When Coventry’s player of the match was their goalkeeper Carl Rushworth, you get the impression that despite losing, Bristol City put in a decent performance and were worthy of a point from Saturday’s clash at the CBS Arena.
That’s the problem with City at the moment. For the most part they are playing well.
But Saturday’s result means they have now only won two of their past nine games and are 12 points adrift of second-placed Middlesbrough who visit Ashton Gate on Saturday.
It is not an absolute must-win game but with two tough away fixtures to follow at West Bromwich Albion and Millwall, further lapses will see them cut adrift from the play-off places in a league table that has become more stretched out after the latest round of fixtures.
City have had three goals disallowed in the past five games and two of those may well have stood had VAR been operating in the Championship.
Last weekend against Millwall saw Zak Vyner’s equaliser chalked off as the assistant referee flagged for an offside against Ross McCrorie as he headed Adam Randell’s raking pass into the path of the City defender.
Then on Saturday, Sinclair Armstrong slotted the ball home for a goal that would have given City the lead but the referee adjudged him to have handled the ball.
Both decisions may have been incorrect and when you add to the fact that City haven’t been awarded a penalty on their travels for almost three years, the Millwall chant of “no-one likes us, we don’t care” could be aimed by the club at the PGMOL, who have apologised more than once in recent times for errors made by matchday officials.
Sandwiched between the Millwall and Coventry defeats though was the thrilling midweek draw against Leicester.
Despite trailing by two goals at the interval, City fought back to level. At the height of the relentless second-half pressure, the Leicester goalkeeper appeared to pick up a head injury which, as the rules demand, brought an immediate cessation to the game.
While being attended to by the physio, the whole Leicester team came across to the technical area for a mid-half team talk from manager Marti Cifuentes – all rather convenient as I saw it and not for the first time this season.
It is another example of taking the dark arts to a new level which is something City appear quite naive at compared to some clubs.