If ever a sporting city needed a shot in the arm it's Bristol this Christmas. Even the most optimistic 'glass half full' person would struggle to see the positives.

Bristol City are slipping down the table, the home form that served them so well the past two seasons having disappeared, and my postbag is regularly filled with bizarre calls for the manager's head.

I've not always seen eye to eye with Gary Johnson but following football for as long as I have teaches you many valuable lessons, one of them being that a stable structure in the background is worth three class players on the pitch.

Across the city, the tenants and their landlords at the Memorial Stadium have good reason to look over their shoulders, although Bristol Rugby's plight is more desperate than Bristol Rovers.

That said, the Gas don't have the sort of gap between them and the relegation zone to kick back and relax, and if any of the scouts regularly watching Rickie Lambert manage to persuade their clubs to take a gamble on him, the goals for tally may not look as healthy.

It all seems a long way from two years ago, when Rovers and City got promoted, Rovers reached the Johnstone's Paint final and Bristol qualified for the Heineken Cup.

So my Christmas wish list is a short, but greedy one. I want Bristol City's January transfer dealings to all bear spectacular fruit. I want Lambert to still be a Bristol Rovers player come February (with Lennie Lawrence and Paul Trollope still there to watch over him at training) and Newcastle to have the worst second half of a season known to man, so Bristol Rugby can overhaul them.

Then I'd like the Ashes back. But let's worry about that later.