Jones' joking irks Johnson

Six games to go and Bristol City are without a win in five, slowly surrendering their tight lead near the top of the table. Ok, so things can quickly change in the Championship as we have all seen, and in two weeks time we could have put two wins together and strengthened our position.

But at the moment I am getting slightly nervous. We all know no one expected City to be challenging for a place in the Premier League, but now that we have found ourselves in this position we want to stay there. After two straight defeats, are we cracking up under the pressure?

For Gary Johnson and his team, I do not think there is any pressure put on them from the fans as we are as surprised as anyone else at their success, but with the increased media attention as the season draws to a close, perhaps this is affecting the players. Looking back on these five games, it was frustrating to see us lose at home to Plymouth, but we have managed to draw against Watford and Leicester away when Ian Holloway’s team clearly had more chances than enough chances to win. We also rescued a point against Charlton away, which is no easy game as West Brom found out on Good Friday. But losing to Cardiff on Saturday was disappointing and frustrating as we have now seen our position further weakened with Hull City now in with a shout of automatic promotion.

Unfortunately, the referee and his officials wanted to become part of the show with the linesman ruling out a goal for Steve Brooker. Then Keith Stroud awarded Cardiff a penalty, and finally Gary Johnson was sent to the stands for attempting to get the ball back in play quickly while the fourth official and Dave Jones were having a joke. The offside decision was touch and go and had it been the home side, I suspect the goal may have stood. The penalty award was probably correct if even Steven PcPhail did go down rather easily, but Johnson being sent to the stands was ludicrous. He clearly tried to get the ball back to his team while the fourth official was having a laugh, and according to Johnson the referee sent him off without even to talking to his colleague.

They say bad things come in threes and that was the case in this game. It remains to be seen whether these decisions could have an impact on the outcome of our season. Following these two defeats, it makes next week’s game against Norwich a ‘must win’. We cannot afford another slip up and we could see ourselves fall out of the play-offs let alone the automatic places. I still believe two more wins will secure a play off finish and at least four wins will be needed for a top two finish.

There were however some positives to take from the game against Cardiff. We managed to score more than one goal in a game, even if one of them was disallowed, and we saw the long awaited return of Steve Brooker. It had been 11 months since he last put on a City shirt but he is now back to full fitness and could be the key to unlocking the door to the Premiership. ‘Brooks’ to me is probably one of our best strikers and I hope he is awarded a full return ‘debut’ against Norwich. He is hungry to prove himself in the Championship, he is fully fit, and he is full of confidence after netting five goals in six games on loan at Cheltenham. I would play him alongside Adebola which would give us added strength up front and take a bit of responsibility off Dele. Not only is Brooker strong in the air, he also has a great shot on him and I cannot wait to see him play this weekend.

Let’s just hope the referee and his officials for Saturday go unnoticed, like all good officials should.

ANDY DAVIES