He’ll hate the headline, and especially the word “project”, but there’s no getting away from the fact that after two seasons of slow but incremental progress, the third campaign under Nigel Pearson is when Bristol City need to make a definitive jump up the Championship.
It’s the reason the manager was given that length of contract in the first place, with the knowledge the first two seasons would be complicated in terms of economic management, which is why former Richard Gould looked to this summer as being the benchmark for when the Robins financial reset would be all-but complete.
As the January transfer displayed, albeit right at the end, City were able to exercise a certain sense of control over proceedings after selling Antoine Semenyo - when they had to - and then bringing in the sort of players who weren’t just stop-gap signings or long-term prospects but, in truth, a bit of both who could impact the team now and then further improve.
