Bristol City boss Gary Johnson has admitted finding a prolific Championship striker is the most difficult task facing him this summer.

Johnson is likely to be in the market for a striker in the close season, with the future of out-of-contract forward Dele Adebola still uncertain.

Loan signing Stern John has returned to Southampton, leaving Johnson with Nicky Maynard, Lee Trundle, Peter Styvar and John Akinde as his current striking options.

Of those, only Maynard racked up a double-figure tally and was a regular starter last season, and Johnson reckons finding a player to score 20 goals in a season at the right price is a difficult task.

Johnson said: "The hardest player to find at Championship level is that 20-goal-a-season striker.

"There are players already playing at this level that can do it but they are on maybe five or six times the salary of other players.

"That means that we have to go out and find these types of players because those ones already recognised are sometimes out of your wage bracket.

"There are people like Rickie Lambert (Bristol Rovers) and Simon Cox (Swindon Town) who have scored a lot of goals in League One – but it is not always that a player can repeat that achievement in the Championship.

"There are quite a few lads out there who have done well at League One level in the past and then struggled to score as many goals when they make the step up."

Sheffield United's Billy Sharp and Coventry City's Freddie Eastwood are two players who have struggled to replicate their League One scoring prowess in the Championship.

Lee Trundle has also found goals difficult to come by since arriving at Bristol City from Swansea in a £1 million move two summers ago.

Johnson added: "It is also important that you find strikers who can do more than just score goals. At Championship level it is more than just what you do when you have the ball at your feet as it is as important to look at what a player does when he is out of possession.

"You have to have a tremendous work-rate to stay in the game against some of these teams.

"You need to work hard on improving some players in terms of their fitness when they haven't got the ball because that is an important part of the game you need if you want to play at the highest level."