It was bound to happen eventually. Having lucked our way out of a few hammerings this season, it's only fitting that Bristol City (our favourite Ricoh guests) happily obliged where others haven't.

A lack of intensity and purpose was apparent from the start. Passing was as ever, a massive struggle, and the tentative nature of our play made for a really uncomfortable time watching.

3-0 at half-time killed us. Defensively we were a shambles, and our failings are becoming more and more apparent. Gaping holes throughout, with Richard Wood trying his best to install some order. Stephen O'Halloran has been an absolute effing disgrace so far I'm afraid, and if I see Nathan Cameron smash the ball aimlessly then look around at his teammates with arms outstretched one more time, I'm going to go down there and smash the ball at him. What's happened to the composed player we saw open the season for us?

It's disheartening going behind as a City fan, as you're left with the knowledge that the chances of us coming back are slim. So even when Jukey (who was head and shoulders above the rest) made it 3-1, there was always that niggling feeling that you're living in cloud-cuckoo land if you think we're going to do a Newcastle. I don't think I've ever celebrated a goal less.

We were well and truly spanked, but the sending off of Marlon King was pointless, and it was this moment that raised a few questions in my mind about his contribution to the cause..

The Marlon King factor

It's been a touchy one ever since the possibility of Marlene joining was first mooted. My view has in the main been that now he's here, we have to support him, but he has to go further than most to justify the reputational hit we've taken by bringing him in.

I'm starting to get the feeling that he's not worth the grief. I'm not an idiot; I can see his individual quality, but am more concerned about the wider implications his presence is having.

Have we actually benefited from Marlon King being at the club?

I think it's fair to say he's a marked man. Opposition fans, players and especially the officials. No matter how much anyone tries to deny it, he's clearly got temper issues. If he's not risking things with kicks and flailing arms against other players, he's blasting his own teammates over nothing (some strops so prolonged, they make Clinton Morrison look like Gandhi).

This all means he has to be extra careful and responsible. He's not going to receive any benefit of the doubt, so we're reliant on him showing self-control and focusing all his energy on doing a positive job for the team. 

I don't know a single person who saw what happened on Saturday. But the fact that he got involved in any altercation means he let us down, and that alone is unacceptable.

This is where things get a bit confusing for me. On the face of it, he's shown us that he hasn't lost any of the quality of a premiership striker. He's scored a few goals recently, and his first touch puts others in our team to shame.

But is there such a thing as a good player whose presence causes more harm than good? I'm still mulling this one over, but there's an argument to say our team copes far better when he's not on the pitch.

The stats try their best to qualify this. This season, we've lost 61% of our games when King has been on the pitch. Compare that to just 28% (4 games) when he's not been around, and you start to think there might be a relationship there somewhere. Individually, he's doing okay, but it just doesn't seem to be benefitting us. Our best form of 2011 came in the first week when Freddy and Jutkiewicz were playing together. You know, the FA cup and Sheffield Utd games when we actually played some nice stuff.

That partnership was soon broken up when King came back into the team, and the performances and results have taken another turn for the worse. It's a team game, so it's worth pondering the notion that sometimes, just maybe, certain individuals don't mix well into the team dynamic.

The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, and all that.

Of course the opposing argument is that he's doing his job and maybe our players should get a grip and learn to handle someone in the same team who puts pressure on them to perform. 

But either way, if you're one for stats, the ones below might make you wonder.

Coventry City 2010/11

Bristol City, eh. We all know how it goes. Decent start to the season, lurk around the upper echelons of the Championship for a few weeks, only for a Bristol City spanking to put us firmly in our place.

Not this time. Things have changed a bit for both clubs. The irritatingly confident (although with good reason against us) Gary Johnson, has long-gone from the Bristol ship, while in our dugout we appear to have a chap who has one thing in his mind; win.

Now I'm not one way or the other with Boothroyd. You won't find me waxing lyrical about him being our saviour, or slagging him rotten because he does his ties too fat. He's our new boss who has had a bit of a mixed bag since arriving, but if he's done one thing that has impressed me, it's the removal of the negative rhetoric and mindset we became so used to.

For anyone who read my views last season, let's just say I was none too keen on Christopher telling us that we were still rubbish and we shouldn't expect much, 3 seasons on. Not for me. You've got to have aims, and from what we've heard so far, Boothroyd at least has a more positive view of what he wants from the team.

Agreed, the style of football is still way off what any of us fancy watching, but the application of the players on the pitch is much more to our liking. It's the little things that I notice, personally. Like the reaction of our players when we score a goal. Last year, we'd score a goal to salvage a point at home to Derby (or someone equally tame) and have Elliott Ward cupping his ears, giddy as a schoolgirl, believing he was Eric Cantona reincarnated.

Just look at the goal Ben Turner scored on Saturday and notice the difference. As soon as the ball went in, he was galloping back to the half-way line ready to continue the job. Think back to the equalising goal at Watford and Gunny running straight for the ball, believing we could go on and get another. If Boothroyd's done anything so far, he's got them aiming a lot higher than they were last year.

By all accounts our performance against Bristol was nothing special, and yes we had to ride our luck near the end (nothing wrong with that). But what it showed once again was our resilience, which has been surprisingly prevalent so far. 

All we need now is for the rest of our squad to realise that being injured is rubbish, and you never know, we might just be getting somewhere.

Not quite sure what happened yesterday. From what was a promising first-half, we somehow managed to ruin it all by coming out for the second with our Blackpool/Swansea/Doncaster hats on.

The difference in performance between both halves was far too noticeable. Of course, it's only to be expected when you haven't won for 3 games - most teams tend to get a little bit edgy. But why we have to take these football clichés to such bleeding extremes all the time, I really don't know.

I'll admit I was a little disappointed by the team selection when I first heard it. While you could argue Coleman doesn't have many other options to freshen things up, I was still expecting a bit more than Isaac Osbourne and Marcus Hall. Before yesterday we'd only scored in 2 of our opening fixtures. This seemed to me to be quite a big problem, and bringing in Ozzy to help us turn the corner and provide that spark in midfield didn't immediately strike me as the most positive move we could have made.

In all fairness to both of them though, they played pretty well in the first half. Hall set up the goal with an accurate cross for Best, and Ozzy gave a similarly manic performance to the Ipswich one earlier in the season. What happened to them in the second half is anyone's guess.

The same could be said for Clingan. First half, he was composed, assured and at one point had me reminiscing back to the days of Youssef Safri. Second half he completely lost his way however, and him and Ozzy were bystanders for the majority.

McIndoe was heavily involved in the first 15 minutes, and rather naively I started to believe that he might actually be a threat throughout. That never materialised either. On the flip side, this now makes our case stronger for suiing him under the Trade Description Act. Pace and skill, my eye.

The biggest disappointment however was one of the following;

a) Coleman's inability to see how poor we were in the second half, which meant he left it till 76 minutes to change it.
or b) Coleman's persistence in keeping a team on the pitch that was being so outplayed, so we didn't have a hope in hell of winning.

I'm still not sure which one is what really happened. But either way, both stink of negativity I'm afraid. He genuinely seemed pleased yesterday, which is a worry because the performance was really very bad. As far as I can see, it's 4 games in a row now when we've failed to be competitive for 90 minutes, and it's cost us lots of points.

We're going to struggle if we continue putting in performances like this. Tuesday is vital, and the one thing we need is a good performance. The players seem to be struggling with confidence at the minute, which means getting that from them is probably going to be even harder than usual. The one thing you can say though is that they are always capable of raising their game, so Coleman has to get that out of them.

I hope they're somehow able to shock us and pull something out of the bag. Facing Sheffield Utd is tough at the best of times - but an unbeaten Sheffield Utd is just about as difficult a fixture as you're going to get.

Just been confirmed on the Offical CCFC Websiteand Andy Turner's blog that McIndoe has signed a 2 year contract.

Personally, I think this is a brilliant piece of business. If you'd told me at the end of last season that Michael McIndoe would be playing for us this year, I would have given you a stunned, and lengthy stare. Not like we've done much in the last few months to indicate we're on the up.

But anyway, I've watched him quite a few times, and although he's not getting any younger, he's still at an age where he's able to make an impact.

I'm constantly moaning about the lack of ambition shown by the club. Targets set too low, no pressure to achieve and seemingly minimal desire to move anywhere fast. Needless to say, the whole DannFox palava didn't do much to appease me, but the fact that we've signed a player who was on the verge of signing for Sheffield Utd is a very definite step in the right direction. It's just what we needed.

You now look at a possible midfield of Bell, Gunny, Clingan, McIndoe, and in that you have what appears to be a nice mix of drive, determination, technique, pace.. I best stop; getting a little ahead of myself there. It's only Michael McIndoe.

But it does look miles better than what we've been used to.

The fact that we've actually been looking at signing Peter Gilbert negates these positives slightly, but you know.. you can't have it all.

Have to say I'm a little surprised that we're in for him. Not in a bad way, but given he was apparently on the verge of joining Sheffield Utd, and the direction things have been going for us lately, nice to see we're actually still looking at the higher-end of players.

McIndoe has always impressed me for Bristol City. One of those players who seems to cause havoc in the mandatory 3-0 home defeat to them.

There could be worse strategies than buying all the players who can't seem to help but be world beaters against us. Now all we need are Richard Cresswell, Pablo Counago, Tommy Smith and Robbie Blake and that'd be a extra few points for us next season. Wouldn't that be marvellous.

Anyway, while writing this I've found out 2 things about Mr McIndoe;

1) He has a mighty useful girlfriend called Helena Fletcher (video of her making a bit of an arse of herself on Total Wipeout, if you're interested).

and 2) he has his own official website, including ludicrously out of date blog (the lazy swine).

Official Website - Michael McIndoe

But aside from those 2 blips, from what I've seen of him he's a very useful football player. So I'd rather we didn't mess this up. If we're in for him, lets bleeding well get him.

Had a little look around on Youtube for some videos to post of him, but all I could really find was this hideously dramatic tribute to his goal for Doncaster v Arsenal a few years ago.