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Search forBristol City will get it right, says Johnson
Thursday, September 18, 2008, 08:00
City's players were today back on the training ground in preparation for Saturday's Ashton Gate clash with Doncaster Rovers.
And having watched a video re-run and dissected Tuesday's 2-1 loss to the Blues, Johnson is demanding a significant improvement in both penalty areas. Although City more than matched the title favourites in terms of possession, they lacked a cutting edge in the final third and the manager afterwards admitted his team had been second best where it mattered most.
"There were some things I was very pleased with and others I wasn't so pleased about," claimed the Londoner. "I can promise our supporters we'll be working very hard on those things I wasn't pleased with.
"We'll work morning, noon and night to get it right and I've told the lads I'm going to run them into the ground to improve their movement in the 18-yard box.
"We've talked about the last game and, hopefully, we've learned from it. Now we have to try and put right those things that were wrong in time for the Doncaster game.
"Considering the amount of play we had, we should have made Birmingham's goalkeeper work harder. We only scored one goal from 45 yards and we need to do better.
"We know we have to improve our movement in the penalty area and also our delivery from wide positions. We'll be working hard on those things on the training ground between now and Saturday.
"We haven't let in many goals, but we need more quality in and around the opposition penalty area.
"We need players to be clever and the players are in no doubt I want them to do a little bit more in the final third."
City have yet to win a home game in three attempts this season, having previously been held to 1-1 draws by Derby County and Queens Park Rangers, and Johnson and his players are desperate to put that particular record to rights this weekend.
Tuesday's defeat - City's first of the Championship campaign - saw them concede a seven-point advantage to pacesetters Birmingham and Wolverhampton Wanderers after six games and Johnson conceded: "We would like to have kept ourselves up there a bit longer.
"It means we need to put together a couple of good results to keep up with the leaders, because that's where we want to be."
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