We must maintain standards that saw off West Brom, says Bristol City boss Johnson
Bristol City boss Gary Johnson believes his side have to match the 'Premier League' work-rate they displayed in Sunday's win over West Bromwich Albion when they go to Ipswich Town on Saturday.
The Robins have won successive league games just twice this season, while City supporters are well aware that their previous three victories – against Barnsley, Leicester City and Preston North End – were followed by respective winless runs of five, five and seven matches.
Johnson said: "The football world has seen that our team is not dead and buried yet and we are still in there fighting."
Bristol City were trailing at half-time at Ashton Gate before two goals in four minutes from Chris Iwelumo and Lee Johnson took them to a 2-1 win.
"The work-rate out there was unbelievable and it had to be against a Premiership-type style," said the manager.
"You have to be as athletic as they are and I thought we finished very well.
"I don't think the lads realise at times how good some people can be if you let them have time.
"If you give the ball away like we did in the first 20 minutes then those players are clever enough to be in space to be totally free.
"If you are giving it away there is no need for them to come back with you. We did give it away on several occasions and that gave them the impetus.
"That is what we had to sort out second half and even after their goal we started winning the ball back and picking up our man a lot quicker.
"We showed that commitment to get in the box and it was nice to get that (second) goal because it gave us something to fight for and hang on to."
Johnson felt the victory, which pushed City up to 12th in the Championship, was overdue after an improved second half display in the 1-1 draw with Leicester five days earlier.
"Often you get the performance before you get the result," he said. "Against Leicester we should have got the result but the performance was there and after the first 20 minutes it was a hell of a performance.
"We would still like to be further up the table but at least when they show the top half we are in it."
Johnson was particularly delighted that City overcame their propensity to concede a late goal.
"Our crowd helped us through the nervous nineties," he said.
"We had talked since the last game and previous games that in injury-time someone was going to go down injured, then we were going to make a substitution and then we were going to keep it in the corner and we were going to kick it over the stand and we did all that in the last five minutes.
"They had a couple of attacks that we saw out quite well. I was very pleased we managed to keep them out."
Ipswich drew 1-1 at Scunthorpe on Tuesday thanks to a late equaliser from Northern Ireland striker David Healy.
Bristol City defender Lewin Nyatanga has been named in Wales' squad for a friendly international against Sweden at Swansea next Wednesday.
9 Comments
by Johnson Out & Tony Adams in, Ashton
Thursday, February 25 2010, 9:08PM
“Good point, Fanjita
I have seen a couple of European games when they dont play injury time. But they are rare...”
by Fanjita, Ashton
Thursday, February 25 2010, 5:10PM
“Has anyone ever seen the board go up with nil minutes on it.
If there has been no injuries during a half there should be no injury time, but never once have I seen this, there is always at least 1 min, so a half now consists of at least 46 minutes and not 45.”
by bob, bristol
Thursday, February 25 2010, 4:45PM
“thats another conspiracy theory up the creek then!”
by Me, Bristol
Thursday, February 25 2010, 4:05PM
“@bob thompson - Simply because the majority of substitutions take place in the second half, and with most teams using all three subs nowadays thats a minimum of 3 minutes on top of the stoppages.”
by bob thompson, bristol
Thursday, February 25 2010, 3:55PM
“i wonder why the ref seems to give more extra time in the second half than the first.
Over the past few seasons the average stoppage time appears to have gone from 2/3 minutes to at least 4/5 especially in the second half.”
by phil., Kingswood
Thursday, February 25 2010, 2:21PM
“Unless your Alex Ferguson, then it's five minutes.”
by Clay Davies, Baltimore
Thursday, February 25 2010, 1:54PM
“It's 30 seconds actually Steve, the general idea is to saunter off the pitch, picking up the occasional jog on the way, to make it last longer.”
by Steve, Bristol
Thursday, February 25 2010, 1:10PM
“And for every substitution the ref adds on one minute ! So how does that tactic work ?”
by Clay Davis, Baltimore
Thursday, February 25 2010, 11:14AM
“As one one of the people who have been backing GJ recently in the face of impatient criticism I find it necessary to be a little critical of the details attribted to him here. It is within the rules of the game to use up time with posession of the ball with throw ins and corners but telling your players to stay down with an 'injury' in order to waste time at the end of the game is barely in keeping with the spirit of the game is it. While it is probably mentioned in every changing room some things are best not spoken in public.”