Bristol City Season Preview: can they build?

With the 2018-19 Championship season coming up, The Football Lab spoke to Bristol City fan Paul Binning (@TheExiledRobin).

You achieved your highest finish in eight years last term, whilst reaching the EFL Cup semi-finals and playing some tidy football along the way. Should 2017-18 be remembered as a year of progress?

Absolutely it should. Achieving all of that, with a relatively young squad, bodes well for the future, although what many will always point to is the most recent of memories, and that is of us falling away, defending poorly and running out of steam. The cup run was fantastic and the win against Manchester United as good a moment as we’ve had at Ashton Gate in a generation.

Aden Flint, 29, has gone to Middlesbrough for a hefty fee while fellow centre-back Adam Webster, 23, joins from Ipswich. Do you share my suspicion that the club could be better off cashing in on Flint now?

Possibly, although having signed a new contract last season I was a little surprised we let him go for the fee that was rumoured (around £5m). Given the crazy prices in this league and the fact he guarantees eight to ten goals a season, I’d have thought we could have held out for a fair bit more.

But as you say, he is 29 and has never had much pace anyway, whilst knowing Lee Johnson and the style he wants to play, he will prefer Webster’s ball-playing skills out from the back.

Nathan Baker was well-liked by Villa fans in 2016-17. Has the centre-back been as popular at Ashton Gate?

Yes, he has and the impact he made in the first half of the season especially was significant. However, I guess his star slipped a little in the final months as our defence fell apart on a number of occasions while injuries and a suspension ruled him out of a number of games. He’s not necessarily someone people warm to especially – he doesn’t score many goals or have a song, for instance – but maybe with folk hero Flint now gone, Baker can further endear himself and lead our defence to more clean sheets.

Bobby Reid has crossed the Severn this summer. Is £10 million a handy fee for a player who has only had one great season at this level? And who do you see playing off the main striker this year?

It’s a horrible move as a City fan but even to Cardiff, you can’t do anything other than wish him the best of luck. I think the fee was spot on but Cardiff may still just have got themselves a bargain. I know the Cardiff fans are excited about him – although they were glowing about Lee Tomlin too this time last season!

We’ve signed Andreas Weimann and I suspect we’ll see combinations of him with Jamie Paterson and Callum O’Dowda playing a free role and coming in from their wide positions plenty to support Famara Diedhiou.

There’s been suggestions that Milan Djuric could be off to Italy. Do you need another target man so that, when Famara Diedhiou is unavailable, you don’t have to change the whole system?

It’s tricky one. Djuric would be perfectly adequate in that role but can you afford to keep people at the club knowing they’re only really likely to play a handful of games at most? I’m not convinced Djuric is what we need, however, and wouldn’t be especially sorry to be see him go.
Saying that, Diedhiou is banned for the first six games for an alleged spitting incident at the end of last season, so it may well be we squeeze every hour out of the international transfer window if we do sell Milan. We’ve signed Mo Eisa from Cheltenham too and I’d expect him to be a big player for us this season either alongside or instead of Fam.

You’ve added to your wide options with Andreas Weimann, Hakeeb Adelakun and Marley Watkins all coming in. Which of those signings excites you most?

Of those I’d say ‘exciting’ only really applies to Adelakun, and we’ve seen little of him in pre-season due to injury! As a younger player and being a bit more unknown he seems to have the potential to flourish. You know what you’re getting with Weimann, which is tons of hard work, a real team man but not necessarily someone who beats men regularly or scores and creates as often as he perhaps should, whilst Watkins, having spent a year struggling to make Norwich’s first team, doesn’t exactly get the juices flowing – I’m not saying they won’t all perform and be effective, it’s just that exciting isn’t necessarily the word I would use!

Jamie Paterson and Callum O’Dowda appear to have shown flashes of potential at this level. Do they need to add more consistency with the increased depth in those forward areas?

Paterson definitely. He was one of many who looked unplayable for large parts of the first five months of the season but was really ineffective from the new year. He played most games but just stopped being as involved. It’s a big season for him, possibly playing more as a No.10.

O’Dowda showed real consistency until he got a bad injury – one of eight long-term injuries we suffered last season – and started to show us all what he was capable of with goals, increased confidence and better crossing. He is my tip to be our player of the season if he can stay injury-free.

Joe Bryan never seems to run out of energy down that left side and clearly he has a connection with the fans. How influential do you see him being this year?

I’m sure he’ll be very influential but probably not for us. I’d be very surprised if we don’t get a bid of over £5m from someone and, given he’s in the last year of his contract, unfortunately he’ll be sold. Losing him and Reid in the same summer would be a real body blow given they have played together in South Bristol since their schooldays and been at the club for over a decade.

You perhaps looked short of a right-sided version of Bryan last year. Will new boy Jack Hunt give you a bit more width from right-back than Bailey Wright or Eros Pisano?

Yes, Pisano looked very promising early on but was another got a long-term injury and never quite seemed the same player once he returned. Wright is a centre-half who was filling in and did OK, but obviously wasn’t capable of supporting attacks effectively. Johnson has clearly decided he wanted an upgrade and Hunt will surely be first-choice and is a promising addition, suiting the style we play.

Korey Smith and Marlon Pack were your central midfield pairing in the double winning side in 2014-15 and it looks like they remain first choice. Do you see that stability as a positive thing, or a sign that the recruitment team haven’t been able to improve that area?

This is a big debate and one which seems set to rage on. Most fans seem to love both players and when either is out of the team we seem to suffer, yet it would be fair to say everyone feels we need strengthening in central midfield! It’s a tricky one when many seem to think we need more tenacity and creativity…

Liam Walsh was brought in from Everton in January with significant fanfare about his potential and is likely to challenge for a spot, whilst I would assume from the wide men we’ve signed that Josh Brownhill won’t be asked to play that role as often this season and could easily develop into being our number one in the middle of the park.

Robins aside, what are your thoughts ahead of the Championship season as a whole? Any potential dark horses for you?

Stoke, West Brom, Forest, Middlesbrough, Derby all look like they’re building nicely, Villa will be there or thereabouts so everyone else is likely to be feeding off scraps. I fear for Swansea I must admit, given their lack of freshening up in the transfer market.

Brentford would be the one I’d have my eye on as possible outsiders – they impressed me every time I saw them last season despite seemingly losing half their team to Birmingham and always seem to buy well.

Where will you finish?

Anywhere in midtable would have to be seen as “acceptable” given the departures of Reid and Flint and possibly Bryan, and it may well end up being a fairly boring season for us after last year’s excitement!

Thanks to Paul for his answers. The Football Lab’s verdict on Bristol City can now be found on WeLoveBetting.