It was almost as if they had never been away. As the Bristol City squad gathered at the High Performance Centre on Monday, for the first-team players recognisable to most supporters, there was little to have changed in a visual sense.
Outside of new signings Rob Dickie and Haydon Roberts, it was the same old faces with friendships renewed after the summer break - albeit with a number of the players having holidayed together - and Joe Williams at the centre of 99 per cent of the jokes.
But while that may not sound particularly important, the fact they looked pretty much the same is of significance. Admittedly, we’re going back a generation now, but the early stages of pre-season are no longer about sweating out the cider and chips of the previous five weeks, but building on what’s already there.
