan's view: McCombe's lack of pace exposed

Bristol City fan's view by Matt Withers:

I was massively disappointed with the performance against Derby County on Saturday and of course in the result, but equally disappointing was the reaction of our Captain Jamie McCombe in the 53rd minute following a scuffle with Derby County striker Rob Hulse.

Hulse beat McCombe on the byline and was subsequently fouled by the big centre half, Hulse responded by chucking the ball at Jamie and the two then went head-to-head and when they touched heads McCombe fell to the ground like he had been shot from a grassy knoll in Dallas.

At 6' 5" it should take an awful lot more to make Jamie fall over and his play acting and holding of his face was worthy of a booking at the very least. There is an argument to say that for this type of cheating and make no mistake that's what it was; a red card should be the punishment.

It was no surprise to anyone that within minutes Hulse again beat McCombe for pace and the crude body check that followed was punished with a second yellow and subsequent red. As a squad player I rate Jamie but in a flat back four and against Championship strikers with pace, Jamie is going to get found out. Derby went into yesterdays game on the back of four straight defeats and had been unable to keep a clean sheet at home and were actually very poor and yet could have scored five or six goals in the second half.

I don't want to keep labouring the point but at the moment our formation is not creating enough and we are not playing players in their best positions. I cannot for the life of me understand why Marvin Elliott is being played on the left of mid-field. Marvin is as he has shown in the last two seasons an excellent central mid-fielder and yet he is being employed in a position, which doesn't suit him or the team.

The current team selection is baffling and gives the conspiracy theorists the ammunition that the selection is designed to accommodate Lee Johnson. I don't agree with that but do feel that Gary has to decide on his best central midfielders.

Gary may argue that if we had tucked away the two early Saborio chances that things would have looked differently but the facts speak for themselves. We once again have a minus goal difference and quite simply are not creating enough chances.

Nicky Maynard is a striker on form and yet we are not giving him the right ammunition.

Things need to change and quickly. I think we should go back to 3-5-2 and I would play Nyatanga, Fontaine and Carey, with McAllister, Sno, Hartley, Elliott and Orr. Upfront I would play Saborio and Maynard.

On the bench we would have options in Haynes, Clarkson, Skuse, Johnson, Williams and Sproule to liven things up if we need to.