Lee Johnson interview: Bristol City boss believes his side can match Wolves in Sunday’s FA Cup fifth round clash
Sunday afternoon marks the first meeting between Bristol City and Wolves since the penultimate day of 2017.
That night, Nuno Espirito Santo’s men opened up a ten-point lead at the top of the Championship, but it wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill clash at Ashton Gate. There was a sending off for either side and a remarkable second-half comeback from the visitors, culminating in a 94th-minute Ryan Bennett winner, not to mention Nuno’s own sending off for impeding on the Robins’ technical area.
Nuno recalls ’emotional mistakes’
That was the league, but this weekend the stakes are equally as high. City boss Lee Johnson will certainly hope for a more routine afternoon this time around, though, with a place in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup up for grabs.
In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Johnson said: „I don’t think history has any bearing on this moment now.
„It’s different players, we haven’t got the injuries that we had last year going into that last 23-24 games and Wolves are a tough opposition. They are a strong opponent, they’ve done ever so well, huge respect has to go to the team and the coaching staff at Wolves for their current position, particularly having just got promoted.
„I think it’ll be an interesting game. It’s another chance for us to challenge ourselves against a top-level team; we’ve managed to turn over four or five Premier League teams over the last 18 months and the boys are very hungry.“
It’s not just in cup competitions the Robins have been excelling over the last two seasons, though their remarkable run to the Carabao Cup semi-final last season may lead to an alternative conclusion. After Tuesday’s 2-1 win over QPR, Johnson’s men sit fifth in the Championship standings, just seven points behind second-placed Norwich and with the luxury of a game in hand.
Not only that, they are in the midst of something of a purple patch, having won their previous nine fixtures in all competitions going back all the way to 29 December; you have to go back a further month to find their last defeat.
„We hope to continue it, starting on Sunday, it’s a really big game against Wolves,“ he continued. „I think that the natural instinct is to say that you are competitive, the players are competitive and you want to win every single game that you play, but I do believe, genuinely, that the league is always the bread and butter and to perform well in that.
„There was a little dip mid-season where we lost four on the spin and since then, it’s been an outstanding run. All credit really, has to go to the players for implementing the work that is done on the training ground.
„But this is a showpiece game and we are here on merit. It’s against a good side in Wolves but we genuinely feel that we are a good side and that we can compete against a top 10 Premier League side and it’s up to us to prove it.
„They’ve proved it already, by getting promoted and performing very well and, at this point, we’re the hunter, if you like, and it’s important that we keep in that mode because whether it be the league or the cup, this club generally performs better as the underdog.“
A win on Sunday would put Bristol City just one fixture away from a Wembley semi-final, which may prove to be the highlight of their season. Despite their lofty league position, they must still face Norwich, Leeds, Sheffield United, Middlesbrough, West Brom, among other play-off contenders from the cluttered pack beneath the top six.
Despite that, Johnson remains cautiously optimistic about his side’s outlook for the remainder of the campaign.
He continued: „I’ve really tried to maintain a consistency in concentration on performance. The fans have got to be able to fly away and dream because that is the dream that we get promoted and I promise you we’re fighting very, very hard to do that every day.
„We’ve all see how quickly football can change, particularly in the Championship, both for the positive and the negative, so I still think there’s five, six per cent level of improvement and that focus has to be on that, because if we get carried away with the external noise then you can be sidetracked.“
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