, January transfer window not the reason for slide down the table says Robins boss

January transfer window not the reason for slide down the table says Robins boss

Bristol City boss Lee Johnson has lambasted critics who believe that the January transfer window is the reason for his sides slip down the Championship table.

At the turn of the new year Bristol City were just five points behind league leaders Wolves. However, the Robins now find themselves in eleventh place, and four points off the Playoff places. With just three games to go it looks increasingly unlikely that City will make the top six.

Some Robins fans had criticised Johnson’s decision not to add to his already thin squad, but the manager believes his January transfer dealings are not the reason for his sides rapid decline in the League.

Speaking to Bristol Live, he said “I think it’s a number of things. I think if you just isolate one area I don’t think that’s fair. I think there’s a number of reasons that go into any good form or bad form,”

“Almost every team we put out has a nice balance of height, speed, intelligence, footballing ability, and I think the Championship’s a really tough league as well, so there’ll be a lot of clubs who go good runs and bad runs this year.”

Bristol City have been heavily relying on Bobby Reid for goals this season, and adding an extra forward in January may have helped ease the goalscoring burden on the striker.

“People can speculate but the wages that it took to get Mitrovic in for example was right up there with a top Premier League player.” explained Johnson.

“We tried to be creative for the wages that we pay and the way that we try and recruit. There’s not an awful lot of names that come into the funnel if you like, in January, because it’s very difficult to get a standard player out of a club that you’d be looking for.”

Johnson did bring in Lois Diony and Ryan Kent on loan during the window, but both have failed to hit the heights expected of them.

With three games to go against Hull City, Nottingham Forest, and Sheffield United, the Robins will have to take maximum points if they want a chance of claiming a Playoff place.

 

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