It’s clear what Nigel Pearson needs to do as Bristol City are left feeling blue

What a difference seven days can make. A week ago, I was waxing lyrically about the controlled, professional victory away at Millwall but after Saturday’s hugely disappointing defeat against Birmingham City, I am really struggling with anything positive to say.

In terms of the starting line-up, I wasn’t too surprised to see Harry Cornick starting over Mark Sykes, especially with the latter undergoing a fitness test, and the former having made an impact at The Den last week.

There was some confusion over Nahki Wells as Wells wasn’t named in the initial matchday squad but that changed and appeared to just be an error in the team announcement, as there he was on the bench and so Sam Bell starting down the middle was tactical decision which meant Anis Mehmeti was on the left.

Nahki has worked hard in games but in the league has struggled to get opportunities in front of goal and with Bell’s finishing prowess and excellent pre-season form, the youngster was preferred.

I really like Sam but at this stage of his career and up against two solid centre backs in Dion Sanderson and Kevin Long, I thought it was a gamble and as it was it didn’t pay off. Belly struggled until changes were made in the second-half, and he was moved out wide.

On the back of the Carabao Cup victory against Oxford United and an excellent win at The Den last week, I was expecting a strong performance from City. The manager had talked about needing to be brave on the ball and making things happen, something that had been missing in the first home league game against Preston North End and I fully expected three points and a good performance.

As it panned out, nothing could have been further from it. Birmingham were worthy winners. They controlled the middle of the pitch, much like we had done against the Lions, Krystian Bielik and Ivan Sunjic pulling the strings, with Juninho Bacuna and Siriki Dembele out wide and Scott Hogan a willing runner and physical presence centrally.

Once again, we just didn’t get going. We had a lot of the possession, 64 per cent at the end of the game, but failed to muster a single shot on target. The possession was all too safe. Too many sideways and backwards passing and when we did go forward it was too slow, easily intercepted or was too heavy and went out of play.

We were sloppy on the ball, not taking enough care and too often telegraphed our passing and tried to be too intricate. Birmingham, like Preston, were compact and didn’t allow us much space and we just didn’t play with a quick enough tempo, we didn’t get the ball wide rapidly enough to support Mehmeti and Cornick, with Cam Pring and George Tanner not overlapping.

We lacked any real creativity. It was all too easy for Birmingham. The Blues weren’t out of this world by any stretch of the imagination, but they have a number of new players bedding in and they looked decent, moved the ball far quicker than we did and as I say deserved their win.

We switched off for the opening goal and then when Rob Dickie was dismissed for his second booking after picking up the first for kicking the ball away, we were always going to be susceptible to a second goal when pushing to try and get something out of it and that’s what happened. While Dickie’s second challenge wasn’t really worthy of a booking, the Blues player made the most of the outstretched arm and allowed the ref to make a decision.

Another bumper home crowd witnessed an abject display and the two home league games have done little to encourage those fans attending their first games or paying on the day to come back.

The performance highlighted for me the need for a central striker, a No9 who is physically strong, able to hold the ball up and bring others into play. It also once again demonstrated that we lack an energetic physical presence in central midfield.

Matty James does what he does and does it well, but Joe Williams just isn’t showing any kind of consistency and when both play like they did, it feels as though Jason Knight is isolated and can’t therefore impact the game. As I say, it was all too easy for Birmingham.

Pearson is playing his cards close to his chest when asked about recruitment, but we were clearly in for the lad George Thomason at Bolton, who turned us down and so there must be funds available.