Opinion: Bristol City Are The Visitors

There is no better feeling for a club football fan than when the international break comes to an end. The pace of football matches are a lot slower and you end up watching two teams who you barely knew even existed as countries out of sheer love for the game. So this weekend brings a welcomed change back to club football and more importantly, back to St Andrews.

The visitors to the fortress this week are Bristol City. They are just one point behind us and so it is crucial that we pick up points against one of our likely challengers come the end of the season. Now, Bristol City started the season in great form and were scoring goals for fun as well as not conceding many. They went on a run whereby their confidence increased after every game; putting them in a great league position.

However, in their last 4 games, they have only picked up maximum points against struggling Blackburn Rovers and in their last 3 games, they have conceded 6 goals. This shows that they have been on a poor run and given we have added power to our attack this summer; I would be very disappointed if we couldn’t get a goal against a very inconsistent back four. It is worth mentioning, however, that the international break gives that extra bit of uncertainty when predicting these fixtures. This is because the international break can be a time to regroup and work on where it has been going wrong or it is where players dwell on their losing streak and try too hard to improve it in the next match. Therefore, who knows if this will impact them or us for that matter.

This is almost a must win game. It will give us confidence going into the very hard winter fixtures that surround the festive period. It will also mean that teams will see us as a definite threat and adapt their tactics to us rather than the other way around. This was what happened last year but only at around this time after we had put together a decent run. We will put a marker down that we can beat the teams around us which is what hampered us at Sheffield Wednesday last year.

Bristol City are there for the taking if we can keep their strike force quiet but I shall say more on that in the One To Watch feature later in the week. No prizes for guessing who I have selected but it will be an interesting read nonetheless!