Why silence was golden for Bristol City boss
Bristol City boss Gary Johnson has explained why he stepped away from the media limelight during the last fortnight.
Following the 0-0 draw with Ipswich Town, the Bristol City boss declined all interviews – including on the club's in-house website – until the build-up to today's home match with Reading.
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Gary Johnson2
It was an unusual move by a man who is normally only too happy to step in front of the cameras.
But Johnson said it was because he felt his comments were becoming repetitive and he hoped they would be appreciated more after a brief break.
Assistant manager Keith Millen stood in for the former Yeovil boss in the meantime.
When asked if he was back for good, Johnson said: "I don't know.
"It's one of those things. Milly is quite capable of taking the stage every now and then. It's good experience for him. I just felt I had to get my ugly mug off the screen and my quotes out of the papers for a couple of weeks.
"Hopefully, people could almost look forward to you coming back later.
"Milly has done a good job. He is very honest but it was nothing else apart from taking myself out of it because it was getting very repetitive."
Johnson has consistently implored fans to understand that the nature of the Championship means his side will experience peaks and troughs throughout the season.
"You have to keep the belief that you can be in the top six," he said.
"People try very hard to take that belief away from you. You mustn't get too down that you can't find a way back to happiness and wins.
"The boys have intermittently had some very good games. I get disappointed when people say 'you should beat this team and that team', because that doesn't happen.
"We are not in League One, we're in a league higher and we are trying to reach the pinnacle of football and, at the moment, we are within touching distance. We'll stay there if we keep working hard.
"We have got three games in a short space of time and we'll wait and see where we are when we have to look at our half-term report."
City reach the halfway stage of the campaign after the trip to QPR on Boxing Day before ending 2009 with match number 24 at home to Watford on December 28.
Bristol City are confident the Reading game will go ahead despite a forecast of minus four degrees centigrade for last night.
The Ashton Gate pitch has been covered since 3pm on Thursday.
3 Comments
by Grundhog Day, U S A
Saturday, December 19 2009, 1:50PM
“Yes this all sounds very nice but the fact of the matter is GJ thinks he can throw Grenades treat some players with no respect and freeze out others.So fans are entitled to criticise him just the same.Don't give the flack if you can't take it.”
by James, South West
Saturday, December 19 2009, 1:12PM
“mike of wexford is right.
Gary and his assistants have done an excellent job at City.
They got them out of tier 3 after others had tried unsuccessfully for a number of seasons.
They now have established the club as a decent Championship member with every chance of realistically fighting for promotion in a year or two.
I don't think they are ready yet, on or off the field, and I suspect the chairman probably believes that as well.
But they are well onto the right path and it would be stupid to potentially hamper all the good work by getting rid of Gary or subjecting him to such moans and possibly worse that he would go himself.
Too many City fans have over-reached themselves and believe the club should be up there in the play-off spots all season with even a chance of automatic promotion.
The frustration of some of these people is clear to see and is why some have been making unhelpful and sometimes disparaging comments about Gary, his team selections, style of play, management philosophy and quality of his assistants.
But it wouldn't be Bristol without people complaining and whingeing about something, even when it's going pretty well.”
by mike, wexford
Saturday, December 19 2009, 7:24AM
“good for you, gj i am bristolian through and through , for the life of me i cant get me head round true football fans who knock the club, having taken the club higher then any other manager in the last 30 years, you would think they would have a little more faith but no they come out of the woodwork and moan cause they aint got anything better to do , if they want to moan go and have alook at the gas and you think we got problems na , you are doing great job gj keep it up and dont let the moaners get to you”