Bristol City boss Johnson promises his players a tough week

ANGRY Bristol City boss Gary Johnson today promised to give his players a rocket after their abject surrender against Reading.

Trounced 4-1 by the slick Coca-Cola Championship promotion hopefuls at the weekend, City suffered their biggest home defeat since Blackpool won 4-2 at Ashton Gate in August 2006.

Manager Johnson admits his team were second best and is now demanding a dramatic improvement ahead of next Saturday's Sky TV showdown with Southampton at St Mary's.

"They're in for a tough week and they're going to end up hating someone," warned Johnson. "That someone will probably be me, but I don't care so long as they show the right level of commitment when we play Southampton.

"They have to be angry about something and I'll make them angry.

"We lacked the passion and commitment Reading had and we lacked their quality as well. We're not happy about it and we've held our hands up.

"I want the boys to feel angry about what happened. Our best game might have matched Reading, but we didn't compete. If you don't produce you're best game, then these sides are going to show you what they've got at this level. Reading will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season and we want to be competing against sides like that. But we didn't get close enough to them mentally or physically."

City's second home defeat of the campaign saw them drop to tenth place and Johnson now has five days in which to lift his players and rediscover a winning formula.

He said: "I now have to sort the wood from the trees. It's going to be hard work this week and I need to find the ones who can handle what we're going to be doing.

"We have to make sure we have a really big week and go into the Southampton game showing the passion and commitment we lacked against Reading.

"They have to be angry young men and they have to be committed. We'll not be silly, but we'll not be holding back in training either. They'll have sessions which will be hard, fast and aggressive and get them in the right mood for Southampton on Saturday."

Johnson accused his players of "weak defending" against Reading and admitted: "They were just taking the ball off us and carving through us like a knife through butter.

"We'll look at the video to see where we went wrong, but nobody really came out of it with any credit with the exception of Stern John."

Johnson singled out the loan signing from Southampton for special praise after seeing his team out-played. John scored an injury-time consolation goal for the home side and City's manager confided: "He was the only player in our side who showed Premiership quality. That's a worry, given that the Premier League is what we aspire to.

"Stern held the ball up, created chances for himself and was the only one not to give it away easily."

Johnson defended his decision to rest veteran striker Dele Adebola and deploy John alongside Nicky Maynard, who was hauled off in the 59th minute after failing to make an impression.

"Anyone can be wise in hindsight and pick a team, but we felt that Dele needed to rest after playing four games in 11 days," explained Johnson. "Because Stern is so good at holding the ball up and bringing others into play, we felt we needed Nicky's pace to get in behind their defenders.

"Stern cannot play against Southampton under the terms of his loan deal and Dele will be back on Saturday."

Already without injured defenders Louis Carey and Jamie McAllister, City were further weakened by the absence of midfielder Gavin Williams, ruled out by a calf strain sustained in the recent goalless draw with Sheffield United.