Bristol City fan's view: Home draws have dented City's play-off ambitions

Bristol City fan's view by Matthew Withers: The 1-1 draw against Preston North End was the 11th time this season that Bristol City have had to share the points at home.

That tells its own story and will, I fear, be one of the reasons why we fail in our attempts to get into the promotion shake-up.

The performance against Preston was typical of what I have come to expect, great approach play and some nice one-touch football but not enough of a threat on the opposition goal.

Without stating the all-too-obvious, to win games you need to score goals and to score goals you need to take shots and for me this is something we do not do enough of.

In terms of efforts on goal, how many came from the midfield four of Lee Johnson, Cole Skuse, Michael McIndoe and Ivan Sproule? I'm struggling to remember too many, and none that tested the keeper.

We have two full-backs with decent power in their shots (although they are not always the most accurate) but neither seems to be encouraged to have an effort at goal. Our approach and positional play often creates the space for an attempt on goal. There were a few times when the option of a shot was ignored.

While another home draw was disappointing, a major plus for me was the form of Ivan Sproule. He has added some real attacking quality to his pace and also showed some intelligence in his delivery, one particular example was a ball pulled back to Nicky Maynard, which almost led to an opener in the first half.

Sproule has often flattered to deceive in his City career, but of late he has showed glimpses of what he is capable of, and he needs to take his end of season form into next season.

I have to say that in what many considered to be a must-win game, City did not go for it a little more and throw caution to the wind.

After deservedly taking the lead City once again sat back and were inviting the pressure on. True, you cannot legislate for Bradley Orr's needless concession of a corner or for Dele Adebola's slack marking, but we should have been pushing for a second goal and the action should have been at the other end of the field.

I was surprised and disappointed at the way the management team approached the last 20 minutes. The first substitution was made on 84 minutes, with Sproule surprisingly being taken off for Gavin Williams. The next change was to see

Marvin Elliott then replaced Johnson and Lee Trundle replaced Maynard, both in injury-time.

I cannot understand the thinking behind these changes, made way too late into the game to have any impact.

Why with 15 minutes remaining did we not bring Elliott on for Cole Skuse? Skuse had another good game but Elliott poses more of a goal threat and to the same effect, why not bring Williams on for Johnson.

I would also have taken the ineffective McIndoe off for Trundle or removed one of the full-backs. Why in a must-win game did we leave it until five minutes from time to make a change?

Bristol City are now five points behind the final play-off place and Swansea's draw against Cardiff City saw the Robins slip a place to ninth.

As an aside, congratulations to Paul from Whitchurch, who correctly spotted my deliberate mistake in last week's column, pointing out that Birmingham City completed the double over us in September and March. Cheers, Paul.