‘Are Bristol City really good enough to finish in the top six this season?’

In last week’s piece I suggested that Lee Johnson would have been hoping for a minimum of five points from the three matches Bristol City had this week. The side got off to a decent-enough-start with a creditable away point at Hillsborough, but became somewhat unstuck with a poor home performance, and loss, to Preston midweek.

Tuesday’s Preston game was pretty frustrating overall, but you can’t fault Johnson’s post-match assessment where he rightfully questioned his players’ performances, saying he ‘didn’t recognise his side’.

We were disjointed and unimaginative in possession in the first-half with our only form of attack seemingly to be a punt forward to Djuric. The big man did OK, but nobody was picking up the second ball, and, unsurprisingly, this ploy mostly ended up with us conceding possession.

Johnson rightly changed things around at half-time, going with the formation that had done so well for us at Fulham with Bobby Reid up front on his own and three in central-midfield. The change seemed to work as we looked a lot more with it in the second half, but sadly couldn’t make the most of our dominant possession.

So, this weekend sees us head up to Hull, where one would expect a marked improvement from our side. The Preston performance did leave me asking myself one question though: are Bristol City really good enough to finish in the top-six this season?

The answer is, of course, we don’t really know yet. They are certainly there on merit at the moment, but when you look at some of the sides below us in the League, I start to wonder how long we can keep above them in the table.

We have clearly showed a remarkable improvement from our woes of last season and I don’t think there are any City fans who see relegation posing any threat come May. But, what would constitute a good season for us? In August I suggested I’d be happy with a mid-table finish and I think its worth bearing in mind that would still be a decent achievement for our 2017/18 season.

A lot has been made of fans leaving early during our 2-1 loss to Preston. I have spoken before of my own heartache at leaving early a couple of years ago and missing an equalising goal against Leeds. I, in the heat of the moment following missing that goal, foolishly vowed to never leave a game again early.

Well, although that promise wasn’t really made entirely genuinely, I broke it against at Preston and, again, missed a goal – albeit just a consolation goal. I wasn’t the worst offender on Tuesday night with some in the ground leaving immediately after we conceded the second. I myself left around the 89th minute.

There has also been a fair amount of chat – some of it remarkably ill-natured – across various social media sites berating those fans who left early. I must admit I am somewhat torn on the issue as, of course, I think people should stay to support the team and I realise it must be very disconcerting for the players to see fans leaving in their droves. However, I also think that people who have paid their money have a right to do as they please and are free to leave if they so wish.

For me personally, I am going to make a new promise to myself regarding leaving early. I will refrain from leaving with more than five minutes to go and will never leave when we are just one goal behind. Let’s see how long my new promise will last!