High flying City face season-defining month

This column on the fortunes of Bristol City FC is written by Robins fan Steve Coombes

With former City midfielder Lee Johnson bringing his Oldham Athletic side to Ashton Gate on Saturday, two proud unbeaten runs collided. Something was sure to give. Something did. The outcome was familiar, the home side coming out on top in another well-contested, finely balanced encounter. 

The process was not though, with a first clean sheet since mid September meaning a solitary Kieran Agard strike was enough for City to go five points clear at the summit.

Despite the seemingly bland scoreline the result is glaring in significance. With a mantra of scoring more than the opposition, Steve Cotterill’s entertainers forward-thinking tendencies had drawn admiration, yet courted concern. Talk this week has centred on the league leader’s defensive vulnerabilities, talk which reached the determined former Cheltenham man.

“We could put eight men behind the ball, be compact and knock it long. That’s not my style,” Cotterill told the club’s official website, resolute in his belief that results provide all the defence his swashbuckling approach deserves. 

“We look more dangerous all over the pitch this season, but we’ve let more in because of the way we play.”

A narrow, battling 1-0 victory over a fellow promotion hopeful is as soothing as any possible result. It was only the third time since his appointment, approaching 12 months ago, through 48 games in all competitions, that a City fixture won or lost had ended as such.

“Why would we change the way we play now? We’re top of the league. It would be suicidal,” said the manager prior to the visit of Oldham. 

“No one wants a clean sheet more than me, but we could go the other way and end up with a goalless draw.”

Fortunately, and with a perverse sense of satisfaction, this was as ideal a 1-0 as you’ll get.

Having demonstrated their ability to score, their creativity, a dogged determination which ensures setbacks are treated as nothing more than fleeting, a run of solidarity at the other end threatens to dub City League One’s ‘total package’. But let’s hold the party poppers, for a month at least.

With Oldham dispatched, the high-flying Robins have now played every side in the top half bar second placed Preston, local rivals Swindon and Peterborough, who have fallen off the pace with three consecutive defeats. The current bottom three – Gillingham, Yeovil and Crewe – are also still yet to be faced, and all await in December. With the halfway point of the season fast approaching, the month of November looks set to offer potentially season-defining clarity. 

Back-to-back cup matches against the aforementioned Gillingham and AFC Wimbledon, in the FA Cup and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy respectively, mean City do not contest league points until the 15th, a local derby at Swindon. Preston at home follows on the 22nd while a televised clash at Peterborough United’s London Road finishes the month six days later.

If the club can emerge unscathed from that gruelling trio of ties, entering December facing perceived weaker opposition, then talk of promotion, talk which even staunch fans are largely avoiding despite the obvious promise, will begin to rumble around the three sides of Ashton Gate.