Gary Johnsons' white lie!

In a rallying call to his side ahead of this evening's match at the Valley, Gary Johnson has told his team that we will be disappointed with our start.  Not wrong there Gary. However, he then goes on to say that we still have a Premier League club structure and a lot of money to spend still as a result of our parachute payments! I'll be generous here and assume that Gazza is gilding the lily a bit in order to manage the expectations of the Bristle public. Let's face it, even his players will be acutely aware that we had a fire-sale in the Summer and that the incomings have been bought with the spare change from our transfer receipts.

A piece from Pards praising City for their play-off finish at Wembley in May would have been more appropriate. Trouble is, I guess he'd have had to acknowledge that Gary Johnson did it all with half-a-crown in front of big gates of 15,000. The fact is that Bristol City's side will again line-up as a list of virtual nobodies this evening and will again play like a real team with commitment, belief and fight, things that cost nothing and which largely come from the club's management and coaching staff.

I still haven't given up on Pards because he's had to rebuild his side unexpectedly twice inside two years. I can put up with the losing games - I grew up watching us lose. What really kills me is the inconsistency. When you know we can run Reading ragged and score four one week, you have to wonder why we can't do it in the next home game against significantly weaker opposition. Tactically too, I am becoming disillusioned with Pards. I thought he made a good fist oif things overall last year on the pitch, even if the timings of his loan signings was short-sighted and taking into consideration our dreadful finish. This year, however, we have been far too negative too often. The debacle at Palace was so predictable it was untrue - at least he seems to have learnt the lesson (we played 4-4-2 at Cardiff which surprised me).  This evening he needs to grasp the nettle and put out an attacking formation with instructions to attack and ensure we have attacking options on the bench. We will be short across the defence, so let's try not to make them play for more of the match than we need to.